"If a deal is concluded, it would mark a bipartisan cease-fire, at least temporarily halting the embarrassing spectacle of dysfunction that has gripped the nation’s capital and left the world’s economy in jeopardy. Despite the hurdles, Senate leaders said they were hopeful they could get a bill to President Obama by week’s end."
Oh, now the world economy is in jeopardy, meaning the private central banking $cheme is near to collapse.
"Congress on Tuesday tumbled back into a state of disarray, risking a historic breach of borrowing limits that could threaten the nation’s economy. Financial markets, after several days of upbeat news, began to worry. One of the three major rating agencies, Fitch, placed a negative watch on the Treasury’s AAA credit rating. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 133 points."
Now it is only the national economy threatened as you $ee who are the important people.
Also see: Sunday Globe Shutdown
And I'm doing it again:
"Man sets himself on fire in D.C." Associated Press, October 05, 2013
WASHINGTON — A man set himself on fire on the National Mall in the nation’s capital as passersby rushed over to help douse the flames, officials and witnesses said Friday.
The reason for the self-immolation was not immediately clear, and the man’s identity was not disclosed. But it occurred in public view in a city still rattled by a mass shooting last month and a car chase outside the US Capitol on Thursday that ended with a woman being shot dead by police.
Amazing how fast those events have dropped from the radar of the propaganda pre$$.
The man on the Mall suffered life-threatening injuries and was airlifted to the hospital, said District of Columbia fire department spokesman Tim Wilson. The D.C. police department has dispatched its violent crimes branch, which responds to cases in which a person suffers serious injury.
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"Family: Man who set self on fire was mentally ill" Associated Press, October 09, 2013
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) — The death of a New Jersey man who set himself on fire on the National Mall was the result of his long fight with mental illness, not a political statement, his family said.
John Constantino, 64, of Mount Laurel, N.J., poured the contents of a canister of gasoline on himself in the center portion of the mall Friday afternoon, police said. He then set himself ablaze, with passing joggers taking off their shirts to help put out the flames.
Police had said Constantino was conscious and breathing at the scene, but he died later that night at a Washington hospital.
‘‘John Constantino was a loving father and husband. His death was not a political act or statement, but the result of his long battle with mental illness,’’ his family said in a statement issued through lawyer Jeffrey Cox.
After he set himself on fire, there was speculation about whether his self-immolation was an effort to protest the federal government shutdown, President Obama’s health insurance overhaul, or anything else.
They used to do it over wars.
The statement did not address the nature of the mental illness, and Cox said he did not know Constantino’s occupation or other biographical details. He also said that funeral arrangements had not been finalized....
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Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would suggest that members of Congre$$ perform the same ritual.
"Supreme Court opens with contentious topics; Campaign gifts, abortion, privacy likely on docket" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, October 07, 2013
WASHINGTON —The new term that starts Monday may be short on the sort of high-profile battles over health care and gay marriage that marked the past two years. But several cases ask the court to overrule prior decisions — bold action in an institution that relies on the power of precedent....
The opportunity exists for dramatic precedent-busting decisions, but there is a familiar ring to several cases the justices will take up.
Campaign finance, affirmative action, legislative prayer, and abortion clinic protests all are on the court’s calendar. The justices also will hear for the second time the case of Carol Anne Bond, a woman who was convicted under an antiterrorism law for spreading deadly chemicals around the home of her husband’s mistress.
The justices probably will decide in the fall whether to resolve competing lower court decisions about the new health care law’s requirement that employer-sponsored health plans include coverage of contraceptives.
An issue with a good chance to be heard involves the authority of police to search the contents of a cellphone found on someone they arrest....
The court may hear its first abortion case since 2007, a review of an Oklahoma law that would restrict the use of certain abortion-inducing drugs such as RU-486.
The campaign finance argument on Tuesday is the first major case on the calendar....
It's a corporate government now, so what does it matter?
The big issue in the current case is whether the justices will be just as skeptical of limits on contributing as on spending.
Among other top cases already set for review:
■ Massachusetts is defending a law that creates a 35-foot buffer zone at abortion clinics to limit protesters’ ability to interact with patients. The court upheld a buffer zone law in Colorado in 2000, but Roberts and Samuel Alito have replaced members of that majority and are considered more sympathetic to the free-speech claims of the protesters.
■ Greece, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester, is asking the court to uphold its practice of opening town council meetings with a prayer, despite an appeals court ruling that found the invocations a violation of the First Amendment because they almost always were Christian prayers.
