AMERICAN STUPIDITY, IMMIGRATION AND OTHER REASONS WHY ERIC CANTOR LOST HIS PRIMARY RACE.

The political world was shocked yesterday when somehow, someway, Eric Cantor, one of the most powerful members of Congress was roundly defeated by his Tea Party opponent. Cantor was widely expected to win over his much less funded opponent, David Brat, by 11 points. It wasn't even close. Ouch! Why was this?


First and foremost, even though no media outlet is saying this, Cantor was Jewish. True, no one is saying that's why they voted against him, but these are the same people fighting tooth and nail versus Obama and it's not just cause he is a Democrat if you get my drift. The Republican party is increasingly being run by racists and if you can't see that writing on the wall, you are looking at the wrong wall.

Take the two Tea Party morons who shot two cops in Nevada this week, who again are being claimed to be part of some government conspiracy to devalue the Tea Party, a fact they are completely capable of doing on their own. I have heard rumors that the "Don't tread on me flag," never existed and these guys were not even at the Bundy ranch. Unfortunately for these idiots, who never let a tragedy go by before screaming CONSPIRACY at their top of their lungs, are fouled up by facts that have them on tape on NBC at the ranch and confirmation they were asked to leave by Cliven Bundy's son, as well as pictures of the flag and swastika the two draped the dead cops in, which I admit is at least a sign of some flare.

But these two idiots were also white supremacists who believed in a coming race war while also feeling the government was out to get them. Paranoid much? I know the government may come for me one day, but shooting innocent people, even the police, is not the way to go. This column is. The fact remains that these two are NOT anomalies within the party, but are in fact the driving force behind the extreme right, one that is actively fighting for a fascist state, even if they don't know it. Does anyone really believe Hitler came into power saying he would kill Jews and destroy the world? Of course not. He played against their fears of immigrants, like Jews, the government, who at the time were indeed destroying the economy with terrible ideas, and homosexuals, who were supposedly destroying their way of life. Does any of that sound awfully familiar because it is the basic GOP platform right now. And some of you are dumb enough out there to keep voting for this.


If these people that we see at Republican demonstrations with their badly spelled signs are still talking about Benghazi and the IRS and a dozen other things that are code for "WE HATE HAVING A BLACK PRESIDENT," what hope does the party have? None. And that should make the democrats very, very happy.

Another cause for his loss was his stance on immigration which is both being overplayed and under-reported, an oxymoron if I ever saw one. We do have an unreasonable idea of immigration in this country, that if stopped with current conditions, would triple food prices overnight. This is because the plantation owners and their slaves, oops, I mean, "job creators," and "low, low wage employees," would fall apart like Alabama and Georgia did when the tried to outlaw illegal immigration. Instead of raising salaries to attract new workers, they just declared bankruptcy and let the food rot where it lie. This is the antithesis of free market and disproves everything the GOP is supposedly working for. If illegal immigrants stop picking our food, we starve. Fun.

On the flip side, due to an incredible bit of hitting the wall of unintended consequences, Obama's version of the DREAM act amnesty is spreading across Central America and, as a direct result, tens of thousands of children are heading across the border with the knowledge that if they get here, they can stay. The sad part is they are right. Many are being turned loose at bus stops in Arizona, something that is not making Jan Brewer very happy. This is a humanitarian crisis, and the fact that the US economy looks to be going under any day now, this may be even worse down the road. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and this is definitely one of them.


This face is resonating with many Republicans right now and both TV pundits like Laura Ingraham and websites like Drudge Report have been selling these stories to the hilt. Cantor tried to talk out of both sides of his mouth and got run over like any politician these days who refuses to take a stand. Ask Obama how that is turning out for him? Oh that's right, his numbers are still in the low forties, which on a quick side note, Bloomberg.com has been crowing today that these numbers are his worst yet. Actually, the President hit 38% in 2011 so, no he isn't at his lowest numbers yet. Way to check your facts morons. But as for Cantor, sometimes standing in the middle of the road gets you plastered by a semi.

Polls has Cantor ahead, but as I have discovered for some time now, there are no real polls for House races like this ever. This time was no different with only two polls, one showing Cantor ahead by ten points and a second, run by a right wing organization whose numbers were just as bad for Romney, had Cantor up by forty points. Once again, the GOP got caught flat footed by relying on numbers that were pure fantasy. If you don't have accurate polls, you cannot correctly gauge what to do next. It is the number one reason Romney lost in 2012 and it appear as if the GOP is all set to try it again in 2014. Wow.


This is from Time magazine and shows what the GOP is really thinking:

“My understanding from talking to people down in Richmond was that the real issues seem to be that he wasn’t strongly enough anti-immigration reform, that he voted to end the government shutdown and he voted to raise the debt ceiling,” Bobbie Kilberg, who heads the Northern Virginia Technology Council and held a May fundraiser for Cantor, told TIME. “And you know, at some point in time, these people need to understand you just simply have to govern. These people need to understand that we need immigration reform. And these people need to understand that Eric Cantor was a conservative on all those issues. He was a mainstream conservative."

Read that first part again. The Republican party felt Eric Cantor wasn't far enough to the right on immigration, voted to end the government shutdown that was destroying the economy by the way, and voted to raise the debt ceiling, which if we hadn't, there wouldn't be a country left. In other words, the current Tea Party ideal is to destroy the US and everyone in it. That may not be what they really want, but is certainly what they are voting for. The Tea Party are anarchists posing as right wing loons. They've moved so far to the right, they become lefties. That's funny.


