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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Anybody here in favor? A precursor to huge inflation or a sop to pants pocket repair business?
At what cost in American lives?
Catch-and-release of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan angers troops
More than 500 suspected Taliban fighters detained by U.S. forces have been released from custody at the urging of Afghan government officials, angering both American troops and some Afghans who oppose the policy on the grounds that many of those released return to the battlefield to kill NATO soldiers and Afghan civilians.
And those numbers understate the problem, military officials say. They do not include suspected Taliban fighters held in small combat outposts or other forward operating bases throughout the region who are released before they ever become part of the official detainee population.
An Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that President Hamid Karzai's government has personally sought the release of as many as 700 suspected Taliban fighters since July, including some mid-level leaders. "Corruption is not just based on the amount of money that is wasted but wasted lives when Taliban return only to kill more NATO forces and civilians," said the official, who opposes what he considers corruption in the Karzai administration.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Karen Davis, a spokeswoman in Kabul, told The Washington Examiner "nearly 500 detainees held in the [detention facility in Parwan] have been released outright or transferred to the [Afghan government] for disposition under Afghan law" so far this year.
She did not comment on detainees held at other facilities throughout the country, dozens of whom have been released, according to U.S. military officials in Afghanistan. Parwan is the main prison facility located at Bagram Airfield, just north of the capital of Kabul.
Davis added "nearly 200 of those 500 [at Bagram] have been released" since July.
The criteria for detention is not based upon a particular affiliation, such as the Taliban, "but rather is an assessment based upon a preponderance of evidence that an individual participated in the conflict as an enemy combatant and, if so, detention is necessary to mitigate the threat posed to the government and people of Afghanistan, the U.S. and its coalition partners," Davis said.
The Detainee Review Board, made up of three U.S. commissioned officers with a rank of major or above, determines when a prisoner is eligible for release and whether a detainee is likely to be rehabilitated.
Prisoners held at the Bagram facility are not considered guilty or innocent but rather a determination is made "based upon evidence that detention is necessary to mitigate the threat the detainee poses to the government and people of Afghanistan, the U.S. and its coalition partners," states a document provided by the International Security Assistance Force.
Earlier this year, The Examiner reported that numerous insurgents captured in Pakistan, including some members of al Qaeda, were returned to Afghanistan upon the request of the Karzai government, and then, according to a senior Pakistani official, "released back to the Taliban as bargaining chips in negotiations."
A marine stationed in southern Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province told The Examiner that efforts to detain insurgent fighters are "worthless."
Earlier this year, his unit held a man known to be working with the Taliban. The Marines had gathered evidence that the man was transporting hundreds of pounds of bomb-making equipment and explosives for the Taliban. But, shortly after they captured him, he was set free.
"Less than two weeks later, we saw the same guy walking through the bazaar," said the marine, who spoke on condition that he not be named. "He recognized us. I wanted to shoot him right then and there. We got the guy, and yet there he was, walking around planning to kill again, and we couldn't do a thing about it."
For American combat troops in Afghanistan, the release of suspect Taliban is seen as a symptom of the corruption of the Karzai government.
"Back-room dealings between Karzai officials and local government connected to the Taliban make NATO's work almost impossible," said a military official stationed in Afghanistan. "They call the shots, and we've got to release the bad guys."
The release of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks last week provided a rare glimpse into what the State Department considers official corruption in the Karzai government.
That was the opinion of Afghan officials interviewed recently. "Afghanistan is a corrupt mess populated by citizens who are far more comfortable thinking and acting locally and tribally than nationally," one official said. "Karzai takes advantage of that for his own benefit," he added. "The U.S. turns a blind eye because they don't know how to stop it."
Obama's war.
A plantation black loses it...will he be suspended?
RADIO HOST LOSES IT WITH FEMALE GOP CANDIDATE: ‘GET YOUR STUPID A**’ OUT & I‘M SCARED YOUR ’WHITENESS’ MIGHT RUB OFF ON ME
What you’re about to hear is stunning. Get ready.