The court could use the case to rule that judges should take a more hands-off approach to religion in the public square or it could hold more narrowly that the town’s practice is consistent with a 1983 decision upholding prayer at the start of government meetings.
■ Michigan is fighting to preserve a constitutional amendment that bans the use of racial preferences as one factor in college admissions after a federal appeals court ruled that the constitutional ban is itself discriminatory.
Look at the wedge issues of division there. Gender, religion, and race.
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I guess if it isn't war crimes trials or hearings regarding torture or privacy I'm just not into the cases anymore. Sorry.
Also see:
The case will be argued in early 2014.
Then there is no reason to read it now, is there?
The problem isn't discrimination, it is a $hit ejewkhazional $y$tem of politically-correct inculcation and indoctrination.
So did I.
Related:
"High-profile cases drained federal court system, judge says" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, September 20, 2013
A series of high-profile cases have begun to financially tax the federal court system in Massachusetts as the system is absorbing budget cuts and is expecting still more hardships, the chief judge of the US District Court in Boston said in a letter released Thursday.
US District Court Chief Judge Patti B. Saris said in a letter to US Senator Elizabeth Warren and addressing the state’s congressional delegation that budget cuts have started to stretch court security and staff, and services such as drug and mental health treatment and legal representation.
“Any further budget cuts will hurt public safety, the administration of justice, and the independence of the judiciary,” Saris wrote.
She added, “The financial difficulties have hit this district at a time when we have experienced some of our most difficult, high-profile criminal cases.”
Those cases include the trials of Tarek Mehanna, who was convicted two years ago in a closely watched terrorism proceeding, and James “Whitey” Bulger....
See:
No Mercy For Mehanna
Slow Saturday Special: Bulger's Sta$h
Also see: Kin must estimate value of lives lost to Bulger
Trial is over. Time to move on.
In addition, Saris noted, the district is set to begin the high-profile legal proceedings for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected Boston Marathon bomber, and is also handling proceedings related to the state drug lab scandal, in which defendants are seeking to have their cases reheard based on possibly tainted evidence.
I suggest you link up with a conspiracy theorist regarding Tsarnaev while waiting for the lab results.
Further taxing the court are civil liability cases related to the meningitis outbreak involving the New England Compounding Pharmacy....
Another conundrum with a too little, too late response because it is all about the money.
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Something el$e being $trained, if you know what I mean:
"Social Security raise among smallest in history; 1.5% increase pegged to low level of inflation" by Stephen Ohlemacher | Associated Press, October 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — For the second straight year, millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans, and federal retirees can expect historically small increases in their benefits come January.
Preliminary figures suggest a benefit increase of roughly 1.5 percent, which would be among the smallest since automatic increases were adopted in 1975, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
Next year’s raise will be small because consumer prices, as measured by the government, have not gone up much in the past year.
The exact size of the cost-of-living adjustment will not be known until the Labor Department releases the inflation report for September. That was supposed to happen Wednesday, but the report was delayed indefinitely because of the partial government shutdown.
You can get the information from business sources or blogs, you don't need government lies for that.
The cost-of-living adjustment is usually announced in October to give Social Security and other benefit programs time to adjust January payments. The Social Security Administration has given no indication that raises would be delayed by the shutdown, but advocates for seniors said the uncertainty was unwelcome.
Social Security benefits have continued during the shutdown.
Yeah, if you are following this the shutdown is all selective stuff by the administration to cause the most inconvenience and anger to help their poll numbers. The war machine rolls on as the workers are called back or given paid vacations.
More than one-fifth of the country is waiting for the news.
Nearly 58 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses, and children get Social Security benefits. The average monthly payment is $1,162. A 1.5 percent raise would increase the typical monthly payment by about $17.
The cost-of-living adjustment also affects benefits for more than 3 million disabled veterans, about 2.5 million federal retirees and their survivors, and more than 8 million people who get Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for the poor.
Automatic cost-of-living adjustments were adopted so that benefits for people on fixed incomes would keep up with rising prices. Many seniors, however, complain that the adjustment sometimes falls short, leaving them little wiggle room.
David Waugh of Bethesda, Md., said he can handle one small cost-of-living adjustment, but several in a row make it hard to plan for unexpected expenses.
