Purveyor
Purveyor's JournalDruckenmiller Sees Storm Worse Than '08 as Seniors Bankrupt Kids
Stan Druckenmiller, one of the best-performing hedge fund managers of the past three decades, has a warning for the youth of America: Don’t let your grandparents steal your money.
Druckenmiller, 59, said the mushrooming costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with unfunded liabilities as high as $211 trillion, will bankrupt the nation’s youth and pose a much greater danger than the country’s $16 trillion of debt currently being debated in Congress.
“While everybody is focusing on the here and now, there’s a much, much bigger storm that’s about to hit,” Druckenmiller said in an hour-long interview with Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television’s Market Makers. “I am not against seniors. What I am against is current seniors stealing from future seniors.”
Druckenmiller said unsustainable spending will eventually result in a crisis worse than the financial meltdown of 2008, when $29 trillion was erased from global equity markets. What’s particularly troubling, he said, is that government expenditures related to programs for the elderly rocketed in the past two decades, even before the first baby boomers, those born in 1946, started turning 65.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-01/druckenmiller-sees-storm-worse-than-08-as-seniors-bankrupt-kids.html
Backers Of Convicted Israeli Spy To Protest Ahead Of Obama’s Visit, Jerusalem Council To Award Medal
Original title: Backers of alleged Israeli spy to protest ahead of Obama’s visit.There is nothing 'alleged' about Pollard, he was tried, convicted and sentenced...
Israeli supporters of Jonathan Pollard, the American jailed as an Israeli spy, plan protests calling for his release ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit next month an organiser said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem city council moved to award a medal to Pollard, who is serving a life sentence.
“We shall be staging protest vigils against Pollard’s imprisonment during the coming days, and holding press conferences and other events,” Effie Lahav, head of a committee demanding Pollard’s release, told Israeli public radio.
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Israeli TV has said the White House fears mass protests during Obama’s March 20-22 visit, but Lahav did not specify if his group would be holding demonstrations then.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/28/backers-of-alleged-israeli-spy-to-protest-ahead-of-obamas-visit/
Michigan: Synder's Viviano Appointment Consolidates GOP Supreme Court Majority (5-2)
Viviano joins colleagues Mary Beth Kelly, Brian Zahra and Mike Cavanagh as a justice with experience in the trenches of the trial courts, where jurists have to apply state Supreme Court rulings and make them work. Viviano is, not surprisingly, a Republican, having unsuccessfully vied against Democratic Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith for the prosecutor’s job before he went on the bench.
Given that trial court chief judges are named by the state’s highest court, Viviano is already well-regarded by most Supremes. His appointment strengthens the court’s GOP-connected majority.
There’s a certain irony in the fact that he replaces the disgraced Diane Hathaway – a Democrat who had to leave the Supreme Court this year after pleading guilty to bank fraud in federal court. Hathaway defeated former Chief Justice Cliff Taylor – in part with a dishonest ad in her 2008 campaign accusing him of being asleep on the bench. Snyder didn’t heed calls from Dems and their media chorus to name a bi-partisan committee to select a justice – a call that is often made when Republicans have appointive power, but is seldom followed by Democrats themselves.
Viviano’s appointment continues the rout of state Democrats in the 2012 election, when they failed to get a number of ballot issues written into the state Constitution and failed to change the balance on the state Supreme Court. The loss of Hathaway’s seat by the Dems to a GOP appointee is an unforced error.
- See more at: http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2013/02/27/viviano-appointment-consolidates-gop-supreme-majority/#sthash.WFU3j6oR.dpuf
Oxford Student Union Votes Down Israel Boycott
The Oxford University Student Union voted down a motion on Wednesday calling for a boycott of Israel, its institutions, goods and produce.
According to the record of the vote at the prestigious university, 69 voted against the motion, 10 voted in favor, and 15 abstained.
Along with the boycott, the motion had also called for the university's students union, and for Britain's National Union of Students, to join the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
After the vote, the Union of Jewish Students said in a statement that the result shows “Israelis are welcome at Oxford and sends a clear statement that neither students, nor anyone else, will be marginalised at Oxford on the basis of their nationality.”
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http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/oxford-student-union-votes-down-israel-boycott.premium-1.506249
It Would Seem That Bob Woodward Does Not Understand How The Constitution Works
The threat of the looming sequester is a genuinely good reason to get very stressed out about what might happen to the domestic discretionary budget and the vulnerable Americans who are served by any number of important services. But there seems to be no one who is suffering from outright Sequestration Derangement as badly as Bob Woodward. That unraveling hit an apotheosis today, when he went on the "Morning Joe" program and seemingly forgot that our nation is nominally governed by the rule of law.
Woodward has been dining out lately on the little scooplet from his book The Price Of Politics that places the germination for the whole sequester idea in the mind of Jack Lew, and the subsequent reward for earning that scooplet has been the way he's been constantly invited to opine on the matter in print and on the teevee. But his subsequent performances have basically demonstrated that he does not actually understand the sequester all that well. But now his misunderstandings have proceeded from the merely embarrassing to something downright disturbing.
Over the weekend, he got slapped up and down pretty convincingly after claiming that Obama's desire for a so-called balanced approach (spending cuts and revenue raising) to mitigate the sequester was "moving the goalposts." What Woodward failed to consider was that the whole point of the sequester-as-enforcement-mechanism was to replace the enforcement mechanism with something else -- and that the Budget Control Act both invited and anticipated a "balanced approach."
