Wealth Gap Among Races Has Widened Since Recession

"At least I got me a free phone"

WASHINGTON — Millions of Americans suffered a loss of wealth during the recession and the sluggish recovery that followed. But the last half-decade has proved far worse for black and Hispanic families than for white families, starkly widening the already large gulf in wealth between non-Hispanic white Americans and most minority groups, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.

It was already dismal,” Darrick Hamilton, a professor at the New School in New York, said of the wealth gap between black and white households. “It got even worse.”

Given the dynamics of the housing recovery and the rebound in the stock market, the wealth gap might still be growing, experts said, further dimming the prospects for economic advancement for current and future generations of Americans from minority groups.

State Dept Blocking Lawyers From Representing Benghazi Whistleblowers

More Gestapo tactics from the Obama administration. One thing for sure, Victoria Toensing will definately not go quietly into the night.

According to former US Attorney Joe DiGenova, the State Department is standing in the way of lawyers trying to represent whistleblowers in the ongoing investigation into the events at the US Consolate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

DiGenova appeared with me and co-host Brian Wilson this morning on "Mornings on the Mall" on WMAL-FM in Washington DC.

"The Department of State is refusing to grant clearances to Victoria (Toensing) and other people who want to represent the whistleblowers in an attempt to prevent the testimony," DiGenova said, referring to the upcoming hearing before Rep. Darrel Issa's House Oversight Committee.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Quote of the Day

Sarah Palin commenting on the White House Corresponance Dinner last night: That #WHCD was pathetic. The rest of America is out there working our asses off while these DC assclowns throw themselves a #nerdprom.

New Twinkie Maker Shuns Union Labor

If they can maintain that status they've got a decent chance of survival.

The company that bought the Twinkie, HoHo and Ding Dong brands out of bankruptcy is gearing up to reopen plants and hire workers, but it won't be using union labor.

Hostess Brands new incarnation of the baking company that liquidated in Chapter 11—is reopening four bakeries in the next eight to 10 weeks, aiming to get Twinkie-deprived consumers the classic snack cake starting in July.

Chief Executive C. Dean Metropoulos said the company will pump $60 million in capital investments into the plants between now and September and aims to hire at least 1,500 workers. But they won't be represented by unions, including the one whose nationwide strike sparked the 86-year-old company's decision to shut down in November.

"We do not expect to be involved in the union going forward," Mr. Metropoulos said in an interview Wednesday.

Terror plot: Eleven jailed for Birmingham bomb plan

Secondary headline: American press befuddled as to motive.

Eleven members of a Birmingham terror cell that planned an attack to rival the 7 July and 9/11 atrocities have been jailed.

Four of the group who travelled to Pakistan for terror training but had second thoughts - Ishaaq Hussain, Shahid Khan, Naweed Ali and Khobaib Hussain - were each sentenced to 40 months.

The group had planned to set off up to eight bombs in rucksacks, using timers to detonate the charges.

Detectives believe the terror plot is the most significant to be uncovered since the 2006 conspiracy to blow up transatlantic airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks.

Thursday Funny

Cold and snow wave grips the USA, nearly 10,000 cold and snow records set in the last six weeks

If this were a month of a heatwave across thus USA, like last July, you can bet it would be MSM headlines all over the place and breathless stories from AP’s Seth Borenstein and pronouncements from the Mannian climate cartel about how all this is connected to global warming, er climate change, er climate disruption.

But nary a peep so far about this cold wave lasting over a month that has generated 9787 records posted by NOAA/NWS.

Crickets from the Junior High kids over at the Weather Channel.

Hump Day (not so) Funny

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Family Received Welfare

This guy was a virtual Progressive poster child.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on welfare, sponsored by tax payers. Tsarnaev, now dead, is suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon last week.

"Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned," reports the Boston Herald.

"State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

Thought for the Day

When a bomber sets off a bomb we blame the terrorist. When a drunk driver kills somebody in a car we blame the drunk. So how come when someone shoots somebody - we blame the gun?

Must Watch: ICE Union Leader Reveals Shocking Details About Immigration Enforcement

Picking and choosing which laws to enforce and which to not.

Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, made a number of stunning revelations during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday — and he’s begging Congress for help. The ICE union boss argued that agents are no longer allowed to arrest illegal aliens solely for illegal entry or expired visas and morale is at an all-time low.