This loss all but ends any form of immigration reform which this country desperately needs. Instead, we have illegals pouring across our borders, with no place to put them, which is odd as we gave KBR $500 million dollars to build these alleged death camps, oops, I mean, Illegal Relocation Centers, and have seen pictures of a few of them that seem to actually exist. So why are we not using them? Or do they really not exist and that begs the question, what happened to the half a billion we gave to KBR? The government can't have it both ways. If they do exist, why not use them and if they don't where is our money we gave them?

This race may be more competitive now, and hopefully a democrat will win, who is coincidently a Professor at the same college as the GOP winner, Brat. We can only hope that Brat will say or do something so stupid he will Todd Akin himself out of the job. And I love the fact that I can use that jerks name as an adjective now. Stop voting for the extreme right unless you really want to see how bad things can get. Does no one remember what happened the last time the GOP controlled everything? The entire country sank into near oblivion. Vote Republican in 2014 and you can rinse and repeat 2008 all over again.

WALMART, GUNS, THE ECONOMY AND OTHER THINGS THAT GO BANG!

Walmart had a very bad week, and for once, they were innocent bystanders for the most part. Karma can get you when you least expect it. First, they had their logo spread all over the news when one of their truckers fell asleep and nearly killed Tracy Morgan. Then, two radicalized, allegedly Tea Party/white supremacists idiots went on a shooting spree against the cops and then wound up in a Walmart. Good times.


As always, little is known about the two shooters so the media is making it up as they go along. What we do know is that two white people, one male, one female, entered a pizza place in Las Vegas and targeted two police officers. They then took their guns and ammo, shouted "this is a revolution" and went to a Walmart next door and that is where the story gets murky. The two entered the store and told everyone to get out. Then at some point, they shot someone else, who may have had a gun themselves and may have shot and wounded one of the gunman before that person, whose sex is still unknown, was killed. Great reporting as always. This stuff should have been cleared up right away but between police officers who can't grasp how important it is to get the right info out and a media incapable of reporting the facts, we have no idea what really occurred.

What we do know is this: regardless of how it happened, this incident demonstrates how some of the less stable out there may be targeting police for the near constant barrage of bad press they get lately. Rumors of them having a "don't tread on me flag," and being kicked off the Bundy ranch for being too radicalized, suggest these two were real whack jobs. However, it is telling that they went after the police, something that may start happening with greater and greater frequency. Our police force is becoming more and more militarized, with some getting grenade launchers (WTF?) so they can be "prepared for any emergency." The only problem is that this is not their job. Their job is protect and serve, not intimidate and terrify.


If there is a problem they cannot solve, it is why we have SWAT and the national guard. Now, every cop is Robocop and the effects are having a chilling look at our future. Do we really want a  militarized police who act more like brigands than cops? Considering how many cases we hear about police brutality, theft and privateering, we should be worried. There have been so many cases of cops planting evidence, killing pets and unarmed people, and stealing from the general public, we should be labeling them as a public nuisance. Recent FBI stats say you are eight times more likely to be shot by a cop than a civilian. You are twice as likely to be assaulted by a cop than a stranger. As a matter of fact the number of total violent crimes was twice as high for cops than for criminals in 2010. We are paying these dicks to screw us and the end result are people like these two snapping.

I am certainly not condoning shooting cops, unless they do something that requires them to be shot, like kicking in your door unannounced in one of those awful No-Knock raids that should be banned except under the most extreme circumstances. But the point remains that until we see real reform within the police departments nationwide, these kinds of situation are going to increase.


Now depending on what the truth of this situation is, a civilian with a gun may have been the best protection we have had. Whether this person is dead or not, or even existed, is still up for debate. Rumors are still swirling that a civilian with a gun shot at the two cop killers and may have hit one. If this is the case, then this is yet another case where the anti-gun crowd is going to have to eat crow. I keep hearing how they has never been a case of a civilian with a gun stopping a mass murder which is just plain wrong. The Clakamas mall shooting was stopped by a guy with a gun, a Colorado off duty cop with her personal weapon stopped an attempted movie theater shooting, two students armed in Texas stopped a potential school shooting, and now this. People who know how to use guns are not the problem. Letting the NRA dictate stupid rules, like denying background checks for felons and the insane, is. Anyone still belonging to that group needs to get a life, and this comes from a die hard second amendment supporter. The NRA is a Republican, gun manufacturing lobby, nothing more.

Lastly, we have the economy which appear to be on the verge of an epic fail. Shadowstats recently said the birth/death rate for business is increasing for the latter, which seems to be held up be recent business data, and that the amount of jobs created last month was actually zero. So, on top of the 100,000 jobs lost, no jobs were even created. The few that were paid nothing. Awesome.


The housing market continues to slide. Last fall, the government shut down was blamed. Then over the winter, it was the polar vortex. Recent numbers still show the housing market dropping for all mid-level homes. Just like retail got the same explanation, high end housing and retail have done just fine over the same periods.

Our unemployment rate is still somewhere between 23-37%, or Depression era levels. If some economists are right, we may even be entering another recession if the next quarter shows negative growth, even with highly fixed figures. Neither government nor business seems to understand that by not strengthening the middle class, all of their so called solutions went up in smoke. The democrats called for small increases that did nothing, while the GOP offered nothing other than the word NO. Their platform, which has been an observational failure throughout Europe, is still going strong within their ranks even though it has a 0% chance of working. Brilliant.


Anyone who looks at the jobs being created will see that 90% of them pay minimum wage like home health care services, retail, hospitality and restaurants. Until we have a work force that can buy things, our economy will continue to slide no matter what we do. Raising the minimum wage is a good start, but we also need to end outsourcing, make corporations and the rich actually pay taxes, and stop treating housing as a way to make money. We are running out of time people. And if you vote for the Republicans in 2014, there won't be a country left by 2016, if we even make it to November at this point. A reckoning is coming and we are all vulnerable. Don't let it.