Here’s how MRC explains the exchange between a Memphis radio host, Thaddeus Matthews, and a GOP candidate for Congress, Charlotte Bergmann:
This shocking video (uploaded to YouTube by someone not friendly to the Tea Party) shows Memphis talk radio host Thaddeus Matthews insulting and humiliating Republican congressional candidate Charlotte Bergmann on air.
And that’s being kind. Matthews quickly became upset with Bergmann when she wouldn’t answer directly about any affiliation with the Tea Party. Then he launched into a 16-minute argument filled with curse words and accusations that added up to her being too close to whites and not really having the interest of the black community in mind. Eventually, Bergmann bowed out of the conversation, and that’s when Matthews really let her have it — not only did he accuse her of being a “token negro” for whites, but he also slipped in references about Martin Luther King and even refused to shake her hand because he was afraid her “whiteness” would rub off on him.
You can watch it below. The climax happens at about the 11-minute mark (content warning for strong language):
The video was uploaded to YouTube on January 25 (as well as part 2). It’s unclear at this time when the interview aired, however Bergmann posted a link to the video on her Facebook page on Tuesday and asked if this is how women in Memphis are regularly treated:
Others have reacted as well:
The verbal abuse here is shocking to say the least. Charlotte Bergman has a billboard up in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional district. Tennessee Congressional District 9 is considered THE safest Democratic seat in the entire state along with CD 5. There hasn’t been a serious challenger since anybody can remember, hence the vitriol.
And:
Despite the efforts of the Democrat Party to defeat the Voting Rights Act of 1965, today they openly brag about protecting the rights of all people to vote for the candidate of their choice. However, it’s also quite clear that blacks are the only people in America who are publicly ridiculed should they not vote for candidates Democrats so authorize.
As for Bergmann, she says on her Facebook page that she’s now been invited to the CPAC conference to speak about the incident.
Destroying business one sector at a time
Gulf Deepwater Drilling Ban’s Hidden Victims
Energy: Small- and medium-size businesses serving Louisiana's energy industry are shedding employees, dipping into personal savings or moving elsewhere to stay afloat. The administration's war on fossil fuels is taking its toll.
The federal six-month moratorium on drilling that was issued in May 2010, after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, has been officially lifted, but it might as well still be in effect.
The glacial permitting process put in place in the aftermath in the name of public safety is killing an industry pledged to wean us from the "energy of the past" will not mourn.
A study released Monday by economic development agency Greater New Orleans Inc., or GNO, details the dire results to the federal deepwater drilling moratorium and its regulatory aftermath. While on the surface things appear to be going well, the supporting small and medium business infrastructure is struggling to survive.
The study says that despite the relatively limited employment losses reflected in public employment data, businesses are indeed laying off workers, reducing hours and salaries and limiting new hires as a result of the permit slowdown and insecurity about the future of the Gulf of Mexico."
"You don't see how badly they are hurting because they are still operating," said Lizette Terral, New Orleans region of JPMorgan Chase Inc., a GNO board member. To do that, many have laid off workers, reduced hiring to replacements only and dipped into personal savings to the point of exhausting them.
About 100 business owners or company executives from fields associated with the oil and gas industry responded to the GNO Inc. survey.
Forty-nine companies in the survey have laid off employees as a result of the moratoria. Fifty-two businesses (52.5%) surveyed have not hired new employees since the moratoria. Of the 47 companies that have hired, the majority have done so in small numbers and often just to replace departing staff. The 39% that have retained workers have reduced salaries and/or hours.
Subscribe to the IBD Editorials PodcastSome 41% of the companies surveyed are not making a profit, a statistic that does not bode well. About 76% of the businesses have lost cash reserves with 27% losing more than half. Eighty-two percent of business owners reported losing personal savings as a result of the permit slowdown with 13% exhausting them entirely.
Although the moratorium has been lifted, permit issuance has been slower than in the years before the spill. In the past three months, two deepwater permits were issued per month on average, according to the Gulf Permit Index, released each month by GNO Inc.
That is a 66% decrease from the monthly average in the year before the spill, and a 71% drop from the historical monthly average of seven new permits per month, according to GNO Inc. data.
Shallow water permits are similarly restricted. Over the past three months, an average of 2.3 permits have been issued representing a 68% decrease in the monthly average in the year prior to the oil spill and an 84% drop from the historical average.
