I nominate former Governor Bob McDonnell for the Republican candidate for President.

January 13, 2015
By Nick Ochnser

RICHMOND, Va. — Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (click here) will have to appeal his corruption conviction from behind bars, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge James R. Spencer denied McDonnell's request to remain free during the appeal and must report to prison Feb. 9.
Appeals court justices could reverse that decision, and within a few hours of Spencer's ruling, McDonnell's lawyers filed a two-page notice of appeal with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here....

He was equally as promising to the Republicans as current Governor Scott Walker. He is claiming he is not guilty and is appealing the decision convicting him. Who knows? Even if the appeal takes two years to be heard, he'll be out of prison just after inauguration. That is plenty of time to get started. The Vice President can pinch hit until he is at the office. 

It's a shame really, because, he was just trying to compete with his peers in Romney. It is my guess the former Governor Romney has more than one Rolex. 

This was an exceptional editorial. It arrests the terror out of terrorism. It doesn't exploit fear and seeks to think rather than react.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC: France's lower house of parliament (click here) voted 488 to 1 to extend French airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. 488 to 1. I recognize those kinds of margins: the sort of margin the PATRIOT Act passed by and the authorization for the use of military force to invade Afghanistan....

It removes the enemy instilled by witnessed events. It takes away the weapon of the killers. 
 

Any news media of the free world, be it print or otherwise, carrying the hate mongering of the criminals called ISIS or Al Qaeda or Boka Haram, etc., is REQUIRED to give equal time to Charlie Hebdo cartoons and content.

The US House Homeland Security bill passed, but, it is a waste of time and taxpayer money.

January 14, 2015

José Díaz-Balart (click here) talks with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske about the politics of what’s at stake as the House votes on funding Homeland Security. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell also reports on the state of the vote.

The Homeland Security funding measure in the House has passed, but, it is not a clean bill. The Republicans have attached defunding of any immigration policy for the Undocumented. The Republicans are playing politics again.

This bill will never pass the US Senate, nor should it. It is an obvious power play by the US House for political gain. The Republicans are attempting to manipulate National Security for their political funding.

This is unethical and there needs to be ethics charges filed against any and all who have sought to use the USA People's treasury for their own purposes. They aren't earning their salaries. They are using the US House floor for political grandstanding.

There is another attachment on Dodd-Frank to this bill. This time Representative Seth Moulton from Massachusetts is providing an amendment to eliminate any and all funding to anyone or organization with a history of sponsoring terrorism. He states the USA's financial status has considerable impact on leveraging against bad actors.

Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas, objects to the amendment because President Obama is allowing terrorists to cross the southern border of the USA. Politics. All politics. The US House is not conducting the business of the country. Mr. Hensarling has done nothing since he took the podium but spout Republican rhetoric.

This House bill also provides a nice two year cushion for banks to adjust to any law in Dodd-Frank. Of course, the reason for this is political funding. If the plutocrats of Wall Street fund the Republican plutocrats in the US House and Senate there is the underlying promise to completely destroy Dodd-Frank in 2017. This is pandering politics for the purpose of funding. It is corruption. Why not simply eliminate Dodd-Frank all together and get it over with if it is such a horrible law that banks need another two years to adjust to the law? This bill is an advertisement to Republican funding organizations and nothing more.

The Moulton amendment is defeated. Amazing. The US House is compromising the national security of the USA in this bill since it is not going to successfully pass the US Senate. If the Republican House and Senate continues their manipulation of the outcomes of Homeland Security they are committing treason. What else is there to call it?

The USA Treasury has become a donor to the political aspirations of the Republicans as they pass a bill that will not pass any other governing body in this country? 

The Undocumented is real. The USA did dearly nothing to stop those already here for more than a decade and the children who have known nothing else. This is a problem. There is no way the USA can or should spend billions up on billions chasing down productive and lawful people within it's borders. They have to be incorporated into the population of the USA and they should, as they are honorable and moral people and an asset to the USA.

President Bashir Assad and John McCain need to debate in open forum.

How is the revolution going, John?

January 14, 2015 

Western states’ policies (click here) were responsible for the attacks by Paris gunmen last week, Syrian President Bashar Assad told a Czech newspaper, adding that countries should share intelligence concerning terrorism.
 
Assad reiterated his condolences to the families of the 17 victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris in an interview with Czech newspaper Literarni noviny, excerpts of which were published by state SANA news agency on Wednesday. 

He said that Damascus sympathizes with the families of victims as Syria is “one of the countries which best understand this issue because we have been suffering from terrorism for the past four years and we lost thousands of innocent lives.”
 
However, Assad reminded that Syria has been addressing the West and “talking about these repercussions” since the conflict in Syria began in 2011.
“We have been saying, you shouldn’t support terrorism and provide it with a political umbrella, because this will reflect on your countries and your people. They didn’t listen to us,” Assad said. 

