Iran Using U.S. Cash to Fund Unprecedented, Massive Military Buildup

Iran Using U.S. Cash to Fund Unprecedented, Massive Military Buildup:

"Iran is using the billions in cash resources provided under the landmark nuclear deal to engage in an unprecedented military buildup meant to transform the Islamic Republic's fighting force into an "offensive" juggernaut, according to a largely unreported announcement by Iranian military leaders that has sparked concern among U.S. national security insiders and sources on Capitol Hill.

Iranian officials announced late last month that Iran's defense budget had increased by 145 percent "

The way we were-----"Duck And Cover" - original TV advert

Puerto Rico Declares a Form of Bankruptcy - The New York Times

Puerto Rico Declares a Form of Bankruptcy - The New York Times: 
"With its creditors at its heels and its coffers depleted, Puerto Rico sought what is essentially bankruptcy relief in federal court on Wednesday, the first time in history that an American state or territory had taken the extraordinary measure.
The action sent Puerto Rico, whose approximately $123 billion in debt and pension obligations far exceeds the $18 billion bankruptcy filed by Detroit in 2013, to uncharted ground.
While the court proceedings could eventually make the island solvent for the first time in decades, the more immediate repercussions will likely be grim: 
Government workers will forgo pension money, public health and infrastructure projects will go wanting, and the “brain drain” the island has been suffering as professionals move to the mainland could intensify.
Puerto Rico is “unable to provide its citizens effective services” because of the crushing weight of its debt, according to a filing on Wednesday by the federal board that has supervised the island’s financial affairs since last year..."

Now We Know: It's Liberals Who Are Out-Of-Touch, Arrogant, Smug And Intolerant | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

Now We Know: It's Liberals Who Are Out-Of-Touch, Arrogant, Smug And Intolerant | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:

"We've been arguing for some time that if you want to find intolerance, extremism, hate and bigotry in this country, it's thriving on the left. The past week provides several bits of fresh evidence of this.

First, there's the ABC News/Washington Post poll published last week that found just 28% think the Democratic Party is "in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today." "

What The Economist Didn’t Tell You about Greenland’s Ice | Cato @ Liberty

What The Economist Didn’t Tell You about Greenland’s Ice | Cato @ Liberty
"At the contentious interface of climate science and policy, there’s one thing that people of all flavors agree upon: if Greenland were to shed all its ice in a century that would be an unmitigated catastrophe, raising sea levels an average of 22 feet simply from the sheer volume of water contained thereon.

It therefore stands to reason that a melting Greenland makes for good copy, and The Economist’s witty scribes have just published two alarming articles (here and here). Alarming, that is, because they left out a few pertinent facts.

“The most worrying changes are happening in Greenland, which lost an average of 375bn tonnes of ice per year between 2011 and 2014.”

This is a finely selected cherry that The Economist plucked. 

2012 was an exceedingly warm year averaged over the island-continent. 

Had they included all the recent data, they would have shown that the surface mass balance budget of ice on Greenland recently reached a record high compared to the previous three decades..."
Read on!

We are surrounded by high-paid morons-----Our Low Energy Media at Work | Power Line

Our Low Energy Media at Work | Power Line
"One of my favorite Milton Friedman stories concerns the time he was driving along in postwar West Germany in the late 1940s, on his way I think to the first Mont Pelerin Society meeting, when he spotted a large number of workers shoveling out a building site. 
Milton asked his German host, “Why don’t you get a tractor and some mechanized equipment for that?”

“Ah, but Prof. Friedman, you don’t understand—this provides jobs!”
Milton, quick as always, responded: “Well in that case why don’t you give them spoons.”

This came to mind when I saw the April 25 New York Times story, “Today’s Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal.” You could guess from the headline that we’re headed into “why-don’t-you-give-them-spoons” economic illiteracy, and you wouldn’t be disappointed. 

The fact that there are more people working in solar power than coal is a measure of the gross inefficiency of solar power. 
This is like saying that because McDonalds provides more jobs per calorie consumed than a high end restaurant we should want more McDonalds built.
I have Mark Perry of AEI to thank for running the numbers as I haven’t had the time. This chart tells the story succinctly:

Mark’s conclusion:

Bottom Line: The goal of America’s energy sector isn’t to create as many jobs as possible (as the NYT article would apparently have us believe) especially the politically-favored and heavily-subsidized renewable energy jobs. Rather, the economic goal is to produce as much electric power as possible at the lowest possible cost, and that means we want the fewest number of energy workers!

Lunch video-----SteynPost #4: The Politicization of Everything

Noon-toon

Judicial Watch: New Huma Abedin Emails Reveal Additional Instances of Clinton Sending and Receiving Classified Emails Through Unsecure Server - Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch: New Huma Abedin Emails Reveal Additional Instances of Clinton Sending and Receiving Classified Emails Through Unsecure Server - Judicial Watch:


"Judicial Watch today released 894 pages of new State Department documents, including previously unreleased email exchanges in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was sent additional classified information through her unsecure clintonmail.com email account by top aide Huma Abedin. The Abedin emails also include repeated instances of Clinton’s detailed daily schedules being sent to top Clinton Foundation officials at unsecured email addresses.

