Somali Muslim Immigrants Stealing MILLIONS in Welfare from Minnesota

-By Warner Todd Huston

They came to the U.S. as supposed “refugees,” but now it has been discovered that a number of Somali immigrants are stealing hundreds of millions in American welfare money that they are literally shipping back to Africa stuffed in suitcases. Worse, the cash is going to fund the various Islamist terror armies there.

Could you remind me why, exactly, is it a bad thing to put a temporary halt to immigration from Muslim countries, again?

It has come to light that these Somali terrorists living among us have a long list of tactics to steal America’s benefits, but one was revealed by Fox 9 in Minneapolis with an investigation that found that Somalis were using a sham daycare center system to bilk the American people out of welfare cash.

During its 5-month investigation into the story, Fox 9 KMS tracked the funding flowing into the daycare center and found it was being sent outside the U.S. Fox also found “dozens” of other fraudulent centers doing the same thing.
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Somali Muslim Immigrants Stealing MILLIONS in Welfare from Minnesota”


Hastert Story is Proof Both the Media and Washington Are Broken

-By Warner Todd Huston

Dennis Hastert once let me eat his dinner on the rubber chicken circuit and that dinner story rates national coverage as much as his scandal story does. The fact is Hastert’s blackmail story doesn’t rate the massive coverage it’s getting in Illinois nor in the rest of the nation. But the coverage it is getting, though, is proof that both the media and Washington are broken.

When news broke last week that former Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert was being indicted for making false statements to the FBI and for skirting financial reporting rules, the world stopped in the media and in Washington both.

Take, for instance, a headline today in The Hill that screams, “Hastert Questions Consume Capitol.” This is nearly a week after the news broke.

The Hill piece reveals a fascination with the story that beggars the imagination.
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Hastert Story is Proof Both the Media and Washington Are Broken”


IRS Impounds Bank Accounts With No Warrant, No Cause, No Crime And It’s Legal!

-By Warner Todd Huston

In Obama’s America all the IRS needs to take all your money, freeze your accounts, and arrest you is their opinion that your assets might be suspicious. No warrants are needed, no proof of any actual crime is required. All the IRS needs is its say so and your life can be turned upside down.

A story in The New York Times reports on how the abusive, overly powerful IRS destroys lives with impunity. One woman who runs a small restaurant had all her assets stolen by the IRS and never returned even though she has never been charged with any violations of the tax code or breaking any laws.

And this woman will not likely get her money back because the forfeitures are not held until the government finally figures out if there is any guilt involved, either. No, that money is immediately doled out to the various law enforcement agencies involved in the theft and is immediately spent.
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IRS Impounds Bank Accounts With No Warrant, No Cause, No Crime And It’s Legal!”


Illinois Worst Again With Highest Home Foreclosure Rate in Nation

-By Warner Todd Huston

A website that tracks bank foreclosures on homes across the nation finds that Barack Obama’s Illinois has once again become the worst state in the country for people losing their homes.

Bankrate.com reports that one in ever 747 homes have received a foreclosure notice in the Land of Lincoln. By comparison, the national average in one in every 1,203 homes.
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Illinois Worst Again With Highest Home Foreclosure Rate in Nation”


Senate Hearing on Future of Bitcoin: Legal Tender or Criminal Enterprise?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The U.S. Senate held a hearing on the Internet-based Bitcoin currency on Nov. 18 revealing a U.S. government that is struggling with crafting policy to govern how the virtual currency can be used in the United States.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Government Affairs held a major hearing on Bitcoin and other virtual currencies called, “Beyond Silk Road: Potential Risks, Threats, and Promises of Virtual Currencies.” The Committee also has a video of the proceedings.

Bitcoin has gotten a black eye because criminals and drug dealers have used the currency in an effort to avoid law enforcement and earlier this year U.S. authorities shut down several websites that traded in Bitcoins over this use by criminals.

But recently the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank issued a “primer” on how Bitcoin works that raised the virtual currency’s stock in the world of finance.
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Senate Hearing on Future of Bitcoin: Legal Tender or Criminal Enterprise?”


VISA Credit Card Company Refuses Business of Firearms Store

-By Warner Todd Huston

VISA credit card company is now beginning to tell merchants that deal in firearms and firearms related merchandise that their credit transactions are no longer welcome with the credit card bureau. This is the newest front launched by the left to destroy America’s Constitutional rights.

