I guess Carlyle hasn't been the same since Edward Snowden.

December 20, 2014

Bu Jim Brewer

Shares of The Carlyle Group (CG) (click here) have received an average rating of “Hold” from the eleven ratings firms that are presently covering the company, Analyst Ratings Network.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have given a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month target price among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $33.90.

The Carlyle Group (NYSE:CG) opened at 27.45 on Thursday. The Carlyle Group has a 1-year low of $25.21 and a 1-year high of $39.38. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $28.3 and its 200-day moving average is $31.09. The company has a market cap of $1.849 billion and a P/E ratio of 13.00.

The Carlyle Group (NYSE:CG) last released its earnings on Wednesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.55 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $755.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $660.90 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.51 earnings per share. The Carlyle Group’s revenue was down 15.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that The Carlyle Group will post $2.70 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Do you know Edward Snowden isn't considered one of the greatest hackers in the world?

This is a Captain Crunch whistle. (click here) Get it? "Whistle," as in whistleblower. It belonged to John Draper, AKA "Captain Crunch." He is considered the first hacker ever, but, according to this list he was merely third most famous.  

The patterns are all to obvious.

The most recent USA Budget rolled back the Dodd-Frank regs on risky investments and another Bush is running for president. Hello?

What is really one of the most notable things the Bush Brothers share is the failure of Lehman Brothers. So, Jeb was inside Lehman and "W" was inside the White House and Paulson was inside the USA Treasury Department. I refuse to believe that was a coincidence.

The scenario one would expect with a Bush at Lehman and one in the White House would be a bailout of Lehman. That didn't happen. I guess that was too much like Dad's bailout of Neil's failed S&L Silverado. Don't bailout Neil because that is too much like an indictable offense. It is so much better to let the entire sector fail and then make  it obvious it wasn't simply a Bush that was bailed out.

2008
By Adam Shell

The fallout was fast and frightening, (click here) and will reach far into the future.

Almost 6 million lost jobs. A 5,000-point Dow plunge. The government bailing out cash-starved banks. General Motors and Chrysler declaring Chapter 11. The unemployment rate doubling to almost 10%. Consumers getting $4,500 handouts from Uncle Sam to buy a car. Talk of a 1930s-style depression.

To modern-day Wall Street historians, these bizarre events mimic the other-worldly feel of a Ripley's Believe It or Not episode. But all those unthinkable occurrences made news in the past year. They all tie back to Sept. 15, 2008, the day Wall Street titan Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy. The collapse of the investment bank was so shocking it triggered a financial tsunami of such size and scope that it was compared to the Great Depression.

And while the events of that panic-drenched day are probably not etched into peoples' memories as are the "I remember where I was" vividness of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, the space shuttle Challenger explosion or the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it will be remembered as the day Lehman's demise almost triggered a global financial meltdown....

I just don't want to hear the hatred about homelessness. Homelessness is the USA's failure to react to the one percent.

"...then the condo was sold..."
December 24, 2014

By Joseph Serna

..“There’s a lot of people (click here) that are just victim of circumstance, that didn’t go homeless because they’re lazy.”

Thomas said he became homeless after his parents died within weeks of each other and the condo he shared with them was sold.

The video has been viewed more than 11.4 million times on YouTube since it was posted on Monday. On Lin’s multiple social media pages, he says he was so moved by Thomas’ generosity that he put him up in a hotel and has launched a fundraiser to get Thomas back on his feet.

The account had more than $55,000 as of Wednesday morning. 

Bush is another Romney. They are poured out of the same mold. What is astounding to watch is the lack of his connection with reality. He only learned now that he is the one percent and has sought to devest his image, not his financial affiliations. Basically, he found out, "Oops, I like money too much."

Effective Dec. 31, Bush (click here) will no longer be employed by Tenet Healthcare or multinational financial services firm Barclays

He has also stopped booking paid speeches, though he will follow through on previous commitments through early next year

Bush is disentangling himself from business interests that could cause conflicts if he declares his candidacy for the Republican nomination

He remains a partner in three private equity funds and is still listed as a board member of Rayonier

Tenet supports Obamacare and predicts it will make $100 million off of new Obamacare signups this year

Bush is against Obamacare yet remained on the hospital chain's board from the beginning of the health care negotiations until now.