The records were produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Abedin."

Moron alert!-----Wednesday Short Cuts — The Patriot Post

Wednesday Short Cuts — The Patriot Post:

...“If any those of you that feel like [climate change] is not a problem, I challenge you to go into your car in your garage, start your car, and see what happens there.” —Democrat House candidate Rob Quist
(If Quist had put his thinking cap on, he’d know that it’s carbon monoxide, not carbon dioxide, from tailpipes that poses serious health problems. 
Word of advice: Don’t attempt his challenge.)..."

Blog: Janet Napolitano is sorry she got caught trying to rig a state audit

Blog: Janet Napolitano is sorry she got caught trying to rig a state audit:
"In a contentious four-and-a-half-hour legislative hearing yesterday in Sacramento, Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, made a pro forma apology for conduct that should have gotten her fired.
She tried to rig an independent state audit, and she got caught, and she is sorry (I paraphrase).
Alexi Koseff explains further in the Sacramento Bee:
University of California President Janet Napolitano apologized Tuesday for creating the "wrong impression" that she had improperly interfered in a critical state audit of her office released last week.
...Auditor Elaine Howle has asserted that the UC Office of the President interfered with her work by reviewing surveys sent independently to campus leaders and requesting changes that reflected more positively on its operations before they were submitted.
"In my 17 years as state auditor, we have never had a situation like this," she said Tuesday.
...Janet Napolitano had a lot riding on the outcome of a state audit she was about to face.
So she rigged it and got caught.
Koseff even provides a chart showing the changes.
And she still has her job..."

Your tax dollars at "work"-----HS assignment: ‘Prudence … has had sex with twenty-one men and three women …’ | EAGnews.org

HS assignment: ‘Prudence … has had sex with twenty-one men and three women …’ | EAGnews.org
"MEMPHIS, Mo. – “Prudence is thirty-four. She has had sex with twenty-one men and three women,” according an assignment for high schoolers in Scotland County, Missouri.

“After being celibate for three years, she meets Larry and a romance begins to develop. Larry is thirty-seven. One night he proposes that, things going the way he thinks they’re going between them, they talk about their sexual histories.”

A concerned mother recently contacted Fox News columnist Todd Starnes about the assignment after her child received it in an English class at Scotland County R-1 Junior-Senior High School.

...The unidentified woman said she contacted the school’s principal, who provided a lame excuse for the assignment.

“He told me that the teacher was originally a college teacher and he sometimes has trouble differentiating between what is appropriate for a 15- or 16-year-old and a 19 or 20-year-old,” she said..."

You ought to know!

The lies we were told about who would silence free speech - Chicago Tribune

The lies we were told about who would silence free speech - Chicago Tribune:

"The lie we were told as kids was this: The end of American liberty would come at the hands of the political right.

Conservatives would take away our right to speak our minds, and use the power of government to silence dissent. The right would intimidate our teachers and professors, and coerce the young."

AM Fruitcake

History for May 4

History for May 4 - On-This-Day.com:
Horace Mann 1796 - Educator, father of public education in the U.S., author, Thomas Huxley 1825, John Hanning Speke 1827


Audrey Hepburn (Edda Kathleen Hepburn van Heemstra) 1929 - Actress ("Monte Carlo Baby", "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), George F. Will 1941 - Columnist ("Newsweek"), editor, Randy Travis (Randy Bruce Traywick) 1959 - Country singer


1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on Manhattan Island. Native Americans later sold the island (20,000 acres) for $24 in cloth and buttons.


1715 - A French manufacturer debuted the first folding umbrella.


1863 - The Battle of Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.


1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea commenced as American and Japanese carriers launched their attacks at each other.


1961 - Thirteen civil rights activists, dubbed "Freedom Riders," began a bus trip through the South.


1970 - The Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on students during an anti-Vietnam war protest at Kent State University. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded.


1979 - Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister.


1981 - The Federal Reserve Board raised its discount rate to 14%.
14%

LIBERTY REVIEW

LIBERTY REVIEW:

https://libertyreview76.blogspot.com/2017/05/liberal-cookie-cutter-by-tammy-derouin.html

Liberal Cookie Cutter

By Tammy Derouin

In the United States, freedoms and rights are not determined by a political party. They are God-given and they are protected by the U.S. Constitution. When people do not know their rights or if they were never taught the truth, it becomes much easier to convince them that their rights are dependent upon man.

The hypocrisy of the Left has created a firestorm for all Americans. In today's upside down world, an uninformed individual could easily be misguided into believing that freedoms and rights only apply to those who follow the doctrine of the Left. After all, anyone who has a different opinion and dares to speak publicly is targeted with the goal of shutting them down. The Utopian dream that every individual should be shaped, forced when necessary, by the liberal cookie cutter or land in the scrap pile, is becoming increasingly real and increasingly dangerous.

