Hi there, !
Today Thu 02/07/2013 Wed 02/06/2013 Tue 02/05/2013 Mon 02/04/2013 Sun 02/03/2013 Sat 02/02/2013 Fri 02/01/2013 Archives
Rantburg
531183 articles and 1854386 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 71 articles and 174 comments as of 22:04.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion       
Ansar Dine #3 arrested in northern Mali
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
5 22:46 Thing From Snowy Mountain [336135] 
2 22:34 Procopius2k [336132] 
8 19:18 Raider [336082] 
23 23:27 JosephMendiola [336121] 
7 18:08 JohnQC [336075] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
3 15:15 Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division [336103]
3 21:27 lord garth [336131]
2 14:24 SteveS [336091]
2 20:24 Thing From Snowy Mountain [336109]
6 20:52 Thing From Snowy Mountain [336092]
0 [336097]
0 [336095]
0 [336094]
0 [336105]
0 [336102]
7 16:19 Shipman [336093]
0 [336092]
0 [336092]
0 [336094]
0 [336092]
0 [336119]
1 04:47 Besoeker [336095]
Page 2: WoT Background
2 23:02 trailing wife [336110]
0 [336082]
1 19:25 Frank G [336097]
0 [336075]
3 22:35 JosephMendiola [336145]
0 [336077]
11 20:36 SteveS [336081]
3 15:18 Steve White [336079]
0 [336078]
0 [336080]
0 [336092]
0 [336081]
0 [336076]
0 [336079]
0 [336079]
0 [336079]
1 00:14 JosephMendiola [336073]
0 [336080]
0 [336082]
0 [336080]
0 [336078]
0 [336084]
0 [336082]
0 [336080]
0 [336083]
2 08:21 Besoeker [336085]
0 [336081]
3 14:02 Muggsy Mussolini1226 [336083]
1 00:43 Raider [336083]
Page 3: Non-WoT
0 [336093]
5 20:11 Lone Ranger [336093]
9 23:19 JosephMendiola [336103]
1 18:17 Frank G [336093]
13 22:52 Clusong Gromort6441 [336099]
2 16:16 Raider [336076]
0 [336082]
5 16:14 Zhang Fei [336076]
0 [336081]
1 05:03 Besoeker [336082]
0 [336086]
9 22:09 Frank G [336131]
6 14:29 Bright Pebbles [336080]
1 21:15 Eric Jablow [336077]
4 19:04 Frank G [336076]
Page 4: Opinion
0 [336093]
3 23:39 JosephMendiola [336098]
1 23:36 trailing wife [336149]
17 00:00 JosephMendiola [336105]
1 00:24 JosephMendiola [336080]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Reid Backs Away From Menendez Defense
[BREITBART] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ...
has backed off his ardent defense of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez amid the scandal crashing down on his colleague.
Perhaps the honourable senator won't be promoted to replace John F. Kerry after all...
In an interview on ABC News' This Week today, Reid admitted the existence of multiple investigations into Menendez and his connections to wealthy Democratic Party donor Dr. Salomon Melgen. Reid dropped his rhetoric attacking this news hound, and other outlets that have been investigating the Menendez scandal, since this news hound first published interviews in early November with two Dominican Republic hookers alleging they were under-paid to have sex with Menendez.

"I have confidence he did nothing wrong," Reid said Sunday morning in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, a former Democratic Party and Bill Clinton strategist. "But that's what investigations are all about."

In contrast, last week, when Breitbart News asked Reid about a similar question during his weekly presser, the Senate Democratic Leader had a much different response: "The answer is: 'Always consider the source.' All anyone here has to look at is the source where this comes from."

"I told you how I feel about the source of this stuff is," Reid had added when questioned further. "Really very, very typical for the source."

Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Menendez complaining of head and chest pains; to enter Mayco Clinic Arneja Hospital soon. Could be Triple-J Syndrome. Recent memory loss and Johnson's Drip could indicate cranial-vericocele enlargement. A rubber gloved Jay Carney has signed the Menendez 12 month [or as needed] Medical leave of absence. Many in US Senate are shaking heads and deleting e-mails.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/04/2013 4:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Reid... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ...( do you mean the same Harry Reid who is reminiscent of Droopy the cartoon anthropomorphic dog with a droopy face who moved slowly and lethargically and spoke in a jowly monotone?)