While Republicans, including Bush, like to point to the website at dot gov as a definition to the Affordable Care Act, they sincerely don't mind the stock earnings since the bill was signed. The graph above is Tenet Health Care (THC).

These earnings are across the board in USA healthcare companies. It doesn't matter the company all of them have stock market values that exploded after the bill was signed by President Obama. Rarely, does any Democrat point to this reality. The Republican rhetoric likes to have Americans believe it is the oil barons influencing the Obama Recovery. NOT.

Jeb Bush left Florida as governor in 2007. Immediately after leaving office in Florida, Jeb Bush was participating in Tenet.

May 9, 2007

A senior member of the Bush dynasty (click here) is about to get a large sum of money from a company with a history of ethical violations.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Jeb Bush, the president's brother and former governor of Florida, is up for election Thursday as a director of troubled hospital chain Tenet Healthcare (THC). Assuming he's (Jeb Bush) waved through, his pay in his first year would come to nearly $37,000 a day.

This is the same Tenet that had to pay $900 million to Uncle Sam last summer to settle charges that it had overbilled Medicare and Medicaid over many years.

Nine hundred million dollars.

The U.S. attorneys announcing the settlement accused the company of "fraud" and trying to "manipulate and cheat the system."

Mike Leavitt, the Health and Human Services Secretary appointed by Jeb's brother George, said the company had "fraudulently abused the Medicare program."

It's also the same Tenet that just paid $80 million to the IRS after an audit found it owed back taxes going back as far as 1995.

The company recently had to restate nearly five years of earnings statements after an investigation into its books.

And this is just the big stuff. Tenet's recent public filings read like a police blotter. One of its clinics in South Carolina performed 436 open heart operations without certification. The company is being sued in California by staff claiming they were systematically short-changed on pay and overtime, in breach of the state's labor code. Three former Tenet staff members, at a New Orleans hospital it owned, are under investigation for allegedly euthanizing four patients following Hurricane Katrina.

April 21, 2014

A possible Jeb Bush presidential bid in 2016 (click here) may be partly undermined by his rush, in the years after he left the Florida statehouse, to make a lot of money, quickly. See, he was only worth $1.3 million, and he wanted to actually be rich....

..."a net worth of $1.3 million and an unapologetic determination to expand his wealth, telling friends that his finances had suffered during his time in government," according to Barbaro. That suffering is calculable; when he entered office, he was worth $2 million....

...Bush sat on the board of one company called InnoVida, a Florida firm that manufactured building materials. Until, that is, the company's president was indicted and it went bankrupt. Bush sat on the board of a soap company that collapsed, prompting lawsuits. He advised Lehman Brothers, the financial firm whose collapse helped trigger the 2008 economic meltdown, by

unsuccessfully reaching out to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim for a bailout. (That plan was called "Project Verde," which is a little on the nose.)...

Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim

Not bad, Jeb created his own equities firm instead of joining Bain Capital. Become a governor and find out your friends really, really like you. The chairman is Jeb's cousin, John Ellis Bush. Everyone remembers John Ellis from the elections of "W". Ellis is the first person to report George won the presidency in 2000. "W" won the presidency when voter rolls were expunged from the Florida electorate by Katherine Harris, Jeb's secretary of state. The firm is based in Coral Gables, Florida.

July 17, 2014

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) (click here) joined with a team of bankers to create a private equity investment firm, a development that raises new questions about whether he will run for president in 2016.

Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell confirmed the creation of the entity, Britton Hill Holdings LLC, which was first reported Thursday by Bloomberg. It was created in 2013....

...Bloomberg reported that Bush teamed with former bankers from Credit Suisse Group AG and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to create a Florida-based investment firm. The firm has made investments tied to the oil and gas industries....

The 2000 presidential campaign

...The US media (click here) was very careful not to probe too deep into the issue of voter fraud. Instead, there was a united effort not to cast any shadow of illegitimacy on the election result....

