Graphic of the Day

U.S. economy finds momentum in second quarter, further gains seen

U.S. economic growth unexpectedly accelerated in the second quarter, laying a firmer foundation for the rest of the year that could bring the Federal Reserve a step closer to cutting back its monetary stimulus. Gross domestic product grew at a 1.7 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday, stepping up from the first-quarter's downwardly revised 1.1 percent expansion pace.

Leave it to Reuters to spin this as some sort of positive. Actually last qtr. was revised down from 1.8% growth so based on that we have lost ground. One could make a sound bet that the 2nd qtr. will be revised down as well. Regardless, even if it holds 1.8% growth is extremely anemic.

Appeals judges: NYC soda ban is unconstitutional

Of course it is.

NEW YORK -- A plan to ban big, sugary drinks in New York City restaurants is unconstitutional, said a state appeals court in a unanimous decision that upholds a lower court ruling. The appeals judges said the city's plan violates the principle of separation of powers, according to media reports.

80% Of US Adults Are Near Poverty, Rely On Welfare, Or Are Unemployed

That's the whole idea....make everyone dependent on government and insure the governments power over our lives.

Despite consumer confidence at a six-year high, the latest AP survey of the real America shows a stunning four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, are near poverty, or rely on welfare for at least parts of their lives amid signs of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Hardship is particularly on the rise among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among whites about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. "Poverty is no longer an issue of 'them', it's an issue of 'us'," as 'the invisible poor' - lower income whites - are generally dispersed in suburbs (Appalachia, the industrial Midwest, and across America's heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains) where more than 60% of the poor are white. More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four - accounting for more than 41% of the nation's destitute - nearly double the number of poor blacks and as one survey respondent noted "I think it's going to get worse."

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Saturday Funny

Obama's Misery Index Approaches Carter Years

Yet the media continues to cheerlead like there'd no tomorrow.

In the past 30 years if you were in the top 1% economic class your inflation-adjusted incomes grew by 224%. The top 0.1% grew by 390%. In contrast, the bottom 90% struggled with only a 5% growth in incomes.

Whoop-tee-do! A 5% increase over 30 years is pathetic! According to the Credit Suisse's annual Global Wealth Data Book, America's middle class ranks 27th in the world. Are they serious? I thought the United States was the wealthiest country in the world. The U.S. misery index has reached its highest level since May, 1983. I remember the Carter years.

The only thing missing today is the 18% interest rates. So how can the index be so high in the Obama years without double-digit interest rates? For starters, I remember having a job back then. Today, a lot of us don't have jobs, 50% of the population receives government checks, the population is aging, and the dollar has plummeted in value.

Wednesday Funny

America's biggest deadbeat dad with 22 kids by 14 women to get his own reality show

In 0bama's world, this asshat is considered an entreprener.

A man who fathered 22 kids by 14 different women - earning himself the title 'America's biggest deadbeat dad' - is to get his own reality TV show.

It comes after unemployed Orlando Shaw, 33, was filmed boasting outside a Nashville courthouse following a child support hearing, 'the ladies don't like me, they love me.'

The interview, recorded by Nashville’s NewsChannel, has since gone viral. It has been estimated that the state of Tennessee pays around $7,000 each month to help support Shaw’s children.

He was filmed following a court hearing in which some of his former lovers - and mothers to his children - were demanding that he pay tens of thousands of dollars in back child support, Inquisitr.com reports.

Tuesday Funny

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA

An excellent reflection of what the majority of white Americans believe. Read the whole thing, this ones well worth your time.

Let’s have a discussion about race.

Not a one-sided harangue, but a two-way discussion. Let’s move beyond the politically correct “Whites are racists, blacks are victims” and actually talk things out. You do that by hearing both sides.

Toward that end, in the spirit of the president’s remarks, I’d like to discuss what it’s like to be a white man in America. And I’d like to be held to the same standard as the president. His remarks were personal impressions based on generalizations, traditions, culture and folklore. He was called brave. I’ll be called racist.

