History for September 18

History for September 18 - On-This-Day.com:
Samuel Johnson 1709, John George Diefenbaker 1895, Greta Garbo 1905


Robert Blake 1933 - Actor (TV: "Baretta"), Fred Willard 1939 - Actor, Lance Armstrong 1971 - Cyclist


1789 - Alexander Hamilton negotiated and secured the first loan for the United States. The Temporary Loan of 1789 was repaid on June 8, 1790 at the sum of $19,608.81.


1830 - The "Tom Thumb", the first locomotive built in America, raced a horse on a nine-mile course. The horse won when the locomotive had some mechanical difficulties.


1946 - Mound Metalcraft was founded in Mound, MN. On November 23, 1955, the company changed its name to Tonka Toys Incorporated.


1947 - The United States Air Force was established as a separate military branch by the National Security Act.


1955 - The "Ed Sullivan Show" began on CBS-TV. The show had been "The Toast of the Town" since 1948.


1963 - "The Patty Duke Show" premiered on ABC-TV.


1981 - A museum honoring former U.S. President Ford was dedicated in Grand Rapids, MI.


1998 - The U.S. House Judiciary Committee voted to release to videotape of President Clinton's grand jury testimony from August 17.

Clinton Foundation Donor Ensnared In Vote-Buying Scandal | The Daily Caller

Clinton Foundation Donor Ensnared In Vote-Buying Scandal | The Daily Caller:

"A Chinese billionaire who has contributed $2 million to the Clinton Foundation and attended a fundraiser at Hillary Clinton’s home in 2013 has been kicked out of China’s National People’s Congress on accusations of bribing his way into office.

The New York Times reports that Wang Wenliang is one of 45 lawmakers from China’s Liaoning province who attained positions in the National People’s Congress by paying for votes."

MSNBC, Politico, Bloomberg, CNN, McClatchy and More Confirm: Hillary Clinton's 2008 Campaign Spread 'Birtherism' About Barack Obama

MSNBC, Politico, Bloomberg, CNN, McClatchy and More Confirm: Hillary Clinton's 2008 Campaign Spread 'Birtherism' About Barack Obama - Breitbart:
NEW YORK CITY, New York — The mainstream media, from Bloomberg News to MSNBC to Politico to the Washington Post and more, have all confirmed: 
Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign for president did substantially further the birther movement.

Sean Hannity, the nationally syndicated radio host and Fox News anchor, said on his radio program during an appearance this reporter made on Friday evening:

The only time I ever, in my life, had any contact with Hillary Clinton supporters—you know what message I was getting, in 2007 and 2008, I was kind of a lone voice out here in talking about the radical roots of Obama and Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright and Frank Marshall Davis and Black Liberation theology and [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn and I was trying to warn the country that it was going to be a disaster, I wish I turned out to be wrong but it’s probably even worse a disaster than I ever thought—well, guess which campaign was encouraging me back in the day to do all of this?

“The Hillary Clinton campaign,” Hannity replied, answering his own question just after this reporter answered it the same way.

“Word was getting back yo me [that they were saying] ‘you’re the only one, we really admire your work,’” Hannity said. 

“Pretty interesting, right?”

It’s not just Hannity, who’s opposed to Clinton’s election and is a supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who has confirmed that Clinton’s 2008 campaign and its allies pushed this.

In fact, Politico, in 2011, published a piece from two of its top reporters at the time—Ben Smith and Byron Tau, who have gone on respectively to BuzzFeed and the Wall Street Journal—specifically detailing how the Clinton campaign was behind birther rumors spreading.

Smith and Tau wrote in the Politico piece:

Just when it appeared that public interest was fading, celebrity developer Donald Trump has revived the theory that President Barack Obama was born overseas and helped expose the depth to which the notion has taken root—a New York Times poll Thursday found that a plurality of Republicans believe it. If you haven’t been trolling the fever swamps of online conspiracy sites or opening those emails from Uncle Larry, you may well wonder: Where did this idea come from? Who started it? And is there a grain of truth there? The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama.

Tau and Smith detailed in a lengthy four-page-long investigation how in April 2008, when Clinton was slipping in her battle against Obama for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, “Clinton supporters”—as they say—circulated an anonymous email chain that pushed the theory..."

Lots more proof.

Read on!

Why Is Socialism So Damned Attractive?