Most Americans would be shocked to find out that immigration agents are regularly “prohibited from enforcing the two most fundamental sections of United States immigration law,” he said. Instead, the administration has ordered that only illegals charged or convicted of “very serious criminal offenses” may be arrested or charged by ICE agents and officers.

“In fact, under current policy individuals legally in the United States must now be convicted of 3 or more criminal misdemeanors before ICE agents are permitted to charge or arrest the illegal alien for illegal entry or overstaying a visa,” he added. That is unless the misdemeanors involve assault, sexual abuse or drug trafficking.

Beck Revelation

Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi,was tagged with a 21-3B ( the worst of the worst) status and was "coincidentally" at the finish line of the Boston Bombing!

Likely bet Kerry had this designation removed and or altered at the direction of Obama.

Congressmen Duncan, King, McCall have the original file with designation.

Graphic of the Week

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Graphic of the Day

BASTARD CAUGHT!

One Boston Marathon Suspect Killed; Second Suspect, His Brother, On Loose After Firefight

Axelrod: Obama Thinks Boston Bombing Could be Related to Tax Day.

With a bomb strapped to his chest, one of the Boston Marathon suspects was killed early Friday after he and his accomplice brother robbed a 7-Eleven, shot a police officer to death, carjacked an SUV and hurled explosives in an extraordinary firefight with law enforcement, authorities told NBC News.

The second suspect — the one in the white hat in photos released by the FBI — was on the loose. Gov. Deval Patrick ordered the entire city of Boston and some suburbs to stay inside during what he called a “massive manhunt,” and police began a house-to-house search. Boston shut down its buses and subway system.

The suspects are brothers of Chechen origin with the last name Tsarnaev, law enforcement officials told NBC News. The suspect at large, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is 19, was born in Kyrgyzstan and has a Massachusetts driver’s license, they said. The dead suspect was identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, born in Russia.

Clueless imbecile running this country.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker surges to top of GOP 2016 list

Waaaaay too early but interesting nonetheless.

He doesn't get the attention of the Sunday talk shows, or Washington's political elite, but the Midwest's dragon slayer, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, is emerging in some Republican circles as the surprising favorite to win the GOP nomination for president in 2016.

Untainted by scandal, far from Washington's voter-frustrating gridlock, and reinvigorated by his victory over foes who staged a recall vote, the conservative Walker is also viewed as the best candidate to sop up the Midwest white vote which, had Mitt Romney done better there, would have catapulted him into the Oval Office.

But the best part in the eyes of the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato: "If Walker were to become the Republican presidential nominee, Democrats will have helped it happen." That's because they drove the recent losing recall effort out of anger Walker was cracking down on public unions.

Wednesday Funny

Restaurant in UK.

Obama administration has SLASHED budget for domestic bombing prevention by 45 per cent

Yea, it's the Republicans fault Steny.

Barack Obama's administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal.

Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others.

85% of Cops Don’t Believe Gun Control Works, 86% Want More Civilians Armed

Unlike most liberal politicians the cops really know the score.

According to the lengthy survey of law enforcement professionals, one of the largest ever of street cops, 85 percent believe that President Obama’s gun control plan to ban assault weapons, limit the size of ammo magazines and expand background checks won’t improve their safety, with just over 10 percent believing it will have a “positive effect.”

The poll from PoliceOne.com, a site dedicated to police policy and news, also found surprising support for arming citizens. The poll found that 86 percent of officers believe that casualties would be decreased if armed citizens were present at the onset of a shooting. Another 81 percent backed arming teachers, as the National Rifle Association has called for.

Home-builder confidence lowest in six months

As goes home building so goes the economy.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A gauge of confidence among home builders fell in April for a third month of declines, hurt by weaker views on present sales of single-family homes and prospective-buyer traffic, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing-market index released Monday.

The overall builder-confidence index decreased to 42 in April from 44 in March, hitting the lowest level in six months.

Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected the overall builder-sentiment index to rise to 46 in April from 44 in March.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Mother: I regret having my kids

With sub human narcissists like this lacking regard for anyone but their own needy selves, is it any wonder why there are millions of abortions performed every year.

For many women, having a child is a joyous, albeit life-changing, occasion. But for 57-year-old Isabella Dutton of Britain, it was her biggest mistake.

Dutton, a typist, wrote a first-hand account for the UK’s Daily Mail in which she details her regrets about having her two children, Stuart and Jo.