Leftists that stand against our Constitution seem to have realized that they just can’t beat America into submission by using the legislative process to obliterate our rights. 2-A rights advocates have succeeded in making sure every state has concealed carry now and many even have open carry. Those that support our Second Amendment rights out number those that want us disarmed so that government can have more power over us. But these liberals aren’t defeated.

Since they can’t win at the ballot box or in the courts (lately) their next campaign is to force the business community to limit customer’s Second Amendment rights and this is one example. VISA has knuckled under to the anti-American left.

After working with VISA for four years and without a single problem, the credit card company has told Hyatt Gun Shop, Inc., one of the largest gun brokerage firms in the United States, that it is terminating its relationship.

Hyatt owner, Larry Hyatt, recently shared the message he got from Authorize.net, the online credit service run by VISA.
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VISA Credit Card Company Refuses Business of Firearms Store”


In Mistaken ‘Repossession’ Bank Steals Woman’s Belongs, Refuses to Pay Restitution

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you haven’t paid your bills there is expectation that you can lose everything, of course. But what if you are not behind in your bills, but a bank that isn’t your bank breaks into your house, hauls away your belongings, changes your locks, all claiming you owe them money? And what happens when the bank realizes it got the wrong house? Worse, how would you feel if the bank refuses to pay you back for its destruction of all your belongings?

Well, that is what happened to an Ohio woman.

Katie Barnett of Athens County, Ohio, came home one day to find that her key wouldn’t work in her front door lock. She was able to shinny her way into her home through a window, but what she found inside shocked her.

Her home had been emptied of nearly every possession.
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In Mistaken ‘Repossession’ Bank Steals Woman’s Belongs, Refuses to Pay Restitution”


Bank Insecurity: Your Money is at Risk Through Cyber Theft

-By Warner Todd Huston

We all, individuals and businesses alike, have this basic assumption that when we put our money in a bank it is safe. But is it? Apparently not so much as the experience of small business TRC indicates when hackers reached into the company’s California-based bank account and drained it of nearly $300 thousand. Worse, the bank and CEO Dennis R. Woods is claiming no responsibility for the security in their own bank!

Jon Fleischman of California’s premier political blog The Flash Report recently updated his readers to the ongoing lawsuit in this tale of cyber theft.

In 2011 cyber hackers out of Eastern Europe broke into the accounts of California’s United Security Bank (USB) and drained almost $600 thousand from the accounts of TRC Operating Company (TRC) out of Kern County, California. It happened over a weekend when the bank was shutting down for Sunday and nobody noticed for days.
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Bank Insecurity: Your Money is at Risk Through Cyber Theft”


Bloomberg Businessweek Apologizes for ‘Racist’ Magazine Cover

-By Warner Todd Huston

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s media group has apologized for its February 21 cover of Bloomberg Businessweek over complaints that it used racist imagery to illustrate the feature story on the housing market.

With a title of “The Great American Housing Rebound: Flips. No-look bids. 300 percent returns. What could possibly go wrong?,” the cover illustration featured Latino and African American American caricatures awash in a sea of government money.

The image was criticized as racist by several organizations and media outlets.

Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review praised Bloomberg Businessweek for being “edgier than its predecessor,” but went on to say that the February cover was over the line.

“The cover stands out for its cast of black and Hispanic caricatures with exaggerated features reminiscent of early 20th century race cartoons,” Chittum wrote. “Also, because there are only people of color in it, grabbing greedily for cash. It’s hard to imagine how this one made it through the editorial process.”
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Bloomberg Businessweek Apologizes for ‘Racist’ Magazine Cover”


Bank of America Sues Customer, What Happened to Acting Like Humans?

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is well noted that we live in an overly litigious society. But one small company in Las Vegas isn’t just knuckling under the thumb of a big corporation and the hammer-fist of another big lawsuit.

Instead, the small business is taking the revolutionary view that big business should treat its customers as human beings. This small firm is speaking out and urging face-to-face discussions instead of a constant deluge of lawsuits.

Galaxy Gaming of Las Vegas – the world’s second largest developer, manufacturer and distributor of casino table games and enhanced casino systems – had been dutifully paying on its mortgage on its offices but out of the Nevada desert sky, as far as they were concerned, the small firm suddenly learned it was being dragged into court with its mortgage holder, Bank of America, demanding payment in full of its loans.

