February 8, 2014

Breaking: ANOTHER America Media Freakout Over Nothing: Sochi "Hijacker" Heavily Intoxicated-no bomb

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports the would-be hijacker was "heavily drunk":

A representative for the SBU said in a statement that the passenger was "heavily drunk," according to the Interfax news agency. "He tried to enter the pilot's cabin, calling out, "Let's fly to Sochi," the representative said, according to Interfax.

"Officials negotiated with the alleged hijacker and passengers were evacuated, with the cabin crew remaining on board, Mr. Mutlu said. Security officers then boarded the plane and subdued the alleged hijacker without the use of firearms, Mr. Mutlu said.

While the person wasn't found to have consumed alcohol, he may have used other substances to "stay alert," Mr. Mutlu said. He didn't elaborate on whether the person had any explosives.

A statement by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said that no weapons or explosives were found during a search of the aircraft by Turkish security personnel."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com//livewire/report-airliner-forced-to-land-after-possible-hijacking-attempt-in-connection-to-sochi

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304181204579368912606603056

How much longer is the mass media going to frighten America for ratings and ignore the glory of sport?

Anyone who saw the opening ceremonies and was not moved and blown away by the artistry and showmanship is not thinking clearly about what The Olympics is supposed to represent, a celebration of culture and sport and peace, a finger in the eye of war and division and in the face of the terror that the media assists in making worse for no reason.

The athletes are showing bravery, can the rest of us not honor them by not freaking out over every little unconfirmed fright?

February 7, 2014

The Bush Created Economic Abyss Obama Pulled America Out Of Was Deep, THIS Deep:

A truly informed America would be down on its knees thanking the President for restoring the economy, restoring family values and compassion in the White House and ending endless American war, demanding these policies be continued. even in the face of massive Republican and mass media obstructionism .......but, no, having an informed America would cause massive profit loss for the media, The Big Game would be like this year's Superbowl first quarter blowout, people would lose interest early in The Big Game, the Perpetual Media Election Cycle and edge of your seat excitement of Who Will Win would suffer, plunging ratings would lose profit, the Citizens United Bonanza would wane....so the CBO media fiasco was an accident, a rare media mea error was it?

How much "progressive" policy could anyone have championed and pushed through to law in the current Idiot America media environment, I ask you who whine about his lack of progressive creed? How many Presidents were subject to the crude attacks of Bill O'Reilly, pretend journalist, obvious propagandist, on a pretend TV "news" station, obvious propaganda, in your face, jaw dropping propaganda, while said media environment stood mutely by IGNORING the obvious?

Don't blame Obama!

The right wing has got that covered.

And remember President Obama has three more years to be President Of America, so caving to the Endless Election Cycle Of The Mass Media is exactly what you should not be doing.

February 6, 2014

Venerable Washington Post's Weak-kneed Mea Culpa On False Banner Headline Regarding CBO/Obamacare

At the bottom, of course, of the story:

"Full disclosure: The Post earlier posted a headline saying that the CBO had concluded that the law “will result in 2 million fewer jobs.” Now it reads as follows: “CBO: Health-care law will mean 2 million fewer workers.” A correction explains the change."

The media’s massive revisions on CBO-Obamacare story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/02/04/the-medias-massive-revisions-on-cbo-obamacare-story/?hpid=z5

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Oh, well, we can all rejoice in James Carville joining himself to Fox News to bring fairness and balance to that TV station.

P.S. And, no, the correction does NOT explain the change. The explanation explains they made a change because they screwed up, it does not explain how they screwed up.

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List Of Changed Headlines, And Not, By The American Mass Media:

Wall Street Journal earlier: Health-Care Law Expected to Take Greater Toll on Workforce

Wall Street Journal now: Health Law Seen Leading to Some Loss of Labor

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Washington Times earlier: Obamacare will push 2 million workers out of labor market: CBO

Washington Times now: Obamacare will push 2 million workers out of labor market: CBO

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UPI earlier: CBO: Obamacare to cost 2.3 million jobs over 10 years

UPI now: WH disputes media claims on CBO Obamacare study

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Politico earlier: CBO: Lower enrollment, bigger job losses with Obamacare

Politico now: Report reignites debate over Obamacare and jobs

The Hill earlier: CBO: O-Care slowing growth, contributing to job losses

The Hill now: CBO: O-Care will cost 2.5M workers

National Review earlier: The CBO Just Nuked Obamacare

National Review now: The CBO Just Nuked Obamacare

Wall Street Journal Market Watch earlier: CBO says Obamacare will add to deficit, create reluctant work force

Wall Street Journal Market Watch now: Obamacare plans to top $1 trillion, create reluctant workers: CBO

Talk Radio News Service earlier: Obamacare Will Cost 2.5 Million Jobs: Report

Talk Radio News Service now: 2.5 Million Will Exit Work Force Because Of Obamacare

Forbes earlier: Congressional Budget Office: Obamacare A Tax On Workers

Forbes now: CBO: Obamacare Is A Tax On Work, May Cut Full-Time Workforce By 2.5 Million

February 6, 2014

CBO Director Grilled By Republican Lawmakers; "Dworkers Unchained", He Says.