Menendez ,“ I served in the Dominican Republic” probably will not be the head of Senate Foreign Relations Committee despite much experience in foreign relations.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 8:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey! Don't be dissin on Droopy the Dawg. He bad, in a slow dawg way.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/04/2013 16:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Want to see Menendez go down in flames.
Posted by: Thravigum Elmese1617 || 02/04/2013 16:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Prostitution in the Dominican Rep is legal and Menendez is divorced. Thus, a straight forward admission might not have sunk him if he had made it earlier.

However, if the prostitutes are underage, he is probably in violation of some American law also.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/04/2013 17:07 Comments || Top||

#6  There is an American law which says 18 anywhere in the world is jailbait. I think it was passed sometime back to deal with all the junkets to procure sex with the under-aged in Thailand.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 17:47 Comments || Top||

#7  I found that what I said may not be completely accurate. I had heard on the TV that 18 was the U.S. age of legal consent anywhere in the world. Wiki source says the following: "If the adult travels to a different state or a different country to have sex with a minor, this is only a federal crime if the minor is under the age of 16. It may still be a local crime if the minor was under the age of consent of the state or nation where the sex happened but it is not a federal crime. The Protect Act of 2003 states age 18 is the age of consent in the U.S. Some States say 16 but this violates the Protect Act. Looks like it depends on whether or not the prostitutes were of legal age in Dom. Repub. so long as they are older than 16.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 18:08 Comments || Top||


Economy
Dissent not allowed - US DOJ suing S&P over credit rating drop
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/04/2013 15:53 || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No, it doesn't say that. The DoJ will sue over the 2007-09 mortgage ratings fiasco, which S&P (and every other rater) thoroughly deserves.

Why in the world subprime mortgages could be bundled into securities such that the worst of the bundled mortgages could get AA and AAA ratings is beyond me, but perhaps S&P has an explanation. They'd better.

I support this -- raters need to know that their ratings have consequences.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/04/2013 16:57 Comments || Top||

#2  So the rating agencies had it wrong prior to the 2008 crash because they were bought by Wall St. and the govmint? Now when they are trying to regain some credibility by playing it straight, they get dinged by DOJ?
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 16:59 Comments || Top||

#3  The temerity of S&P to downgrade the US when it breached the 100% debt ceiling must be punished. Moodys or Finch didn't, so Holder will make sure they are protected even though their credit ratings were just as "exuberant" as S&P before the financial meltdown.
Posted by: tipper || 02/04/2013 17:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Why in the world subprime mortgages could be bundled into securities such that the worst of the bundled mortgages could get AA and AAA ratings is beyond me, but perhaps S&P has an explanation. They'd better.

I think one of the problems lies in the bundling of bad loans with good loans. As I understand it they were sold as a package or bundle. The valuation was not easy.

Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 17:09 Comments || Top||

#5  and where was the SEC all this time?????????????
Posted by: Raider || 02/04/2013 17:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Steve this comes on the back of the Obama administration saying the credit agencies were in the wrong for downgrading the US. While the raters were wrong before, they aren't wrong now and this is pure retaliation of the Obama administration.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/04/2013 18:07 Comments || Top||

#7  Solve credit problems the easy way.

Mandate that you can only get a bonus when the money is paid back, not when the money is loaned out.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/04/2013 18:27 Comments || Top||

#8  "Mandate that you can only get a bonus when the money is paid back, not when the money is loaned out."

... which would happen if we allowed banks to FAIL - when they failed.
Posted by: Raider || 02/04/2013 19:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Outgoing EPA chief convinced Obama serious on climate change
The departing chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson, says she cringes whenever she is asked if President Barack Obama is truly serious about confronting climate change.

Of course he is, she tells them. "I don't think you need clues. The president has been really clear ... I'm not sure how much clearer he could be."

And yet even Jackson herself was caught off guard last month, when sitting just steps from Obama during his second-term swearing-in, the president cited the threats posed by climate change so prominently in his inaugural address.

