Promise Kept: Barack Obama Breaks the Coal Industry

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by STEVE MILLOY13 Apr 20162,818

President Obama’s war on coal has bagged its biggest trophy to date: the bankruptcy filing by the largest U.S. coal company, Peabody Energy.

Make no mistake about it, though, Peabody’s management and that of the rest of coal industry bears much of the blame for its own demise. It ought to serve as a lesson for everyone else targeted by take-no-prisoners progressives.

Peabody’s bankruptcy filing follows that of other major coal companies including, Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal, and Patriot Coal. The irony is that coal is actually the world’s fastest growing source of energy, according to the International Energy Agency. So what happened?

Even before Obama vowed to “bankrupt” the coal industry in a 2008 interview with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle, the coal industry had already allowed the seeds of its destruction to take root. It had failed to believe global warming hysteria was an existential threat. The industry thought the demand for cheap and reliable electricity combined with the power of politicians representing coal states would suffice as a defense against attack. But contrary to the myths propagated by global warming activists, the coal industry was never a serious funder of climate skeptics.

This strategy was completely upended when decidedly anti-coal Obama became president and Republicans lost control of Congress. Not only did an unprecedented coal industry-hating “progressive” government come to power, but also an up-and-coming new technology for producing natural gas was coming into its own. Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, commonly referred to as “fracking,” began to change the U.S. energy market.

With respect to the anti-coal Obama administration and Congress, the coal industry thought that problem could be managed. Maybe even a deal could get cut. A senior Peabody executive told me in the spring of 2009 that it supported the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill because it would settle the issue and provide a path forward for the industry. At this time, much of the coal industry was operating under the illusion that carbon dioxide emissions could be affordably captured and stored underground, so the modest emissions cuts contemplated by the bill could be achieved.

Although Waxman-Markey squeaked by in a 219-212 House vote, it was never brought up in the Senate and other Senate efforts to pass a cap-and-trade bill faltered — thanks largely to the coincidental rise of the tea party. With the failure of cap-and-trade in Congress, Obama turned to the regulatory agencies he controlled to wage war on the coal industry, the most powerful of which was the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA began issuing a series of devastating anti-coal regulations.

The coal industry was ill-prepared to fight the EPA — an aggressively arrogant, if not entirely rogue, activist agency. The EPA took advantage of the fact that its rules didn’t target the coal industry directly, but instead pressured the coal industry’s customers — coal-burning electric utilities. The EPA’s regulations forced the utilities to reduce emissions from their coal plants.

The EPA regulation known as the Mercury Air Transport Standard was so expensive for utilities to implement that it made more economic sense just to shutter many of their coal-burning power plants — a task made easier by the surge in cheap natural gas and the fact that the moribund Obama economy has not expanded in such a way as to necessitate an meaningful increases in electricity generation.

It’s not that natural gas is necessarily a less expensive way to generate electricity, but it became cost-competitive with coal. And given the regulatory and political pressure on utilities to not burn coal, utilities began switching from coal to gas wherever possible. The natural gas glut has also placed a price ceiling on coal that dramatically thinned the profit margin from coal mining. As the Obama administration has slow-walked the approval of natural gas export terminals, the gas glut is here to stay.

What about exporting U.S. coal to the rest of world, which is in the process of building 2,440 new coal plants? The coal industry does export some coal, but that has been made difficult by environmental activists who have blocked new rail lines and coal export terminals. And while China and, especially, India are burning more and more coal, they are increasing exploiting their own domestic supplies for economic reasons. So global coal prices are way down, again, pressuring export profit margins.

While the entire story of the U.S. coal industry’s demise is worthy of much more discussion, it can be summarized as follows: The coal industry’s political enemies have successfully used expensive, heavy-handed, junk science-fueled regulation which, in combination with an unforeseeable coincidental glut of cheap natural gas, has virtually broken the coal industry’s back.

What is the future of the coal industry? About one-third of our electricity still comes from coal, though that may shrink further. Under current conditions — a natural gas glut, constrained energy demand and heavy EPA regulation — there will not be much profit in coal for the foreseeable future even though we will still rely on it for much electricity.

The best scenario for what’s left of the coal industry is if Republicans win the White House and maintain control of Congress. That would likely relieve the regulatory pressure on the industry and some of the natural gas glut since Republicans would greenlight natural gas exports.

Even if Democrats win, the coal industry is not likely going away, although its management will change dramatically. As I forecast here last year, no one will leave trillions of dollars worth of coal in the ground, especially since future governments will need cash to run the welfare state. So instead, Democrat-friendly billionaires will buy coal companies for a song, politically rehabilitate the fuel, donate to their political allies, and profit.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is a former coal company executive.

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Obama Claims Power to Make Illegal Immigrants Eligible for Social Security, Disability

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(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status?

Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now.

The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing "prosecutorial discretion."

He argues that under this particular type of "prosecutorial discretion," the executive can make millions of people in this country illegally eligible for Social Security, disability and Medicare.

On April 18, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case. Entitled United States v. Texas, it pits President Obama against not only the Lone Star State, but also a majority of the states, which have joined in the litigation against the administration.

At issue is the policy the administration calls Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, which would allow aliens in this country illegally who are parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents to stay in the United States.