Robert Saucier, CEO of Galaxy Gaming, has decided to try a different tact in this discussion. Instead of just slinging charge and counter charge in court, Saucier published an open letter in a newspaper to ask Bank of America to just deal with him face-to-face, like a human being.

In the open letter published in the Charlotte Observer — where Bank of America is headquartered — Saucier urged his company’s former “financial partner” to settle their differences.
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Bank of America Sues Customer, What Happened to Acting Like Humans?”


Washington Post Softens Criminal Actions of Dem. Corzine in MF Global Fraud

-By Warner Todd Huston

In its November 15 print version, The Washington Post published a story about the criminal financial malfeasance of former Democrat Governor and MF Global Chief John Corzine. But, the Post seemed to have trouble properly identifying Corzine as a Democrat not to mention that it buried the story deep in the paper.

Corzine was the subject of a report this week issued by the House Financial Services’s oversight subcommittee that, while it stopped short of calling Corzine’s actions outright felonies (the committee is leaving that determination to prosecutors), the report raised deep concerns about the magical disappearance of $1.6 billion in investor’s money.

If Corzine were a Republican, who doesn’t believe that The Washington Post would have made sure that the story of the release of this report would have been front-page news? But, no, this story was buried back on page A18.
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Washington Post Softens Criminal Actions of Dem. Corzine in MF Global Fraud”


Cyber-Theft from Our Nation’s Banks a Growing Threat

-By Warner Todd Huston

We are all suffering from the mistaken idea that our money is “safe” after we put it in a bank. The fact is your money is at risk every day as it sits in your bank or with your financial services provider. It isn’t necessarily because those institutions will waste it, misspend it, or invest it badly. It’s because of the newest yet the oldest financial problem, bank robbery.

Now, it isn’t that we have to worry about a resurgence of the old fashioned way of robbing banks. Criminals aren’t stealing millions by running into bank lobbies and making frightened cashiers empty out tills into pillow cases. No, the problem is the new, self-styled cyber-criminal using the Internet to steal millions from banks, and often the theft happens days before the bank is even aware it occurred.

Cyber-theft is a growing and dangerous problem. Unfortunately, many banks and other financial services haven’t taken enough measures to stop or even detect these thefts until it is too late. Worse, in many cases banks and financial services are telling account holders — that would be you and me — that the loss is irretrievable and, well, you are just out of luck. The cash is gone and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
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Cyber-Theft from Our Nation’s Banks a Growing Threat”


Jonathan Chait, NY Magazine: Obama The Best Prez Evah!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Jonathan Chait has made his choice for 2012. Unsurprisingly, it’s Obama. But wait, there’s more. Chait decided to tell us exactly why he chose Obama in a recent column for New York Magazine and his reasons makes his endorsement one of the great howlers of the year. Chait tells us that Obama is one of the greatest presidents of all time. “Yes, Great,” he reiterates.

To start with, Chait distances himself from the hopey-changie set saying that even though he was one of Obama’s earliest supporters he was never one of those mind-numbed Obamabots that thought Obama was a messiah that would “change everything.” Chait is no fool, see?

But, despite that he claimed not to be an Obama zombie, Chait goes on to make it appear that he did, indeed, fall for all the rhetoric because in reviewing the last four years, Mr. Chait sees nothing but great success from President Obama.

“Obama’s résumé of accomplishments is broad and deep, running the gamut from economic to social to foreign policy,” Chait assures us before launching into a dubious assessment of all those “accomplishments.”

Chait’s column is quite long, so I wont go into every claim he makes, but there are a few that are just blatant for the rose colored glasses Chait seems to be wearing while writing his column.

For one, Chait feels that Obama’s banking “reforms” were somehow middle of the road efforts, neither left nor right. He praised Obama for taking ideas off “think-tank shelves” and in a “frenetic burst of activity” he “made many of them happen all at once.”
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Jonathan Chait, NY Magazine: Obama The Best Prez Evah!”


NPR’s Totenberg Says Bankers and Businessmen are ‘Super Crooked’

-By Warner Todd Huston

National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg appeared on the July 20 episode of PBS’s Inside Washington when the discussion turned back to Obama’s attack on American businesses and those successful enough to become a target of the his ire. But Totenberg wasn’t going for any blame being assigned to Obama. To her the problem isn’t Obama’s attack on the business sector, but that bankers and businessmen who are “super-crooked.”