What??? He actually confirmed it will reduce unemployment?

And create 2.5 million new job positions as current workers are able to make the choice to cut back work hours, retire, or take care of the kids without a health catastrophe ruining their whole lives?

And the CBO report says that the ACA "bailout" of insurance companies, last weeks Big Media Lie, is going to profit the government $8 billion?

Once again the Republicans will just pivot to subsidies for the poor make them moochers and subsidies for the rich make them Gods.

Will Republicans and the Idiot Media admit they were taken in by another Fox News twisting of facts to try to create yet another faux outrage and report the truth direct from the mouth of the AUTHOR of the CBO report, because this would be a good one to do it, seeing how Fox was caught with its propaganda pants fully down.

Because it simply IS a very good thing Americans won't have to work 2 jobs to pay for health care coverage anymore and maybe the mother gets to stay at home with the family more. Isn't that only a conservative "value"?

Come on, Right Wingers, you have been totally conned by your media and leaders, how much more smacking around of your intellect will you take in this Political Cycle of Violence? Stop being the victim.

And come on, Left Wingers, stop defending all the time from the shit flung by the monkey people of the right wing media and start shouting about the benefits of millions of American citizens freed from the chains of miserable jobs that enslaved them to their employers at the expense of their health and happiness.

February 6, 2014

Militarized American Police Abuse Of "Knock And Announce" House Search Warrants

Terror In America?



You decide if the police knocked, announced and permitted the home owners to answer the door before executing an illegal entry, as they did not have a "no knock" warrant for a fraudulent use of credit card allegation, from the one video camera they did not find:

"First, note that the police say they knocked and announced themselves before the raid. The knock and announce requirement has a long history in U.S. and English common law. Its purpose was to give the occupants of a home the opportunity to avoid property damage and unnecessary violence by giving them time to come to the door and let the police in peacefully. As you can see from the video, the knock and announce today is largely a formality. The original purpose is gone. From the perspective of the people inside, there’s really no difference between this sort of “knock and announce” and a no-knock raid. (The covering of the officers’ faces is also troubling, though also not uncommon."?

"Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens."



Ripping out the home security video cameras, is that also now common?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2014/02/04/scenes-from-a-militarized-america-iowa-family-terrorized/

February 5, 2014

Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Hiltzik Shoots Down Republicans On CBO Report

"The CBO projects that the [Affordable Care] act will reduce the supply of labor, not the availability of jobs. There's a big difference. In fact, it suggests that aggregate demand for labor (that is, the number of jobs) will increase, not decrease; but that many workers or would-be workers will be prompted by the ACA to leave the labor force, many of them voluntarily.

As economist Dean Baker points out, this is, in fact, a beneficial effect of the law, and a sign that it will achieve an important goal. It helps "older workers with serious health conditions who are working now because this is the only way to get health insurance. And (one for the family-values crowd) many young mothers who return to work earlier than they would like because they need health insurance. This is a huge plus."

The ACA will reduce the total hours worked by about 1.5% to 2% in 2017 to 2024, the CBO forecasts, "almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor -- given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive." That translates into about 2.5 million full-time equivalents by 2024 -- not the number of workers, because some will reduce their number of hours worked rather than leaving the workforce entirely."

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And THIS major news about the "risk corridors" that Republicans were beating the drum about and snagging the attention of the Lazy Media with as "bailouts"....oh, no, it will actually lower premiums, so of course Republicans got ahead of the curve by lying about it.

"The new projections released Tuesday show the CBO now expects that the government will collect $16 billion from insurers who are running a profit but that it will only have to pay out $8 billion of that to the insurance companies that are essentially running at a loss, creating a net $8 billion in savings for the government. Previously the CBO projected that the program would break even.

If things play out as the CBO expects, it would mean that insurance companies are generally charging enough in premiums, and won’t have to raise rates in the future. “So it’s not only good news for 2014 but it seems to be a good sign for other years as well,” says Levitt."

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So the rest of the idiots in the Beltway Media should just swallow their false pride and admit they never read the report before leaping to conclusions, or they are unable to read and unable to admit that actual ECONOMISTS are better able to make the conclusions.

Not to mention that the reduction in the supply of labor is NOT a good thing for the job creators is it? The whole supply and demand thingy going on there not in their favor.

Idiot America, meet your Idiot Free Press.

February 5, 2014

I am sick and tired and mad as hell about the mass media screwing up every big story in the rush

to be the first with "anal-ysis". Being conclusions pulled posthaste out of their asses.