"Surprised? Of course. Because I did not know what he was going to say. But pleased? Absolutely," the EPA administrator told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview before she leaves office later this month.

For Jackson, 50, a former New Jersey state official with no national profile until Obama chose her to lead the EPA during his first term, the lengthy inaugural nod to climate change served as a satisfying coda to a tumultuous tenure marked by clashes with Republican lawmakers and agricultural communities.

Jackson's deepest regret, she said, is that she failed to reach out to rural, often conservative regions of the United States. As a result, she said, opponents were able to generate politically damaging rumors of looming regulatory crackdowns, such as a fictitious EPA plan to treat bovine excretions as dangerous pollutants.

"If I were starting again, I would from day one make a much stronger effort to do personal outreach in rural America," Jackson said. "Had I known that these myths about everything from cow flatulence to spilled milk could be seen as 'The EPA is coming to get you,' I would have spent more time trying to inoculate against that."
Posted by: tipper || 02/04/2013 19:02 || Comments || Link || [336132 views] Top|| File under:

#1  did she say that as Richard Windsor or as Lisa Jackson?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/04/2013 19:08 Comments || Top||

#2  He also believes in the Marxist/Socialist fairytale of redistribution in the face of clear evidence it doesn't work.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/04/2013 22:34 Comments || Top||


Obama: more tax revenue needed to address U.S. deficit -CBS
[REUTERS] President Barack Obama
If you have a small business, you didn't build that...
said on Sunday more tax revenue would be needed in the coming years to reduce the U.S. deficit but raising tax rates was not a key issue.

"I don't think the issue right now is raising rates," Obama said in an interview on CBS.

"There is no doubt we need additional revenue, coupled with smart spending reductions in order to bring down our deficit. And we can do it in a gradual way so that it doesn't have a huge impact," he said.
Smart spending reductions like what?
At the beginning of the year Obama pushed through legislation to address the U.S. "fiscal cliff" that raised income tax rates on households making more than $450,000 a year.
Posted by: Fred || 02/04/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336121 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Smart:

Spending Reductions: Defense, Social Security (that people paid into), Medicare (that people paid into), Defense, Border Security. Embassy Security. Defense. All the things the Federal Government is supposed to do by the Constitution (Except federal pay).

Revenue: Takeover of individual IRA and 401K's - so that everyone has a fair share and if you don't agree you are racist, sexist, hate poor people - it's for the CHILDREN. Higher taxes on Energy. Taxes on Ammo. Taxes on Oil Drilling, Taxes on shale oil. Taxes on sunlight. Taxes on shade. Taxes on...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/04/2013 0:19 Comments || Top||

#2  He's trial ballooning for more stimulus money. Likely to announce his intentions at the State of the Union on Feb 12th, which I will take great pleasure in not watching. Less than 4 years remaining of this imposter.

....smart spending reductions in order to bring down our deficit. And we can do it in a gradual way so that it doesn't have a huge impact," he said.

Translation: Your hip replacement is now scheduled for April, 2029. An individual's net worth should play a greater role in calculating taxes, which will close a loophole and reduce the tax burden of middle income wage earners. People are living much longer now. A single Social Security eligibility age should be established, age 72 sounds fair to me.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/04/2013 3:57 Comments || Top||

#3  A True Socialist. Then one year later the expenses get higher and he will say the same...
Posted by: Phaith Grique4599 || 02/04/2013 4:01 Comments || Top||

#4  #1 CrazyFool. Should Obama be pushing what you suggest, everyone will be pushing impeachment even the Donks.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 7:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Ok perhaps not all of what I listed. But you know he will never cut any entitlements.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/04/2013 8:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Entitlements are donk umbilical cords. Cut them and the dependent client dies.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/04/2013 8:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Deadbeat wife to abused husband "Work harder, I need some new shoes!"
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/04/2013 8:33 Comments || Top||

#8  Gasoline prices up for 18 consecutive days. $3.55 per galon... the new normal. Printing money has consequences. Higher prices create inflation and increased tax revenues. Champ takes a bow as our KSA oil tick masters smile. Keystone XL languishes.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/04/2013 9:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Tax Mexico.
Posted by: Iblis || 02/04/2013 10:31 Comments || Top||