Why Is Socialism So Damned Attractive? - Reason.com
"What is the attraction of socialism?
The Cato Institute held a policy forum Wednesday to consider that question, featuring talks from the moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt and the evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby.
One problem they quickly encountered was how to define socialism in the first place.
Is it pervasive, state-directed central planning?
A Scandinavian-style safety net?
Something else?
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who pursued the Democratic presidential nomination while describing himself as a socialist, attracted a big following among voters under age 30.
But most of those voters actually rejected the idea of the government running businesses or owning the means of production; they tended to be safety-net redistributionists who want to tax the rich to pay for health care and college education.
And this was, in fact, the platform Sanders was running on.
...Cosmides then turned to a fascinating 2014 study in The Journal of Politics by the Danish political scientists Lene Aarøe and Michael Bang Petersen.
Aarøe and Petersen found that certain cues could turn supposedly individualistic Americans into purportedly welfare-state loving Danes, and vice versa.
In that experiment, researchers asked 2,000 Danes and Americans to react to three cases involving a person on welfare. 

• In one, they had no background information on the welfare client. 
• In the second, he lost his job due to an injury and was actively looking for new work. 
• In the third, he has never looked for a job at all. 

The Danes turned out to be slightly more likely than the Americans to assume that the person they knew nothing about was on welfare because of bad luck.
But both Americans and Danes were no different in opposing welfare for the lazy guy and strongly favoring it for the unlucky worker.
"When we assess people on welfare, we use certain [evolved] psychological mechanisms to spot anyone who might be cheating," Michael Bang Petersen explained in press release about the study.
"We ask ourselves whether they are motivated to give something back to me and society. 
And these mechanisms are more powerful than cultural differences."
Ultimately, Cosmides argued, those of us who want to preserve liberty and prosperity need to understand how human psychology has evolved and understand why evolved attitudes are often counterproductive.
The next panelist, John Tooby, turned to those counterproductive attitudes. Tooby has long been puzzled that so many of his colleagues are not struck by facts like Hong Kong's amazing economic success.
(Its GDP increased 180-fold between 1961 and 1996 while per capita GDP increased 87-fold and inequality fell.)
Instead, even a Nobel-winning economist like Joseph Stiglitz praised Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's ultimately disastrous redistributionist economic policies.
The chief problem, he suggested, is that many people are beguiled by "romantic socialism"—that is, they imagine what their personal lives would be like if everyone shared and treated one another like family..."
Read on!

What Is the FBI Hiding? - Judge Andrew Napolitano

What Is the FBI Hiding? - Judge Andrew Napolitano:

"Who cares about this? Everyone who believes that the government works for us should care because we have a right to know what the government -- here the FBI -- has done in our names. Sen. Grassley has opined that if he could reveal what he has seen in the FBI unclassified records, it would be of profound interest to American voters.

What is going on here? The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton has not served the rule of law. The rule of law -- a pillar of American constitutional freedom since the end of the Civil War -- mandates that the laws are to be enforced equally. No one is beneath their protection, and no one is above their requirements. To enforce the rule of law, we have hired the FBI.

What do we do when the FBI rejects its basic responsibilities?"

France Tries Combatting Terrorism. With 'De-Radicalization' Schools?!

France Tries Combatting Terrorism. With 'De-Radicalization' Schools?!
"Since allowing a crap ton of Muslim immigrants into their country, France has had a bit of a terrorist problem. 
We call that a direct correlation. 
Others might call it racist.
But Islam isn’t a race, stop it. 
...The latest brilliant plan to ensure potential terrorists are de-radicalized?
Sending them to school, or “centers,” if they don’t want to have a terroristy affliction anymore. Basically, making terrorism sound like a drug addiction.
Oh, and it’s all voluntary…
France plans on building 12 of these centers, which can only accommodate up to 25 people at one time.
French officials told The Washington Post that the centers were for potential terrorists “looking for way out” and that the government could not order citizens to take part.
Basically, if you make the decision on your own that you don’t want to kill in the name if Islam anymore, there’s a place for you..."

NFL Players Protest Anthem; Fan Reaction STUNS The League

NFL Players Protest Anthem; Fan Reaction STUNS The League | The Federalist Papers:
"Football fans have reacted to the constant player protests and national anthem controversies in a way that the NFL simply can’t miss:
They’re not watching.
They’re turning off the television rather than have their game night ruined with talk of Black Power and racism and … Colin Kaepernick. 
They’ve had enough.
NBC Sports is reporting that the ratings for week one of the NFL was lower than last season by every mark."

