Obamacare Will Increase Health Spending By $7,450 For A Typical Family of Four

It was one of candidate Obama’s most vivid and concrete campaign promises. Forget about high minded (some might say high sounding) but gauzy promises of hope and change. This candidate solemnly pledged on June 5, 2008: “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year….. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States.”  Unfortunately, the experts working for Medicare’s actuary have (yet again[1]) reported that in its first 10 years, Obamacare will boost health spending by “roughly $621 billion” above the amounts Americans would have spent without this misguided law.

What this means for a typical family of four

$621 billion is a pretty eye-glazing number. Most readers will find it easier to think about how this number translates to a typical American family—the very family candidate Obama promised would see $2,500 in annual savings as far as the eye could see. So I have taken the latest year-by-year projections, divided by the projected population and multiplied the result by 4.

Simplistic? Maybe, but so too was the President’s campaign promise. And this approach allows us to see just how badly that promise fell short of the mark. Between 2014 and 2022, the increase in national health spending (which the Medicare actuaries specifically attribute to the law) amounts to $7,450 per family of 4. Read more >>

We Are On The Verge Of A Historic Meltdown & Collapse

On the heels of a tremendous rally in gold and silver, today a man who has been involved in the financial markets for 50 years shocked King World News when he said that we are on the verge of a historic and catastrophic global financial “meltdown.”  He also spoke about events that are unfolding behind the scenes at the White House right now.  This is without question one of John Embry’s most powerful interviews ever.

Embry: “I guess I’m always unnerved as a result of what happened in April, the last time the President of the United States had a meeting with all of the bank heads, and two days later the price of gold was trading smashed for over $200.  Now, the President is meeting with all of the heads of the various agencies, institutions, the Fed, and all of the other key money entities in the United States today.  What’s that all about?

But clearly if the President is having this meeting, there is a crisis unfolding somewhere in the background, and it could very well relate to the dollar, interest rates, and the massive derivatives market associated with interest rates. Read more >>

Obama facing accusation after accusation of impinging on civil liberties

But as U.S. president for the last 4-1/2 years, Barack Obama has faced accusation after accusation of impinging on civil liberties, disappointing his liberal Democratic base and providing fodder for rival Republicans as he deals with the realities of office.

News in the past week of the federal seizure of phone records from the Associated Press news agency and the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative Tea Party groups, has intensified criticism already simmering over the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and aerial drone strikes abroad.

When he took office in 2009, Obama promised to close the Guantanamo camp for foreign terrorism suspects, but it remains open with 166 detainees, many on hunger strikes in protest at indefinite detentions. Obama said last month he would revisit that pledge and blamed Congress for blocking his plan to close the camp, partly through restrictions on transfers of detainees. Read more >>

Online sales tax to be added to defense authorization bill

This may be the last Christmas of online shopping without paying sales tax. A proposed online sales tax has been offered as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, much to the ire of opponents.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association, a group that opposes this move, says that an online sales tax will burden small businesses, “some of the most promising candidates for future economic growth.”

“This proposal, and other online sales tax collection proposals like it, would allow states to penalize the innovative e-commerce business model by targeting small online businesses as convenient sources (and collectors) of revenue,” said CCIA President and CEO Ed Black.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, and its House counterpart the Marketplace Equity Act, seek to clarify, and arguably overturn, a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that requires retailers to have a physical presence in a state in order to collect sales tax on goods. Read more >>

Obama Executive Order Allows Seizure of Americans’ Bank Accounts

The latest executive order emanating from the White House October 9 now claims the power to freeze all bank accounts and stop any related financial transactions that a “sanctioned person” may own or try to perform — all in the name of “Iran Sanctions.”

Titled an “Executive Order from the President regarding Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions…” the order says that if an individual is declared by the president, the secretary of state, or the secretary of the treasury to be a “sanctioned person,” he (or she) will be unable to obtain access to his accounts, will be unable to process any loans (or make them), or move them to any other financial institution inside or outside the United States.

In other words, his financial resources will have successfully been completely frozen. The EO expands its authority by making him unable to use any third party such as “a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, subgroup or other organization” that might wish to help him or allow him to obtain access to his funds.