“My son Stuart was five days old when the realisation hit me like a physical blow: having a child had been the biggest mistake of my life,” she wrote. “I felt completely detached from this alien being who had encroached upon my settled married life and changed it, irrevocably, for the worse.

” Dutton said that despite her indifference, she invested all of her time and energy into caring for her children. But she soon came to resent their neediness and the time spent doting on them that could have been used to “reflect, read and enjoy her own company."

Wisconsin union membership plunging as workers exercise new rights

No wonder the unions were screaming bloody murder.

Two years after the protracted, bitter battle that pitted Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker against the state's public-sector unions and their allies, one thing is clear: Those unions are now shrinking rapidly.

The Badger State battle was over a law called Act 10 that reined in most state and local government employee unions, primarily by the ending the automatic deduction of union dues from workers' paychecks.

Before Walker's reforms, it didn't matter if, say, a city hall clerk or a public school teacher wanted to support a union or not. They had to pay if they wanted to keep their jobs. The money was taken directly out of their paychecks just as if it were a tax.

Big Labor feared -- and conservative groups hoped -- that without this legal requirement a lot of union members would simply drop out. That assumption has turned out to be correct.

OMB: Obama Will Become First President to Spend $4T in One Year

Running the country as a true Monarch.

In the historical tables it released along with President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 budget proposal this morning, the White House Office of Management and Budget revealed that in fiscal 2016 it expects Obama to become the first president in the nation's history to preside over a federal government that spends more than $4 trillion in one year.

The OMB's historical tables also reveal that the White House does not expect this administration to ever run an annual deficit as low as $458.5 billion, which was the deficit the government ran in fiscal 2008, the last fiscal year completed before Obama took office.

According to OMB's tables, the federal government would spend$3.7778 trillion in fiscal 2014 under Obama's budget proposal. It would then spend $3.9801 trillion in fiscal 2015; $4.0898 trillion in fiscal 2016; and $4.2474 trillion in fiscal 2017.

Hump Day Goofy Pic

Early Line for 2016 Shows a Vice President Who’s Not the Favorite

Jeez, ya think.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. showed up late at an event last week, saying he was delayed because “the president keeps those meetings going longer.” But he walked into a Hillary Clinton crowd. Outside, supporters hoisted signs urging her to run for president. Inside, she was greeted as a hero.

Not that Mr. Biden was an afterthought. He had plenty of friends in the room. But at the Kennedy Center, where women’s achievements were being honored by an organization Mrs. Clinton helped found, even Mr. Biden recognized that the best applause line belonged to her. “There’s no woman like Hillary Clinton,” he said. “That’s a fact.”

Mr. Biden faces a situation unique in the annals of modern American politics. He is the vice president, the highest-ranking member of his party interested in running for president, yet he is not the heir apparent. While every sitting vice president who sought it in the last half-century captured his party’s nomination, Mr. Biden would start as the underdog if he ran against Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state.

Quote of the Day

“To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.” ~

Margaret Thatcher

The Fed Is Quantitatively Easing Americans Out of Their Jobs

The real story...

As the months go by, it is becoming clear that the Federal Reserve's "QE3" program, which is supposed to be "doing something" about unemployment, is having the exact opposite effect. We can only wonder how long it will take Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to realize this.

Friday's "Employment Situation" report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was really, really, really bad. The reported 0.1 percentage point decline in the "headline" unemployment rate (from 7.7% to 7.6%) fooled no one. Total employment actually fell by 206,000. The only reason that the reported unemployment rate went down was because 496,000 Americans gave up on looking for jobs.

The most striking feature of President Obama's so-called "economic recovery" has been the exodus of Americans from the labor force. The unprecedented 2.5 percentage point decline in labor force participation under Obama amounts to 6.2 million Americans being pushed out of the job market.

If labor force participation had remained at the level it was when George W. Bush left office (65.8%), the unemployment rate for March would have been reported at 11.1%, up 0.2 percentage points from February. This amounts to a 3.1 percentage point rise during Obama's presidency, 1.4 percentage points of which occurred since the start of our so-called "economic recovery" in June 2009.

The Iron Lady Passes

Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died at 87 following a stroke, her spokesman has said.

Lady Thatcher was Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990.

David Cameron called her a "great Briton" and the Queen spoke of her sadness at the death.

