Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac CEOs' massive pay raises spark anger on Capitol Hill

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac CEOs' massive pay raises spark anger on Capitol Hill - Washington Times
Over the objections of the Obama administration and key lawmakers, the CEOs of bailed-out housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting massive pay raises, courtesy of the regulator appointed by President Obama himself.
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Mel Watt defended his decision to approve the pay hikes, which will raise the Fannie and Freddie CEOs’ pay from $600,000 to $4 million, as vital to “promote CEO retention, allow reliable succession planning and ensure the continuity, efficiency and stability” now that both companies have returned to financial health.
But the move sparked anger at both ends of Capitol Hill...

BOOM: 27 States Just Took a Massive Stand Against Obama's Federal Power Grab

BOOM: 27 States Just Took a Massive Stand Against Obama's Federal Power Grab:

“The results of this rule will carry a tremendous cost to our state, our economy, and our families,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement. South Carolina was spearheading the latest round of lawsuits against the EPA and the federal government, according to The Hill.

“The EPA’s proposed expansion would bring many roadside ditches, small ponds on family farms, water features on golf courses, and storm water systems under extremely burdensome federal regulation,” Wilson added."


Here we go!!

Southern Flank

Southern Flank | Belmont Club:
John McCain warns there’s trouble brewing.
“U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement today on new aerial footage released by the Ukrainian volunteer regiment Dnipro-1 showing a Russian military camp in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.”
“Two weeks ago, I traveled to eastern Ukraine and visited with the Dnipro-1 volunteer regiment, where I was shown and briefed on new video footage captured by a Ukrainian drone, which shows Russia’s continued buildup of tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and military personnel inside Ukraine.
This new evidence, now public, further demonstrates that the ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is fiction, and that Russia is deepening its military involvement in Ukraine.
“Standing idly by and ignoring the mounting evidence of Russia’s duplicitous war on Ukraine signals weakness, potentially inviting the very aggression we seek to avoid.
The United States must take immediate steps to deter Russia by increasing the military costs of its aggression, starting with the provision of the defensive weapons and other assistance the Ukrainians desperately need.
Vladimir Putin must be forced to determine how long he can sustain a war he tells his people is not happening.”...

Barrack Obama Tells Another Whopper—–He Did Not Create 12.8 Million Jobs | David Stockman's Contra Corner

Barrack Obama Tells Another Whopper—–He Did Not Create 12.8 Million Jobs | David Stockman's Contra Corner:
America is better off when President Obama is out on the stump bloviating and boasting rather than in Washington actively doing harm.
But the whoppers he just told the students at the University of Wisconsin are beyond the pale.
Said our spinmeister-in-chief:
 "And the unemployment rate is now down to 5.3 percent. (Applause.) Keep in mind, when I came into office it was hovering around 10 percent. All told, we’ve now seen 64 straight months of private sector job growth, which is a new record — (applause) — new record — 12.8 million new jobs all told."
That’s a pack of context-free factoids.
There is still such a thing as the business cycle, and only economically illiterate hacks—-like those who work on the White House speech writing staff—-would measure anything from an all-time momentary bottom that happened to occur during Obama’s second year in office.
What counts is not that we’ve had a bounce after a terrible bust, but where we are now on a trend basis.
The answer is absolutely nowhere!
We are now 29 quarters from the pre-crisis peak and total non-farm labor hours utilized by the US economy are no higher than they were in Q4 2007. 
In other words, if you use a common unit of measure—–labor hours rather than job slots which treat coal-miners and part-time pizza delivery boys alike—–there have been no new units of employment at all. 
...In short, we have gone through two business cycles and have essentially added zero new employment inputs to the US economy.
And that marks a sharp and devastating reversal of previous trends.
In fact, the BLS’ own data convey an out-and-out crisis that the President should have been lamenting, not a cherry-picked simulacrum of growth based on born again jobs slots.
...When you get right down to it, however, even labor hours do not fully capture the actual jobs disaster happening in America.

That’s because we keep shedding high productivity hours in the full-time  jobs sector in favor of lower skill, low pay gigs in bars, restaurants, Wal-Marts and temp agencies.

