Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 7:44:38 AM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1582353

That may be why people flock to the gold bearing streams and rivers instead of the mud puddles. Our cities were all based on industry and ports. As opportunity leaves the people seek work elsewhere. Just like when the gold in a stream is gone. The prospectors move to another stream and/or another line of work. America needs to be more competitive internationally. It is a tough life . It always has been. Cities breed corruption. As they deal with more and more of the citizens money. Wherever money is , it I being stolen. In one way or another.

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 8:46:48 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1582353

George Will: Obama ‘Greatest Builder Of The Republican Party Since Ronald Reagan’ [VIDEO]

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 8:54:07 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1582353

The New York Times on Tuesday exposed Al Sharpton’s finances and those of his organizations, reporting that there are $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens against him personally and against his business interests. The lurid financial tale goes back at least as far as the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape hoax. After one of Sharpton’s victims won a defamation judgment against him, the pastor used financial chicanery for two years to avoid paying what he owed. He claimed, for example, to have no worldly possessions, not even the clothes he was wearing. Everything he “had” was hidden in plain sight, the legal possessions of his friends and corporate entities that paid all of his personal expenses. The Times also noted that Sharpton’s nonprofit organization, the National Action Network, was sustained for years by what its own accountants characterized as the knowing, willful omission of required employer contributions to the Social Security and Medicare systems. The Times consulted experts who said his organization’s failure to pay would have put it among the biggest nonprofit payroll tax scofflaws in America at the time. This was when Sharpton was condemning “the Republican attack on Medicare.” Sharpton’s Wednesday press conference was characteristically evasive. He denied allegations that the Times article never made, and, as usual, slyly played the race card by arguing that “a lot of people don’t like the fact that President Obama’s the president.” The truth, though, is surely that a lot of people don’t like their president pandering to a character as odious as Sharpton. The reverend, for all his demagoguery on wealth and poverty, lives by Leona Helmsley’s creed that “only the little people pay taxes.” ................................................................................................................... Some pay taxes, some don't FrontPage Magazine ^ \| November 20, 2014 \| Ronn Torossian

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 9:09:48 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By locogringo Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1582353

Pentagon got duped, made ransom payment for deserter Bowe Bergdahl to con man Washington Times ^ \| November 20, 2014 \| Bill Gertz

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 9:18:25 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1582353

Jonathan Gruber: Obamacare Architect, Unplugged ...................................................................................................... Townhall.com ^ \| November 20, 2014 \| Larry Elder Economist Milton Freeman said the promotion of bad policy requires two types of advocates. "Do-gooders," he said, act in good faith but out of ignorance in promoting counterproductive policies. The second type are the "special interest" rent-seekers, those who stand to personally profit from the scheme. For economist Jonathan Gruber, the primary architect and intellectual godfather of Obamacare, we need a new category. Gruber is a two-fer -- both a do-gooder and a rent-seeker. Gruber, so far, has pocketed $6 million advising the federal and state governments on the very law he helped design. Gruber on cost controls: "Cost control turns out to be very, very hard to do. Probably the single biggest frustration I have with critics of this law are people who say it didn't go far enough. ... We do not solve our cost problem in health care in the U.S. with this legislation. We simply do not, OK? But you know what? That's because it was impossible to do so." Gruber, in 2012, admitting that Obamacare was intentionally designed so that only enrollees in state-run exchanges -- not the one run by the feds -- receive subsides and tax credits (a matter the Supreme Court will soon decide): "I think what's important to remember politically about this, is if you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits." Gruber, in 2013, on voter stupidity: "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. ... Look, I wish ... that we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not. ... Yeah, there are things I wish I could change, but I'd rather have this law than not." Gruber, in 2012, on Americans' lack of understanding economics: "We just tax the insurance companies. They pass on higher prices that offsets the tax break we get -- it ends up being the same thing. It's a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter." Gruber, in 2013, on Democrats' efforts to disguise a direct tax on people who purchase so-called Cadillac plans: "Then another Massachusetts hero, John Kerry ... came up with a great substitute idea. They said ... 'What if we instead just levied a 40 percent tax on the insurance companies that sell these terrible expensive Cadillac plans?' We said, 'Well, that's pretty much the same thing. But why does it matter?' 'You'll see.' And we proposed it, and that passed because the American voters are too stupid to understand the difference." Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in 2009, extolled his credentials: "I don't know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber of MIT's analysis of what the comparison is to the status quo versus what will happen in our bill for those who seek insurance within the exchange." Then-Sen. Obama, in 2006, bragged about how he stole ideas from Jon Gruber: "You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I've stolen ideas from liberally. People ranging from Robert Gordon to ... Jon Gruber." In 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Gruber "one of the most respected economists in the world." Today neither Pelosi nor Obama knows the economist from a fence post. Asked recently about Gruber, Pelosi said, "I don't know who he is." When asked about him, Obama shrugged and reduced Gruber to some guy who "was never on our staff": "The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run." According to Fox News, Gruber visited the Obama White House at least 19 times. In deciding this key issue about state exchanges, the Supreme Court may throw the Gruber's own words right back at him -- and rule Obama's unilateral reinterpretation unlawful. Then even Pelosi will know Gruber's name.