A sad day. We've lost a truely great leader, ally and pillar of clear thinking conservative intellect.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

15% of Americans Now Receive Food Stamps

Adding 1000's more Obama dependent voters each and every day.

With yesterday’s job report, many are trying to pretend that this is a sign that America is on its way up and out of the recession. Liberals are trying to explain that jobs were added, they somehow forget to include that thousands of people left the job market too. And we are now seeing another sign that perhaps, this Obama economy really isn’t helping the American people all that much. 15% of Americans are now on food stamps! This doesn’t seem like a recovery to me!

The number of Americans on food stamps this January was 1.8% higher than January 2012. The food stamp program is now the government’s largest social welfare program. It was no surprise that this program grew when the economy was shrinking, but now that it is supposedly growing, why aren’t people moving off of assistance?

With 47.3 million Americans, or nearly 1 in every 7 people, now receiving food stamps from the government, it seems quite clear that the recovery isn’t getting down the chain to everybody.

Payrolls Plunge To 88K, Biggest Miss Since December 2009, Participation Rate At New 30 Year Low

Well, Obama figured out the best way to lower the unemployment rate early on.....Just encourage people to quit looking for a job.(Well over half a million just did)

So much for "open-ended QE driven recovery". Moments ago the March Non-farm payroll hit and it was a doozy, printing at 88K, below the lowest forecast of 100K, well below the expected number of 190K, and a tragedy compared to the February revised print of 268K (was 236K).

This was the biggest miss to expectations since December 2009 and the worst print since June 2012. The unemployment rate declined to 7.6%, but this was due entirely to the collapse in the labor force participation rate, which declined by 20 bps to 63.3%, a new 30 year low.

Thursday Funny

U.S. jobless claims climb to four-month high

50 months of "Hope and Change" and the economy stinks as bad as ever.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of people who applied for new unemployment benefits jumped 28,000 to a four-month high of 385,000 in the week ended March 30, the Labor Department said Thursday, but much of the increase likely reflects seasonal quirks related to the Easter holiday and spring break.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted claims would fall to 350,000 from an unrevised 357,000 in the prior week. The raw claims numbers were virtually identical for both weeks, however, suggesting that the government's seasonal-adjustment process exaggerated the increase. Still, the spike in claims adds to other recent reports suggesting that the pace of hiring in the U.S. has slowed. Meanwhile, the average of new claims in the last four weeks rose by 11,250 to 354,250 to mark a one-month high..

Where did all the money go? How $700 million in Katrina relief money went missing

As with all government spending...frought with waste, incompetence and corruption.
          
           Where did all the money go?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” David Montoya, the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says of $700 million in missing taxpayer money that Louisiana homeowners were given in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to elevate and protect their homes from future storms.

A new report released from the inspector general’s office shows that more than 24,000 homeowners who received grants of up to $30,000 to elevate their homes either misspent or pocketed the money.

“The fact of the matter is that the money they received was for a specific purpose and the specific purpose was to elevate these homes to avoid future catastrophes,” Montoya tells Power Players.

He rates the home elevation program as little more than a complete failure.

Eurozone unemployment hits a record 12 percent

Considering Obama is using Europe as a template, it's previews of coming attractions.

Official figures for first-quarter economic activity won’t be released until May 15, but the monthly Eurocoin measure of euro-zone output released Friday signaled a contraction for March, having earlier signaled declines in activity in January and February.

The measure, which is compiled by London-based Center for Economic Policy Research and the Bank of Italy, also showed a drop in gross domestic product in each of the three months of the fourth quarter, an indication borne out later when official data showed the euro-zone economy shrank by 0.6%.

Knee Slapper of the Day

Obama Proclaims April the Month to Teach Young People ‘How to Budget Responsibly’

This is not repeat NOT an April Fools joke.

Melt may explain Antarctica's sea ice expansion

Making it up as they go.

Climate change is expanding Antarctica's sea ice, according to a scientific study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The paradoxical phenomenon is thought to be caused by relatively cold plumes of fresh water derived from melting beneath the Antarctic ice shelves.

This melt water has a relatively low density, so it accumulates in the top layer of the ocean.

The cool surface waters then re-freeze more easily during Autumn and Winter.

This explains the observed peak in sea ice during these seasons, a team from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in De Bilt says in its peer-reviewed paper.

Up means down, black means white, warmer means colder.