In this year's State of the Union address, President Obama proudly stated that "American oil production is the highest it's been in eight years" and declared that his administration would "open more than 75% of our potential offshore oil and gas resources."
Any increase in domestic oil production comes in spite of and not because of the administration's policies. Much can be traced to the oil boom in North Dakota encouraged by state government and due to the use of hydraulic fracturing technology, or "fracking" — a method frowned on by environmental activists and under investigation by an Environmental Protection Agency that has already declared war on coal.
Contrary to the president's hollow words, the administration's energy policies are killing America's domestic energy industry and the small businesses that support it.
Dicks hired by fraudulent Weiner
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) spent more than $13,000 in campaign money to hire private investigators to look into the "hacking" of his Twitter account — despite his later admission that leaked photos sent through the social-networking site were genuine.
Weiner's fourth-quarter financial disclosure with the Federal Election Commission reveals a $13,290 payment to T&M Protective Services for "legal services." But the New York Daily News is reporting that that money was paid for investigative work.
The former congressman had initially maintained that his account had been hacked, and he was not responsible for a series of lewd images and flirtatious messages sent to fans. The firm, which employs former NYPD detectives, was hired to track down the hacker — who did not, in fact, exist.
But Weiner has been actively spending his campaign money since then on legal fees, travel and public-relations consultants. In his third-quarter filings, Weiner also paid the salary of a family member working for his campaign — all after he had resigned from the House.
December revised down. No surprise.
US businesses hire fewer workers in January
US businesses slowed the pace of hiring in January after a December surge, payrolls firm ADP said Wednesday in a closely watched report ahead of the government's jobs data.
The US private sector added a net 170,000 jobs in January after a downwardly revised 292,000 in December, ADP said.
The January gain was below the 200,000 figure expected by most analysts.
"The big picture painted by the ADP report is that private sector employment expanded at a fairly solid rate driven once again by small and medium-sized businesses," said RDQ Economics analysts.
They noted ADP employment had expanded for 24 consecutive months, with the private sector adding 2.9 million jobs.
The slowdown in hiring was in line with expectations for Friday's official January labor report.
The average analyst estimate is for the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 8.5 percent, with the net number of jobs added to the economy falling to 155,000 from 200,000 in December.
Analysts project the private sector boosted the number of positions by 168,000 in January, compared with 212,000 the previous month.
Utopian fantasts never learn from mistakes
Electric Cars: Doubling Down On Dumb
By Kenneth GreenOnce again, the regulators in California have decided to lead the nation in terms of vehicle emission standards, proposing to require that 15.4 percent of all vehicles sold by 2025 must be electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars, or (currently non-existent) fuel cell cars.
In case you're wondering why this all sounds familiar, it's because California is re-running the same delusional program that it ran in 1990 (Yes, 22 years ago) when "Specifically, the Air Resources Board (ARB) required that at least 2 percent, 5 percent and 10 percent of new car sales be zero-emitting by 1998, 2001 and 2003 respectively."
And how did the past exercise in planner's conceit work out? As one of the first studies I directed in the think-tank world pointed out (1995), "EVs [electric vehicles] will be expensive, yet short on what consumers prize most: range and power.... Massive subsidies and/or cost-shifts would be required that would have depressive effects on the California economy (including higher energy costs statewide). Taxpayers and/or utility ratepayers would also have to pay for new refueling infrastructure. In addition, it is not clear that EV maintenance costs will be below that of conventional autos. If consumers avoid EVs for any of these reasons, and keep their old cars longer, air quality gains will be lost."
Or, as I wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed in 1995, "Our state's pollution control authority has to stop thinking of itself as some kind of homespun Japanese MITI that can pick and promote winners in the automotive marketplace. It isn't, and it can't. Conspiracy theories aside, the simple fact is that if Detroit's big three could make a profitable electric vehicle that consumers wanted to buy, they'd be making it at the behest of their own stockholders."