#10  I call BS on the party line about the fiscal cliff legislation raising taxes on families making more than $450K, that damnned piece of legislation raised taxes on people making less than $100K than it did on people making more than $450K.
I wonder if this moron at Reuters took a look at his pay stub recently, he's making several dollars less a payperiod than he did.
Also when are these fucking journalists going to realize that tax increases do not exempt them? They seem to be almost gleeful when they report on new taxes, levies, fees, and other confiscation of income.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/04/2013 10:35 Comments || Top||

#11  Congress needs to shut his ass down - all of it. Cut off every dime to everything this clown instituted.
Posted by: newc || 02/04/2013 10:56 Comments || Top||

#12  Well, if you like chicken nuggets and eat'em at Chick Filet, Obama just raised your taxes. The Kathy family owns and operates Chick Filet.

Batesville Casket Co. is a very successful family owned business. If you plan to one day die, chances are.....
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/04/2013 10:56 Comments || Top||

#13 
Posted by: junkiron || 02/04/2013 11:01 Comments || Top||

#14  Yeah... more taxes will help. Just ask France and Greece.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/04/2013 11:40 Comments || Top||

#15  #4#1 Try this on for size: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-18/retirement-savings-accounts-draw-u-s-consumer-bureau-attention.html It's the first step towards getting their hands on your 401K and it's being mulled over now.
Posted by: warthogswife || 02/04/2013 13:24 Comments || Top||

#16  ... that damnned piece of legislation raised taxes on people making less than $100K than it did on people making more than $450K.

My taxes went up ~40% due primarily to a change in mineral depletion rules (but also the rest of ATRA), I doubt many making under $100k saw that sort of spike. As a result some properties I operate became unprofitable overnight. The wells thereon are being plugged, the revenues previously generated for local, state & federal governments therefrom will go to zero over the next few months, some employees will be released to the unemployment rolls, etc.

Not complaining as I still do rather well but this isn't the way I'd prefer to add to my leisure time.
Posted by: Clyde Omiling8317 || 02/04/2013 13:58 Comments || Top||

#17  Probably need to register with the Federal Reserve everything in your bank's safe deposit box...for your own protection, of course. That way if you showed up at the bank some morning and it has been closed, the Federal Reserve will be able to tell what and worth of personal artifacts being held.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/04/2013 14:26 Comments || Top||

#18  warthogswife, I first heard rumors about democrat congresspeople talking about taking over retirement accounts 'to protect the consumer' a few years ago. I think it was a trial balloon then that did not go anywhere. What you are describing may be part of the preparation for that.
You have to remember that the Government thinks it can manage your money much, much, better than you possibly could - including retirement.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/04/2013 14:43 Comments || Top||

#19  Translation: Your hip replacement is now scheduled for April, 2029.

Oh noes! That's when the Cable Guy is coming out!

/old old Soviet joke.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/04/2013 16:03 Comments || Top||

#20  Shipman, that is such a funny joke--hadn't heard it before. The old, old Soviet joke becomes the new reality.

Warthogswife. I've been reading this from a lot of sources lately. The oldsters will be up in arms (if they haven't been confiscated). It's hard to believe there would be such thievery on such a large scale. However, maybe not so unbelievable since a huge wealth grab went on with the subprime loan debacle.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/04/2013 16:52 Comments || Top||

#21  It should have dawned on the US Gov't by now that they have probably passed the point of "Peak Taxes Collected". They are not going to get more ... Americans just don't have the money to give. Real takehome pay has been dwindling for US income earners for a long time now. Families are really squeezed on discretionary income.

If the US Gov't boosts tax collection by any new means ... Americans will just bypass the measure. For example, do more transactions in cash and don't declare the income. There is NO way out of this - except the the US Gov't to shrink in size. "More government" is NOT the answer.
Posted by: Raider || 02/04/2013 19:57 Comments || Top||

#22  They can simply print money hand-over-fist like the've been doing. That is a de-facto tax on everyone because it dilutes the value of the dollar. You just don't see it.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/04/2013 21:40 Comments || Top||

#23  Please correct me iff I'm wrong, but iff memory serves wasn't it in France where it was proposed for suborn any and all wealthy French to submit to a 100% tax rate???