"The Executive Branch unilaterally created a program — known as DAPA — that contravenes Congress's complex statutory framework for determining when an alien may lawfully enter, remain in, and work in the country," the attorney general and solicitor general of Texas explained in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of the states seeking to block the policy.

"DAPA would deem over four million unlawfully present aliens as 'lawfully present' and eligible for work authorization," says the Texas brief. "And 'lawful presence' is an immigration classification established by Congress that is necessary for valuable benefits, such as Medicare and Social Security."

In the administration's brief, the solicitor general admits that the president's DAPA program does not convert people illegally in the United States into legal immigrants. He further asserts that the administration at any time can decide to go ahead and remove these aliens from the country.

"Deferred action does not confer lawful immigration status or provide any defense to removal," he says. "An alien with deferred action remains removable at any time and DHS has absolute discretion to revoke deferred action unilaterally, without notice or process."

Despite this, he argues, the administration can authorize aliens here illegally on "deferred action" to legally work in the United States.

"Without the ability to work lawfully, individuals with deferred action would have no way to lawfully make ends meet while present here," says the administration's brief.

Nonetheless, the solicitor general stresses that "deferred action" does not make an illegal immigrant eligible for federal welfare.

"In general," he says, "only 'qualified' aliens are eligible to participate in federal public benefit programs, and deferred action does not make an alien 'qualified.'... Aliens with deferred action thus cannot receive food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, temporary aid for needy families, and many other federal benefits."

But, he says, aliens here illegally with deferred action will be eligible for "earned-benefit programs."

"A non-qualified alien is not categorically barred, however, from participating in certain federal earned-benefit programs associated with lawfully working in the United States — the Social Security retirement and disability, Medicare, and railroad-worker programs — so long as the alien is 'lawfully present in the United States as determined by the (Secretary),'" says the solicitor general.

The "secretary" here is the secretary of Homeland Security.

"An alien with deferred action is considered 'lawfully present' for these purposes," says the solicitor general.

So, as explained to the Supreme Court by Obama's solicitor general, when DHS grants an alien here illegally "deferred action" under the president's DAPA policy, that alien is not given "lawful immigration status" and can be removed from the country "at any time." However, according to the solicitor general, that alien will be authorized to work in the United States and will be "considered 'lawfully present'" for purposes of being eligible for "the Social Security retirement and disability, Medicare, and railroad-worker programs."

The U.S. Constitution imposes this straightforward mandate on the president: "(H)e shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

When the Supreme Court agreed in January to hear U.S. v. Texas, it made a telling request. It asked the parties to argue whether Obama's DAPA policy "violates the Take Care Clause of the Constitution."

The Obama administration has taken care of just one thing here: It has constructed a convoluted — and unconvincing argument — it hopes will provide the activists on the Supreme Court with a cover story to explain why this president need not faithfully execute the nation's immigration laws.

COMMENTS

Trump Has Won More Votes Than Romney Had At This Point in 2012

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And many more than McCain had in 2008, too.

8:07 AM, FEB 24, 2016 | By ETHAN EPSTEIN

Donald Trump has yet to win an outright majority in a primary or caucus – though he's getting closer, pulling in 46 percent of the vote in Nevada. But he's winning massive numbers of votes.

Mitt Romney won Nevada's caucus in 2012 with about 50 percent of the vote. He did so by pulling in roughly 16,000 total votes – roughly the same number that second-placefinisher Marco Rubio pulled in this year. Donald Trump, by contrast, more thandoubled Romney's total, garnering 34,500 votes.

That pattern has played out across all of the early states, which are seeing huge Trump-inspired (and, at some level, anti-Trump-inspired) turnout.

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All told, Trump has now won approximately 420,000 votes. After the first four states had voted in 2012, Mitt Romney had won about 311,000 votes. Back in 2008, meanwhile, eventual nominee John McCain had won a little more than 250,000 votes after Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada had voted.

Before the primaries got underway in earnest, many assumed that Trump would fare more poorly than his poll numbers indicated because so many of his supporters had rarely voted in the past. But with this election, the past has not been a reliable predictor of future events.

Article Tags2016 ELECTIONS, DONALD TRUMP

For all The Details of Antonin Scalia Passing. Including detail breakdown of both Democrat and Republican Debates and South Carolina Primary

“It was a story about America, The fact that people were drawn into the song as a result of symbols that I chose to use was the reason I chose to use those symbols in the first place.” Don Mclean