That’s because our system is based on a double standard. Black criticisms of white society are insightful; white criticisms of black society are bigotry. White people know that if they say anything that doesn’t exactly toe the line of political correctness, they run the risk of losing their jobs and their public reputations.

We live in a society where the accusation of racism is evidence enough; to be accused is to be guilty. That’s what we white people think. We also think that we pay the bills. We think that we disproportionately pay the taxes and that black people disproportionately collect the welfare. We feel like we are being ripped off and that this uneven shouldering of the burden will eventually bankrupt and kill our country.

I work in a building that houses a Social Security office. One elevator serves that office specifically. It is stunning to note the demographic difference between the elevators. Overwhelmingly, white people go up one set of elevators to work, and black people go up the other set of elevators to apply for SSI.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK FOR THE CLIMATE ALARMISTS

Never in history has one person been so wrong about so many things.

One of the highlights was when the assembled panel of experts was asked whether any of them could support Barack Obama’s claim that global warming has been accelerating over the last decade:

Warmists were asked: “Can any witnesses say they agree with Obama’s statement that warming has accelerated during the past 10 years?” For several seconds, nobody said a word. Sitting just a few rows behind the expert witnesses, I thought I might have heard a few crickets chirping.

Heh. You can count on Obama to be wrong about pretty much everything.

The ‘New School’ on CNN - If Rachel Jeantel is the future of America, we’re completely doomed.

But also according to CNN she does speak perfect southern North Carolina, ghetto, jive Queens English with a Caribbean twist.

Becoming a teenage television star turns out to be surprisingly easy: Testify for the prosecution in the murder trial of an innocent man in a case that liberals want to turn into a carnival of racial hatred.

Rachel Jeantel’s appearance on Monday night’s Piers Morgan Live was a new low in the relentless dumbing down of American culture. Her claim to fame is that she was having a cell-phone conversation with Trayvon Martin shortly before the 17-year-old was shot to death by George Zimmerman. Having been discovered by Florida civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and offered as “Witness 8” for the prosecution, Jeantel was undeniably the star of the Zimmerman trial — not in a good way. During the course of her testimony, she introduced the phrase “creepy-ass cracker” to the national vocabulary and embarrassed herself when she was forced to admit that she could not read a letter she allegedly wrote to Trayvon’s parents. Asked to read the letter aloud in court two weeks ago, the Miami teen confessed: “I don’t read cursive.”

Exactly what Rachel Jeantel does read is a mystery. She appears to be a typical specimen of the sub-literate youth warehoused within the Miami-Dade County school system. Anyone who has read the text-messages Trayvon exchanged with Jeantel and his other friends must despair for the future of the country. After watching Jeantel on CNN Monday, it’s even harder to be hopeful. The 19-year-old was asked by Morgan to react to a juror’s comments about the incoherence of her testimony.

“Well, the jury, they see their fact,” Jeantel replied. “None offense to the jury, they old. That’s old school people. We in the new school, our generation, my generation.”

Hold placed on George Zimmerman trial evidence

The DOJ is crossing the line between diligence and harrassment.

SANFORD, Fla. —A hold was placed Thursday on all evidence related to the death of Trayvon Martin.

It's another indication that federal investigators are not done with the George Zimmerman case, despite a jury's not guilty verdict.

The Zimmerman Prosecution Clarified

There should be little doubt in the mind of any clear thinking person that the Zimmerman prosecution was entirely political in its origin and process.

Cut the the noise from the minority (black) community, its leaders, the media and the co-dependent left and we are left with one singular immutable fact......George Zimmerman was getting the crap kicked out of him by a younger, stronger, more  physically proficient young "man" and he reacted as any rational person would, he protected himself from serious bodily harm or even death with the only tool at his disposal.

It wouldn't have mattered if he had grabbed a rock or a lead pipe or a gun or a marshmellow to incapaciate his attacker, any and all actions were justifiable under the circumstances.

