Monthly Archives: December 2013

Energy, Media, Politics

Warren Buffet’s Oil Train Derails, Explodes, Burns

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In the second train derailment and explosion in six months, two of Warren Buffet’s BNSF trains in North Dakota collide. The resulting explosion and fire caused authorities to evacuate all 2,400 people living in Casselton, N.D., about one mile from the derailment.

Official estimates of the extent of the blaze varied. BNSF Railway Co. said it believed about 20 cars caught fire after its oil train left the tracks about 2:10 p.m. Monday. The sheriff’s office said Monday it thought 10 cars were on fire. Officials said the cars would be allowed to burn out.

Authorities haven’t yet been able to untangle exactly how the derailment happened. BNSF spokeswoman Amy McBeth said another train carrying grain derailed first, and that this knocked several cars of the oil train off adjoining tracks.

Chalk up another failure of the Obama administration for 1) continuing to drag their feet on rail car safety for Buffet’s trains carrying crude oil and 2) not giving the go-ahead for the XL Pipeline project. Pipelines have not been known to crash and burn, ever. But, pipelines are not major DNC contributors.

Maybe this incident will bring the XL pipeline issue to the fore and make the case for getting it started. Ya think? Even the media is regrettably stating half of the obvious.

The incident will likely prompt discussion about the safety of transporting oil by cross-country rail. Fears of catastrophic derailments were particularly stoked after a train carrying crude from North Dakota’s Bakken oil patch crashed in Quebec last summer. Forty-seven people died in the ensuing fire.

The XL pipeline being the half they don’t mention.

2014 Election, 2016 Election, Politics

Tea Party Not Going Anywhere, More Likely to Win

From the womb of liberalism, a Harvard government and sociology professor writes . . .

“Tea Party forces will still win in the end,” Theda Skocpol writes, unless moderate Republicans can defeat them. Skocpol concedes that the Tea Party “will triumph just by hanging on long enough” as Americans are getting fed up by “our blatantly manipulated democracy and our permanently hobbled government.”

As long as there are establishment (he calls them moderate) Republicans not willing to follow their core beliefs of limited government, one that does not usurp our liberty, personal and economic freedom, and fiscal responsibility, the Tea Party is here to stay.

Whether Republicans gain majority status in the Senate in 2014 and win the White House in 2016 depends on which “party” establishment Republicans fight against, the Democratic party or the Tea Party.

Link: Harvard Prof: Tea Party Not Going Anywhere, More Likely to Win.

Economy, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Commercial Progressive Talk-Radio Takes A Dive

Following the same footsteps as Air America Radio a few years ago, commercial Progressive or Liberal (same thing) talk radio disappears in markets replete with their disciples, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Well, except for NPR that, so far, taxpayers are forced to subsidize.

2014 will mark the beginning of a massive change for liberal talk radio across the country. In New York, WWRL 1600 AM will flip to Spanish-language music and talk, throwing Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and Alan Colmes off the air. In Los Angeles, KTLK 1150 will be dumping Stephanie Miller, Rhodes, Bill Press and David Cruz off the air in favor of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. In San Francisco, KNEW 960 will leave Miller, Hartmann, and Mike Malloy without a radio home in the market.

hand-tapping-morse-code-on-an-antique-telegraph-machineWith listener participation down to friends, relatives, and employees, they are moving to the free, as in no commercial sponsorship required, media on the internet (short wave & smoke signals) like the wildly popular (somewhere behind Al Sharpton) Pensacola-based Ring of Fire radio show. The progressive show run by lawyers Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who recently disabled reader comments from their website, and bans conservatives from commenting on their Facebook page. And, they don’t take phone calls on the fly either. They can’t. If they did, they’d be forced into defending their indefensible talking points.

This kind of ‘protecting the bubble’ censorship is not exclusive to the Ring of Fire show. It is indicative about why they can’t hold a broad audience. Except for their lemmings that do listen, their angry and derogatory tone does not attract sponsors or a broad spectrum of listeners. Mike Malloy, in the show that bears his name, is a prime example. Unlike Papantonio, Malloy will take calls. But he didn’t like one he got from me over a subject that we will be talking about again soon. Extending unemployment benefits. Malloy didn’t want to hear that Republicans wanted to extend unemployment benefits if Congress would cut an equal amount from somewhere else in the budget, like the PayGo law required. Instead, he suggested that “right-wingers” practice self mutilation instead of calling his show. See Liberals And Speech, Part 3, Right-Wingers, Cut Your Hand Off for details and the full audio.