So notwithstanding another month of 200,000 plus headline job gains, here’s where we actually are.
The number of breadwinner jobs—–full-time positions in energy and mining, construction, manufacturing, the white collar professions, information technology, transportation/distribution and finance, insurance and real estate—-is still 1.7 million below the level of December 2007; in fact, it is still lower than it was at the turn of the century

We gonna bai out the banks...AGAIN???-----Why The Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Is Such A Huge Threat To The U.S. Financial System

Why The Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Is Such A Huge Threat To The U.S. Financial System:
The debt crisis in Puerto Rico could potentially cost financial institutions in the United States tens of billions of dollars in losses.  
This week, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla publicly announced that Puerto Rico’s  73 billion dollar debt is “not payable,” and a special adviser that was recently appointed to help straighten out the island’s finances said that it is “insolvent” and will totally run out of cash very shortly.  
At this point, Puerto Rico’s debt is approximately 15 times larger than the per capita median debt of the 50 U.S. states.  
Yes, the Greek debt crisis is larger, as Greece currently owes about $350 billion to the rest of the planet.  
But only about $14 billion of that total is owed to U.S. financial institutions.  
But with Puerto Rico, things are very different.  
Just about the entire 73 billion dollar debt is owed to U.S. financial institutions, and this could potentially cause massive problems for some extremely leveraged Wall Street firms.
There is a reason why Puerto Rico is called “America’s Greece”.  
In Puerto Rico today, more than 40 percent of the population is living in poverty, the unemployment rate is over 12 percent, and the economy of the small island nation has continually been in recession since 2006.

Yet all this time Puerto Rico has continued to pile up even more debt.  
Finally, it has gotten to the point where all of this debt is simply unpayable…

Jihad in the USA

Jihad in the USA:

"An American was assassinated in our own country for simply being an American. With the exception of one New Jersey radio host and Megyn Kelly, there has been little coverage of this heinous crime. I am so over the double standard that exists in our mainstream media and this administration."

Fisker is back, but taxpayer money is not

Fisker is back, but taxpayer money is not - Watchdog.org
"Another green tech company that got millions in federal dollars after the fiscal crisis only to declare bankruptcy is back in business.
But there’s no indication U.S. taxpayers will recover the $139 million loss.
Electric car company Fisker announced earlier this month it is coming back,...
The DOE was able to recover some money, although U.S. taxpayers lost $139 million.
...Fisker’s loan was a part of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which was created and funded at the end of the George W. Bush administration and accelerated during the first term of President Obama.

The program racked up a couple successes but also had its share of high-profile flops, including production shutdowns by Fisker, wheelchair van company Vehicle Production Group and solar panel maker Solyndra.
Taxpayers in Delaware watched millions go down the drain.
Delaware government officials including Gov. Jack Markell committed $21.5 million in economic development incentives in the hope Fisker would take over a former General Motors plant near Newport, Delaware and hire 2,500 employees within five years.
“This is seed money that will return back to the American consumer in billions and billions and billions of dollars in good new jobs,” Vice President Joe Biden said in 2009.
But that never happened, and Delaware officials were embarrassed to learn that in the event of bankruptcy the state’s $21 million was subordinate to the rights of other lenders to get their money back.
Delaware got just a fraction of the $21.5 million repaid.
...An investigation by Reuters reported Fisker burned through $1.4 billion in public and private funds before declaring bankruptcy.
One research firm determined Fisker produced fewer than 2,200 cars.
...A123 Systems also received an estimated $141 million in tax credits and subsidies from the state of Michigan.
The state agency in charge of the $141 million largess refuses to give details about whether any of the amount was repaid, saying contract details are private..."

History for July 3

History for July 3 - On-This-Day.com
George M. Cohan 1878 - Entertainer, playwright, composer, Franz Kafka 1883 - Author, Betty Buckley 1947 - Actress ("Eight is Enough," "Cats") 


Fontella Bass 1940 - Singer, Dave Barry 1947 - Humor writer, Jan Smithers 1949 - Actress ("WKRP In Cincinatti") 


Jean-Claude Duvalier 1951 - President of Haiti, Tom Cruise 1962 - Actor, Yeardley Smith 1964 - Actress ("The Simpsons") 


1608 - The city of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain. 


1863 - The U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, PA, ended after three days. It was a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated. 


1922 - "Fruit Garden and Home" magazine was introduced. It was later renamed "Better Homes and Gardens." 