Americans are being threatened, beaten and intimidated by fellow Americans if their thoughts or beliefs differ from the liberal party line. Think about that one. Americans are attacking Americans for exercising their God-given rights. Voices are being silenced. Rights are being denied. Freedom and liberty is denied under the pretense that safety and security cannot be guaranteed.......  

The way we were-----Top 10 Decade Defining TV Shows: 1950s

Unexpectedly, Oakland's soda tax money may be going... elsewhere - Hot Air Hot Air

Unexpectedly, Oakland's soda tax money may be going... elsewhere - Hot Air Hot Air:
"Last year, following in the footsteps of Berkeley, Philadelphia and other liberal bastions, the city of Oakland decided to save the citizens from themselves by passing a sin tax on soda and other “sugary beverages.” 
When the residents agreed to put it on the ballot in the spring it was being sold as a measure which would help “combat obesity” and fight the Big Soda Lobby. 
And the city’s politicians were quick to tell everyone how badly this revenue stream was needed while being far less specific about how the money they collected would be handled. (SF Gate, emphasis added)

Like Berkeley, [Oakland Vice Mayor Annie Campbell Washington] said, Oakland needs a dedicated revenue stream to combat the big-money marketing of soda and sports drinks.

If voters approve the tax, the money raised would go into the city’s general fund, and officials said the idea is to earmark it to pay for health and education programs in the community and in schools. The measure requires the city to create an advisory board to recommend how to spend the money.

You’ll note that the city’s leaders didn’t actually have a direct allocation of the funding set up, so it was going to go into the general fund. 
But no worries, mate. 
I’m sure they can be trusted.
The measure passed in November with the tax going into effect shortly thereafter. 
So problem solved, eh? 
I’m sure people are losing weight and living healthier lifestyles all over the place already, thanks to the dollars being hijacked out of shoppers’ wallets when they go to buy groceries.
Or perhaps not. 
Keep in mind that this was all taking place at the end of last year. 
It’s only a few months later now and there’s about to be some editing done as to where that soda tax money goes. 
Who could have guessed? (CBS Local News)

Mayor Libby Schaaf says Oakland is facing a $32 million budget shortfall. She wants to help fill the gap by diverting $6 million of soda tax.

Many people are upset because city leaders promised voters the money would be used for health programs.

“It’s a bait and switch by the mayor,” says resident Louis Nagel.

This school is trashing all its textbooks | New York Post

This school is trashing all its textbooks | New York Post:

"School is no place for books, one Manhattan principal apparently believes.

In a scene out of “Fahrenheit 451,” administrators at Life Sciences Secondary School have ordered all textbooks rounded up and removed — calling them “antiquated,” sources say.

Principal Kim Swanson and Assistant Principal Derek Premo, who launched the ban, “really frown upon the use of books,” an insider told The Post."

Important!-----Betsy McCaughey: The Democrats' Pre-Existing Condition Scam | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

Betsy McCaughey: The Democrats' Pre-Existing Condition Scam | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:
"The House vote on the GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill vote is down to the wire, with dozens of Republicans waffling as "undecideds."
What's the hold-up?
Ninety-six percent of people who have to buy their own insurance stand to benefit from this bill, which will likely drive down premiums by double digits.
The remaining 4% — those with pre-existing conditions — will be protected by a federal fund to subsidize their insurance costs.
They won't get priced out of the market, because the fund will pay the lion's share of their premiums.
But some Republicans are running scared.
Although the bill solves two problems — lowering premiums and protecting people with pre-existing conditions — these fence sitters are worried about something else — getting re-elected.
As a member of the New York delegation put it, the issue is "optics."
They're cowed by the media's false reports that the GOP is abandoning people with pre-existing conditions.
In fact, no one wants to do that..."

The Death of Facts

The Death of Facts:
"Every week in America brings another spate of defeats for freedom of speech.
This past week it was Ann Coulter's turn (yet again) to be banned from speaking at Berkeley for what the university authorities purport to be "health and safety" reasons -- meaning the health and safety of the speaker.
Each time this happens, there are similar responses.
Those who broadly agree with the views of the speaker complain about the loss of one of the fundamental rights which the Founding Fathers bestowed on the American people.
Those who may be on the same political side but find the speaker somewhat distasteful find a way to be slightly muted or silent. 
Those who disagree with the speaker's views applaud the banning as an appropriate response to apparently imminent incitement.
The problem throughout all of this is that the reasons why people should be supporting freedom of speech (to correct themselves where they are in error, and strengthen their arguments where they are not) are actually becoming lost in America. 
No greater demonstration of this muddle exists than a letter put together by a group of students at Claremont McKenna College earlier this month to protest the appearance on their campus of a speaker with whom they disagreed..."