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1.Capitalism vs Communism – Tribute To Antonin Scalia
-"Justice Antonin Scalia was a man of God, a patriot and an unwavering defender of the written Constitution and the rule of law," Texas Governor Greg Abbott. "He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution," Abbott said. "We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. Cecilia and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers."
-Presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) lauded Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia after news of the justice's death broke Saturday, but said President Barack Obama should not be the one to appoint his replacement. "Justice Scalia was an American hero. We owe it to him, & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement," he tweeted. Cruz, who served as Texas' solicitor general argued several cases in front of Scalia, praised the justice's decades-long tenure on the court. He singled out his insistence on a textual interpretation of the US Constitution.  "Today our Nation mourns the loss of one of the greatest Justices in history – Justice Antonin Scalia," Cruz said in a statement. "A champion of our liberties and a stalwart defender of the Constitution, he will go down as one of the few Justices who single-handedly changed the course of legal history." "As liberals and conservatives alike would agree, through his powerful and persuasive opinions, Justice Scalia fundamentally changed how courts interpret the Constitution and statutes, returning the focus to the original meaning of the text after decades of judicial activism. And he authored some of the most important decisions ever, including District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized our fundamental right under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms. He was an unrelenting defender of religious liberty, free speech, federalism, the constitutional separation of powers, and private property rights. All liberty-loving Americans should be in mourning. (Business Insider)
-Trump - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump hailed the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday. "Justice Scalia was a remarkable person and a brilliant Supreme Court Justice, one of the best of all time," Trump said. Scalia was a considered a hero by many conservatives because of his sharp wit and consistent advocacy on behalf of originalism, or interpreting the Constitution as its drafters intended it at the time. "His career was defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms," Trump continued. "He was a justice who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I held in the highest regard and will always greatly respect his intelligence and conviction to uphold the Constitution of our country."  Trump also described Scalia's death as a "massive setback" for the conservative movement and our COUNTRY. (Business Insider)
-Hillary Clinton's website has an entire page dedicated to the court, warning supporters that a Republican president could oversee a shift to the right.  "As many as four seats on the Supreme Court could become vacant during the next few years — which means that a Republican president could have the power to transform the court, and American law, for generations to come," "That’s why it’s so terrifying when Ted Cruz says he would be 'willing to spend the capital to ensure that every Supreme Court nominee that I put on the court is a principled judicial conservative.' But he’s not alone: all of the Republican candidates for president are likely to appoint staunchly conservative justices." (Business Insider)
-The survey, taken at the end of January, found that 43 percent of Americans under 30 had a favorable view of socialism. Less than a third of millennials had a favorable view of capitalism. No other age or ethnic demographic preferred socialism over capitalism.
-Seniors, unsurprisingly, had the most favorable view of capitalism. Just 23 percent of Americans older than 65 had a positive view of socialism. Sixty-three percent of seniors, though, had a favorable view of capitalism.
-In the past 20 years, the number of people living in poverty worldwide has fallen by half. In 1990, 43 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. In 2013, the United Nations estimated that just 22 percent of the world’s population continued to live in extreme poverty. “Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast,” the UN Human Development report said. Even if millenials aren’t swayed by the dramatic improvement in worldwide living standards, one would hope they would see the benefits of capitalism in the products and services that inhabit their world.
2.
3.Trump - The newspaper tweeted: “Front page: DAWN OF THE BRAIN DEAD – Trump comes back to life with N.H. win.”
4.Hillary – wins in NH as Bernie takes a 60 to 38 wins
-Though Mrs. Clinton had only nine pledged delegates through the voting process, she has an additional six superdelegates as of Wednesday morning, giving her a total of 15. Sanders has 13 delegates, all of which he won through the popular vote. Two superdelegates are uncommitted at this point. So even though the results appeared to be a massive win for Sanders, the delegate count, where it matters, tells a different story
-Clinton Foundation receives suybpoena form State Department Investigators and not a single question from the moderator who is a Clinton Foundation Donor.
5.Illegal Immigration
-Germany - German Govt Begins Migrant Propaganda Campaign, Urges Citizens To Overcome Their ‘Dark Side’

Ford Shifting Future Auto Production To Mexico As Obama Signs Pacific Trade Deal

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by WARNER TODD HUSTON8 Feb 20161,231

Just as President Barack Obama’s deputy signed the unpopular Trans Pacific Partnership free-trade deal during an election year, Ford Motor Company has announced it will doubling production capacity at a Mexico factory, instead of enlarging U.S. factories.

The new factory will manufacture hybrid autos with gasoline and electric engines, whose development has been partly funded by U.S. taxpayers via federal research programs.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Ford is planning to build 500,000 vehicles at its new Mexican factory, starting in 2018. That is double Mexico’s 2015 production.

Ford has begun to build a new factory in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, to assemble several models including, a new model meant to rival Toyota’s Prius hybrid vehicle. In turn, U.S.-based plants will focus on light trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

Insiders say Ford will spend $1 billion to build the expansion factory in Mexico. That’s in addition to the $2.5 billion already earmarked for expansion in the neighboring nation.

Ford rival General Motors is planning a $5 billion expansion in Mexico.

But American automakers aren’t alone. New facilities are also being built in Mexico by BMW AG, Volkswagen AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motors.

All these announcements come on the heels of new deals that offer higher wages for today’s workers, represented by the United Auto Workers union.

UAW membership began to fall from its 1979 high of 1.5 million members to only 540,000 in 2006. By 2010 it had fallen to only 390,000 members. Since 2010, membership has been slowing growing, and it grew 3 percent in 2014 . In 2015, The UAW climbed up to 403,000 members, or three-quarters of its 2006 membership.

But the plans to expand in Mexico also come at the same time Obama began pushing his Trans Pacific Partnership trade plan, one of the largest multinational trade agreements in history.

The trade deal, often derided as Obamatrade, has met with fierce criticism from conservatives in Congress many of whom fear the deal means a massive loss of jobs in the U.S. Senator Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), for one, has been afierce critic of the deal saying it does not protect the interests of the American people and our workers. Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is facing a tough election, and he’s come out in conditional opposition to the completed deal.