When asked if she thought Obama’s tax-the-rich election ploy was going to work, Totenberg thought it would, saying the problems we face are not the President’s fault and his attacks on the business sector are justified.

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NPR’s Totenberg Says Bankers and Businessmen are ‘Super Crooked’”


NY Times Gives Obama a Pass on Outrageous Claim That Romney’s a ‘Felon’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again The New York Times lends its “paper of record” as a vehicle for Obama’s reelection campaign by leaving out important parts of a story, parts that mitigate in favor of GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

Specifically, the Times is repeating the Obama claim that Romney committed some sort of fraud (team Obama says he’s a “felon”) for his work at Bain Capital, a charge that is false by any reading of the facts.

Yes, once again, The New York Times gives only one side of the story.

In a July 12 piece in The Caucus blog, Times reporter Michael D. Shear once again gave credence to the smear against Romney seen in the deeply flawed reporting of the Boston Globe, a story that appears to be little else but retaliation by the Globe against Romney.
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NY Times Gives Obama a Pass on Outrageous Claim That Romney’s a ‘Felon’”


New York Times Slams Romney on Foreign Finances, Ignores Democrats’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times is aghast that Mitt Romney won’t succumb to demands from Democrats and the Old Media that he release enough of his financial records to suit them. In particular, the Times worries over Mitt’s Swiss bank account and foreign investments. But while the paper beats Romney up for his finances they ignore recent reports of all the Democrats that have similar financial holdings.

The Gray Lady begins claiming that Romney has “upended” the tradition of Presidential candidates releasing their financial records and goes on paragraph after paragraph raising suspicions over Romney’s finances. The Times focuses especially on Mitt’s foreign interests — yet the Times hasn’t even a modicum of proof to support the fears.

But while the Times attacks Mitt for having financial investments and accounts in foreign nations, there is no sense of that well worn phrase that so many journalists claim is one of the Old Media’s most important charges: balance.

The Times slams Romney for his Swiss bank account, but there isn’t a peep of all the high profile Democrats that have similar foreign financial interests. I guess the Times doesn’t feel a need to “balance” any report that is taking Republicans to task.
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New York Times Slams Romney on Foreign Finances, Ignores Democrats’”


Texas Attny Gen on SCOTUS Obamacare Decision: ‘The American People Lost’

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Monday, July 2, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot participated in a conference call sponsored by Americans for Prosperity – Texas to talk Obamacare and how it affects the states. During that call, AG Abbot said “the American people lost” as a result of Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision. He also said the decision “threatens prosperity” as much as any Supreme Court ruling ever has.

Abbott warned that the determination that Obamacare is now a tax, the biggest tax increase in American history, is “a threat to all of us.” He noted that the ruling is “a tax on liberty itself” because now Congress seems to have been given the power to tax inactivity rather than activity.

“The New Taxing Authority will Empower Congress in an almost unlimited way,” Abbott said.

Abbott utilized the same car analogy that many have used since last Thursday to explain why this ruling is dangerous. Congress may now be able to tax people for not buying “green” cars, the AG said.
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Texas Attny Gen on SCOTUS Obamacare Decision: ‘The American People Lost’”


J.P. Morgan Chase $2 Billion Loss Raises Fears of Government Actions

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week the news of the $2 billion trading loss suffered by J.P.Morgan Chase hit the country like another nasty slap in the face to a nation already facing an economic downturn that is the worst one in a lifetime.

The $2 billion bandied about by the media is not likely the end of that loss, either. This was only the first round of losses due to these bad derivatives trades and more losses are likely yet to come.

For some insight on this mess I exchanged some emails with Sandra Smith of Fox Business Network.

Smith said that the bank “characterized the trades as legitimate hedges of risks elsewhere in the banking group that went awry,” but this understated explanation won’t likely suffice for those out for the heads of those working in our financial sector.
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J.P. Morgan Chase $2 Billion Loss Raises Fears of Government Actions”


The Federal Reserve Rip-Off

-By Alan Caruba

I have not been kind to Ron Paul and his participation in the Republican primary campaigns and it has taken me a while to understand why he is doing this. It is clear that he wants to be around to influence the Republican platform and the issue about which he is abundantly correct is the Federal Reserve.

Anyone taking notice of Obama’s latest budget has to conclude that his mission is to crash the nation’s economy and turn America into a Socialist worker’s paradise. The only problem is that Socialism has been a dismal failure everywhere it has been tried.