DOUCEHBAG OF THE WEEK: EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING CONNECTED WITH BOWE BERGDAHL

The case of Bowe Bergdahl is one of those rare instances where anyone connected with the release of this controversial POW has done great damage to his/her reputation. From the President, to Republicans, to the media, to even his father, no one is getting away unscathed. Let's see those runner ups.

1)Maureen Dowd- This conservative columnist this week wrote an article about how she tried pot candy for the first time and "almost died." Never mind the fact that it is impossible for anyone to die from THC overdoses, dumb ass here did the equivalent of trying booze for the first time and instead of having a beer or two, drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels. Apparently, after eating far more pot candy than she should have, she got wicked stoned and started freaking out, not having any experience with the drug. After she came down eight hours later (which seems exceptionally long to begin with), she found out she ate way too much and bitched about there not being more information on the wrapper. Likewise with booze again, there is no recommended dosage on the bottle either. Anyone consuming any intoxicant should be well aware of what they are doing before hand, but not this genius who, like most Republicans, thought she knew better. Try smoking it next time. It's not as intense. Moron.

2)Andrew Criscione- This "author" wrote one of the worst pieces of journalism I have ever seen. Here it is for those who want a good laugh: http://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20140606/OPINION/306069987

This right wing loon doesn't seem to understand what net neutrality is. Net neutrality is meant to have no regulations on internet service other than everyone gets treated equally. That's it. He's fighting for something that is the exact opposite of what is going on. Net neutrality doesn't impose price fixing, massive new regulations or anything of the sort. Obama and the FCC are trying to fix something that isn't broken so companies like Verizon and Comcast can gorge us. It's also why the right is firmly against net neutrality, which is yet another common bond between Obama and the GOP, like SS and Medicare cuts which until recently Obama supported. You know you are in trouble when the word "socialism" appears anywhere in an article like this, demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge over what that word actually means. Does anyone on the right posses a brain anymore?

3)Pink Floyd- I like Pink Floyd a lot. I have many, many of their albums. However, two members, Roger Waters and Nick Mason, recently demanded the Rolling Stones cancel their concert in Israel because of their suppression of the Palestinians. The Rolling Stones wisely ignored such a request. First and foremost, the people going to said concert are just ordinary average Israelis looking to see the Stones. Stop injecting politics into everything. Second, does Pink Floyd play the US and UK dates? They do. So why are they playing here and abroad whose human rights are even worse than Israel? Where is that boycott? Roger Waters needs to shut the hell up. If I want to hear his voice, I'll put on one of his albums.


4) Dr. Annette Bosworth- This is the definition of a bad week. On Monday, this woman was running for a US Senate seat, Republican of course, in South Dakota. Tuesday, she lost. Worse, she found out while being interviewed by Fox News. She finished fourth out of five. Ouch. But wait, there's more. Wednesday, she was arrested for six counts of perjury and six counts of filing false documents. She is calling it political persecution which is possible but who really knows. She made headlines earlier when she compared food stamp recipients to wild animals. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

5)ECB and Negative Bank Deposit Rates- The European Central Bank made history by becoming the first bank ever to charge banks interest on money held, a move that will surely be passed onto the consumer. This was done to try to get banks to lend more, but that prospect seems iffy. What is certain that along with bail-ins, that pay lenders before depositors, and now this, the entire banking system is at risk. If banks start charging you money to keep it in your account, how many of you will keep any in any bank? Few I would guess as your mattress would be a better place than a checking account. These guys are getting dumber by the second.


6)NRA and Open Carry laws- I am someone who is very much to the right on gun control, firmly believing that whatever weaponry or equipment the local police have, should also be available to the public. That includes automatic weapons. However, I do NOT agree with these gun nuts who feel that carrying them into a fast food restaurant is a good idea either. There is no good reason to have these guns out and about. First, you are terrifying everyone in the stores you keep going into. Second, with Stand your Ground laws, you could be legally shot by someone else who feels "threatened." The NRA started with common sense and said to stop and then turned around a day later and agreed with the gun nuts. Way to Stand Your Ground NRA.

7)Internal Investigations by Corporations or Politicians- These have to be made illegal because it's getting stupid. It was bad enough when Chris Christie hired lawyers who "investigated" him and found him not guilty of any wrong doing, all paid for by the taxpayers. Never mind the fact that these lawyers never interviewed anyone involved with the Bridgegate, we should just trust Christie right? Please. Over the last week two more investigations, one by CBS and another by GM, found no wrong doing for either of their giant screw-ups. CBS cleared itself and re-hired Lara Logan after the whole Benghazi fiasco, ignoring the fact that CBS executives were pushing the story to sell a book that no one bothered to vet first and then dumped the blame on a 60 Minutes producer. GM likewise found no evidence that they intentionally killed somewhere between 13-500 people and that incompetence was to blame. On all three, I'd believe an independent study before any of these, which GM and Christie both have to deal with. CBS is going to get away scot free lying to the American people, just like the news media has been doing for some time.

8)Tucker Carlson- This guy is such a dick he lost his show on Fox and no has to beg for screen time wherever he can. His latest bon mot was defending the guy who fell asleep and put comedian Tracy Morgan in the hospital. Here is his transcript:


“Absolutely, 5 to 10 years in jail for death by auto, which is an act of recklessness,” Schwartz explained. “So, if he did fall asleep at the wheel, that’s one of the ways that you could commit reckless driving in New Jersey. And certainly the fact that a death occurred, 5 to 10 years in jail.”
“I’m not trying to take anything away from the tragedy of this,” Carlson replied. “But 10 years in jail for falling asleep? It strikes me as very different from taking drugs, drinking. Has that ever happened? Has anybody ever actually gone to jail for falling asleep?”