And if the individual so “sanctioned” decides that the ruling is unfair, he isn't allowed to sue. In two words, the individual has successfully been robbed blind. Read more >>

AlpineAire Foods 7-Day Gourmet Instant Meal Kit - Emergency Food (Google Affiliate Ad)

North Africa and the Global Political Awakening

For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive... The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination... The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening... That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing... The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches. Read more...

BP Media Blackout Campaign May be Endorsed By White House

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

On June 9, BP COO Doug Suttles, in response to complaints that the media was being prevented from talking to BP workers, issued a letter (link), in which he said "Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the clean up operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply not true."

Alas, as the following clip from WDSU, a New Orleans TV station taken several days later demonstrates, the BP public front is just for show, and the media blackout continues. While it is certainly understandable why BP would want to not show off its oil stained laundry, what is more troublesome is that the administration itself may have a finger in this ongoing attempt to prevent the general public from understanding just what is going on.

In an AP article from the 16th, we learn that Michael Oreskes, an AP senior managing editor wrote to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday, “demanding that President Barack Obama’s administration improve media access.” "AP first contacted Obama on June 5, outlining its concerns in a letter from President and CEO Tom Curley. More...

Victory! For The Democrat Who Wants Obama Impeached

Richard Connelly
We told you recently about the newest entry into the Hall of Weirdness that is Sugar Land's 22nd Congressional District: Kesha Rogers, a Lyndon LaRouche follower who was running in the Democratic primary by calling for the impeachment of President Obama.

She won. Easily.

Rogers took 52 percent of the 14,300 or so votes cast in the Democratic primary, probably not a few of which came from mischievous cross-over Republicans.

The chances of her beating incumbent Pete Olson in the fall, of course, are as remote as Obama getting impeached anytime soon. Then again, if Olson doesn't get on this ol' impeachment bandwagon soon, Sugar Land might just rebel and send Rogers to Washington, where she no doubt will call for a LaRouchite agenda of investigating the Queen of England for running a drug cartel.

How will the state Democratic treat Rogers?

Not nicely.

"La Rouche members are not Democrats. I guarantee her campaign will not receive a single dollar from anyone on our staff," Kirsten Gray, spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party, told Hair Balls.

TDP chairman Boyd Richie did put out a statement on yesterday's election results; somehow it didn't highlight the victory of the Obama impeacher.

The LaRouchies were a little more vocal on the subject: Their political blog highlighted the win.

Kesha ran an aggressive campaign calling for the impeachment of Obama, and the implementation of the LaRouche Plan for economic recovery. This undeniable landslide victory is a referendum for the immediate ouster of President Obama.

Rogers' website was also crowing:

The victory in the 22nd Congressional District yesterday by LaRouche Democrat Kesha Rogers sent an unmistakable message to the White House, and its British imperial controllers: Your days are numbered.

ABC, NBC and CBS spent nearly a year promoting "Obama's stimulus cavalry"

President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan was the most expensive bill in history. Still, it received strong media support - blazing the way for the controversial bill to pass. Network journalists didn't just back the bill during that debate. Once it had passed, ABC, NBC and CBS spent nearly a year promoting "President Obama's stimulus cavalry," as NBC's Lisa Myers put it.

That much money was supposed to enter the economy through many different channels. Typically, where stimulus dollars went, journalists followed. They roamed the nation looking for proof the stimulus was succeeding, and sometimes proof it wasn't.

The Business & Media Institute analyzed 172 stories about the stimulus from Feb. 17, 2009, when the bill was signed, to Jan. 31, 2010. In those stories, the three evening news shows turned to proponents nearly three times as often as opponents of the plan (269 to just 111). Reporters called the Obama program or its many offshoots "good news," or turned to others whose positive views on the stimulus went further, with one calling the program a "lifesaver."

"It's the government that`s going to have to pull us out of this recession," Anthony Mason of CBS "Evening News" said on March 6. That was a consistent theme for the journalists involved. With the economy beaten down by the Great Recession, Americans needed Obama and the government to fix things and boost employment.