Even as Obama’s representatives signed onto the deal last week, Senator Jeff Sessions said voters should press their candidates on where they stand on TPP.

The Senator urged voters to insist their candidates for president and Congress “explain why we are not seeing politicians expressing support for this gargantuan agreement.”

“Every elected official, every candidate must be crystal clear about where they stand on the TPP. The American people deserve no less,” Sessions declared.

To date every GOP presidential candidate has made a firm announcement on where they stand on TPP except Florida SenatorSen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). While Rubio voted “yes” to fast track the deal, he hasn’t explicitly said how he will vote on the final deal.

Rubio did say that TPP is one of the pillars in his “three-pillar foreign policy strategy,” so even as he hasn’t said if he will vote in favor of the plan. But his actions seem to point to his support for the measure.

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, though, has been unequivocal on TPP. He is against it. Last week Trump called the plan “a terrible deal” for the United States because it is a jobs killer.

“It’s going to allow countries to continue to take advantage of us and take our jobs, take our trade,” Trump said. “It’s bad for us. It’ll allow China to come in through the back door at a later date and continue to really do a number on us, and it doesn’t take into account money manipulation — manipulation or devaluation of currency, which is the single biggest tool that countries use against us,” he said. “It’s a terrible deal.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter@warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com

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42% of Democrats are in favor of socialism

www.marketwatch.com

Many Democrats are feeling the love for socialism.

More than four in 10 Democrats say they have a favorable opinion of socialism, according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults released in January by data and research firm YouGov; this percentage is nearly identical to what the researchers found in May of last year. Meanwhile, only about one in three say they have an unfavorable opinion of the ideology.

Among Republicans, those numbers look significantly different: Just 17% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of socialism, while 71% have an unfavorable opinion of it. And for the most part — no matter what the party — it is young people who are most in favor of socialism. Fully 49% of people ages 18 to 29 have a favorable opinion of socialism, compared with just 23% of those 65 and up.

Also see: Karl Marx is the most assigned economist in U.S. college classes

On the whole, nearly half of all Americans say they have an unfavorable opinion of socialism, the YouGov survey revealed.

That may explain why, in a separate survey, less than half of Americans said they would vote for a socialist president (sorry, Bernie). Indeed, only 47% of Americans said they would vote for a president who was a socialist, according to a survey of 1,500 adults released by Gallup last year, which looked at 11 types of candidates people would be willing to vote for, including a woman, gay or lesbian, Muslim and evangelical.

Among Democrats, 59% would do it, while among Republicans just 26% would. “Republicans and Democrats differ most in their willingness to vote for a socialist candidate, by 33 percentage points,” according to the Gallup data.

Table: Who are Americans willing to vote for?

DemocratsRepublicansEvangelical Christian66%84%Mormon79%84%Jewish92%95%Catholic95%93%Hispanic94%91%Black96%90%Woman97%91%Atheist64%45%Gay or lesbian85%61%Muslim73%45%Socialist59%26%Source: Gallup More from MarketWatch

COMMENTS

Citi: World economy trapped in ‘death spiral’

Katy Barnato | @KatyBarnato

49 Mins AgoCNBC.com

The global economy seems trapped in a "death spiral" that could lead to further weakness in oil prices, recession and a serious equity bear market, Citistrategists have warned.

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Some analysts — including those at Citi — have turned bearish on the world economy this year, following an equity rout in January and weaker economic data out of China and the U.S.

"The world appears to be trapped in a circular reference death spiral," Citi strategists led by Jonathan Stubbs said in a report on Thursday.

"Stronger U.S. dollar, weaker oil/commodity prices, weaker world trade/petrodollar liquidity, weaker EM (and global growth)... and repeat. Ad infinitum, this would lead to Oilmageddon, a 'significant and synchronized' global recession and a proper modern-day equity bear market."

Stubbs said that macro strategists at Citi forecast that the dollar would weaken in 2016 and that oil prices were likely bottoming, potentially providing some light at the end of the tunnel.

"The death spiral is in nobody's interest. Rational behavior, most likely, will prevail," he said in the report.

Crude oil prices have tumbled by around 70 percent since the middle of 2014, during which time the U.S. dollar has risen by around 20 percent against a basket of currencies.

The world economy grew by 3.1 percent in 2015 and is projected to accelerate to expand by 3.4 percent in 2016 and 3.6 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund. The forecast reflects expectations of gradual improvement in countries currently in economic distress, notably Brazil, Russia and some in the Middle East.

By contrast, Citi forecasts the world economy will grow by only 2.7 percent in 2016 having cut its outlook last month.

World economy on edge of recession: Citi

Overall, advanced economies are mostly making a modest recovery, while many emerging market and developing economies are under strain from the rebalancing of the Chinese economy, lower commodity prices and capital outflows.

Stubbs added that policymakers would likely attempt to "regain credibility" in the coming weeks and months.

"This is fundamental to avoiding a proper/full global recession and dangerous disorder across financial markets. The stakes are high, perhaps higher than they have ever been in the post-World War II era," he said.

Just 151,000 new jobs were created in January in the U.S., in the latest sign that the world's biggest economy is slowing. Economists are concerned about an industrial or manufacturing recession in the country, following some warnings from companies in earnings seasons and recent weak manufacturing activity and durable goods orders data.