“For falling asleep and causing a death?” Schwartz asked. “Absolutely.”

“But, I mean sometimes people — and I’m not defending anyone here,” Carlson continued. “I’m really struck by the idea that someone who falls asleep — which is something that everybody does every day, not necessarily considered an act of recklessness — does it unintentionally, nods off is a criminal.”

“Tucker, if you’re driving a 16-wheel truck, a truck for Walmart, and you’re on the roads for the state of New Jersey, and you’re drowsy and you fall asleep, it’s certainly an act of recklessness,” the attorney insisted. “Not an intentional murder, but it’s an act of recklessness. And that’s where this reckless homicide comes in.”

Yet another Republican coming to the defense of a multi-national corporation, while the average guy gets screwed. Regarding Tracy Morgan, I sincerely hopes he survives. That guy is funny. Plus, imagine the comedy routine he get from this. It could be Pryor-esque.


9)Texas Republicans- Ted Cruz and the state party itself stepped in it hard this week. First off, we had Cruz braying about how democrats were trying to get rid of the 1st amendment, ignoring the fact that what they trying to do was restore democracy by getting rid of recent awful Supreme Court decisions. Until we get money out of politics nothing is ever going change and this ass is standing in the way. Then we had the state adding in anti-gay rhetoric into their platforms, ignoring the fact that that ship has not only sailed but it has docked and is on it's return trip by now. According to the Texas GOP, anti-gay therapy should be enforced. Never mind the fact that it doesn't work, why let science interfere with their backward biblical beliefs?


10)Everything connected with Bowe Bergdahl- No one gets away from this this week. Obama misjudged public opinion who, as always, were woefully under-informed about this soldier, even though I wrote about his desertion early in the history of this website. The general public is way to stupid to be much help with anything lately. The Republicans, proving they hate Obama just cause, flip-flopped their position from "bring him back," to "how dare Obama trade terrorists for this traitor." The funny part is that tweets from the same people demonstrate that exactly. John McCain changed his position so hard he must have gotten whiplash. One minute he was all for the trade, the next, Obama is the devil for doing it. WHICH IS IT YOU OLD FART? You do know the Internet saves everything right? Many, many Republicans did the exact same, proving they have no idea how computers or even video tape works. Then we had the media who did their usual bang up job getting everything wrong. It has been reported that six, no wait eight, maybe two, soldiers died looking for Bergdahl after he deserted his post. I am still unsure if anyone died looking for him, or if this is more nonsense. We have his father who for some inane reason decided not to cut his beard, making him look like some ZZ top reject, while speaking an Arabic prayer. Your son is home, time to either admit you are a Muslim or get to a razor stat. Image is everything and you need a good makeover. And lastly we have Bowe himself who is most likely facing a court-martial. So congratulations everyone involved with the story, you are all douchebags of the week.

LIBYA, EGYPT, THAILAND AND SYRIA: CAUTIONARY TALES ABOUT WHY REVOLUTIONS NO LONGER WORK

Not a day passes when I don't hear talk about revolution from some right wing website pissed a black man is in charge, and a democrat none the less. Cliven Bundy supporters, Sean Hannity listeners and the like are all ready to start the American Revolution 2 and damn the consequences. And while I agree with them on the part that says our government is filled to the hilt with a cesspool of stupidity, I whole heartedly disagree with most of their positions on how to fix anything. Voting more Republicans into office is the definitive way to end this country not fix it. And asking for a violent overthrow of the government is just asking for trouble as recent history shows, no revolution has worked out the way their supporters thought.


Take Egypt for example. People stood up and took out the dictator Mubarak with less than stellar results. First, as there was no consensus on what to replace it with (the Republican way if I ever heard one), petty squabbles allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to walk away with the election, the same way we allowed the Tea Party to become such a driving force back in 2010. When the people rebelled against that, the military took over, with the head of the military Al-Sisi recently winning almost 97% of the vote. He accomplished this by crushing dissent, arresting anyone who disagreed with him in worse numbers than either of his two predecessors and outlawing protests. Egypt went from trying to win a free democracy and instead would up under the thumb of a junta far more authoritarian than what anyone really wanted. Be careful of what you wish for, goes the old saying as well as the devil you know.

Thailand is doing the exact same thing. After months of protests, the military disposed the ruling family, imposed military rule and, just like Egypt, outlawed all forms of protest. People have resorted to sitting in places in mass numbers reading books like 1984 and giving three finger salutes, ala the Hunger Games. Yes another example of a place where democracy and fairness was replaced by a junta with an agenda.


Libya and Syria and examples of what happens when a revolution devolves into anarchy. Libya is so bad, US personnel are being told to leave. Syria is a war zone, where an upcoming election all but guarantees Assad to win. Even if the rebels somehow beat Assad, what replaces it will most likely be even worse, as religious morons take over and impose strict Sharia law, demoting women to second class citizens and putting to death homosexuals, dissidents and anyone not Muslim. Yeah, much better.

This shows that here we have to find a much more peaceful way to rebel because overthrowing a government sounds good on paper, but in reality it seem to work against the very people who started it.

The quickest way is for liberals to get off their lazy asses and fucking vote. Every demographic shows liberals outweigh conservatives by a vast majority. We also see as much as 80% of these people stay home election day. It is the sole reason we still have morons in office like Boehner, Cruz and, yes, even democrats like Reid and Pelosi.