Anchor Katie Couric added to that theme when she introduced the story. "In a moment, we'll be telling you about all the jobs the stimulus plan is creating, but first why those jobs are so desperately needed."

That pro-stimulus approach impacted the reporting. All three broadcast networks promoted the stimulus prior to the vote. The same news media that backed Barack Obama during the election then turned to his "bold" push for a stimulus plan. Two broadcast networks - ABC and NBC - showed particularly strong support for the president by relying on pro-stimulus voices by a more-than 2-to-1 ratio (139 to 56). As reporter Scott Cohn told the NBC "Nightly News" audience about a struggling Indiana community. "Economic stimulus isn't just a political debate around here. It could be a matter of survival."

In the year following the passage of the stimulus package, network journalists embraced both the spending and the programs that went along with it. Story after story detailed how a few hundred thousand dollars or a few million dollars would aid essential programs and, in Obama's words, "save or create" millions of jobs.

That was what viewers of ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson," CBS "Evening News" and NBC "Nightly News" heard for almost a year. Those three favored pro-stimulus speakers 71 percent to 29 percent (269 to just 111).

NBC was the worst of the three networks. It relied on stimulus supporters in its stories by more than a factor of 3-to-1 (110 supporters to just 31 critics). At the same time, NBC only included any sort of criticism of the $787 billion plan in 43 percent of its stories.

While CBS included some criticism of the stimulus in three fourths of its stories (30 out of 40), the network still found several ways to boost the president. During an April 29 broadcast, Anthony Mason described Obama in laudatory terms. "As he's tried to lead the country through the crisis, President Obama has offered both caution and hope."

Another CBS story celebrated how D.C. had turned into a new financial capital. Mason told viewers about "matchmaking sessions to link them with government agencies giving out stimulus money." He even quoted Washington power broker and "King of K Street" Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. who seemed thrilled that the "total pie is way over $2 trillion" to grab for clients. As Mason added, "Government officials like these at the Transportation Department can't give it out fast enough."

That report included only mild criticism of the feeding frenzy.

ABC's coverage of the stimulus also ignored critics more than half the time, but lacked CBS's blatantly positive comments about the plan or the president who promoted it.

Even when reporters showed some of the obvious flaws of the stimulus program, they still depicted it as "working." NBC's Lisa Myers pointed out one of the marketing angles of the Obama bill including signs crediting new work to the government. "At this road project in Maryland a sign tells all who pass by that the money for repaving came from the stimulus package." She went on to say that the Obama administration has urged states to put up such signs, even though they "can cost as much as $1,200."

But Myers then followed with a more typical report including three people, two supporting the program and just one opposed.

The pro-stimulus position of the three networks was almost identical to the one taken leading up to the passage of the bill. Then both ABC and NBC showed particularly strong support for the president by relying on pro-stimulus voices by a more-than 2-to-1 ratio (139 to 56). That 71 percent total was the same percentage of pro-stimulus voices these two networks used throughout the year (183 positive to just 74 critics). More...

U.S. households struggle to afford food: survey

Nearly one in five U.S. households ran out of money to buy enough food at least once during 2009, said an antihunger group on Tuesday, urging more federal action to help Americans get enough to eat.

"There are no hunger-free areas of America," said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center. Weill said he hoped President Barack Obama would exempt public nutrition programs from a proposed three-year freeze on domestic spending.

Obama has a goal to end childhood hunger by 2015. He backed a $1 billion a year increase in school lunch and other child nutrition programs a year ago.

Nationwide polling found 18.2 percent of households reported "food hardship" -- lacking money to buy enough food -- in 2009, according to the group. That is higher than the government's "food insecurity" rating of 14.6 percent of households, or 49 million people, for 2008.

Households with children had a "food hardship" rate of 24.1 percent for 2009 compared with 14.9 percent among households without children. Twenty states had rates of 20 percent or higher. Seven Southern states led the list.

The figures were based on responses to the question, "Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy the food that you or your family needed?" The question is similar to one asked by the Census Bureau in collecting data for the annual food-insecurity report.
Source: Reuters

The 2010 Food Crisis Means Financial Armageddon

Eric deCarbonnel
There is overwhelming, irrefutable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead to the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.