Must read and must see video!!-----Video Shows How Mainstream Media Uses A Single Talking Point to Brainwash Americans

Video Shows How Mainstream Media Uses A Single Talking Point to Brainwash Americans:
"Brainwashing can be most effectively a

Targets of efficacious brainwashing campaigns will never realize the tactic being used — unless someone provides clear evidence of the perpetrator’s methods.

On that note, consider the captive audience cable television and mainstream, corporate news outlets have at their disposal — when a big story hits headlines, the American public sits for hours, glued to nonstop coverage and overanalysis of every detail.

This week being no exception, when Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton fainted after an early exit from a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York City, conservative mainstream media scrambled to theorize on the ever-deepening questions surrounding her health.

Qualifying to head the empire, after all, would ostensibly require a person in their physical prime.

On the other side, left-leaning corporate media — previously exposed for colluding with the Democratic National Committee to bathe the former secretary of state in the glowing light of positivity — was forced to scramble to explain away her sudden inability to stand, while Facebook blatantly censored coverage of the incident in its trending topics section.

After a laughably thin attempt by the Clinton camp to attribute the fainting spell to early autumn heat, we learned she’d been coping with pneumonia — and that her appearance at the memorial actually represented an act of bravery and strength.

Keeping in mind the aforementioned collusion, it’s imperative to also note just six corporations own no less than 90 percent of all media — cable television outlets, radio, and print — in the United States. 
...“Without an awareness of the grave consequences involved with an increasingly concentrated media environment the public (i.e. non-elites) will continue to be systematically brainwashed by the propagandist arm of the government that is the mass media and will unknowingly acquiesce to the interests of the dominant elites.”

This is how brainwashing so exclusively serves the corporate and political plutocrats — vast swaths of the public have no idea what they’re being subjected to.

Repetitive pounding of an idea or phrase gradually shapes thought by reinforcing an idea that might otherwise be doubted. 

When you hear something enough times, it’s easier to accept — as if the number of mentions somehow validates the idea, regardless of merit.

Nowhere has this been more apparent, all political collusion aside, than in coverage of everything pro-Hillary Clinton — and one thing this oligopolistic media couldn’t stand for, all puns intended, is negative publicity from a fainting spell.

But it’s okay — as you’ll see in the telling compilation video below — Hillary might have fainted, but that’s only because she wanted to “power through” her harried schedule despite suffering such a serious illness as pneumonia.

Notably, the intentional choice of the word “power” for its triple-entendre — not only does this push the idea that Clinton isn’t seriously ill, it intimates her desire to work when necessary, no matter the consequences, and subtly reiterates her status as an elite at the height of, well, political power.

Behold, the mainstream media brainwashing in the laughable collection of media pundits touting the “powering through” of Hillary Clinton:

AM Fruitcake

Noon-toon

If You Want Economic Growth, Vote Republican, Says … Harvard Business School? | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

If You Want Economic Growth, Vote Republican, Says … Harvard Business School? | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:

"The latest HBS report paints a bleak but accurate picture of the current economy -- lackluster economic and productivity growth, an incredibly slow rate of job creation, declining median household income, a dramatic slowdown in new business formation, and a growing pessimism about the future of U.S. competitiveness.

Then it goes on to say that "the federal government has made no meaningful progress on the critical policy steps to restore U.S. competitiveness in the last decade or more.""

Store Owner Is Sick Of Rude Customers, So He Puts Up A Sign As Revenge

Store Owner Is Sick Of Rude Customers, So He Puts Up A Sign As Revenge
"Austin Simms of Roanoke, VA, thought some of his customers could use a little help with their manners.
The CUPS Coffee & Tea worker put up a sign indicating that the more impolite you are the more you’re going to have to pay.
The sandwich board reads:
Each phrase indicates what a customer should say to receive the most inexpensive price.
The less rude the better. 
Sometimes we’re so busy when we order our morning cup of joe — or barely awake — we forget that the person serving us is in fact another human being.
There’s no need for being short with someone during a transaction and the sign is a firm reminder of that.
“I decided because I need to solve all the injustices of the world to start charging more for people who didn’t take the time to say hello and connect and realize we’re all people behind the counter,” Simms said...."