1924 - Clarence Birdseye founded the General Seafood Corp. 


1930 - The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration. 


1954 - Food rationing ended in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II. 

1962 - Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. 



1986 - U.S. President Reagan presided over a ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty. 

Who Is the Mysterious ‘Santa’ Hillary Clinton Visited in the Summer of 2009? | TheBlaze.com

Who Is the Mysterious ‘Santa’ Hillary Clinton Visited in the Summer of 2009? | TheBlaze.com:

 "The State Department released another batch of Hillary Clinton emails Tuesday night, and one email is raising some eyebrows.

In the message, Clinton advises a longtime aide that she would be visiting “Santa” — in July.

“I’m seeing Santa at 8:30 so won’t take off until closer to 9:30. Is that ok?” Clinton asked Huma Abedin in the 2009 email."

Black rage?-----Macon Wal-Mart mob wanted to see how much damage it could do

Report: Macon Wal-Mart mob wanted to see how much damage it could do | Crime | Macon.com:
"Surveillance video of a wee-hours ruckus at a Macon Wal-Mart on Sunday shows a teenager race inside flashing gang signs ahead of a mob of four dozen or so people who burst in and smashed merchandise.
The commotion, which caused an estimated $2,000 in damage, appears to have been planned.
Some in the crowd also snatched a man, apparently a shopper at the Zebulon Road store, from a motorized shopping cart and dragged him to the floor, Bibb County sheriff’s officials said Monday.
The vandals, said to number between 40 and 50, sprinted down the store’s main aisle about 1:50 a.m. Sunday, “destroying merchandise displays and items,” a sheriff’s deputy’s report of the incident noted.
Floors in parts of the store were “coated with broken merchandise,” the report added.
“The length of the store from front to rear was lined with items which had been shattered, destroyed, turned over and thrown about.”
When sheriff’s deputies got there, the crowd “began to flee into many different vehicles and leave the scene,” the report said..."

Follow the money----- Media to Make 'Gay Reparations' an Issue in 2016 GOP Presidential Primary Race

CLAIM: Media to Make 'Gay Reparations' an Issue in 2016 GOP Presidential Primary Race - The Gateway Pundit:
“Wow.”
That was the reaction of Rick Wilson, national Republican message and media strategist, to a reporter telling him Republican presidential candidates will be made to answer on whether or not they support ‘gay reparations’.
Wilson posted on Twitter Monday afternoon about an interview he had with someone he would only describe as a ‘national reporter’ who shocked Wilson by bringing up the subject of ‘gay reparations’ as an issue GOP presidential candidates will pressed on by reporters.
Wilson said the context was questions about gay issues in light of Friday’s Supreme Court decree mandating all states must allow same sex marriages.
Curiously also on Monday afternoon Ace of Spades reported that he too was told ‘gay reparations’ was going to be an issue in 2016:
“BTW, a guy I trust says that he was speaking to an informed source on the Gay Marriage side of things, and he says that “gay reparations” are going to be a live issue in 2016, and something that all candidates will have to take a position on...”

Retired General Demands Obama be Arrested for “Treasonous Activity”! - Eagle Rising

Retired General Demands Obama be Arrested for “Treasonous Activity”! - Eagle Rising:

"Valley continued:

“The Citizens Commission on Benghazi, counts at least fourteen different actions the president has taken that could be considered treasonous.

The general listed bringing the Muslim Brotherhood into the White House, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood against President el-Sisi in Egypt, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya, and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations in Syria among the acts amounting to treason."

Activists Planned to Burn U.S. Flag in NYC Park — When They Showed Up, These Guys Were Waiting | Video | TheBlaze.com

Activists Planned to Burn U.S. Flag in NYC Park — When They Showed Up, These Guys Were Waiting | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Anti-police activists were set to burn the American flag at a New York City park Wednesday evening, but their plans seemingly changed when dozens of bikers and veterans came out to counter protest."


GOD BLESS AMERICA

Racist Signs Posted at Black Church Had Congregants on Edge — Many Were Surely Stunned to See Suspect’s Face

Racist Signs Posted at Black Church Had Congregants on Edge — Many Were Surely Stunned to See Suspect’s Face | Video | TheBlaze.com:
"When racist signs were recently found posted outside of the predominantly black New Covenant church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Pastor Roland Joyner said he “locked” the doors while congregants were inside worshiping out of fear."