In 2014 we have a chance to save ourselves, and if the economic data I am looking at is right, it will be our last chance. There is already a 50/50 chances that we won't even make it until November so voting better be a huge priority for all of you reading this. India's recent election saw 500 million vote, or almost 90% of the voting populace. Ours is around 30%. If we don't vote out every single Republican out of office in 2014 that can be defeated, this country won't last the year. We need to give democrats all the rope to hang themselves with, and when they fail, which they will, we can start demanding more from them or else threaten them with the axe too. We need enough people to get money out of politics, and there are already dozens on the left who want to do just that. We need hundreds in office and then we can start fixing things that are beyond broken.

The stock market is soaring today on news that the European Central Bank went nuclear today and are now offering negative interest rates. So if you have money in a European bank, you will soon have to pay for the privilege of having an account with them, if they pass the costs on to the consumer which is about 100% they will. Current Fed chief Janet Yellen has expressed interest in doing that here as well. Nevermind the fact, that if that happens I am taking my money out of any bank and storing it somewhere else because I will make more money that way. Europeans are certain to do the same, but yet the stock market soared over the news, showing a fundamental lack of understanding over how banking is supposed to work. This is a very bad idea and one that could collapse the banking system worldwide if negative rates are adopted to personal accounts as well. Supposedly this is going to stimulate lending, but that assumes that anyone has money to actually get a loan which no one does. Brilliant.

Social Security stats suggest we are getting paid way less this year for services. Last year, 50% of this country made less than 32,500. This year is tracking to be 50% of us make 27,500 or less now. That's a drop of five thousand dollars in a single year. Yet, food prices are skyrocketing due to climate change, derivative speculation, a complete lack of regulation on food safety causing more and more outbreaks and therefore food recalls, and other stupid factors that could be fixed if we honestly addressed them. Food prices have risen anywhere from 15-22% over the last year while we are making less and less money. Sooner later, that's going to break us all.


All signs point to a massive collapse and soon. Housing is starting to fall again as dumb money seems to be the only thing keeping it afloat. Investors are scaled back dramatically, and first time home sales have plunged to a twenty year low. Stocks continue to rise even though most of the companies on the stock exchange don't appear to be in good shape, like JC Penny, Sears or Staples to name just three of dozens facing bankruptcy.

Still think I am blowing smoke? Check out this graph comparing today to 1929. See anything  similar?                                       

 According to this graph, if history repeats itself, we are facing an epic collapse of housing and stocks within the next few months. If it does, revolution may be our worst enemy. Vote in 2014 and make your voice heard. If you don't, it will be far too late to do anything about it by 2016.

OBAMA'S PRISONER RELEASE, SLENDER MAN, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND OTHER SIGNS OF ABJECT STUPIDITY

It's been a banner week for stupid people. Obama, perhaps trying to deflect from the VA fiasco, stepped in it twice as hard by failing to see that ordering the release of five dangerous terrorists in exchange for an American idiot might blow up in his face. Two 12 year olds, both most likely suffering from severe mental illness (AGAIN) tried to kill their friend to appease an imaginary god, which is the basis for every major religion right now. And to top it all off, the GOP is shocked, SHOCKED, that the VA hospital is failing, despite the fact that they killed several increase of funding bills for purely political reasons. When did reason become a dirty word in this country?


In the Telegram and Gazette this week came an op-ed piece about net neutrality that was one of the worst pieces of journalism ever written in the history of mankind. The author, one Andrew Criscione, attacks net neutrality as legislation that will rewrite the internet with unneeded regulations. Actually, net neutrality is the exact opposite in that it does not impose ANY regulations on the internet, treating all the same regardless of size. He goes on to rally against "socialistic" policies, proving he has no idea what those words actually mean, and says the post office is failing due to private companies like Fed-Ex and UPS showing a profit, conveniently ignoring the fact that the USPO is failing due to front loading of health care and pension benefits that Republicans passed in 2005 and no other company on the planet has to do. And by the way, which is cheaper to use the post office or Fed-Ex? Just saying.

He ignores the fact that without net neutrality, corporations will be able to charge whatever they want to the already highest paid internet service on Earth. Plus, we will get less for that amount of money, otherwise known as privatization where whenever it has been used, prices go up and services go down. Can anyone name a service that has been deregulated or privatized and have the price drop? Me neither. Government bloats their services to the hilt and red tape galore happens, but for the most part, they work. The DMV may be a hassle, but once you're done with it, you're finished. Corporations on the other hand hire the fewest amount of people to do a job, do it half-assed and it takes twice as long to fix anything if ever. I recently took eight months to get my girlfriend's student loan erased, as she is on disability and has a fixed income. Every time I thought I was done, some other problem arose and almost a year passed, along with talking to some of the dumbest humans I have seen, before the problem finally rectified itself with a solution that could have been handled eight months previously. These were all private service, subcontracted out by the government with less than successful returns.


Then we have the President whose advisers must be Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum because no other sane human would have recommended the path that he took this week. Not only did he break a law he signed himself last year (it says the President must tell Congress 30 days prior to any prisoner transfers from Gitmo), he held a press conference to pat himself on the back with the parents of now free POW, Bowe Bergdahl. First, I understand the father learning Pashto and looking Talabanish to maybe get his son back, but he's free now and that beard probably should have been gone before meeting with the President. Republicans howled about this, forgetting that if he had a bandanna and a duck whistle, he'd be invited to the next Correspondent's dinner. Second, if you are going to hold a press conference about high fiving everyone on a job well done, maybe you should have read about who you were freeing first. His own platoon seemed to despise the guy and rightfully so as six people died looking for his sorry ass. So we let five dangerous people go to free a POW who now may be facing prison here for desertion charges? Why God why? Couldn't we just let him rot where he was. The Pentagon wanted no part of this, why did the government? Is our President this dumb? And how come with the GOP demanding answers to the VA issues they helped create is Obama not deflecting blame back onto them? I am wondering if Obama is now some double agent for the GOP, secretly working with them to get them into power in 2014 because he is certainly aiding their campaign efforts.