He accused European policies of being responsible for the crisis in Syria and said that the Paris attacks “brought European policies to account, because they are responsible for what happened in our region, for what happened in France, and maybe what happened earlier in other European countries."...

The Dow is hardly in a dangerous slide, kindly watch the language. The Dow as due for an adjustment.

A value of over 17 thousand and Wall Street is pouting. What a shame. What is "W"rong, no adrenaline today?

January 14, 2015
By Adam Shell
...The Dow Jones industrial (click here) average was down about 180 points, or 1% in morning trading. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 0.8% and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 0.5%.

It's been a volatile start to the year for the Dow. Tuesday, it suffered a point swing of nearly 425 points. It was up as much as 282 points before heading south and tumbling as much as 143 points. It closed down 27 points at 17,614, leaving it down 1.2% for the year and 2.4% below its Dec. 26 peak....

Wall Street can take a lesson from the Small Business Economy. This is the OPTIMISM Survey. 

January 13, 2015
By Doug Short
The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends is out today. (click here) The January update for December came in at 100.4, up/down 2.3 points from the previous month. The index is now at the 63.2 percentile in this series and at a new post-recession high, its highest level since October 2006.

The Investing.com forecast was for 97.9.

Here is the opening summary of the news release.

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey rose 2.3 points to 100.4 in December, its highest level since October of 2006, with positive gains in eight of 10 indices, a strong signal that American small businesses could be finally shaking off the effects of the Great Recession.

The first chart below highlights the 1986 baseline level of 100 and includes some labels to help us visualize that dramatic change in small-business sentiment that accompanied the Great Financial Crisis. Compare, for example the relative resilience of the index during the 2000-2003 collapse of the Tech Bubble with the far weaker readings of the past four years. The NBER declared June 2009 as the official end of the last recession.

Small Business economies don't have the luxury of large residuals as a buffer to market adjustments. Small Business economies work hard for their very existence.  They have work ethics Wall Street can only dream about. Small Businesses found far less contraction with the Great Recession. They recovered far more quickly, albeit with some hardship. And they are growing. Small Business economies are the backbone of the USA. They are strong and resistant because of their work ethic and the knowledge they have about their consumers. We are doing just fine.

This from a man whom Erectile Dysfuction medications are viewed as a gift from heaven above.

That is no lie. These preachers answer questions by the elderly infertile, "You just never know what can occur with god." See, the old folks are having sex and they are concerned the only reason they engage in 'the wild thing' is to have children. No birth control, you understand. The preachers say this stuff in full knowledge there is a camera and microphone in the room. 

Fair game.

By Thomas Beaumont

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (click here) has accused President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, of double standards in parenting, saying in an interview published Tuesday that the firsf family shelters its daughters from some things but allows them to listen to the music of Beyoncé.
The sharp rhetoric signals that, should he run for the Republican presidential nomination, Huckabee would make cultural and social issues the cornerstones of his campaign.
While promoting his new book, the former Baptist pastor told People magazine, "I don't understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything - how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school ... and yet they don't see anything that might not be suitable" in Beyoncé's lyrics. He also said Beyoncé's choreography is "best left for the privacy of her bedroom."
In his book, Huckabee describes the Grammy Award-winning Beyoncé's lyrics as "obnoxious and toxic mental poison." He also accuses Beyoncé's husband, rapper Jay-Z, of "exploiting his wife" like a "pimp."...

It is completely obvious North American producers never bothered to conduct market research to find their share.

ABU DHABI: The UAE said that OPEC will no longer move to shore up crude prices, arguing that rising North American shale oil output needed to be curbed.World prices have...

January 14, 2015
Agence France Presse
...“We cannot continue to be protecting a certain price,” (click here)  UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al-Mazrouei said.
“We have seen the oversupply, coming primarily from shale oil, and that needed to be corrected,” he told participants in the Gulf Intelligence UAE Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.
Oil prices continued their slide toward six-year lows in Asian trade on Tuesday after Brent crude closed below $50 a barrel the previous day for the first time since April 2009.
The fall came after Wall Street investment titan Goldman Sachs slashed its price outlook, adding to anxiety about global oversupply, weak demand and soft growth in the key Chinese and European markets....

Speaker Boner really knows how to make an impression.

Are you raising bats? Just curious.

The Speaker was never in trouble. It sounds as though the Hoyt family was involved with him. I hope the physicians can improve Mr. Hoyt's outcomes. At least he is getting treatment, right Mr. Speaker?

January 13, 2015
By Elahe Izadi
...According to a criminal complaint (click here) filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio, Ohio's Deer Park Police Chief contacted the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police about a 911 call Hoyt made in October and alleged threats made later when an officer showed up at the bartender's home address.

"Hoyt advised that he had been fired from his job at Wetherington Country Club in West Chest, Ohio, and did not have time to put something in John Boehner's drink," the complaint alleges. "Hoyt told the officer that he was Jesus Christ and that he was going to kill Boehner because Boehner was mean to him at the country club and because Boehner is responsible for Ebola."