...The Choicepoint Scandal: “Journalist Greg Palast has shown that the firm cooperated with Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, in a conspiracy of voter fraud, involving the central voter file, during the US Presidential Election of 2000. The allegations charge that 57,700 people (15% of the list), primarily Democrats of African-American and Hispanic descent, were incorrectly listed as felons and thus barred from voting. Palast estimates that 80% of these people would have voted, and that 90% of those who would have voted, would have voted for Al Gore.”...

The impropriety of Jeb Bush in most aspects of his life is more than interesting. What I find amusing is that "W" was CEO of failed oil firms, not just once but three times. Interesting how that pattern of failure continues with the Bush presidential hopeful Jeb.

I doubt this regime will have much longevity.

The greatest asset the Islamic State ever had was surprise. As long as the victories were easy and the casualties were few it was popular. Popular is the war lord structure.

They are sustaining losses without high levels of citizen deaths which translates into a greater fear of the Islamic State among their people. Fear is the only thing binding the people together. They learn the rules and surrender to them.

December 27, 2014

A 14-year-old Syrian boy (click here) has given himself in to Iraqi guards wearing a vest full of explosives, The New York Times reports. The teenager, recruited by the Islamic State, said that a mission to bomb a Shiite mosque was his only chance to escape militants.

Usaid Barho, 14, told a NYT reporter that he played soccer, loved Jackie Chan movies, and dreamed of becoming a doctor.

That was before he was recruited by the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL) in Syria and forced to convert to radical Shiite-hating beliefs....

There have been many successful attacks upon the Islamic State. Something in the number of over 2000 bombs. It really is not that big of a place. So, the people still living in the land occupied by the Islamic State are receiving regular bombing alerts and/or the noise of war very frequently. This regime is relying on child soldiers. That is not a productive society; it is one relinquishing their lives to power. There is a ruling class and they have nothing to lose but to be feared. At the very least they are wanted for crimes against humanity, but, they are genocidal and face many, many murders.

There was a jet shot down a day or so ago. That is anti-aircraft gun(s). It takes only a few people to fire those missiles. They probably found it among the ruins somewhere. The allied coalition denies it was downed by a surface to air missile. The pilot lived, it doesn't sound like it was destroyed by a missile actually.

If one listens to the noise coming out of the regime it is too embellished to be believable. They are going to take over the world and kill and destroy any other religion into oblivion. I don't think so. I heard that before? "I will destroy you." Now, where was that. Oh, yeah, the United Nations. The 902nd plenary meeting. 1960. Nikta Sergeyevich Khrushchev  didn't throw his shoe, he simply banged the desk with it. It left most with the feeling he was very frustrated. He at least had the weapons to make that a real threat though. After a while, one has seen them come and seen them go.

This is the Kurds below. Not the Islamic State. It does look as though the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.

Go, Kurds, Go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The officer has a right to defend himself.

Young black men are afraid of police officers. It is legitimate to estimate the one young man that was drifting away from the scene was reasonably scared of being shot for no reason, except, he and his friend was talking.

The other aspect is investigating the gun 18 year old Mr. Martin was carrying. Was it his? Where did he get it? Why was he carrying it? If he was carrying it because he was frightened to police killing him that is problem.

December 24, 2014
Staff

BERKELEY • Several dozen protesters (click here) gathered tonight near the Mobil gas station where an 18-year-old man was fatally shot Tuesday night.

The protesters chanted and screamed at officers who were guarding the station. 

Some of the protesters marched from there onto Interstate 170 nearby, at times closing the highway. Police used pepper spray on some of the protesters.

The crowd included the mother and the stepfather of the teenager who was killed.

The protest came a night after a Berkeley police officer fired at least three shots at a suspect who pulled a gun on him....

...The officer's attorney, Brian Millikan, said one of the men spoke with the officer, while the other kept wandering away despite the officer's commands to stay near him, Millikan said....

...Belmar said one round struck the suspect, Antonio D. Martin, 18, and one struck a tire of the police car....