However, some analysts say markets are overegging the prospect of a global slump.

"Many markets are now pricing in a significant probability of recession and when we talk about recession, we're talking particularly about a U.S. recession. Do you think that is likely or not? To me, the odds are too high; the market is pricing too high a probability," Myles Bradshaw, the head of global aggregate fixed income at Amundi, told CNBC this week.

Markets too hasty to call a recession: Analyst

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Katy BarnatoReporter and Copy Editor, CNBC.com

Americans hate the U.S. government more than ever

www.cbsnews.com

A handful of industries are those "love to hate" types of businesses, such ascable-television companies andInternet service providers.

The federal government has joined the ranks of the bottom-of-the-barrel industries, according to a new survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Americans' satisfaction level in dealing with federal agencies --everything from Treasury to Homeland Security -- has fallen for a third consecutive year, reaching an eight-year low.

The declines represent some backsliding for the U.S. government, given that satisfaction saw some improvement in 2011 and 2012, which may have been the result of spending in the wake of the recession. While the comparison with private enterprise isn't apples to apples given the nature of government services, the findings have some implications for bureaucrats.

"Satisfaction is linked to broader goals in the political system that it wants to maximize, like confidence and trust," said Forrest Morgeson, director of research at the ACSI. "It's much more difficult to govern if the entire population dislikes you."

Although satisfaction is down for the federal government as a whole, the research found that consumers have vastly different views of specific agencies. The department that received the highest score was the Department of the Interior, which received a ranking of 75 points. That could reflect Americans' positive feelings toward national parks, which many visit while on vacation, Morgeson noted.

The lowest-ranked department may not be much of a surprise to taxpayers: Treasury, which received a score of just 55 points, or 20 points below the Department of the Interior. Treasury, as a reminder, oversees the IRS.

"If you think about the most contacted government agency, it'll be the IRS," Morgeson said. "If you think about what the IRS does, which is take money from citizens, you'll have low satisfaction."

Despite the overall lower score for the government, there were some signs of improvement in citizens' experiences, with the feds earning improved scores in customer service and information, which means many citizens believe agencies are delivering information in a clearer way than a year ago.

The government report is based on surveys with more than 2,000 people who were surveyed late last year.

COMMENTS

Noam Chomsky Says GOP Is 'Literally A Serious Danger To Human Survival’

POLITICS

The MIT professor and noted author said "strategic voting" can keep Republican candidates away from the levers of power.

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 13 hours ago | Updated 1 minute ago

Matt Ferner National Reporter, The Huffington Post

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Noam Chomsky, the noted radical and MIT professor emeritus, said the Republican Party has become so extreme in its rhetoric and policies that it poses a “serious danger to human survival.”

“Today, the Republican Party has drifted off the rails,” Chomsky, a frequent critic of both parties, said in an interview Monday with The Huffington Post. “It’s become what the respected conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call ‘a radical insurgency’ that has pretty much abandoned parliamentary politics.”

Chomsky cited a 2013 article by Mann and Ornstein published in Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, analyzing the polarization of the parties. The authors write that the GOP has become “ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

Chomsky said the GOP and its presidential candidates are “literally a serious danger to decent human survival” and cited Republicans' rejection of measures to deal with climate change, which he called a “looming environmental catastrophe.” All of the top Republican presidential candidates are either outright deniers, doubt its seriousness or insist no action should be taken -- “dooming our grandchildren,” Chomsky said.

"I am not a believer," Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, said recently. "Unless somebody can prove something to me, I believe there’s weather."

Trump isn’t alone. Although 97 percent of climate scientists insist climate change is real and caused by human actions, more than half of Republicans in Congress deny mankind has anything to do with global warming.

"What they are saying is, let's destroy the world. Is that worth voting against? Yeah," Chomsky said in a recent interview with Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera English's "UpFront."

The policies that the GOP presidential candidates and its representatives in Congress support, Chomsky argued, are in “abject service to private wealth and power,” despite “rhetorical posturing” of some, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). GOP proposals would effectively raise taxes on lower-income Americans and reduce them for the wealthy. 

Chomsky advised 2016 voters to cast their ballots strategically. He said the U.S. is essentially “one-party” system -- a business party with factions called Republicans and Democrats. But, he said, there are small differences between the factions that can make a “huge difference in systems of enormous power” -- like that afforded to the president.

“I’ve always counseled strategic voting, Chomsky said. "Meaning, in a swing state, or swing congressional district, or swing school board, if there is a significant enough difference to matter, vote for the better candidate -- or sometimes the least bad.”

Chomsky said if he lived in a swing state, he’d vote for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

By no means should this be viewed as an endorsement of Clinton. Chomsky has been a vocal Clinton critic, saying her presidency would resemble that of President Barack Obama, who Chomsky has condemned for using drone strikes to kill individuals the president deems worthy of execution. 

In an ideal world, Chomsky might vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who Chomsky has called an "honest and committed New Dealer" who has “the best policies,” despite some criticisms. 

Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, Chomsky told Al Jazeera he'd cast his general election vote "against the Republican candidate” because there may be dire consequences to a GOP victory. 