Hoyt told the officer he had a Beretta .380 Automatic handgun that he was going to use to shoot Boehner, the complaint alleges. Hoyt volunteered to be taken in for a psychiatric evaluation. Investigators later found an SKS assault rifle magazine in his home. His mother said she had taken the gun itself to her home, where authorities located the weapon....

This is just a picture of a horse and rider flying over a competition fence, right?

Wrong. This is the center of concern for a local economy that connects with Wall Street.

January 14, 2015
...Will a show be held this summer? (click here) Will it be on Supply Road or under a new name at Flintfields in Acme? The unknowns have community and tourism leaders very concerned; the four-week horse show contributes an estimated $12 million to the local economy every year.
Traverse City Chamber CEO Doug Luciani tells The Ticker "it would be a disaster" if somehow the show is no longer held here.
Cherry Capital Airport Executive Director Kevin Klein, in Atlanta for an annual meeting with Delta Airlines, spells out more clearly the potential impact.
"I'm very nervous. We see 5-7 passengers per horse, so that's almost 9,000 passengers to us and to the [airline] carriers. The potential loss of an event like this could mean a reduction of overall air service during our peak summer season, which would affect restaurants, retailers, waiters, waitresses, the housekeeping staffs at hotels. They're all dependent upon these events for jobs."...

Don't tell me about local economies, I know about local economies. 

The failure in this particular situation belongs to the local mayor and council, but, more so the local county governing body. They never bother to meet the key players and understand the relationship of these people with their local economy. They take for granted their economy will always be untouchable year to year.

The leadership of any city or county has to hold these people in esteem to the outcomes of their economies and real jobs for the people that inhabit the voter box. This particular circumstance will require the city and county leadership to seek to find a solution that will continue to bring tourism to the area. Why is it leadership only realizes their real role in governing at times like this. The huge gap of sincere leadership is completely evident and the voters need to think twice at the ballot box next time. Sincere leadership does more than keep their eye on the treasury and budget.

Save me the tears, they don't accept plurality, it is just that simple.

Take it up with the folks in Mecca. Did you know there is only one Mecca/Mekkah? Did you know that? Well, guess what all Muslims are required by one of the pillars of Islam to make a pilgrimage during Hajj celebrating the same path as the prophets. It doesn't matter if they are Shia or Sunni or any other segregation of Islam, they all have the same obligations. Why is it that Hajj is sacred enough to obey the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, but, not the lives of the same people afterward?

These people are criminals. They are criminals. If a young Muslim is going to live in freedom to practice his or her religion in a country dedicated to equality of all faiths they need to get over themselves.

The reason these idiots in Syria are gathering support is because they romanticize and sexualize killing. There is nothing new here. We have seen young Muslims for decades to travel through Pakistan into the wild hills and mountains of Afghanistan to fight "JIHAD." Jihad is not about killing it is a method of survival of the people led by Mohammad when it was necessary. What has and still provides the basis for anger that radicals use as an excuse for jihad and fatwa is the Palestinian struggle. Palestine has absolutely nothing to do with the killing by international criminals in Syria or otherwise, therefore, there is absolutely no valid reason for these actions by radicals.

January 14, 2015
By Abdelkader Ben

AMSTERDAM — Something snapped. (click here) I was 13 years old, dreaming of books and girls and nothing else — a healthy Dutch kid with a Moroccan background who freewheeled through life. Then something happened that made me feel different from the pack. One day in history class, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie became the subject. Our teacher talked about freedom of expression; I talked about insulting the Prophet. There was an awkward silence. What was that Abdelkader guy talking about? Fatwhat?

But our teacher, Mr. Fok, understood me. He claimed the fatwa didn’t make sense. How could somebody be offended by fiction? How could using one’s imagination lead to the death sentence?How could using one’s imagination lead to the death sentence?

I remember standing up, my voice rising as I struggled to make an argument about the holiness of the Prophet to me and my community....

The satirical return of "Charlie Hebdo."

Reuters captured the very essence of this moment. 

A handwritten sign at a newsstand, which reads ''No more Charlie Hebdo'', is displayed after it sold out the limited stock of the satirical newspaper in Paris January 14, 2015.
Credit:Reuters/John Schults

 

January 14, 2015
By Ingrid Melander
(Reuters) - The first edition of Charlie Hebdo (click here) published after the deadly attacks by Islamist gunmen sold out within minutes at newspaper kiosks around France on Wednesday, with people queuing up to buy copies to support the satirical weekly.

"I've never bought it before, it's not quite my political stripes, but it's important for me to buy it today and support freedom of expression," said David Sullo, standing at the end of a queue of two dozen people at a kiosk in central Paris.... 

The attack on this charming newspaper was suppose to be end it's publication. It didn't. It is now held in affection by the world of civilized societies. Rather than closing it's doors, Charlie Hebdo has grown a global audience.

I found the focus by Reuters a sincere and profound twist of fate. Let this be a lesson to anyone that wants to destroy freedom. It doesn't work.