One only has to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union for confirmation of that, the Chinese abandonment of Communist economic theory, and Obama’s odd notion that a nation can spend itself out of ever-increasing debt.

I am not a fan of Paul’s isolationism, but he is absolutely right about getting rid of the Federal Reserve.
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The Federal Reserve Rip-Off”


Occupy Wall Street Stealing From The Poor to Give to Themselves!

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is more common everyday. A man buys a house, the market collapses and suddenly his house is worth less than the mortgage, then he loses his job until, as a single father, he finds himself in foreclosure with no place to raise his two preteen daughters. It’s a case made for the Occupy Wall Street movement to swoop in and right wrongs, right? Maybe not because the OWSers in New York stole this poor guy’s home away from him in order to give it to one of their own members. Confused? Read on.

A Brooklyn man living in an apartment with his two daughters was alerted to the fact that his in-foreclosure-home had been broken into and occupied by Occupiers, as in Occupy Wall Street activists. When he rushed to his home he found a group of strangers that had broken into his home claiming to have “reclaimed” the house and given it to another family.

“They’re trying to take a house and say the bank is robbing the people because the mortgage is too high — so contact the owner!” fumed Wise Ahadzi, 28, who owns the home at 702 Vermont St. in East New York.

Apparently Ahadzi had bought the house in 2007 for the princely sum of $424,500 but during the housing bubble of 2009 the house ended up being worth only half that. Then, when he lost his job and got behind on the mortgage, the bank foreclosed on the property.

Enter — illegally, mind you — Occupy Wall Streeters who discovered the home in foreclosure and decided that they’d steal it away from “the bank” with the ostensible goal of helping the needy.
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Occupy Wall Street Stealing From The Poor to Give to Themselves!”


Looking to the Dollar, Gold, and “Mutti” to Save the World

-By Alan Caruba

The most formidable couple in the world during the 1980s was Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher, a conservative and a woman of iron will, must be looking across the Channel with some amusement to see how her German counterpart, Chancellor Angela Merkel, is literally the only person keeping the European economy from collapsing and, it must be said, taking England and America with it.

The cover article of this week’s Business Week noted that “Merkel is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor. She won a PhD for a thesis on quantum chemistry…though childless, she is known as Mutti, for Mother.” Born in the post-war years, “Merkel’s worldview reflects the German desire for stability. Chaos plagued the German-speaking people long before there was a German nation…Later the hyperinflation of the 1920s and Depression of the 1930s, both of which undermined the middle-class, gave rise to Nazism.”

Plainly said, Angela Merkel is showing the rest of the world why Keynesian economics doesn’t work; that governments with huge “entitlement” programs and a tendency to throw vast amounts of money at their problems invite disaster. If Europe does not plunge into chaos, it will be because she refused to bail it out with the deutschmark.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is moving billions to Europe to ease its lending crisis.
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Looking to the Dollar, Gold, and “Mutti” to Save the World”


Time Mag: Occupy Wall Street The Number One Story of 2011?

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s that time of year again, time for newspapers and magazines to start floating their “top stories of the year” lists and Time Magazine has a whole “Top of Everything” list with which to thrill us. But it is Time’s Top U.S. News Stories list that deserves some closer scrutiny because on it Time has determined that the Occupy Wall Street tale is the number one story of the year. As if anyone ever doubted that this left-wing temper tantrum would pique Time’s interest most.

But, seriously, now. Is Gabrielle Giffords somehow a lesser story than the Occupiers? Is the long-drawn out GOP primary campaign a lesser story? How about the debt crisis? Is that somehow a less important story than Occupy Wall Street? Apparently Time thinks so.

Certainly these lists are always somewhat subjective. After all, what one considers important another may not. But some of these entries seem to point out Time’s ideology as opposed to a serious attempt to pick the top stories of 2011. And making the Occupy story number one is pure ideology.

Time puts this story above the bad economy, Iraq, the Penn State sex abuse case, and the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. In fact, if it weren’t for the bad economy, the debt ceiling debate and the bank crisis this Occupy business would not have occurred at all.
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Time Mag: Occupy Wall Street The Number One Story of 2011?”


Paper Money, Real Debt, and Spendthrift Nations

-By Alan Caruba

As the citizens of the United States and the seventeen member-nations of the European Union look on, a great drama regarding the future of the EU and its currency, the Euro, is occurring.