Clinton Foundation Barely Spent Any Money On Real Charity

Clinton Foundation Barely Spent Any Money On Real Charity | The Daily Caller:
"Just 5.7 percent of the Clinton Foundation’s massive 2014 budget actually went to charitable grants, according to the tax-exempt organization’s IRS filings.
The rest went to salaries and employee benefits, fundraising and “other expenses.”
The Clinton Foundation spent a hair under $91.3 million in 2014, the organization’s IRS filings show. But less than $5.2 million of that went to charitable grants.
That number pales in comparison to the $34.8 million the foundation spent on salaries, compensation and employee benefits.
Another $50.4 million was marked as “other expenses,” while the remaining almost $851K was marked as “professional fundraising expenses..."

‘The Intellectual Yet Idiot’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

‘The Intellectual Yet Idiot’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Liberty Blitzkrieg:
"In particular, they all (totalitarian systems) seem to have in common an intense dislike of the more abstract forms of thought –a dislike characteristically also shown by many of the collectivists among our scientists.
– From my 2010 review of F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
The following is an excellent takedown of the so-called “elite,” the status quo, whatever you want to call them.
We all know the type.
It’s the self-assured people who constantly get things wrong, constantly screw up on issues of national significance and yet somehow never face any consequences or accountability for their actions.
Here’s the meat of the piece, originally published at Medium:
What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind: these self-described members of the “intelligenzia” can’t find a coconut in Coconut Island, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to define intelligence and fall into circularities — but their main skills is capacity to pass exams written by people like them. 
With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30 years of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating at best only 1/3th of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers (or Montaigne and such filtered classical knowledge) with a better track record than these policymaking goons.
Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats wanting to run our lives aren’t even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. 
They can't tell science from scientism — in fact in their eyes scientism looks more scientific than real science..."
Read on!!!

Doesn't happen very often on Google News!--2 Norton Shores pension stories

History for September 17

History for September 17 - On-This-Day.com
J. (John) Marriott 1900, Chaim Herzog (Israel) 1918, Roddy McDowall 1928


Ken Kesey 1935, John Ritter 1948, Rita Rudner 1956


1787 - The Constitution of the United States of America was signed by delegates at the Constitutional Convention.


1796 - U.S. President George Washington's Farewell Address was read before the U.S. Congress. 


1862 - The Battle of Antietam took place during the American Civil War. More than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing. The Rebel advance was ended with heavy losses to both armies.


1920 - The American Professional Football Association was formed in Canton, OH. It was the precursor to the National Football League (NFL).


1953 - Ernie Banks became the first black baseball player to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform. He retired in 1971 known as 'Mr. Cub'.


1966 - "Mission Impossible" premiered on CBS-TV.


1972 - "M*A*S*H" premiered on CBS-TV.


1983 - Vanessa Williams, as Miss New York, became the first black woman to be crowned Miss America.

EXPOSED: Video surfaces showing what Hillary got MOMENTS before collapsing... - Allen B. West - AllenBWest.com

EXPOSED: Video surfaces showing what Hillary got MOMENTS before collapsing... - Allen B. West - AllenBWest.com:

"One of the talents Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton frequently exhibits, besides lying, is her ability to find myriad scapegoats and excuses for her behavior. Recently, she’s blamed her troubling coughing fits and “fainting” on allergies… then overheating… and then pneumonia.

Despite the campaign “coming clean” two days after the candidate’s pneumonia diagnosis — and swears there are no further “undisclosed” conditions (means so much coming from them, doesn’t it?)"

State’s '21st Century Jobs Fund' Spent $100 Million For Just 1,052 Jobs

State’s '21st Century Jobs Fund' Spent $100 Million For Just 1,052 Jobs [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
"The state’s 21st Century Investment Fund (CIF) has spent nearly $100 million on various types of subsidies and other forms of involvement in businesses since 2006, yet only 1,052 jobs have been created or retained because of it, according to the fund’s 2015 report.
In addition, some investment groups received millions through the fund but created zero jobs and no proceeds.
The state describes the fund as a program that “encourages the growth of emerging Michigan companies, diversifies the state’s economy by creating and retaining knowledge-based jobs and grows a community of investors to create a long-term, sustainable capital ecosystem within Michigan.”
According to the report, $98.5 million in so-called “capital called for investments,” or money spent by the state, has been used for investments.
 "In 2005, policymakers deluded themselves into putting tax money into high-risk investments to pump up the economy," said James Hohman, the assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
"Since then, there have been millions spent and little to show for it."
A number of examples are cited..."
Read on!