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 9:36:12 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1582353

Gruber 'Stupidity' Scandal Implicates The Press, Too ........................................................................................................................................................... 11/19/2014 Media Bias: What does it take for reporters to pursue a scandal story these days? Apparently, more than video proof of lying and obfuscation by top officials to get a massive entitlement enacted. But don't call them partisan. Few political scandals are as tailor-made for television as the one involving the recently unearthed videos of ObamaCare architect and Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber. First you have Gruber, a guy paid $400,000 to design ObamaCare, admitting on tape that lawmakers purposely misled the public to get the bill passed, and counted on the "stupidity" of the American people not to notice. Up until Tuesday night, when ABC ended its silence, CBS was the only network to mention Gruber on its nightly news program. As of this writing, NBC's Nightly News still hasn't broken its Gruber embargo, according to the Media Research Center NBC did have time enough Tuesday night for a report on how the share of homes with two-car garages could drop by 2040. And while other mainstream outlets have covered the story, they've been perfunctory, or written in a way that casts Gruber's revelations purely in light of how they've helped the GOP's anti-ObamaCare crusade. Not only have Gruber's comments been treated as if they never happened, the TV networks haven't shown any interest in the next round of Gruber stories — in which the White House and Democrats made bald-faced lies about their connections to Gruber. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for one, claimed she had no idea who Gruber was, although she is on tape from five years before praising his expertise. And President Obama himself, in answer to the one question he's gotten on the matter — from a Fox News reporter — brushed Gruber off as "some adviser." That's despite the fact that Gruber had been to the White House nearly two dozen times during the ObamaCare debate. And he was prominently featured in a 2012 Obama campaign ad — from the Obama-Biden "Truth Team" — saying how he'd helped the president craft ObamaCare. And he is someone from whom Obama once said he stole many ideas. news.investors.com

To: tejek who wrote (818246)	11/20/2014 9:43:55 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1582353

Gruber Was Key to Getting ObamaCare Passed ......................................................................................... 11/17/2014 Grubergate: The lies are getting pretty thick these days. The president claims that he never misled anyone about ObamaCare and that Jonathan Gruber was just "some adviser." In fact, Gruber was a key player in the deception. When Fox News' Ed Henry asked Obama on Sunday if he'd misled the American people "in order to get the bill passed," Obama's answer was "No, I did not." Space prohibits listing all the ways Obama did, in fact, mislead the public. No one even bothers to deny that his "keep your plan" and "ObamaCare will cut premiums by $2,500" promises were premeditated efforts to deceive the public. But Obama's response to Henry's question about Gruber is just as grand a fabrication. In his remarks, Obama tried to minimize Gruber's role in crafting the plan, saying Gruber "never worked on our staff" and that his recent comments about how lawmakers used deception to enact ObamaCare "is no reflection on the actual process that was run." Actually, Gruber played a central role in a coordinated campaign to deceive the public — a campaign that arguably proved instrumental in getting ObamaCare enacted. To see how he did it, let's turn the clock back to Nov. 4, 2009. At the time, the White House was in a frantic push to get ObamaCare through the Senate before the year was up. Democrats, who held 60 seats at the time, could not afford to lose a single vote against unified GOP opposition. And they were rightly worried that a January special election in Massachusetts would deny them their filibuster-proof majority if voters elected Republican Scott Brown. That day, the White House touted a research paper that Gruber had issued, describing it as an "objective analysis" that showed how "reform will help small businesses (and) lower premiums for American families." Later that month, Nancy-Ann DeParle — director of the White House Office of Health Reform — said that another Gruber study "confirms" that the "Senate health reform bill reduces costs and improves coverage." The press, not surprisingly, ate it all up, and Gruber became what ABC News called "a go-to voice for reporters seeking a respected academic view on health care reform." Politico's Mike Allen wrote a piece in late November headlined "MIT analysis backs Obama," which said that Gruber's research "provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating (ObamaCare)." But what neither the White House nor Gruber told the public was that Gruber was actually a highly paid consultant working with Obama to construct the very law that his "objective" analyses were extolling. In fact, the existence of Gruber's fat $400,000 contract didn't emerge until after the Senate passed ObamaCare — when a blogger for the left-wing website Daily Kos posted a link in early January 2010 complaining about Gruber's "sole source" contract for "technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform." The contract claimed that Gruber was the "only one responsible source" available for such help. When that news came out, the press — which could have easily ferreted out Gruber's contract long before — issued a few mea culpas for not disclosing his glaring conflict of interest, and then let the matter drop. But it was too late to make any difference, anyway. The Senate had passed ObamaCare in late December, and the House later approved the exact same bill, which Obama signed into law in March 2010. In other words, had the Gruber/White House disinformation campaign not been so effective, and had the Senate bill not passed, there probably would be no ObamaCare today. Read More At Investor's Business Daily: news.investors.com