“The likely candidates are, in my opinion, extremely dangerous, at least if they mean anything like what they are saying,” Chomsky said. “I think it makes good sense to keep them far away from levers of power

CAPITALISM VS SOCIAL COMMUNISTS

Brian P Smyth
iHeart.SmythRadio.com

As a personally responsible American who is currently working and supporting a family my greatest fear is that of freedom and our sovereignty will be stolen from us by the socialist communist left. There is no freedom in social programs only tyranny and control.

Poll Drudge Report

S 2016 begins the United States starts to to lose their sovereignty self governance. Because the politicians that were elected to protect us or doing the opposite the allowing the invasion of the illegals from the south the north in the east as well as overloading social programs, which is a socialist communist idea from the 70's from Cloward and Piven.

This poll taken by Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report is probably the scariest poll I've ever seen you have the Communist Bernie Sanders neck and neck with the capitalist Donald Trump who wins the communist or the capitalist?

Federal deficit to soar in 2016 after Ryan-Obama tax deal

www.washingtontimes.com

President Barack Obama stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, during an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. (Associated Press) ...more >

The tax-cut deal inked by President Obama and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month has put a major dent in the federal budget, helping send the deficit soaring by 24 percent, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.

The $544 billion deficit projected for 2016 marks the first year since 2009 that the red ink has grown, and it powers the deficit back up over the half-trillion mark, where it had been for most of Mr. Obama’s tenure.

And the rest of the decade will only get worse, the CBO said, with Social Security beginning to draw down its trust funds in 2018, and overall deficits surging back above the $1 trillion mark by 2022.

SEE ALSO: UnitedHealth loses $720 million offering plans under Obamacare, may withdraw next year

Struck by the grim news, budget watchdogs said politicians needed to heed the wake-up call.

“Turning a blind eye to the problem, as so many congressional and presidential candidates have done, merely means they are passing the buck to the next generation as concerns about political damage outweigh policy advantages,” said Steve Bell, senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

CBO projections contained some good news, with the economy showing signs of solid growth in 2016 and 2017, finally overcoming some of the “slack” that built up during the 2008 Wall Street collapse and the Great Recession. Analysts said more people will be enticed back into the labor force, but inflation and interest rates will also rise as the economy ticks along.

SEE ALSO: Flint residents still charged up to $200 a month for poisoned water

But spending and taxes remain the biggest problem for the budget, with the twin deals at the end of last year to break the sequester budget caps that had held spending in check, and to extend a series of special interest tax breaks.

Combined, they meant the government needed more money than ever — but had less flowing in.

Overall, spending will spike by 6 percent in fiscal year 2016, to reach $3.9 trillion. That amounts to 21.2 percent of the country’s output as measured by gross domestic product.

By contrast the government will collect just $3.4 trillion in taxes, or 18.3 percent of GDP.

Those trends will continue for the next decade, the CBO report. Taxes will hold steady at about 18 percent of GDP, while spending will rise from 21 percent to 23 percent — producing ever-worse budget news for the next president to handle.

Deficits peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009, as the government under first President George W. Bush and then Mr. Obama spent freely to try to prop up banks and to stimulate the economy after the 2008 downturn. The numbers dropped steadily through 2012, when the hole was $1.1 trillion, then dropped more quickly in 2013, falling to $680 billion, and to $439 billion by last year.

At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest said the economic numbers are proof that the president’s policies have finally righted the economy and produced 70 consecutive months of job gains.

“That’s an indication of a strong bounce back from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” he said.

But Mr. Earnest refused to say whether the president’s 2017 budget, due to Congress in a few weeks, will make progress in cutting the deficit.

“Stay tuned,” the spokesman said.

Mr. Obama has never presented a balanced budget to Congress, and fought the spending cuts that helped reduce the deficits during his time in office. Instead, he’s pushed for tax increases, with the new money being used to finance his plans for broader government spending.

Those budgets have routinely been rejected by Congress, and with Republicans in control of both chambers, Mr. Obama’s latest plan is unlikely to do any better.

Just five months ago the CBO had projected the deficit would drop in 2016. Instead, it will rise some $105 billion.

“That increase is largely attributable to legislation enacted since August — in particular, the retroactive extension of a number of provisions that reduce corporate and individual income taxes,” the CBO said.

As deficits grow again, the debt will also pile up. Debt held by the public, which excludes borrowing from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, already accounts for 73.6 percent of GDP. TheCBO last year had projected debt might dip as the deficit dropped, but now says it will continue its steady rise, topping 85 percent by 2026.

The president and Congress did find bipartisan agreement on the tax package and spending hikes last year, undoing several years of progress in holding the line on spending. Indeed, government spending actually dropped in 2012 and 2013, then ticked up in 2014 and 2015.

This year, that trickle will become a flood.

Most of the increased spending will come from the government’s health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, which will surge $104 billion, or 11 percent, compared to 2015.

COMMENTS

Big banks brace for oil loans to implode

Talked about this in great detail on last nights show Listen to Military Veteran Talk Radio

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Firms on Wall Street helped bankroll America's energy boom, financing very expensive drilling projects that ended up flooding the world with oil.

Now that the oil glut has caused prices tocrash below $30 a barrel, turmoil is rippling through the energy industry and souring many of those loans. Dozens of oil companies have gone bankrupt and the ones that haven't are feeling enough financial stress to slash spending and cut tens of thousands of jobs.