Colorado College's healthy lifestyle programs body shame, student says

Colorado College's healthy lifestyle programs body shame, student says - The College Fix: "Introducing ‘body privilege’ 
The wide variety of healthy lifestyle programs at Colorado College are bodyshaming, argues senior Jade Frost in an op-ed in The Feminist Wire. 
And in particular, the programs are hurtful to overweight men because they emasculate them, she adds.
“Several aspects of the CC community such as numerous healthy eating habits, gym programs, and outdoor activities, foster a culture of body shaming even for male students,” Frost writes in the Wire...
...Read Frost’s full op-ed."

'Shady Sh*t': Platte River Networks Employee Expressed Concern About Clinton Emails | PJ Media

'Shady Sh*t': Platte River Networks Employee Expressed Concern About Clinton Emails | PJ Media:

"The email expressed a keen desire for documentation of Clinton's deletion requests and a sense that maybe they had bitten off more than they could chew when they won the contract to manage Clinton's server.

“Wondering how we can sneak an email in now after the fact asking them when they told us to cut the backups and have them confirm it for our records. Starting to think this whole thing is really covering up a lot of shaddy (sic) sh*t," the worried employee wrote."

Mexico Is Building A Border Wall "To Keep Illegal Immigrants Out"

Mexico Is Building A Border Wall "To Keep Illegal Immigrants Out"
"This article was written by Tyler Durden and originally published at Zero Hedge.

Editor’s Comment: The humanitarian, bleeding-heart cover that liberals in power would suggest that the very notion of a border wall is offensive, taboo and outrageous to consider. Yet, countries around the world have implemented them to deal with being overwhelmed. It shouldn’t be out of the question to discuss, propose or advocate for a sovereignty-sealing border wall. Treating people humanely, on the other hand, is important, but gets lost in the focus.

...The UN and other elite institutions have purposefully exploited migration and economic woes to drive a wedge between the native U.S. population, and undermine the well-being of its people. The truth is that we’ve been played, and the exercise of a border is only sensible. Somehow Robert Frost is lost upon everyone as well: Good fences make good neighbors.

Mexico Builds A “Wall” (And Guess Who Paid For It)

by Tyler Durden

Mexico is building a ‘wall’… on its southern border (to keep illegal immigrants out). Perhaps even more ironic, The FT notes that the Obama administration is coy about its role in Mexico’s crackdown but is sending $75m in equipment and training to help stop Central Americans from crossing illegally into Mexico… in other words, US Taxpayers funded a Mexican wall to keep immigrants out.

The UN estimates 400,000 Central Americans cross illegally into Mexico each year and as many as half of those are fleeing violence. But as The FT reports, Mexico already acts as a formidable barrier for many…

Zero net immigration of Mexicans into the US and an 82 per cent fall in people caught trying to cross the US-Mexico border in the past 10 years means that most would-be immigrants detained there are Central Americans. Even without Mr Trump’s fortress frontier, Mexico finds itself under increasing pressure to stem the migrant tide near its source — its own southern border.

“Mexico has become a wall for migrants,” said Sister Magdalena Silva, co-ordinator of Cafemin, a privately run shelter in Mexico City that takes in refugee families, including Rosa’s. “The current policy is to arrest migrants to stop them from getting to the US border.”

…

Unlike in the US, Mexico has broadened asylum laws to recognise that fleeing violence of the kind practised by the street gangs of Honduras and El Salvador can classify someone as a refugee. But the odds are still stacked against asylum seekers: Mexico deported a record 175,000 Central Americans last year, up 68 per cent from the previous year and nearly two-and-a-half times the number deported by the US..."

Read on!

TV Ad Encourages German Women to Wear Hijabs

TV Ad Encourages German Women to Wear Hijabs » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!:
"Germany appears to have given up on integrating the millions of Muslim migrants pouring into the country and is instead encouraging German citizens to submit to Islam.

A television ad currently airing in Germany invites blonde-haired, blue-eyed women to embrace “tolerance” by wearing the Muslim hijab head dress.

The commercial begins with the text “Turkish women wear the hijab,” as a veiled woman is seen with her back to the camera.

However, when she turns around it immediately becomes clear that the woman is a white, blonde-haired German, before she states, “Me too! It’s beautiful!”