Seems Malloy was prophetic 25 seconds into this clip, “let’s see if he calls this program if we’re still on the air.”

Link: Liberal Commercial Talk Radio Disappears in NY, LA, SF in 2014

Obamacare, Politics

Govt. Employees Lose Govt. Health Care Plan

This is rich. Vista and other AmeriCorps volunteers who have health insurance provided by the federal government, were notified on December 16, 2013 that their insurance plans were history as of New Years Day. How’s that for compassion? How’s that for the irony of all ironies?

New York Times . . .

The Obama administration has told Vista volunteers and other AmeriCorps workers that their government-provided health coverage does not measure up to the standards of the new health care law, and that they may be subject to financial penalties unless they obtain insurance elsewhere.

Do anyone need any more information to prove that our federal government isn’t the one to run our health care or our health insurance? Not only do they not care about you. They don’t care about their own employees either.

Abby Grosslein, a Vista member in New Orleans, said she thought it was strange that the health benefits provided by a federal agency did not meet the standards of a law adopted more than three and a half years ago. “It would be nice if the government waived the penalty because we are a federally funded program,” said Ms. Grosslein, 24, who is completing her third year of service with AmeriCorps. “It’s as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.”

Moreover, she said: “The Affordable Care Act has been on the books since 2010. Why are we hearing only now that our health plan is not compliant?”

Media, Obamacare, Politics

PolitiFact Caught By The Facts

It seems our old friend and spinmeister Angie Drobnic Holan got caught in another whopper. Once again about Obamacare. Here comes an article that details PolitiFact’s record on Obamacare and how her ratings on “if you like your plan you can keep your plan” went from “True” (before the election) to the “Lie of the Year” after Obama was re-elected.

Link: Pants On Fire: PolitiFact Tries To Hide That It Rated ‘True’ in 2008 Obamacare’s ‘Keep Your Health Plan’ Promise

Media, Pensacola, Politics

Commercial Liberal Talk Radio Takes A Dive

Following the same footsteps as Air America Radio a few years ago, commercial Progressive or Liberal (same thing) talk radio disappears in markets replete with their disciples, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Well, except for NPR that, so far, taxpayers are forced to subsidize.

2014 will mark the beginning of a massive change for liberal talk radio across the country. In New York, WWRL 1600 AM will flip to Spanish-language music and talk, throwing Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and Alan Colmes off the air. In Los Angeles, KTLK 1150 will be dumping Stephanie Miller, Rhodes, Bill Press and David Cruz off the air in favor of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. In San Francisco, KNEW 960 will leave Miller, Hartmann, and Mike Malloy without a radio home in the market.

hand-tapping-morse-code-on-an-antique-telegraph-machineWith listener participation down to friends, relatives, and employees, they are moving to the free, as in no commercial sponsorship required, media on the internet (short wave & smoke signals) like the wildly popular (somewhere behind Al Sharpton) Pensacola-based Ring of Fire radio show. The progressive show run by lawyers Mike Papantonio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who recently disabled reader comments from their website, and bans conservatives from commenting on their Facebook page. And, they don’t take phone calls on the fly either. They can’t. If they did, they’d be forced into defending their indefensible talking points.

Update: 12/29/2013

This kind of ‘protecting the bubble’ censorship is not exclusive to the Ring of Fire show. It is indicative about why they can’t hold a broad audience. Except for their lemmings that do listen, their angry and derogatory tone does not attract sponsors or a broad spectrum of listeners. Mike Malloy, in the show that bears his name, is a prime example. Unlike Papantonio, Malloy will take calls. But he didn’t like one he got from me over a subject that we will be talking about again, unemployment benefits. Malloy didn’t want to hear that Republicans wanted to extend unemployment benefits if they would cut an equal amount from somewhere else in the budget, like the PayGo law required. Instead, he suggested that “right-wingers” practice self mutilation instead of calling his show. See Liberals And Speech, Part 3, Right-Wingers, Cut Your Hand Off for details and the full audio.

Seems Malloy was prophetic 25 seconds into this clip, “let’s see if he calls this program if we’re still on the air.”

 

Link: Liberal Commercial Talk Radio Disappears in NY, LA, SF in 2014

Economy, Media, Politics

Obama’s Pay Raise For Military

You’ll have to look far and wide for a media report that explains the details behind the one percent pay raise that Obama gave to the military in the budget he signed today.