The essential problem is that both the U.S. dollar and the Euro are just so much paper, despite the promises and guarantees that they will be honored as real money. The trick has been to keep everyone believing there are sufficient real assets to back up those promises.

Since the U.S. dollar is a kind of universal currency to which other nations peg the value of their currencies the problem for everyone is that the U.S. is broke. Its debt exceeds its annual capacity to generate income, otherwise known as its Gross Domestic Product. Every hour of every day it must borrow billions to meet its obligations. Forty cents of every dollar the U.S. spends is borrowed.

There is a reason why television these days if filled with commercials offering to sell gold. Gold has always retained its value though it does fluctuate. The U.S. Treasury’s gold hoard has a value of more than $400 billion these days, but that value is the flip side of the Federal Reserve’s demolition of the dollar which has lost 95% of its value since1913, the same year the Fed was created.
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Paper Money, Real Debt, and Spendthrift Nations”


Black Friday Special on Fox Business Network: Follow the Money: The Investor’s Holiday Portfolio

-By Warner Todd Huston

On November 25, Fox Business Network’s Eric Bolling will be hosting a Black Friday special to kick off the holiday season this year titled, Follow the Money: The Investor’s Holiday Portfolio. The program will air at 10PM eastern.

The Chicago-born Bolling will enlist a panel of experts to examine which stocks will make great gifts this season, where the hidden deals can be found, and whether the European debt crisis will dampen investor spirits.

Guests will include: Dialectic Capital Management Head of Trading and “The Risk Doctor” Tim Strazzini; Exemplar Capital managing partner and “The Chartman” Gary B. Smith; Yahoo! Finance blogger and “The Lone Wolf” Jeff Macke, and others.
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Black Friday Special on Fox Business Network: Follow the Money: The Investor’s Holiday Portfolio”


California Ballot Boondoggle Sends Tax Dollars Out of State

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite all the talk of fixing it, California’s budget is still a mess. One of those “fixes” was implemented last summer when the state Legislature increased revenue projections by $4 billion to avoid balancing the budget. Of course, the problem with using such “phantom money” is that it often has a habit of disappearing when you need it most. And it has disappeared just when money for schools is needed. Now deep cuts are on the table. The people lose again.

Naturally the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently reported that the state will receive virtually none of the $4 billion in projected revenue, forcing the state to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks. On the table are major cuts to the education budget, including shortening the school year by a week, not to mention cuts to in-home healthcare programs, and programs for people with developmental disabilities.

Obviously Californian’s budget needs all the help it can get but it looks like it’s business as usual in Sacramento. For instance, an upcoming ballot measure sponsored by a career politician would baffle anyone that truly understands the mess California is in. The so-called California Cancer Research Act coming before voters in June, asks California voters to raise taxes by nearly $1 billion for a whole new perpetual bureaucracy. That is unacceptable to voters. Maddeningly this new program doesn’t even guarantee that the money will be spent in the state! Apparently former state Sen. Pro Tem Don Perata, the career politician pushing the measure, thinks Californians who already paying some of the highest taxes in the nation should reach deeper into their pockets just to potentially send that money across state lines to benefit others. And all the while the budget for the education for those same taxpayer’s kids is about to be slashed.

So, what is the “solution” proposed by Democrats in Sacramento? Raise taxes, of course.
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California Ballot Boondoggle Sends Tax Dollars Out of State”


The Triangulation of the ‘Occupy’ Movement

-By Frank Salvato

Throughout the painful and paradoxical existence of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) we have been told by those in the mainstream media, as well as by sympathetic politicos, that at its root, at its genesis, the OWS Movement was both organic and legitimate. We were told that the movement was exclusively about a rebellion against high unemployment and crony Capitalism, even as those championing the cause disingenuously blurred the line between crony Capitalism and Capitalism. But, an honest examination of the underlying goal(s) of this movement – and who is serving to advance its agenda – exposes a nefarious, deceitful and dangerous reality.

The notion of “triangulation” is not new to American politics. Savvy politicians have triangulated messages and circumstances to their benefit ever since the creation of our country. One needs look no further than the debates that took place over the creation of the US Constitution to understand that even though our Framers and Founders were dedicated to their principles and positions, they were willing to employ rhetorical leverage to achieve their goals. Alexander Hamilton was a master at message triangulation.