As Brian Beutler pointed out, the "bill even provided the House and Senate instructions for advancing a Super Committee bill if it included revenue." This is not hard to understand. One need only read the bill.
But as bad as Woodward's failure to understand the Budget Control Act was, it pales in comparison to Wednesday's appearance on "Morning Joe," where Woodward just said that Obama should essentially chuck the law passed by Congress, and which he signed, in the bin and overcome the sequester with pure and simple illegality.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/bob-woodward-sequester_n_2774774.html
Supreme Court Conservatives Express Skepticism Over Voting Law Provision
By Robert Barnes, Wednesday, February 27, 1:10 PM
The Supreme Court’s conservative justices strongly suggested Wednesday that a key portion of the Voting Rights Act is no longer justified and the time had come for Southern states to be freed from special federal oversight.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. whether it was the federal government’s contention that “the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.”
Verrilli said that was not the government’s argument but that Congress decided in 2006 that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was still needed to protect the voting rights of minorities. The section requires nine states, mostly in the South, and local governments in other states to “pre-clear” any changes in voting laws with federal authorities.
Justice Antonin Scalia responded by saying flatly that he thought it was “not the kind of question you can leave to Congress,” because it was impossible for elected representatives to vote against such a measure.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-majority-skeptical-of-voting-law-provision/2013/02/27/e89b038e-80fd-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html
House Judiciary Chairman Says He Opposes Universal Background Checks On Gun Sales
Source: Associated Press
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, February 27, 12:18 PM
WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday he opposes universal background checks on gun sales and doesn’t foresee such a measure being part of gun legislation in the House.
Requiring background checks on all gun sales is a top priority of the Obama administration in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, and has appeared to be emerging in the Senate as a possible area of bipartisan consensus.
But Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with media that such a requirement could unnecessarily inconvenience law-abiding citizens and lead to the creation of a national gun registry — something Goodlatte and many other Republicans oppose.
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Expanding background checks has been seen as more politically doable, but Goodlatte’s comments suggest tough prospects for that idea, too.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/house-judiciary-chairman-says-he-opposes-universal-background-checks-on-gun-sales/2013/02/27/d74a5b08-80ed-11e2-a671-0307392de8de_story.html
Chuck Hagel Sworn in as 24th Secretary of Defense
Source: Alaska Native News
The United States Senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel is now Secretary Hagel as he was sworn in today to become the 24th Secretary of Defense.
His swearing in comes one day after his confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Hagel's collegues denied his confirmation with a full vote for almost two weeks before agreeing to an up or down vote yesterday. He was confirmed by a vote of 58-41 on Tuesday.
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Hagel, the first Secretary to be a Vietnam War vet and enlisted soldier to become the Pentagon top spot, will have his work cut out for him immediately as he takes office as the Pentagon is facing major budget cuts as well as billions more in cuts if the sequestration takes effect on Friday.
Later this morning, Hagel will address Department of Defense employees and then meet with senior staff and other military leaders.
Read more: http://alaska-native-news.com/national_news/7878-chuck-hagel-sworn-in-as-24th-secretary-of-defense.html
Israel: Mortar Shell From Syria Lands In Golan Heights
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A mortar shell fired from Syria exploded in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Wednesday, falling in an open area and causing no casualties, the Israeli military said.
Military officials said the shell landed near an Israeli village near the Syrian frontier. They said investigators were still trying to determine who fired the shell, and whether it was aimed toward Israel or was stray fire from the civil war in neighboring Syria. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under military policy.
In recent months, stray fire from the fighting in Syria has occasionally landed in Israeli-controlled territory. On several occasions, Israel has returned fire. Israel did not respond to Thursday's shelling.
Israeli military officials fear the fighting in Syria could spill over into Israel. The Syrian military has fought rebels in the area near the frontier.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-02-27-09-24-16
Just As Nixon Went To China, Should Obama Go To Iran?
In the 34 years since its revolution, Iran has marked key gains in the Middle East and pursued a nuclear program that shows little signs of slowing, despite a barrage of Western economic sanctions. Is it time for the United States to switch course and make a Nixon-to-China move vis a vis the Islamic republic?
That provocative idea, at the center of a new book by two American experts on Iran, is raising eyebrows in Washington even as a new round of talks between world powers and Iran over Tehran’s advancing uranium-enrichment program began Tuesday.
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“You could have a deal on the nuclear issue within weeks if the US accepted a certain level of safeguarded enrichment,” says Flynt Leverett, a former director for Middle East affairs in the Bush administration National Security Council (NSC) and professor of international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. But that “would basically mean accepting the Islamic republic [of Iran]” as a legitimate power, he adds – something Mr. Leverett advocates.
Leverett, who with his wife, Georgetown University professor Hillary Mann Leverett, recently published “Going to Tehran,” says the US president ultimately will have to pull off something that “parallels the Nixon-Kissinger opening to China” in 1972 and “accept Iran and [it] having an independent foreign policy.”
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2013/0226/Just-as-Nixon-went-to-China-should-Obama-go-to-Iran?nav=87-frontpage-entryLeadStory
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