Over the last two years, the world has experience faced a series of unprecedented financial crisis: the collapse of the housing market, the freezing of the credit markets, the failure of Wall Street brokerage firms (Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers), the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the failure of AIG,

Iceland’s economic collapse, the bankruptcy of the major auto manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), etc… In the face of all these challenges, the demise of the dollar, derivative markets, and the modern international system of credit has been repeatedly anticipated and feared. However, all these doomsday scenarios have so far been proved false, and, despite tremendous chaos and losses, the global financial system has held together.

The 2010 Food Crisis is different. It is THE CRISIS. The one that makes all doomsday scenarios come true. The government bailouts and central bank interventions which have held the financial world during the last two years will be powerless to prevent the 2010 Food Crisis from bringing the global financial system to its knees.

Astounding lack of awareness

The world is blissful unaware that the greatest economic/financial/political crisis ever seen is a few months away. While it is understandable that general public has no knowledge of the economic pandemonium headed their way, that same ignorance on the part of professional analysts, economists, and other highly paid financial "experts” is mind boggling, as it takes only the tiniest bit of research to realize something is going critically wrong in agricultural market.

USDA estimates for 2009/10 are an insult to common sense.

All someone needs to do to know the world is headed is for food crisis is to stop reading USDA’s crop reports predicting a record soybean and corn harvests and listen to what else the USDA saying.

Specifically, the USDA has declared half the counties in the Midwest to be primary disaster areas this year, including 274 Midwest counties in the last 30 days alone. These designated are based on the criteria of a minimum of 30 percent loss in the value of at least one crop in a county. The chart below shows counties declared primary disaster areas by the Secretary of Agriculture and the president of the United States.



The same USDA that is predicting record harvests is also declaring disaster areas across half because of catastrophic crop losses! To eliminate any doubt that this might be an innocent mistake, the USDA is even predicting record soybean harvests in the same states (Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama) where it has declared virtually all counties to have experienced 30 percent production losses. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that these conflicting accounts mean the USDA is lying.

USDA motivated by fear of higher food prices

The USDA is terrorized by the implications of higher food prices for the US economy, most likely because it realizes the immediate consequence of sharply higher food will be the collapse of the US Treasury market and the dollar, as desperate governments and central banks dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports. Fictitious USDA estimates should be seen as proof of the dire threat posed by higher food prices, as the USDA would not have turned its production estimates into a grotesque mockery of reality if it didn't believe the alternative to be apocalyptic.

Dynamics behind 2010 Food Crisis

Early in 2009, the supply and demand in agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world was experiencing a catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial crisis (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a global scale. Meanwhile, China and other Asian exporters, in effort to preserve their economic growth, were unleashing domestic consumption long constrained by inflation fears, and demand for raw materials, especially food staples, was exploding as Chinese consumers worked their way towards American-style overconsumption, prodded on by a flood of cheap credit and easy loans from the government.

Normally, food prices should have already shot higher months ago, leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened, because the USDA, instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, has been adjusting estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed rise in food prices by ensuring a severe food shortage in 2010.

USDA induced overconsumption leading to disaster

It is absolutely key to understand that the production of agricultural goods is a fixed, once a year cycle (or twice a year in the case of double crops). The wheat, corn, soybeans and other food staples are harvested in the fall/spring and then that is it for production. It doesn’t matter how high prices go or how desperate people get, no new supply can be brought online until the next harvest at the earliest. The supply must last until the next harvest, which is why it is critical that food is correctly priced to avoid overconsumption, otherwise food shortages will occur.

The USDA, by manufacturing the data needed to keep the supply demand in balance, has ensured that agricultural commodities are incorrectly priced, which has lead to overconsumption and has guaranteed disaster next year when supplies run out.

Anti-Obama Billboard: "Birth Certificate Prove it!"

KDVR Denver
Call it Freedom of Speech. A billboard recently erected in Wheat Ridge compares President Barack Obama to a terrorist and questions his U.S. citizenship.