We also saw two 12 year old girls try to sacrifice their friend to a mythical creature, Slender Man, which had the same exact plot line as several Supernatural episodes. One of the girls said Slender Man was talking to her in her dreams and could telepathically link with him. Were the parents this unaware that their daughter had serious problems? If they are as overworked and underpaid as the rest of us, probably not. But this is yet another case where serious mental illness has gone overlooked with deadly consequences. How long before another situation happens? When are we going to actually do something about it before blaming guns, video games or the Internet again?


Lastly, we have the GOP doing everything they can to kill this country with the support of millions out there too stupid to know better. Maureen Dowd wrote an article recently saying that after eating a pot laced candy bar "she nearly died." According to her article she began to hallucinate and barely made it back to her bed before she spent the next eight hours curled up in a ball. First off, you cannot die from weed. It's is physically impossible. Second, eating weed is much more powerful that smoking it. Back in college I once ate a pot brownie that messed me up good. But I was never in any danger, less I tried to drive which would have been bad news. Smoking it provides a much more mellow feeling as well. So maybe Dowd should have stated there before jumping right into mainlining. Conservatives have jumped all over the pot bandwagon calling it a "failed experiment" because one guy ate a pot candy bar and killed his wife and another idiot ate six pot cookies and jumped to his death. However, at the same time, tens of thousands of jobs have been created. ten of millions added to tax coffers, and crime has decreased by 10%. Just because one moron can't handle weed, should we all suffer because if it? Doesn't alcohol and tobacco kill lots more and no one seems to care about that?


The House recently passed a bill that would force the government to stop raiding medical marijuana shops, with even 49 Republicans joining in to pass it. Could common sense finally be found somewhere in government? Probably not as God knows what the Senate will do, but here's hoping for a glimmer of hope in a society fresh out.

ECONOMIC DATA SEES KILLER ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD. JAPAN ECONOMY SPUTTERING TO A HALT AS US ECONOMY SHOWS SINGS OF MAJOR COLLAPSE.

For all the rah, rah, rah we hear from the government and our bought and paid for MSM, real data not massaged within an inch of its life show real trouble and serious reason to worry. Money velocity is fading fast, real estate is starting another 2007-like downward slide, and the stock market is no longer based on reality, as even the most stubborn economist has been forced to admit.


Japan, under the leadership of Abe Shinzo, showed remarkable growth over the last year, the best in decades as a matter of fact. GDP went way up as did consumer spending. The problem was, just like here, wages have stagnated while the cost of living went up. This month a new consumption tax of 3% was being added to every product sold in this already too expensive country. So what happened was, everyone bought everything they could afford, consumers and businesses alike, and front loaded as much as they could to avoid the hefty fees that would be added on later. The result was great growth at first, but data from the last two months say the economy is actually teetering on collapse as sales have dropped across the board by over 60%. No one is buying anything right now, other than necessities like food and fuel. Cars sales have collapsed, as has real estate, watches and electronics at least 50% across the board no matter how cheap or expensive. This has resulted in the same kind of liquidity problem that is also being seen here. As always, the Japanese just beat us to the same thing, only this time this is a race they really didn't want to win.

Japan is in real trouble with Fukushima still pumping out radiation. A quick side note on this as I have seen fear-mongering douchebags over hype the radiation levels out there saying the entire country is basically in a microwave. Do not believe that any more than the idiots claiming the radiation from Fukushima is benign. The West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska have the most to worry. The chances of significant radiation being able to affect the East Coast is laughable at best. I am so sick of numnuts out there who think because they have a computer that they can be an expert on anything. It takes decades sometimes to master a field, not a weekend reading some idiotic website, mine included. But I digress.

The point of this is that Fukushima is going to cost them big. And because, just like here, they have no real understanding over how economies work, they are one false move from oblivion. The US is no better.


The cat is out of the bag that the stock market is rigged. Michael Lewis wrote a whole book about it, that should be the kind of thing that gets congressional hearings instead of yet another lame attempt to remind America that Obama is black. But instead we get Benghazi redux 7, while real problems go unanswered.

The fact is, we can now see with own eyes how devoid of reality the stock market is. Bond activity is rising, even though interest rates are really low, while money is pouring out of the stock market by major players. When rats start deserting a sinking ship, so should you. But right now, "dumb" money and HFT are the only things keeping it afloat at all. "Dumb" money is people too stupid to know when to get out, like the real estate market which burned many a flipper in 2007.

The US Treasury market data shows many are fleeing from stocks, suggesting a slowing economy, lower business profits, and a shrinking stock market, which begs the question than, why is the stock market still going up? It's either based on insanity or it's rigged. Your call. This is from Wall Street on Parade:

Stocks have been setting new highs of late while the yields on the benchmark 10-year and 30-year Treasurys decline. The 10-year Treasury began the year at a yield of approximately 3 percent and closed on Friday at a yield of 2.49. The 30-year Treasury started the year at a yield of approximately 4 percent and closed last week with a yield of 3.33 percent.

Strong economies produce a higher demand for money and, thus, rising interest rates. For stocks, which are wedded to earnings, to be rising while Treasury yields are falling shows a serious decoupling of market logic.