Perhaps the most contemporary politician to masterfully employ the art of message triangulation was former Pres. Bill Clinton. In pursuit of re-election in 1996, Clinton senior advisor Dick Morris advocated for a set of statements, a set of policies, that differed from those of his fellow elected Democrats. These policies, which pandered to the ideological Middle and Right, included deregulation and balanced budgets, culminating in the false declaration, included in Mr. Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union Address, that the “era of big government is over.”

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The Triangulation of the ‘Occupy’ Movement”


Grammy Nominee’s Occupy Wall Street Theme Song Features Bloodlust, Violent Imagery

-By Warner Todd Huston

While denizens of Hollywood are running around praising the Occupy-Whatevers as an articulate, non-violent example of “democracy in action” and adopting the Occupy rhetoric, a new anthem of sorts has been unveiled to inspire these “non-violent” folks to greater activism.
But, for a “non-violent” movement, their new theme song (running nearly nine minutes long) is full of bloodlust and childish name-calling belying that claim to thoughtful democracy.

The song, “We Stand as One,” created by Grammy nominee Joseph Arthur, seems to fall short of the mythical claim that the Occupy movement is a non-violent, thoughtful “movement.” Filled with deep lyrics such as calling Occupy enemies “pigs,” warnings that their homes will burn and that the blood of Occupy enemies will be the Occupiers’ “paint,” this song sounds more like a call to violence than an appeal to the better angels of our nature.

Arthur has worked with such rock notables as Michael Stipe of REM and Peter Gabriel, and his 1999 EP “Vacancy” was nominated for a Grammy.
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Grammy Nominee’s Occupy Wall Street Theme Song Features Bloodlust, Violent Imagery”


Video: Walsh Gets a Bit Testy With Constituent

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Internet tubuals have been heating up with a video showing 8th District Republican Congressman Joe Walsh getting — shall we say — a bit testy with a constituent at a recent townhall.

The townhall was held in North Suburban Gurnee at Uno Bar and Grill and Walsh was being grilled about a lack of banking regulations by at least one voter.

Walsh was having none of it, as you saw. He’s exactly right about his point, too. It was Congress that was the problem, not any lack of banking regulations. I stand with Joe on the idea of getting government out of the economy not, as the voters on the video was trying to urge, get government more involved in the economy.

However, I feel Joe’s comportment was over the top and inappropriate. I support his passion on that issue, but he was simply too harsh in reply.
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Video: Walsh Gets a Bit Testy With Constituent”


Contact Super Committee: REAL Debt Reduction MUST Include Entitlement Reform

-By Warner Todd Huston

American Action Network has created a Facebook application to help you contact the liberal members of the Super Committee to urge them to include entitlement reform in the budget negotiations now going on in Washington.

American Action Network’s effort to put pressure on super committee liberals to include entitlement reform in the debt deal can be seen at their new Contact the Super Committee Facebook Page.

This allows users to tweet, Facebook and email the super committee liberals with the messaging, “Real debt reduction must include entitlement reform! Do not play politics with our children’s future.”
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Contact Super Committee: REAL Debt Reduction MUST Include Entitlement Reform”


Business Roundtable: Regulations Are Killing Business

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Friday I attended an informative business roundtable meeting of Chicago-area small businessmen who came together to discuss how government intervention and its avalanche of regulations are killing jobs and businesses not only in Illinois, but nation wide. Some of the stories were chilling, to say the least. These trials go to show how anti-business the most famously capitalist country in the world has become. No wonder we can’t get out of this second great depression!

The event was held at the headquarters of The Rabine Group in Schaumburg, Illinois. The Rabine Group is a group of nationwide companies that specializes in driveway paving, roofing, and other contracting work. The company is headed by owner and CEO Gary Rabine.

Filling out the panel was Moderator, Brian Kelly of Bulk Lift International; Gary Rabine, The Rabine Group; Garrett Patten, Patten Industries; Randy Truckenbrodt, Randall Industries, Inc, and Former State Senator Steve Rauschenberger, Rauschenberger Partners.

The panel began with some of the regulatory horror stories experienced by the panel. Each story illustrated how government stands in the way of job creation, small business, and expansion, and how government is not working hand-in-hand with small business but actually fosters an inimical relationship. The panel showed how the oppressiveness of these regulations actually tempts business to break laws just to be able to carry on with business.
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Business Roundtable: Regulations Are Killing Business”