This really isn't all that surprising.  
Those on the Left are trying very hard to create a spark so they can fan the flame.  
They are looking for anything which will cause an all out racial conflict. 
They will lie and deceive anyone who is eager to blindly follow without facts.  
This is how the Left operates.  
If they don't get their desired results, they create a problem.  
Remember, they already have the solution.  
We cannot turn to violence or turn on each other.  
If we do, Marshall Law will be enacted and freedom will become a thing of the past.  
We are Americans.  
I think most of us look at character, not color.  
We cannot allow ourselves to be manipulated by the puppet masters.  
When the show is over, the puppets are sealed in darkness.   

Obamacare Co-Ops Hid Millions In Exec Pay, Consulting Fees

Obamacare Co-Ops Hid Millions In Exec Pay, Consulting Fees | The Daily Caller
On Tuesday, The DCNF reported that 18 of the 23 operating non-profit co-ops paid their top executives salaries ranging from $263,000 to $587,000, according to 2013 IRS tax filings. Those figures appear to violate federal laws and regulations barring “excessive compensation” for tax-funded enterprises.
...Aaron Albright, a CMS spokesman, told TheDCNF that “the use of federal CO-OP loan funds is prohibited from, among other restrictions, providing excessive executive compensation.”
Many of the co-op executives are better paid than the President of the United States, Members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, U.S. cabinet secretaries and all 50 state governors.
...At the Louisiana Health Cooperative, CEO George Greg Cromer, was reported to have been paid $105,000.
Buried in the footnotes, however was the fact that the co-op paid $1.3 million to Terry Shilling, to serve as the Louisiana co-op’s “interim CEO” in 2013.
...But entire Compass co-op management team comes from a for-profit partnership called Eastwick Strategy Group, which paid Oestreich $420,000, Tkachyk $296,000 and LeBarron $282,000.
Separately, the co-op also paid Eastwick an additional “management fee” of $2 million and another $5.4 million for “consulting.”

Officials: Students' Gender Identity Determines Restroom Use

Officials: Students' Gender Identity Determines Restroom Use - ABC News:
"The U.S. Justice Department says in a court filing that transgender students must be allowed to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
The department says in a statement of interest filed Monday that failure to do so amounts to sex discrimination under Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972.
The document is in response to a federal lawsuit filed against the Gloucester County School Board by a 16-year-old transgender student who wants to be allowed to use the boys' restroom.
The lawsuit says Gavin Grimm used the communal restrooms without incident until the board adopted a policy in December requiring transgender students to use a private facility.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order allowing Grimm to use the boys' restrooms"

Something Is Happening to European Cars That Beck Says Should Be a ‘Significant Wakeup Call’ | Video | TheBlaze.com

Something Is Happening to European Cars That Beck Says Should Be a ‘Significant Wakeup Call’ | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Glenn Beck says it should be a “significant wakeup call” that cars in Europe may no longer have FM and AM radio within several years.

“I recently got a disturbing news report from Norway that in 2017 they’re turning off the FM radio band,” Beck said in an interview with D CEO released Tuesday. “And Europe has already started—or will be starting—to no longer produce cars with AM radio. That should be a significant wakeup call to the American industry of radio, that radio as we know it is on the verge of profound change.”

The Decadence of the Liberal Mind in One Sentence

The Decadence of the Liberal Mind in One Sentence | Power Line:
THE DECADENCE OF THE LIBERAL MIND IN ONE SENTENCE

As the Greek economy continues its predictable slow motion collapse, one of the early WSJ account of the inevitable bank closures and capital controls imposed yesterday has one of the funniest sentences I’ve read in a long time, but which is also fully revealing of the decadence of the liberal mind:

“How can something like this happen without prior warning?” asked Angeliki Psarianou, a 67-year-old retired public servant, who stood in the drizzle after arriving too late at one empty ATM in the Greek capital.

No warning? 
Check.  
Retired public servant?  
Check.  
But, but . . . how can we run out of other people’s money? 
We still have pension checks left. 
Hello, Detroit? 
I think we’ve found your next mayor.

For more on how “no one could see this coming,” see Steve Hanke, “Greece: The Financial Zombie State.”