The question is, does high frequency trading and stock market rigging have anything to do with this decoupling?

For starters, if some firm or a cartel of firms (and we certainly have plenty of those today) wanted to rig the stock market, their job is a lot easier today than it was pre-crisis. That’s because stock volume is weak in the biggest names.

Joseph Ciolli and Lu Wang of Bloomberg News report today that only “1.8 billion shares traded each day in S&P 500 companies last month, the fewest since 2008.” Equally worrying, say the reporters, is that when the S&P 500 index “hit an all-time high on May 23, only about 20 of its 500 companies reached 52-week highs…”


A market index setting new highs while only 20 of its 500 components set new highs, i.e. less than 5 percent, is sounding the same alarm bell as the bond market. The rising tide is not lifting all boats or to put it in Wall Street parlance, this is decidedly weak breadth.

What could high frequency traders possibly have to do with this?

On September 24 of last year, New York State Attorney General made the following remarks at a Bloomberg Markets summit:

“When I was a kid, everyone wanted to be in the market. I mean, the sign of success was you own your home and you have a portfolio of stocks. Normal average Americans thought that they and their brokers, if they were prudent, had an opportunity to buy low and sell high as the big time Wall Street players did. And the new market manipulators – the new folks that do something that would be unimaginable a decade ago – they refer to those average Americans as the dumb money. And ladies and gentlemen, a lot of us here may very well be a part of that dumb money because if you don’t have access to a supercomputer capable of flipping tens of thousands of shares in milliseconds, and access to market moving information a little bit ahead of everyone else, you may be in the dumb money, even if you think you’re an insider who thinks they have an edge.”

 

So here you have the highest law enforcement official in New York State, who spent much of his private law career working on behalf of Wall Street clients, telling you that you, and even he, is perceived as the “dumb money” by high frequency traders.

On April 2, Michael Lewis appeared on Bloomberg Television and elaborated further on today’s “dumb money” in the stock market, equating legendary hedge fund investor, David Einhorn, to be the equivalent of a “dumb tourist.” Lewis gave this further analogy:

“So I have a casino and I want to start a poker game in the casino. So I get three card sharks and I tell them: ‘go sit there and start the game; make it look like a good game’s going on. There are no 4s, 9s, there are no queens in the deck. Only you will know that. And we will pay some tour group operators to bring like a bunch of dumb tourists in to play with you’… So, of course, the tourists get fleeced all the time in the poker games, because they don’t know the deck is rigged. The poker players pay the casino a cut of what they make. The casinos’ operators pay the tour group — the tour group company money to bring in the tourists. So in this case, casino’s the exchange, the poker players are the high-frequency traders, and the tour group operators are the banks and the brokers that handle the stock market orders. And I think the analogy is pretty close. So is that rigged? Is that a rigged game? I think it is a rigged game.”

 

So here’s the point: high frequency traders can only keep this rigged game going if the dumb money continues to pour in to the stock market on the perception that we’re in a bull market. The bond market – way too big to rig – is telling you the bull is sucking his last few breaths. (Or breadths.)

The other bad sign is that the velocity of the dollar is collapsing as all this money printing is finally starting to catch up with us. Money is no longer moving but sitting in one place collecting dust. Banks don't loan, interests rates are at record lows, and savings are seen at near zero. The American consumer is tapped out again and that spells disaster for any economy. The chart below is the average velocity of all savings in this country (bank accounts and physical money) or M1. You can see that after the last recession (which never really ended), savings continued to decline to a twenty year low. Where is a recovery where no one has any money?

Or take this chart which measures M2 or "near money," which are assets than can quickly be converted into cash. That too has plummeted during these last few years to the lowest level EVER RECORDED. That's right. The worst ever meaning worse than the Great Depression. Wow!





If that doesn't describe how bad things are, I don't know what will. We also have the highest jobless rate ever which begs the question how can unemployment be 6.3% if one out of eight people in this country has NO job and 20% of families have no working members. The real unemployment number is somewhere between 23 and 37% which are Depression Era numbers or worse. Still think the economy is growing like the government keeps telling us?

DOUCHEBAG OF THE WEEK: DETROIT

Detroit is becoming a desolate wasteland and no one seems to care. Cops are acting like brigands, cars are being carjacked at a frightening pace, and homes sell for as little as $1000. Now comes word that the city's water supply is about to be turned off to hundreds of thousands of people. Let's see those runner ups.

1)Mahbad Moghadam- The former head of Rap Genius, a site that lets people talk about rap lyrics, was forced to step down after saying some truly questionable remarks. Seems he read the manifesto from the psycho that gunned people down in Isla Vista last week (I try to use killers names as few times as possible so others will not try to copy actions if fame is their ultimate goal), and commented on how well written it was (it wasn't) and weird comments about how hot "no will touch my winkie," boy's sister was because he commented how he hated hearing his sister have sex in the next room. EEWWW. Why would his sister being hot have anything to do with that? I swear people are getting dumber by the second.


2)Ann Hornaday- What is it with this latest spree killer that has otherwise intelligent people saying the dumbest things possible? Another foot in mouth comes from this film critic who suggested the latest killings happened because of movies like Neighbors. WTF? Are you seriously saying that low brow comedies are causing people to murder one another? You seem to have forgotten Shakespeare wrote some pretty bawdy comedies for the time and people getting skewered by swords never happened. Her apology to Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan said that she didn't mean to single out that particular film but wondered if films like theirs were still responsible for male angst seen in record numbers. Yeah, it has nothing to do with the disintegration of the family due to two parents working 70 hours a week for no pay or the lack of good jobs for the young or even mental health care in this country, it's the movies. Go away Ann. If the paper you work for is looking for a new critic, I have experience and am apparently better qualified than you.