“Enjoy difference – start tolerance,” states the woman.

The campaign is funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as well as German taxpayers, who are forced to obtain a state television license or face prison time.

Instead of reversing its suicidal immigration policy, it appears as though Germany is now encouraging its female population to avoid the mass sex assaults committed by Muslim migrants in numerous major cities by submitting to Islam and covering themselves up..."
Much more!

Lunch video-Bittersweet: The Winners and Losers from Free Trade

Noon-toon

Charles Barkley Says It's Blacks Themsleves, Not Whites Or Cops Who Are Keeping Them Down ⋆ US Herald

Charles Barkley Says It's Blacks Themsleves, Not Whites Or Cops Who Are Keeping Them Down ⋆ US Herald:

"“One of the reasons we’re never going to be successful as a whole, because of other black people. And for some reason we are brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough.”

Those words (and many more) were spoken by NBA legend Charles Barkley, who was recently interviewed by a local Philadelphia, radio station, and of course one of the topics was the growing number of black athletes showing disrespect towards the National Anthem."

Althouse: The "working hard" meme — it's propaganda to cover for failure.

Althouse: The "working hard" meme — it's propaganda to cover for failure.
The "working hard" meme — it's propaganda to cover for failure.

That's on the front page of the NYT right now. 
The link goes to an editorial:

Since becoming secretary of state more than three years ago, John Kerry has been a man on a mission — multiple missions, in fact — relentlessly traveling the globe.... [T]here has been something honorable, even heroic, about the persistence, hard work and faith in diplomacy....

Mr. Kerry sometimes displays a naïve belief in his ability to win people to his side if he keeps talking long enough....

To get the current cease-fire [in Syria], he warned Moscow that if the violence was not halted, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would send more weapons to the rebel groups. He insists he is not being unrealistic, although he knows from past experience that Russia could be playing a cynical game and that the cease-fire could fall apart. But you can hear the anguish when he says that this “may be the last chance we have to save a united Syria.” He deserves immense credit for trying.

Work, work, work.
Trying very, very hard.  
Relentlessly traveling the globe.... 
But even your friends call you naïve and unrealistic. 
And do you think maybe Vladimir Putin might take advantage of your earnest strenuousness and play a cynicalgame? 
Let me take several days to think about that, because I'm sure putting more effort into the enterprise will be laudable... honorable, even heroic... and I will deserve immense credit for working so damned hard."

Four Studies Find ‘No Observable Sea-Level Effect’ From Man-Made Global Warming

Four Studies Find ‘No Observable Sea-Level Effect’ From Man-Made Global Warming: "(CNSNews.com) – Ten years after former Vice President Al Gore warned in his 2006 Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, that if nothing was done to stop man-made global warming, melting Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets could raise sea levels by up to 20 feet, four peer-reviewed scientific studies found “no observable sea-level effect of anthropogenic global warming.”
“It is widely assumed that sea levels have been rising in recent decades largely in response to anthropogenic global warming,” Kenneth Richard writes at NoTricksZone.
“However, due to the inherently large contribution of natural oscillatory influences on sea level fluctuations, this assumption lacks substantiation….
“Scientists who have recently attempted to detect an anthropogenic signal in regional sea level rise trends have had to admit that there is ‘no observable sea-level effect of anthropogenic global warming’,” Richard points out, listing four peer-reviewed studies published this year that have all come to the same conclusion..."
Read on!

When the other shoe drops for Hillary Clinton

When the other shoe drops for Hillary Clinton - Hot Air Hot Air
"We’ve had the better part of a week to digest and mull over the events at the 9/11 memorial service where Hillary Clinton “stumbled on her way to the car” (if you listen to many media outlets) or simply collapsed and had to be shoved into her vehicle like a sack of potatoes (if you watch the video). 
I understand that it’s been discussed pretty much everywhere since then, but there are two points which I keep coming back to and simply can’t shake out of my mind. 
The second one, which we’ll get to below, deals with some contradictory medical information. 
The first, on the other hand, is going to come off as totally sexist, so all of you feminists can get your brickbats ready because we’re going to go there anyway.
It all comes down to this one picture which was on pretty much every television screen after the event.
Here comes the sexist part, just so I don’t keep you waiting too long. 
The story of Clinton’s “stumble” pushes the idea that she was “overheated” and needed some help getting into the car. 
In the process of “being helped” her shoe obviously came off. 
Now tell me… what woman who spends the amount of money on clothing that the former Secretary of State is known to do and is so conscious of her appearance at all times would leave a shoe on the sidewalk? 
When she was seated in the car (assuming she was sitting up), does anyone actually believe that she wouldn’t notice that one of her shoes was off? She has aides attending her constantly. 
What are the chances that, even in an overheated and tired state, she wouldn’t have said to one of them, “Hey. My shoe fell off. Would you jump out and grab it for me please?”
I’m not buying it. .."
Read on!