The billboard, located at 4855 Miller Road, shows two cartoonish images of Obama wearing a Muslim turban and reads "PRESIDENT or JIHAD?"

It also says "BIRTH CERTIFICATE - PROVE IT!" alluding to the conspiracy theory which claims Barack Obama was born in Kenya rather than Hawaii, which would disqualify him for the office of President.

The words "WAKE UP AMERICA! REMEMBER FT. HOOD!" appear on the bottom of the billboard.

The sign belongs to a car dealership.

"Since Fort Hood, I've had it," owner Phil Wolf told FOX 31 News Friday. "You can't suggest things. You can't profile. You gotta call a spade a spade."

"Everything I have read about Mr. Obama points right to the fact that he is a Muslim. And that is the agenda of what Muslim is all about. It's about anti-American, it's about anti-Christianity," Wolf said.

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the sign, as did AM760 radio host David Sirota, who discussed the sign and interviewed Wolf on his program Friday morning.

"It's out of control," Sirota said. "This conservative hatred of Barack Obama is out of contol, and this brings together all those strands of it: the racism, the anti-Muslim fervor. It's one thing to criticise the president on health care, or Wall Street reform, or immigration. But this is outrageous. And I think it's a fair question to ask why these questions about religion and ancestry are being directed so viciously at the first African-American President of the United States."

While the ADL issued a statement calling the billboard an exploitation of the Ft. Hood shootings that is "divisive and offensive, and perpetuates hateful and harmful stereotypes about Muslims", prominent conservatives have been silent thus far.

"That could suggest that conservative leaders are afraid to confront the extreme fringe of their base," Sirota said. "Or it suggests they actually condone this message. Either way, it's disturbing."

Sirota is an unabashed liberal, but not all self-identified conservatives who drove past the sign Friday disagree with him.

"I'm not concerned with that at all," said Linda Alexander, of Golden, in regard to the dispute over President Obama's American citizenship. "He was elected, he's the president -- that's it, as far as I'm concerned. Some people just can't accept that, obviously."

But Keith Walters, another passing driver, saw nothing wrong with the billboard.

"I can't honestly say he's a Jihadist, but there's a lot of things that are questionable," Walters said. "The whole birth certificate controversy. From what I've read, there's no proof Obama isn't a Muslim. And I don't believe there's any racism [in the billboard]. I think that should be a question asked to any president who -- they have some questionable backgrounds."

Supporters of the birth certificate theory, known as 'Birthers,' believe the Certification of Live Birth produced by the state of Hawaii is a forgery. (view the birth certificate)

Forget Wilson: Obama should publicly apologize to Congress

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Chad Groening - OneNewsNow

Obama asked to apologize for 'lies to entire country'
An immigration enforcement organization is calling on President Barack Obama to publicly apologize to Congress, the media, and the entire nation for lying about illegal immigrants not having access to healthcare reform benefits. The grassroots group is standing behind Congressman Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina), who shouted "You lie!" during the president's healthcare speech last week.

Even though Wilson apologized to the president, House Democrats are demanding that he apologize again -- this time on the House floor. And if he refuses, they are planning to introduce a resolution of disapproval. Wilson has said he has no plans to apologize further, and last week rejected requests from GOP leaders that he take to the House floor and apologize.

"I believe one apology is sufficent," Wilson told The Associated Press over the weekend. "As the White House indicated, we need to go ahead with a civil discussion of the issues -- and I appreciate [that] the president accepted my apology [and] the vice president accepted the apology."

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, says it is President Obama who needs to apologize for lying.

"More important than whether Congressman Wilson was rude or not is the fact that when the president of the United States lies to the entire country -- as Obama did when he made the incorrect claim that his reform legislation would not benefit illegal aliens -- then that's a much more serious thing," he contends. "And that is why ALIPAC is calling on the president to apologize to the nation."

Gheen says he finds it quite interesting that the U.S. Senate is moving to close the very loopholes that Obama said do not exist for illegal aliens. And he says Wilson's "You lie!" comment may also have stymied Senator Chuck Schumer's (D-New York) plan to introduce amnesty legislation this past week.