His parents would know him and can estimate their son's actions when he pulled a gun on the police officer. I am not questioning the right of the police officer to defend himself, I am saying there are other questions here that need to be answered. 

It is unclear why the police officer, who was alone in his police cruiser, would stop when there was no crime being committed. Harassment as a chronic condition in a neighborhood or city will raise tensions between citizens and police. This is the second time there has been confrontation first by police before there was any killings. There was the case in St. Louis where three African Americans were talking together and the police stopped without responding to a crime and now this. This may be unjustified harassment and the cities young black men have come to a conclusion about their self-defense.

There is a difference between responding to a crime and harassing citizens.

Matthew 1:18-25New International Version (NIV)

Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dreamand said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Are we connected or not?

Matthew 1:1-17New International Version (NIV)

The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah

1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,

Isaac the father of Jacob,

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,

Perez the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

4 Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon,

5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,

7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,

Rehoboam the father of Abijah,

Abijah the father of Asa,

8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,

Jehoram the father of Uzziah,

9 Uzziah the father of Jotham,

Jotham the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh the father of Amon,

Amon the father of Josiah,

11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[c] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

12 After the exile to Babylon:

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,

Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

13 Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,

Abihud the father of Eliakim,

Eliakim the father of Azor,

14 Azor the father of Zadok,

Zadok the father of Akim,

Akim the father of Elihud,

15 Elihud the father of Eleazar,

Eleazar the father of Matthan,

Matthan the father of Jacob,

16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

"But I heard him exclaim, 'ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

December 19, 2014

NPR Staff

This Christmas Eve (click here) people all over the world will log on to the official Santa Tracker to follow his progress through U.S. military radar. This all started in 1955, with a misprint in a Colorado Springs newspaper and a call to Col. Harry Shoup's secret hotline at the Continental Air Defense Command, now known as NORAD.

Shoup's children, Terri Van Keuren, 65, Rick Shoup, 59, and Pam Farrell, 70, recently visited StoryCorps to talk about how the tradition began....

Norad Track Santa (click here)

'Twas the Night Before Christmas" (click here)

The author of " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" was born in New York in 1779 and any closer to 1776 it might have written the US Constitution himself. The biography is at the bottom of the poem.

Clement Clarke Moore's famous poem, which he named "A Visit From St. Nicholas," was published for the first time on December 23, 1823 by a New York newspaper, the Sentinel. Since then, the poem has been reprinted, translated into innumerable languages and circulated throughout the world.

Clement Clarke Moore was born in 1779 to a well-known New York family. His father, Reverend Benjamin Moore, was president of (what is now) Columbia University and was the Episcopal Bishop of New York. Moore's father also participated in George Washington's first inauguration and gave last rites to Alexander Hamilton after Hamilton was mortally wounded in an 1804 duel with Aaron Burr. Moore himself was an author, a noted Hebrew scholar, spoke five languages, and was an early real-estate owner and developer in Manhattan...

Sorry to hear Former President Bush has become ill.

I don't want to make light of a serious situation, but, 90 years of living does have it's set backs. Wasn't it just this year when he skydived again? So, with all the excitement of the holidays, the food and beverages, he tipped the scales a little bit.

I can only guess, but, since he has a heart condition we all know about, he might have a little fluid in his lungs and maybe some puffy ankles. He might even have a touch of pneumonia.

Those were the classic symptoms my maternal grandmother had in her coming century birthdate. She lived to be 94 years old, but, every year about the same time and it right after the holidays she'd get shortness of breath, too. They'd check her blood count and sometimes she'd even need a transfusion of a pint. So, we called it her "Annual Tune-Up." A few days and she was ready to go for another year.

I hope the senior Bush has a speedy recovery. He might not be able to be home for Christmas as he needs to be ready to go home, not must maybe ready to go home. A little medical attention is good for the soul from time to time. I wish he and Mrs. Barbara Bush a Merry Christmas. 

The former President should have no problem finding many socks to hang by the chimney.

December 24, 2014
By Bruna Nessef

George H.W. Bush (click here) is currently hospitalized after experiencing a shortness of breath earlier this evening.