GOP Rep. Blasts Kaepernick’s Activism: ‘Sympathetic to ISIS’ | Video | TheBlaze.com

GOP Rep. Blasts Kaepernick’s Activism: ‘Sympathetic to ISIS’ | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"“I understand that he has an Islamic girlfriend that is his fiancée, and that this has changed him,” King said Tuesday. “He’s taken on some different political views along the way. This is activism that’s sympathetic to ISIS.”

“And for me, if I’m the coach, I would say, ‘You’re done. Until you take a knee and beg forgiveness from the American people, you’re not going to set foot on this field again.’ That would be my answer to him,” he continued.

King also charged that Kaepernick is a representative of the entire 49ers team whenever he puts on his jersey and that his actions reflect on the organization."

2015 Average Wages Up 1.9%; Median Household Income Up 5.2%! Yeah, That’s The Ticket

2015 Average Wages Up 1.9%; Median Household Income Up 5.2%! Yeah, That’s The Ticket | David Stockman's Contra Corner:

New York Times- Binyaming Applebomb-  Household incomes for American families rose strongly in 2015, breaking a yearslong pattern of income stagnation. The median household’s income in 2015 was $56,516, an increase of 5.2 percent over the previous year — the largest one-year rise since at least 1967, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday.

...So far, so good.

The 2015 real median earnings of men ($51,212) and women ($40,742) who worked full time, year round increased 1.5 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively, between 2014 and 2015.

Oops.

So the 5.2% increase in median household income came from the man of the house earning 1.5% more and the woman of the house earning 2.7% more? That’s some math!

If a couple earned an average of 1.9% more, where did the other 3.3% increase come from?

The report shows the number of men and women working. Could that have been the source of the gain in household income? Nope. The number of men working increased by just 2.3% and the number of women working rose by 1.9%. Obviously some of those formed additional households. So an increase in the number of working persons per household could not account for the 5.2% in median income per household.

Working women did see an increase of 6.4% in their total earnings. But women working full time had income gains of only 2.7%. Apparently many women took a second job to help keep their households afloat. Is needing a second job an improvement in economic well being for those households?

We know that many households have a single wage earner, and that many of those are headed by women. But men earned only 2.3% more. Considering the 6.4% increase for women, even if the ratio of households headed by men and those headed by women were 50/50, that would only mean an average earnings gain per household of 4.3% thanks to women taking second jobs.

The Census Bureau lists 15 sources of household income.

1. Earnings
2. Unemployment compensation
3. Workers’ compensation
4. Social security
5. Supplemental security income
6. Public assistance
7. Veterans’ payments
8. Survivor benefits
9. Disability benefits
10. Pension or retirement income
11. Interest
12. Dividends
13. Rents, royalties, and estates and trusts
14. Educational assistance
15. Alimony
16. Child support
17. Financial assistance from outside of the household
18. Other income

The report doesn’t break out the dollar amount of any source other than earnings. Since earnings did not account for the 5.2% gain in household income, what did? None of these other sources could have been the source. Virtually none of them would have increased by that much, and none of them would apply to more than a fraction of total households. Therefore they would not have had much impact on the median of all households.

Given these facts, the 5.2% increase is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Churchill used that phrase to describe politics in the Soviet Union. I think that’s an apt analogy for US government statistics.

Assuming that 5.2% increase wasn’t just a fabrication or a data error, I’m still wondering, where it came from. It’s not earnings and not the increase in the number of men and women working. It’s not the other sources of income. 

By deduction, there could only be one source of the increase– an increase in household size. 

For instance, if Junior is making $28,000 a year working as an assistant manager at McDonald’s, and he or she decides that the rent is too damn high, he moves back in with Mom and Dad. 

Voila, if household income increases by 50% in 6% of households, that would account for the increase not caused by the increase in individual earnings.

Does that mean that households were actually doing better 5.2% better?

No. But the headlines sound good.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.