That's it, everything else is just noise. Was he following Martin? Doesn't matter. Did he strike the first blow? Doesn't matter. Was he profiling Martin because he was Black? Doesn't matter. Was he ordered not to follow Martin by a police officer? Doesn't matter. Was he a rascist? Doesn't matter. Even whether or not Martin was reaching for the gun doesn't matter. Now as a matter of fact almost all of these conjectures have been proven erroneous but bottom line, none of it matters as it pertains to the law. Zimmerman broke no laws before, during or after the incident. They couldn't legitimately indict him for spitting on the sidewalk.

The only thing that mattered was Martin was on top pounding George Zimmerman into the sidewalk  (even the prosecution conceded this fact toward the end) and any reasonable person would likely be in fear for life and limb. Stand your ground doesn't even apply. It's the time honored tradition in law that a person DOES have the right to defend themselves by any means neccessary if they reasonably feel in fear for their safety. Zimmerman surely did and the jury believed that was reasonable  belief on his part.  That's it, it's that simple.

I know when someone is killed or seriously injured people feel a need to assign blame and make someone pay. Three of the jurors initially felt that way until the other 3 clear thinking ones showed them the light. They all eventually scrutinized the facts and made a judgement with their brains and not their heart. It was definitively the correct one.

People can and should feel some sense of closure as the person who instigated then perpetuated the entire confrontation HAS paid.... with his life. It may not seem fair but life(and death) rarely are. All the breast beating and politically motivated persecution of an innocent man in the world won't change that fact.

Jimmy Carter: ‘Jury Made The Right Decision’ In Zimmerman Case

Looks like this "creepy ass cracker" got one right.

Former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday weighed in on the murder trial of George Zimmerman, saying the "jury made the right decision" in acquitting the neighborhood watch volunteer of all charges in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

"I think the jury made the right decision based in the evidence presented because the prosecution inadvertently set the standard so high that the jury had to be convinced that it was a deliberate act by Zimmerman and that he was not defending himself and so forth," Carter told television station WXIA in Atlanta. "It's not a moral question, it's a legal question and the American law requires that the jury listens to the evidence presented."

This is How Ridiculous It's Become

Jesse Jackson: 'I Do Not Accept' Zimmerman Verdict

Spoken like a true demagogic race baiter.

Civil rights leaders say the case against neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman is not over. Zimmerman was acquitted on Saturday in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, compares the verdict to the court cases of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers. “Something about it was stacked from the very beginning.”

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Graphic of the day

Angela Corey Fires IT Director Who Raised Concerns in Trayvon Martin Case

Damn the truth, tow the government line or you're history.

State Attorney Angela Corey fired her office’s information technology director Friday after he testified last month about being concerned prosecutors did not turn over information to George Zimmerman’s defense team in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. On the same day attorneys finished their closing arguments in that nationally watched trial, a state attorney investigator went to Ben Kruidbos’ home about 7:30 a.m. to hand-deliver a letter stating Kruidbos “can never again be trusted to step foot in this office.”

Pic of the Day

Ms Judge Nelson

Ex-Sanford Police Chief Was Pressured To Arrest Zimmerman — Fired For Refusing To Arrest Without Probable Cause

I see one helluva suit for malicious prosecution here.

The George Zimmerman investigation was hijacked “in a number of ways” by outside forces, said the former police chief of Sanford, Florida.

Bill Lee, who testified Monday in Zimmerman’s second-degree murder trial, told CNN’s George Howell in an exclusive interview that he felt pressure from city officials to arrest Zimmerman to placate the public rather than as a matter of justice.

“It was (relayed) to me that they just wanted an arrest. They didn’t care if it got dismissed later,” he said. “You don’t do that.”

When Sanford police arrived on the scene on February 26, 2012, after Zimmerman fatally shot unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, they conducted a “sound” investigation, and the evidence provided no probable cause to arrest Zimmerman at the scene, he said.

And this to go along with it: Government-Approved Race Riots?

What about these dead black kids?

Don’t get me wrong; I mourn for Trayvon Martin. It’s a tragedy that any young kid like him will not live to see adulthood. But I don’t blame George Zimmerman for shooting him in self-defense.