‘‘I’m not one of those folks that’s going to fall into poverty, but it is going to make a difference in my standard of living as time goes by,’’ said Waugh, 83, who retired from the United Nations. ‘‘I live in a small apartment and I have an old car, and it’s going to break down. And no doubt when it does, I’ll have to fix it or get a new one.’’
Since 1975, annual Social Security raises have averaged 4.1 percent. Only six times have they been less than 2 percent, including this year, when the increase was 1.7 percent. There was no cost-of-living adjustment in 2010 or 2011 because inflation was too low.
Says who?
By law, the cost-of-living adjustment is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation, and education.
The cost-of-living adjustment is calculated by comparing consumer prices in July, August, and September each year to prices in the same three months from the previous year. If prices go up over the course of the year, benefits go up, starting with payments delivered in January.
This year, average prices for July and August were 1.4 percent higher than they were a year ago, according to the Consumer Price Index.
Once the September report, the final piece of the puzzle, is released, the adjustment can be announced officially. If prices continued to slowly inch up in September, that would put the cost-of-living adjustment at roughly 1.5 percent.
Several economists said there were no dramatic price swings in September to significantly increase or decrease the projected adjustment. That means the projection should not change by more than a few tenths of a percentage point, if at all.
Polina Vlasenko, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, projects the cost-of-living adjustment will be between 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent.
Her projection is similar to those done by others, including AARP, which estimates the adjustment will be between 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent. The Senior Citizens League estimates it will be estimate is about 1.5 percent.
Lower prices for gasoline are helping to fuel low inflation, Vlasenko said.
Gasoline prices are down 2.4 percent from a year ago while food prices are up slightly, according to the August inflation report. Housing costs went up 2.3 percent and utilities increased by 3.2 percent.
I count 5.5 percent of increases plus slightly more with only a 2.4 percent drop the lowest cost category of gasoline. And yet they are telling you costs went up only 1.5 percent?
And that is not including MEDICAL COSTS that are SKYROCKETING under Obamacare?
Advocates for seniors say the government’s measure of inflation does not accurately reflect price increases older Americans face because they tend to spend more of their income on health care.
There is nothing this government does that is accurate! That is what happens when you lie all the time.
Medical costs went up less than in previous years but still outpaced other consumer prices, rising 2.5 percent.
That brings the increase percentage to a round 8, doesn't it?
‘‘This [cost-of-living adjustment] is not enough to keep up with inflation, as it affects seniors,’’ said Max Richtman, who heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. ‘‘There are some things that become cheaper but they are not things that seniors buy. Laptop computers have gone down dramatically, but how many people at 70 are buying laptop computers?’’
Is anyone buying them now?
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Related: Boston Globe Knee-$lapper
Maybe you think it is funny. And now this bankrupt, money-grubbing, greedy government is cutting you chump change for an increase for Social Security recipients.
Maybe this will make you laugh:
"US bars book on botched ATF sting" Associated Press, October 08, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is blocking a federal law enforcement agent from publishing a book about the failed ‘‘Fast and Furious’’ gun-smuggling sting operation because of concerns that the book would negatively affect morale, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday.
Related: Fast and Furious Forgotten
They are not concerned about morale. They are concerned about their own asses and their covert drug- and gun-running!
The ACLU charged that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is worried that the book proposed by an ATF agent would hurt relationships with other US law enforcement agencies.
That's not it.
In a six-page letter to ATF Deputy Director Thomas Brandon, the ACLU said the bureau’s decision to block the book proposed by Special Agent John Dodson was a violation of his First Amendment rights. The ACLU described Dodson as a whistleblower.
Obomber hates those unless it's leaking his agenda and the things that make him look good!
According to the letter, the ATF denied Dodson’s request to try to publish a book about his version of the Fast and Furious scandal because the bureau predicted it would have ‘‘a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [Field Division] and would have a detrimental’’ impact on ATF relationships with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The ATF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A federal law enforcement official said the government is still considering whether Dodson can publish his proposed book if he doesn’t make any money. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter, said federal law generally bars government employees from outside work that is based on their official duties. The Washington Times first reported the ATF’s decision Monday.
Dodson was an agent in the Phoenix field office, where Fast and Furious investigation was run, when he went to Congress with details about the sting operation in which the ATF allowed gun-runners to buy weapons in hopes of tracking them and disrupting Mexican gun smuggling rings.
Dodson's book was a one-day wonder in my Globe.
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Related: Filibuster Firefight Over Obama's ATF Nominee
Then they all had a smoke and calmed down.