What  happened was, the House passed its version of the fiscal 2014 Defense authorization bill in June, which included a 1.8 percent pay increase for troops. The formula for determining service members’ annual pay increase is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index and the growth in private-sector wages; for 2014, that turns out to be 1.8 percent. But under the law (Title 37, Chapter 19, Section 1009) the president has the authority to set an alternate pay raise for military personnel, citing a national emergency or fiscal concerns, if Congress doesn’t pass legislation adjusting the amount or canceling it.

So one would think, what with food stamps going to active military personnel and families having shot up 400 percent, that the Commander In Chief wouldn’t be cutting the modest 1.8 percent. But he did.

All the major media outlets use this template:

  • ABC: The comprehensive defense bill Obama signed will give military personnel a 1 percent pay raise.
  •    AP: The comprehensive defense bill Obama signed will give military personnel a 1 percent pay raise.
  • USA Today: Military personnel receive a 1% raise under the bill.

Now if there were a Republican in The White House, first of all, there wouldn’t be a cut. At the very least, the military would have gotten the 1.8 percent increase based on the standard formula. But for argument’s sake, play along. If there were a Republican in the White House that did what Obama just did, the media would be screaming at the top of their lungs, front page above the fold, ‘President cuts military pay 80 percent,” and “President slashes military pay by 80 percent.”

This is a first. The media is actually calling an increase, an increase. After all, one percent is one percent more than zero. In all other circumstances where the Republican party can be demonized, that one percent increase is called a cut. A cut from the 1.8 percent increase that the House passed.

Yet another blatant example of the media covering for their president. At the expense of our troops no less.

Link: 2014 Military Pay Raise Guaranteed

 

Egypt, War On Terror

Egypt Outlaws Muslim Brotherhood, Seizes Assets

Officially labeling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, the Egyptian government moved to seize the ‘Hood’s accounts and assets. And called upon other countries in the Middle East to do the same.

Should come as no surprise except to the Islamist deniers in the administration who told us that the Muslim Brotherhood was a peaceful, secular organization. But that’s old news.

The effects of taking a bold step against the terrorist organization, aside from fighting back at them in hopes of keeping the peace domestically, is the deleterious effect it will have on Hamas. Their subsidiary in the Gaza Strip that terrorizes Israel and calls for their destruction.

Can’t wait to hear what Secretary of State John Kerry, the President’s mouthpiece, has to say about this and whose side he will come down on. Egypt has already decided.

Turkey, just to make it interesting, is sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. As is a guy named Fethullah Gulen. A self-exiled (was actually fleeing charges of plotting to overthrow the government in Turkey) 70-year-old Imam, who commands a global empire of media outlets, private schools and charities. Gulen directs his Islamic “school” and “charity” operation from his 25 acre Saylorsburg, Pa. estate in the Poconos. Comparisons between him  and George Soros have been made as both men are very wealthy, and both use their money to advance agendas. Both to change America as it exits today.

Will the United States add the Muslim Brotherhood to their list of terrorist organizations and seize their assets? President Obama has some ‘splain’n to do.

Links: Egypt, Dealing a Blow to the Muslim Brotherhood, Deems It a Terrorist Group  | The 60 Minutes Whitewash of Fethullah Gulen  |  Egypt seizes assets of over 1130 Brotherhood-linked NGOs

Obamacare, Politics

“Truthers” At Healthcare.gov?

The White House appears to have dropped a bombshell when it explained to the press why White House staff in Washington enrolled President Obama in Obamacare instead of Obama himself. I figured the obvious. That signing up like he expects everyone else to do was beneath him. Besides, it would foul up his Christmas vacation. Too bad for the rest of Americans who would rather be celebrating Christmas instead of spending hours on the computer trying to sign up. Think he cares about yours?

Officials said it was because HealthCare.gov could not verify Obama’s identity. What? OK Nancy, Harry, time to start calling the Obama administration “truthers.”

So how is it remotely possible that, despite all that is already publicly known about our President, Obama, that his identity can not be verified by the same system that is supposedly “verifying” everyone else?

This should be investigated. Who else among us is stealth in our government?

Could it have anything to do with why all of Obama’s records in school, both as a student and so-called professor are sealed, or concealed?

Link: Healthcare.gov can’t verify Obama’s identity.