I blame the corrupt, violent, lifeless, drug and gangsta culture that is breeding generations of Trayvons – kids who are uneducated, devoid of morals, without vision, dreams and aspirations. I blame a political establishment that fosters all of this and lures kids and their parents into dependency on the state. I blame the broader culture that tolerates violence against black people – as long as that violence is perpetrated by black people. You think I’m exaggerating?

As the nation is fixated on George Zimmerman’s trial for the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, over the weekend, 74 people were shot in Chicago – most of them black victims attacked by black perps. At least 12 were killed. Many of the injuries are serious.

Almost no one is talking about 74 people being shot in one holiday weekend in a city with the strictest anti-gun laws in the country. That’s more Americas that were shot in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over the same time period – a lot more.

Couldn't have said it any better.

STUDY: ALL NET GAIN IN U.S. EMPLOYMENT HAS GONE TO IMMIGRANTS

I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

A new analysis of government data shows that all of the net gain in employment over the last 13 years has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal). From the first quarter of 2000 to the first quarter of 2013, the number of natives working actually fell by 1.3 million while the overall size of the working-age (16 to 65) native population increased by 16.4 million. Over the same time period, the number of immigrants working (legal and illegal) increased by 5.3 million.

In addition to the decline in the number of natives working, there has been a broad decline in the percentage holding a job that began before the 2007 recession. This decline has impacted natives of almost every age, race, gender, and education level. The total number of working-age (16 to 65) natives not working — unemployed or out of the labor force entirely — was nearly 59 million in the first quarter of this year, a figure that has changed little in the last three years and is nearly 18 million larger than in 2000.

Thus, the data do not support the argument of Schumer-Rubio proponents that the nation’s workforce isn’t large enough.

Sunday Funny

Thanks RR.

Obamacare Strikes: Part-Time Jobs Surge To All Time High; Full-Time Jobs Plunge By 240,000

Regardless of the MSM spin, the employment news today is NOT good.

As a reminder: jobs have quantity and quality components. The quantity component was good enough to convince the 10 Year the taper is imminent (if not stocks, which continue to trade dislocated from any and all fundamentals). But how about the quality? In a word: not good. In June, the household survey reported that part-time jobs soared by 360,000 to 28,059,000 - an all time record high. Full time jobs? Down 240,000. And looking back at the entire year, so far in 2013, just 130K Full-Time Jobs have been added, offset by a whopping 557K Part-Time jobs. And there is your jobs "quality" leading to today's market euphoria ...

The Freedom Index

Very informative, click the link and see how your Congresscritter measures up.

A Congressional Scorecard Based on the U.S. Constitution rates congressmen based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements. The percentages below are cumulative scores are based on key votes from 1999 through 2013.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Wednesday Funny

White House backing away from Morsi in record time

That's one thing you can say about the Obama administration without contradiction....they're reactive.

The withdrawal of support for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi by President Obama is the latest bit of bad news for Egypt's leader and the Muslim Brotherhood movement that catapulted him to power as the country's first freely elected head of state.

The US hasn't publicly abandoned Mr. Morsi, whom the State Department has repeatedly hailed as a democratically elected leader. But via anonymous spokesmen it's done everything but, and the distancing has come in record time – just three days since mass protests broke out.

When protests against President Hosni Mubarak broke out in January 2011, the US struggled mightily to hold back the tide. On day two, Vice President Joe Biden famously insisted that Mubarak was no dictator (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and that he should remain in office. It was only on day five that Obama's people began muttering about the need for "reform" and an unspecified "orderly transition" of some sort. Only on day 17, when Mubarak's fate was written, did the administration publicly say that Mubarak must go.

Supreme Court Update Public Approval of Supreme Court Falls to All-Time Low

They bring it on themselves.

The U.S. Supreme Court finished its term with big decisions on voting rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage. Following those rulings, public approval of the court has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded in more than nine years of polling.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 28% believe the Supreme Court is doing a good or an excellent job. At the same time, 30% rate its performance as poor. That’s the highest-ever poor rating. It’s also the first time ever that the poor ratings have topped the positive assessments. Thirty-nine percent (39%) give the court middling reviews and rate its performance as fair.