Three of America's biggest banks warned last week that oil prices will continue to create headaches on Wall Street -- especially if doomsday scenarios of $20or even $10 oil play out.

For instance, Wells Fargo (WFC) is sitting on more than $17 billion in loans to the oil and gas sector. The bank is setting aside $1.2 billion in reserves to cover losses because of the "continued deterioration within the energy sector."

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is setting aside an extra $124 million to cover potential losses in its oil and gas loans. It warned that figure could rise to $750 million if oil prices unexpectedly stay at their current $30 level for the next 18 months.

"The biggest area of stress" is the oil and gas space, Marianne Lake, JPMorgan's chief financial officer, told analysts during a call on Thursday. "As the outlook for oil has weakened, we would expect to see some additional reserve build in 2016."

Citigroup (C) built up loan loss reserves in the energy space by $300 million. The bank said the move reflects its view that "oil prices are likely to remain low for a longer period of time."

If oil stays around $30 a barrel, Citi is bracing for about $600 million of energy credit losses in the first half of 2016. Citi said that figure could double to $1.2 billion if oil dropped to $25 a barrel and stayed there.

Related: $10 oil: Crazy or the real floor beneath the oil crash?

More oil companies will die

The oil crash has already caused 42 North American oil companies to file for bankruptcy since the beginning of 2015, according to a list compiled by Houston law firm Haynes and Boone. It's only likely to get worse. Standard & Poor's estimates that 50% of energy junk bonds are "distressed," meaning they are at risk of default.

"There is a lot of distress in the industry. There will be a lot of pain but they'll get through it," said Buddy Clark, a 33-year veteran of the energy finance space and a partner at Haynes and Boone.

The financial pain has gotten so great that now there's murmurs of a bail out for the U.S. oil industry, though it's clear any assistance would run into political opposition.

Related: Is it time to bail out the U.S. oil industry?

Are banks ready?

All of this raises the question: Is Wall Street doing enough to prepare for the oil storm?

"One year from now, are you going to look back and say, 'Whoops, we didn't get ahead of this enough,'" outspoken banking analyst Mike Mayo asked JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon during Thursday's conference call.

Dimon said if it were up to him, he'd reserve against the potential for even greater losses. However, he said those decisions are limited by accounting rules.

Still, Dimon said the energy portfolio makes up just a small portion of JPMorgan's balance sheet and many of the loans are backed by physical assets. That means banks can sell off assets to recover money if a company defaults on its loans.

"We're not worried about the big oil companies. These are mostly the smaller ones that you're talking," Dimon said.

Paul Miller, a banking analyst at FBR, said oil loans don't represent nearly the same threat to banks that mortgages did last decade. He also pointed out that banks have been forced to stockpile capital to help them absorb losses.

"The big banks might have 1% to 6% of exposure. That's not going to kill them. This is not like 2006 or 2007," Miller said.

Despite the turmoil, JPMorgan isn't planning to run away from the oil patch.

"To the extent we can responsibly support clients, we're going to. And if we lose a little bit more money because of it, so be it," Dimon said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 18, 2016: 4:13 AM ET

COMMENTS

Utopia and Communism share a common thread

Private car ownership is on the road to becoming a rarity

www.marketwatch.com

Henry Ford was a smart guy, but he never did the math when he decided to put every American household on wheels.

A century after the Model T, the world has a problem with cars. The U.S. and China will consume about 40 million light vehicles in 2015, according to IHS. Globally, we’re on track to hit 100 million vehicles in 2020.

That’s not a lot of cars. That’s an ocean of cars, an inundation, wave after wave breaking on the shores of the industrialized world. And yet policy makers and common folk alike have been powerless against the siren song of the automobile. Even in the most car-blighted burg in the world, the toxic parking lot they call Beijing, the appetite for the automobile—as status item, as luxury, as totem of personal mastery in a fragile postcolonial mind-set—is driving millions more into its smoggy embrace, despite limits on ownership and the government’s rising alarm.

The Future of Everything: From the end of auto ownership to America’s changing battlefields to a revolution in fast food to the next sports superstar, a special Wall Street Journal magazine asks a team of experts and reporters to tell us what lies ahead.

The absurdity of our century-old, ad hoc approach to mobility is captured in one statistic: The utilization rate of automobiles in the U.S. is about 5%. For the remaining 95% of the time (23 hours), our cars just sit there, a slow, awful cash burn, like condos at the beach.

But what if, like condos, automobiles could be shared? It’s one of life’s first lessons—how to share toys, parents, rooms, feelings. But as little consumers grow into adults, they forget the joys of selflessness. That’s about to change. And I don’t mean the collaborative consumerism we see around us—peer-to-peer transportation like Uber—which is symbolic and transitional, lasting only until automation happens, at which point we can get rid of the wetware. And by wetware, I mean us.

The Waze app has packed residential side streets with traffic

The navigation app Waze offers drivers alternate routes to busy roads, but it's also clogging some local streets with bumper-to-bumper traffic — and upsetting residents. Photo: Joe Flint/Wall Street Journal.

Within a generation, automobiles will be endowed with what’s known as Level 4 autonomy—full self-driving artificial intelligence for cars—which will not so much change the game as burn down the casino. Autonomy will make it possible for unmanned automobiles to be summoned, via app, to your location. And not just any passing tramp steamer, but exactly the vehicle you need for the occasion, cleaned and fueled, for as little or as long as you need (offers may vary in your state). When you’re done—poof!—it will go away.