WEIRD-N-MYSTERIOUS SUDDEN URGE TO MOVE TO THE CAYMAN ISLANDS + RUSSIA, ETC. is prolly in the minds of many French elites right now???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/04/2013 23:27 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Effort building to change US pot laws
But remember "Cannabis now a stroke risk"
An effort is building in Congress to change U.S. marijuana laws, including moves to legalize the industrial production of hemp and establish a hefty federal pot tax.

While passage this year could be a longshot, lawmakers from both parties have been quietly working on several bills, the first of which Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Jared Polis of Colorado plan to introduce Tuesday, Blumenauer told The Associated Press.

Polis' measure would regulate marijuana the way the federal government handles alcohol: In states that legalize pot, growers would have to obtain a federal permit. Oversight of marijuana would be removed from the Drug Enforcement Administration and given to the newly renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms, and it would remain illegal to bring marijuana from a state where it's legal to one where it isn't.

The bill is based on a legalization measure previously pushed by former Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Ron Paul of Texas.
Posted by: tipper || 02/04/2013 21:19 || Comments || Link || [336135 views] Top|| File under:

#1  An obvious attempt to politically destroy the Libertarians.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/04/2013 22:04 Comments || Top||

#2  A lot of money to be make taxing pot. And a lot of entrenched interests against it, including but not limited to cops who make a living off forfeiture money, various anti-drug programs at the state and federal level, and drug dealers.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/04/2013 22:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Taxing pot is a deal with the devil.

Libertarians want to offer up the concept of taxing pot, when the only thing such a concept will do is to expand further the size scope and power of the government, already too large.
Posted by: badanov || 02/04/2013 22:30 Comments || Top||

#4  ..and drug dealers

They'll just follow the alcohol model in which they get limited wholesale licenses in the state for distribution [for continued contributions to the governing party]. Just makes the corruption more 'legit'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/04/2013 22:32 Comments || Top||

#5  And they'll get undercut by "sunshiners" growing in the national forests, because sitting out by your pot patch with an AR-15 is easier than roofing welding or road construction or being a machinist, and we're in the Second Great Depression anyway.

(And it's not like the law enforcement people are stopping them now. They're going to suddenly become much more militant so Jerry Brown can get his 10%?)
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/04/2013 22:46 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
39[untagged]
6Arab Spring
5Govt of Pakistan
4Govt of Syria
3Taliban
2TTP
2al-Qaeda in North Africa
2Boko Haram
2Govt of Iran
1Hezbollah
1HUJI
1Islamic Jihad
1Salafists
1Govt of Sudan
1Ansar Dine

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2013-02-04
  Ansar Dine #3 arrested in northern Mali
Sun 2013-02-03
  Yemen Troops Kill 12 'Qaida Militants' in Restive South
Sat 2013-02-02
  Syria Suicide Attack on Regime Kills 53
Fri 2013-02-01
  Binori Mosque cleric among 10 killed in Karachi
Thu 2013-01-31
  Boko Haram 'commander' declares ceasefire
Wed 2013-01-30
  Mali and Niger forces retake Ansongo
Tue 2013-01-29
  Sahel jihadist groups splinter
Mon 2013-01-28
  Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts
Sun 2013-01-27
  French and Malian troops begin restoring control in Timbuktu
Sat 2013-01-26
  Green-on-green clash in Khyber tribal region kills 32
Fri 2013-01-25
  AQAP #2 killed for the THIRD time in Yemen
Thu 2013-01-24
  US drone strike near Sanaa kills 7 hard boyz
Wed 2013-01-23
  Nuristan Airstrike Kills 14 Insurgents
Tue 2013-01-22
  French seize control of Diabaly, Douentza
Mon 2013-01-21
  Nigeria: Gunmen attack Kano emir's convoy

Better than the average link...



Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
54.226.222.183
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (17)    WoT Background (29)    Non-WoT (15)    Opinion (5)    (0)