At the time, battery-car rent-seekers were putting out the same propaganda that they are today: that electric cars will produce jobs, and that mandates can "force" technology to evolve exactly as planners want it to. Responding to my op-ed, Malcolm Currie, former CEO of Hughes Aircraft Company, which created the EV-1 technologies (and where, amusingly enough, I did my doctoral internship while he was CEO), argued "In addition to encouraging the development of new technologies, the mandate has also stimulated enormous entrepreneurial activity and private investment in California, which will have a significant impact on our economy and jobs in the years ahead...out of a total potential of some 400,000 new jobs in California that will be created in advanced transportation by the year 2010, Project California anticipates that as many as 70,000 of these can be in EV-related industrial clusters, as a result of building on the large anchor market in our state." We know how that worked out: currently, 98% of advanced battery production is in Asia.
Starting in 1996, the Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate was watered down, and General Motor's first attempt at electric car rent-seeking died when they discontinued the EV-1 in 2003 for lack of sales, recalled the whole lot and junked them. But before that happened, California taxpayers subsidized the well-off eco-conscious people who leased the EV-1 for both vehicles and charging stations. (And those people had to have incomes over $100K, and own a second, conventional vehicle to qualify for the lease. They were the 1%).
But, surely you would say, things must have changed in 22 years, right? Surely developments in technology have made these vehicles competitive in performance and pricing! Alas, no.
The GM Volt sells for a non-competitive $40,000, and is barely selling despite federal tax subsidies up to $7,500, and some state subsidies that further sweeten the pot. Plug-in hybrid technology is more expensive to manufacture, more expensive to repair, more expensive to insure, and, after 22 years, they still have overheating and fire problems.
As Robert Bryce points out in his book Power Hungry, electric cars are the "Next Big Thing. And they always will be." Bryce observes that EV-boosters have been flogging electric cars since 1911, when the New York Times declared that "the electric car "has long been recognized as the ideal solution" because it "is cleaner and quieter" and "much more economical."
And fuel-cell vehicles? In 2007, Ballard Power Systems, a leader in fuel cell research terminated its vehicle-fuel-cell research, and sold the program off to Daimler AG and Ford.
It is long past time (about 100 years past) that planners drop the fatal conceit that they can plan the automobile market, predict technologies, predict consumer preferences, and pick winning and losing technologies in the marketplace. Of course, then they'd have to find a real job.
Still robbing Peter to pay Paul...
Obama proposes new government guarantee for homeowners to refinance
Free money, come and get your free money, says Obama
Corzine still raising money for Obama.
When last heard from, former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was telling a congressional committee he hadn’t the foggiest idea what happened to $1.2 billion of his Wall Street clients’ money.
This, following the $6.3 billion collapse last fall of MF Global, the brokerage Corzine took over after voters ousted him from the Trenton statehouse.
The firm went belly-up after Corzine decided to risk pretty much everything on European debt.
But an audit couldn’t account for $1.2 billion, and suggested the firm may have illegally mixed client funds with the company’s own.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that investigators now believe a “significant amount” of the money could have been “vaporized” by chaotic MF Global trading.
Corzine, for his part, simply scratched his head in public befuddlement last fall when asked where the missing money might be.
That pretty much scotched any further speculation that Corzine would be named President Obama’s next Treasury secretary.
But it hasn’t stopped the former governor from continuing to raise oodles of cash for the Obama-Biden re-election effort — more than $500,000, according to the campaign’s Web site.
That makes him one of the president’s top bundlers — or, as the Obama word-wranglers call them, “volunteer fundraisers” — nationwide.
Granted, Obama may no longer want voters to recall that he once said Corzine was his “go-to guy” for financial advice after he entered the White House.
But apparently he has no problem with taking money from Corzine and his well-heeled friends.
Granted, things have been a little tight for Corzine lately.
He gave up a $12 million severance package when he quit MF Global. (How magnanimous.)
And now he’s reportedly put his Hoboken condo on the market — with an asking price nearly a half-a-million bucks less than he paid for it.
Hey, times are tough — right?
But if Obama and Biden are serious about “an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few” — as the president said in his State of the Union Address — he’ll give back Corzine’s money.
At least until Corzine’s clients find out what happened totheircash.
More taxes for less productive work.
Bad Economy Forces Welfare Agency Hiring Spree
The city’s Human Resources Administration has already hired 100 new employees and plans to hire another 100.
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