3)McCauley Culkin's band- Heroin has really taken over this former child star as he looks as bad I as I did at the height of my illness, and I had a reason to only weigh 105 pounds at least. This walking skeleton decided to try a questionable band parody unimaginatively called The Pizza Underground, which is Velvet Underground songs with lyrics changed to pizza related things. Ohh, funny. And Culkin plays the kazoo. Just shoot me. This is apparently what a pub in England thought as after only two songs they were booed off the stage while being pelted with booze. Is acting that hard to get back into because your band sucks? Bad!


4)Republicans- It was disgusting this week to watch Republicans demand the resignation of Eric Shinseki, which they got, while continently forgetting their own role in the whole debacle, not to mention the fact the VA has been in constant trouble since the inception of this country. That's over 200 years of problems but it's all Obama's fault right. Christ. These yahoos have shot down several bills that would have increased funding to the VA, allowed better access for veterans and other common sense ideas that were shot down for purely political reasons. It is horrifying to watch these old bastards scream about stuff that they caused while the idiot public buys into it. Can we please stop voting people like this into office who offer nothing but lip service? These facts are not exactly hidden, but our MSM never seems to mention it either. At least with Benghazi, even Fox News is starting to get tired of it. Laura Ingraham took a shot about Benghazi while discussing something completely unrelated on Chris Wallace's Sunday morning show, to which the panel laughed at her and commented how it's people like her who keep bringing this up for less and less effect. When Fox News is laughing at you, it's time to move on.

5)Vitali Sediuk- Some people are just begging to get shot. This ass is number one on that list. This "serial prankster," or another fancy name for douchebag, keeps attacking celebrities during red carpet affairs. He's tried to kiss Will Smith, dove under the dress of America Ferrera, grabbed Adele's Grammy from her during the 2013 telecast and other questionable antics. His latest attempt to physically attack Brad Pitt caused his immediate arrest, being fired from the Ukrainian TV station he worked for, a court date and a restraining order. Good Times.


6)Andrew David Truelove- If you are one of those people who think the Boston Bombing was a hoax, you're an idiot. Likewise goes for this brainpower who was convinced that the Sandy Hook shooting was some sort of false flag Obama committed to take away our guns. Please. So what did this ass extraordinaire do to get him arrested this week? First he stole a couple of signs from a memorial placed to remember the dead. Then he called the mother of one of the victims and called her all sorts of names while stating that her daughter never existed. Even funnier is the fact that he basically called the police on himself after talking with a reporter and claiming to be the one behind the theft and calls. This guy is too stupid to live.

7)Evergreen School system- After instigating a "pay to pee," rule at a local school, two girls wet themselves rather than pay up. Have we fallen so far that we have to be charged money to go to the bathroom? Parents are pissed (pun intended) but the third grade teacher has NOT been fired. Why? We seem to have a fit when some teacher actually teaches something like evolution, but letting students wet themselves is all right? This country is toast.


8)The Police- Can we have one freaking day without some story of some roided up cop killing puppies in a playground, shooting innocent bystanders or something equally repulsive? Nope. This week we had an Atlanta SWAT team throwing a stun grenade right into a baby's crib, seriously injuring the infant. Not surprisingly, it is still unclear if any drugs were even found in the house. This crap has got to stop as it is literally killing us. In King City, CA, six officers were arrested by the FBI after they found to be running an auto theft/blackmail programs that targeted the local Hispanic population. These dicks would steal cars, offer to sell it back to the owner, or placed them into forfeiture ranks if they didn't. The really sad part is that this police force is only 17 men deep, meaning a third at least were involved. This has led to the entire department being shut down while an investigation continues into how deep this really went. Way to screw up your careers, douchebags. And if you live in Detroit, the cops there are just as likely to mug you as the citizens. New laws need to be placed to make these much more serious crimes where anyone convicted goes to gen-pop where their life expectancy will be measured in minutes.

9)Obama and Bowe Bergdahl- This is one of the those double edges stories where I am glad a POW came home but also pissed that he got captured in the first place. This dumbass, for reasons I am still dying to know, walked away from his post at an Army base in Afghanistan five years ago carrying nothing more than a compass and a bottle of water. Why on God's green Earth would you walk into hostile territory without a weapon? Desertion comes to mind. Either way, he's been held by the Taliban until Obama traded him for five terrorists held in Gitmo. I don't know if this was worth the trade to be honest. Had Bowe been captured heroically fighting the Taliban I would have said good deal. But the fact that he was some douchebag who left his post makes me less interested in saving his sorry ass. If I was President, I don't know if I would have done this. These five let out could be much, much worse down the road.


10)Detroit- This town is toast. Services are dying. Cops are as criminal as the public. Because no one has a job, taxes revenues have all but stopped. And now comes word that the water is being turned off due to lack of payments. Kind of hard to pay for something when you have zero income. It hasn't helped that even though poverty and unemployment are soaring there, water rates went up 119% in the last ten years, which is far greater than the official inflation rate. As expected Corporations are being exempted from these shut offs, even though some owe millions in back payments. People on the other hand are losing their water at about 3000 customers per week. This is privatization at work. Instead of water being a right, it's a privilege mainly for the rich. What are people going to do with no running water? Detroit is going to sink further into Mad Max territory, that's what. Detroit has been mired in corruption from both sides of the aisle and has resulted in what was once one of the largest cities in the US to become a smoldering husk. This is our future America unless we wake up. So congratulations Detroit you are indeed douchebag of the week.