The former president was taken by ambulance to the Houston Methodist Hospital as a precaution, his spokesman Jim McGrath said tonight, adding that the 90-year-old will be held for observation. No other details are available at this time.

Bush began experiencing health problems back in 1991 when, as president, he entered the hospital with an irregular heartbeat. Doctors diagnosed him as having Graves Disease, a thyroid condition that his wife, Barbara Bush, also had.

However, H.W. seemed to be in good spirits recently, and even celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving from a helicopter over Kennebunkport, Maine, back in June. Bush made the jump at 6,000 feet, accompanied by former members of the U.S. Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights....

There could up to or somewhat more than 4000 worker deaths by the time the World Cup comes around again.

A Qatari official poses with the World Cup trophy during a tour last year. (Getty Images)

June 1, 2014
By Greg Doyel

...Workers (click here) are dying over there, more than 200 from Nepal alone in 2013, with more than 4,000 migrant workers projected to die in Qatar by the time the football cathedrals and palaces are in place....

If Qatar wanted to host the world games I am sure they would have taken into account the heat that would accompany such an event. I am also fairly sure Qatar can afford indoor air conditioned stadiums powered by solar and/or wind. So, this may be quite a wonderful event for the World Cup, but, they need oversight to the project because the workers constructing the venues are in peril.

US House Speaker Boner doesn't have to do a thing about Congressman Grimm.

As a matter of fact Speaker Boner should feel proud of Congressman Grimm. Why only a month ago, a week ago the Congressman was voting on things like the US Budget. Today, Congressman Grimm has done the right thing, he plead guilty. So, with the Congressman finally giving up on telling fairy tales to the law and threatening death to a member of the press there is every reason for Speaker Boner to swell with pride in Grimm becoming a more wholesome citizen.

It isn't as though he killed the media person or anything like that even though threatening the man with death is an ethics violation and a crime that can be prosecuted.

December 23, 2014
By Tom Hayes

NEW YORK (AP) — People (click here) familiar with plea negotiations say U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm of New York City plans to plead guilty to a federal tax evasion charge rather than go to trial next month.

A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn. The Staten Island Republican is expected to enter the plea in a case stemming from an investigation of his campaign financing....

It isn't even like Grimm knew he was committing crimes so much as believing he was privileged as a member of Congress and basically untouchable.

It is a shame poor Grimm's Christmas is tainted with such drudgery and menial issues.

The Fourth Circuit does it again. It is the only anyone within North Carolina can move outside the corrupted courts.

These right wing legislators are horrible. They don't care about the US Constitution at all. 

December 22, 2014

...Informed consent (click here) frequently consists of a fully-clothed conversation between the patient and physician, often in the physician’s office. It is driven by the “patient’s particular needs and circumstances” …  so that the patient receives the information he or she wants in a setting that promotes an informed and thoughtful choice. This provision, however, finds the patient half-naked or disrobed on her back on an examination table, with an ultrasound probe either on her belly or inserted into her vagina. … Informed consent has not generally been thought to require a patient to view images from his or her own body much less in a setting in which personal judgment may be altered or impaired. Yet this provision requires that she do so or “avert her eyes.” Rather than engaging in a conversation calculated to inform, the physician must continue talking regardless of whether the patient is listening. … The information is provided irrespective of the needs or wants of the patient, in direct contravention of medical ethics and the principle of patient autonomy. Forcing this experience on a patient over her objections in this manner interferes with the decision of a patient not to receive information that could make an indescribably difficult decision even more traumatic and could “actually cause harm to the patient.” … And it is intended to convey not the risks and benefits of the medical procedure to the patient’s own health, but rather the full weight of the state’s moral condemnation.

In July 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Woman’s Right to Know Act over then-Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto. Doctors and abortion providers filed suit, asking that the act be enjoined. One provision of the law, the “Display of Real-Time View Requirement,” forces doctors or technicians to perform an ultrasound on any woman seeking an abortion at least four but not more than 72 hours before the abortion is to take place....