Damn that the story be accurate, the prime directive is to get your ugly mug in front of the camera and your hasty thoughts in print FIRST, because someone else will beat you to it......that the public is massively misled is merely media collateral damage.

How WRONG the mass media has got the CBO report, how firmly and convincingly they got it wrong, is now going to be a delicate walk back for them, because they are also a very prideful bunch.

Not to mention the right wing now clutching to the "there will still be 30 million people without healthcare in 10 years", so Obamacare is a trainwreck lie fails to take into account population growth of 3 million a year....so you do the math.

Idiots, all of them. Prideful, lusting for power and profit idiots that want to drag the whole nation down into their Idiot's Paradise.

February 5, 2014

Creationism Versus Evolution Debate, Bill Nye The Science Guy Versus Ken Ham, The Godly Man:

?w=655

February 4, 2014

GOP Lies: CBO Obamacare Projections Are 2 Million Fewer Full-Time WORKERS, not JOBS.

And Fox News CONTINUES to lie on their website with this blaring lie of a headline in the biggest font they could find:

"Cost Of Obamacare: 2.3 Million Jobs!"

AND the New York Times had to change their title and issue a correction:

"Correction: February 4, 2014

An earlier version of a headline accompanying this article on the home page was incorrect. The health law is projected to result in two million fewer workers, according to the Congressional Budget Office, not two million fewer jobs."

The hair trigger response of not just the right wing media to attack Obama and the ACA is starting to give away their game:

"The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor....."

Health Care Law May Result in 2 Million Fewer Full-Time Workers

New York Times

WASHINGTON — A new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office says that the Affordable Care Act will result in more than 2 million fewer full-time workers in the next several years, providing Republican opponents of the law a powerful political weapon leading up to this year’s midterm elections.

The law is also expected to have a significant effect on hours worked, the nonpartisan budget office said in a regular update to its budget projections released Tuesday. * With the expansion of insurance coverage, more workers will choose not to work and others will choose to work fewer hours than they might have otherwise, it said.* The decline in hours worked will translate into a loss of the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time positions by 2024, the budget office said.

The budget office analysis found that much of the law’s effect comes from reducing the need for people to take a full-time job just to get insurance coverage, and from the premium subsidies effectively bolstering household income.
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From CBO report, page 123:

How Much Will the ACA Reduce
Employment in the Longer Term?


"The ACA’s largest impact on labor markets will probably occur after 2016, once its major provisions have taken
The decline in full- time-equivalent employment stemming from the ACA will consist of some people not being employed at all and other people working fewer hours; however, CBO has not tried to quantify those two components of the overall effect. The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise...."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/us/politics/budget-office-revises-estimates-of-health-care-enrollment.html?hp&_r=0

More:

"One good corrective source on this is "No, CBO Did Not Say Obamacare Will Kill 2 Million Jobs" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/02/04/no-cbo-di... ) by Washington Post Factchecker Glenn Kessler.

Per his fact-check, the CBO report is saying that a certain number of workers will leave the workforce or reduce their hours if they are no longer "locked" into a job just to get health insurance. (In other words, instead of their job, they might choose early retirement, staying home with kids, becoming a family caregiver, starting a business, being a freelancer, going part-time, and so on.) The CBO is estimating how many workers will make those choices. That's it."

February 4, 2014

Winter Heat Swamps Alaska: Rivers Dump Spring-Like Sediment Into Gulf of Alaska

(Deep red areas indicate temperatures above normal by 18 degrees Celsius)






(Satellite imagery of rivers flowing and releasing sediment into the ocean; enlarge for better view of river flows)

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=83032&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_image
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"While much of the continental United States endured several cold snaps in January 2014, record-breaking warmth gripped Alaska. Spring-like conditions set rivers rising and avalanches tumbling.

This map depicts land surface temperature anomalies in Alaska for January 23–30, 2014. Based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the map shows how 2014 temperatures compared to the 2001–2010 average for the same week. Areas with warmer than average temperatures are shown in red; near-normal temperatures are white; and areas that were cooler than the base period are blue. Gray indicates oceans or areas where clouds blocked the satellite from collecting usable data.

A persistent ridge of high pressure off the Pacific Coast fueled the warm spell, shunting warm air and rainstorms to Alaska instead of California, where they normally end up. The last half of January was one of the warmest winter periods in Alaska’s history, with temperatures as much as 40°F (22°C) above normal on some days in the central and western portions of the state, according to Weather Underground’s Christopher Bart. The all-time warmest January temperature ever observed in Alaska was tied on January 27 when the temperature peaked at 62°F (16.7°C) at Port Alsworth. Numerous other locations—including Nome, Denali Park Headquarters, Palmer, Homer, Alyseka, Seward, Talkeetna, and Kotzebue—all set January records."