You don’t pay for the car. You pay for the miles. And only the miles. It’s a whole new way to fly. Let’s start small. Need a pickup for three weekends a year but don’t want to pay for the other 49? Autonomy can make that happen easily without a visit to the dreaded U-Haul depot. Need a car to take mom to the doctor’s, or fetch a spouse from the airport? A decade hence, major auto makers and smaller players will be at each others’ throats for the privilege of sending consumers vehicles a la carte, for a one-way trip, an afternoon, a weekend, a month. These transactions will move through the glowing bowels of your monthly credit accounts, and you won’t even feel them.

Americans will look back on pre-autonomy like the age of Casio calculators and DOS prompts. Remember cab drivers? Remember traffic jams? Remember when parents lived in dread that their children would die in a car accident? Death and major injury from traffic accidents will drop drastically. The automobile’s other costs—decreased productivity, fuel burned in uncoordinated traffic—will be swept away. “Beyond the practical benefits, autonomous cars could contribute $1.3 trillion in annual savings to the U.S. economy alone,” wrote Ravi Shanker, a Morgan Stanley analyst covering the U.S. auto business. Global savings? Somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.6 trillion.

Read: Elon Musk’s hyperloop fantasy may be more realistic than we think

You may be wondering, back here in 2015, if the auto industry is worried about shared mobility. Doesn’t it spell declining sales? It could. But in a mature market like the U.S. turnover will remain fairly stable. What would change is the number of passengers that passed through every vehicle—including a vast untapped market that doesn’t drive today. “Level 4 AV technology, when the vehicle does not require a human driver, would enable transportation for the blind, disabled or those too young to drive,” says the Rand Corporation in a report on the subject. “The benefits for these groups would include independence, reduction in social isolation, and access to essential services.”

These same benefits would return mobility to millions on the margins, including the elderly, the working poor and those who have lost their driving privileges due to a criminal record. (It’s not hard to see the throughline between autonomy and the hobbling economic effects of mass incarceration.)

In August 2015, Morgan Stanley nearly doubled its price target for Tesla TSLA, -0.11%  , to $465 per share, based on an analysis of Tesla’s so-far secret shared-mobility plan. “We view this as a business opportunity,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, “[that could] more than triple the company’s potential revenues by 2029.”

And, far from funneling consumers into fleets of lustless electric drones, autonomy could have the opposite effect. Immersive-connected consumers will be able to draw from a vast and constantly replenished motor pool of shared vehicles—dune buggies, pickup trucks, German luxury sedans—with little or no notice, a cast of automotive avatars.

At this point a fair reader might wonder if I have ever been to America. The notion that we as consumers will forgo the awesome pleasures of the automobile—the privilege, the mobility, the identity—to share vehicles is, I grant, unfamiliar.

But America’s much-sung-about love affair with the automobile has grown cold. Rates of motor-vehicle licensure are already plummeting among young Americans. The obligations and costs of transportation—an average 17% of household budgets—are driving them out of automobility altogether. And enthusiasm for automotive culture is waning too, as the empty seats at Nascar events attest.

Personal-vehicle ownership isn’t going away. Some people will own and cherish cars. But those people and their cars will be considered classics. Rates of ownership will decline, an artifact of an era of hyperprosperity and reckless glut. Twenty-five years from now, the only people still owning cars will be hobbyists, hot rodders and Flat Earth dissenters. Everyone else will be happy to share.

Don’t miss: The Future of Everything.

More about cars:  

Obama Slips and admits he is "remaking the courts"

In order to change the direction of America you must change the face of the Supreme Court and others as well.  obama knows this very well as do us who support or are members of the Tea Party and I Damn you assholes that sat out any election in order to "show the GOP what for".  Now you go a fight of your life.  The death of America is coming if we dont stop it in its tracks....  that is Communism and then add to the Constitution that any "progressive / socialism / communism" actions are completely illegal and against the Constitutions / Freedoms of Americans. 

The offical transcript is as follows....

Here’s the full quote for context via a WhiteHouse.gov transcript:

We were able to reform our financial system so that the likelihood of taxpayer-funded bailouts is a lot less than it was. We were able to expand funding for young people going to college. We were able to expand national service for young people who want to serve. We fought long and hard for consumer protections that weren’t there before.
As Lisa mentioned, we are remaking the courts. I know that we’ve got some lawyers here, and here in Texas sometimes people feel a little frustrated about the pace of appointments here in Texas. But you should know that in addition to the Supreme Court, we’ve been able to nominate and confirm judges of extraordinary quality all across the country on federal benches. We’re actually, when it comes to the district court, matching the pace of previous Presidents. When it comes to the appellate court, we’re just a little bit behind, and we’re just going to keep on focused on it.

LIER LIER PANTS ON FIRE !!!!

Obama Lied and Here is Proof.

Detroit Bankrupt, Obama Bankrupt,

Detroit not alone under crushing pension obligations

 

U.S. cities, towns and counties that have filed for bankruptcy

The city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court Thursday. It is the largest U.S. city to do so. Cities, towns and counties that have filed bankruptcy since January 2010: