What’s interesting in the news today?
Open thread, as always.
First up today, looks like someone wants to be martyred. Which is odd, because I’ve heard religion had nothing to do with this. 🙄
It’s also why when he’s found guilty, the sentence should be life in prison. Don’t give him the easy way out, or the fame and notoriety amongst jihadists that he craves.
From HotAir “The standby attorney for the Army psychiatrist accused in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting has told a military judge that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan appears intent on receiving a death sentence.”
“Lt. Col. Kris Poppe (PAHP’-ee) said Wednesday at Hasan’s trial that he is willing to step in and be Hasan’s attorney. But if Hasan continues to work toward being executed, Poppe asked that his responsibilities be minimized.”
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Oh look. Why am I not shocked?
From Reuters “Congress has won some partial relief for lawmakers and their staffs from the “Obamacare” health reforms that it passed and subjected itself to three years ago.
In a ruling issued on Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers and their staffs will continue to receive a federal contribution toward the health insurance that they must purchase through soon-to-open exchanges created by President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
The decision by the Office of Personnel Management, with Obama’s blessing, will prevent the largely unintended loss of healthcare benefits for 535 members of the Senate and House of Representatives and thousands of Capitol Hill staff.”
How nice for them.
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Meanwhile, a plan to not fund ObamaCare for next year, but not one that requires a govt. shutdown.
From TheHill “A group of conservatives led by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is pushing for a one-year delay of ObamaCare in the government funding bills that must be passed this fall.
In a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Norquist and 18 other conservatives urged support for a one-year delay as part of any spending package.
“It is wrong to force people to participate in a system that is simply not ready,” the activists wrote.”
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This one? Also not surprising. Birds of a feather and all.
From WatchDog.org “Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and three top GreenTech advisers met with the key White House aide responsible for helping bankrupt solar-panel maker Solyndra win federal loans and high-profile presidential support, a Watchdog investigation has revealed.
What they discussed in the Oct. 12, 2010, meeting with Obama “green energy” aide Greg Nelson is a mystery – the White House visitors log offers no details. But the confab came seven months after a stock transfer made McAuliffe a GreenTech minority owner and company chairman.”
“Months before the GreenTech meeting at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., White House officials already knew Solyndra was on the ropes – failing an independent audit and headed toward a predicted default on its federal $535 million loan. Despite warnings from allies and staff, the president visited Solyndra in May 2010, pointing to the company as a model of his new economy.”
And yes, this is the same GreenTech who’s sister company Gulf Coast Funds, is involved in a visa selling scandal, which also seems to involve McAuliffe. He’s also in on the electric car scam too. So what will it be? “Purely coincidental?” Or “Phony scandals?”
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The Recovery continues to gain steam. Or not. Depends on your definition of what’s successful. The Obama admin likes it, and loves to take credit. So give it to ’em.
From HotAir “Being on vacation last week meant that I missed the jobs report for July, which turned out to be as unremarkable as most of those in the four-plus years of the so-called economic recovery. The media reports I did catch while on the cruise focused mainly on the fact that the jobs added in July missed the expectations of analysts, and not on the fact that adding only 162,000 jobs meant another extension of stagnation, as the US economy needs ~150,000 jobs added each month just to tread water, thanks to population growth. That’s not even a decent maintenance number, let alone the kind of job growth needed to put the chronically unemployed back to work.
The media reports also missed another trend in job reports, one caught by a former chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and reported by McClatchy’s Kevin Hall this morning. Almost all of the job growth this year came in part-time work — and when we say “almost all,” we mean 97% of it:”
““Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,” said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “That is really remarkable.””
“Hall is no ordinary academic. He ran the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs report, from 2008 to 2012. Over the past six months, he said, the Household Survey shows 963,000 more people reporting that they were employed, and 936,000 of them reported they’re in part-time jobs.”
Gee, it’s almost like there’s some reason out there for the uneasiness, and it’s scaring the job creators and leading them to only hire part-time….
But this admin can’t figure out what it is. Must be another coincidence. 🙄
Welcome to the new normal.
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Wandering Views 
hmmm… I think I am reading these threads in the wrong order. This political thread is always so depressing, but that is reality right now. The prayer thread has prayer requests and praises and is an encouraging view of reality. Then, were I to read the daily thread last, I would have the wonderful humor of Chas to cheer up my evening.
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I give Obama a pass on this too. But can you imagine the brouhaha we would have if Sarah Palin or George Bush had said that?
“If we don’t deepen our ports all along the Gulf — (and in) places like Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, Fla. — if we don’t do that, these ships are going to go someplace else and we’ll lose jobs,” Obama said.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/08/07/aps-russ-bynum-covers-obamas-gulf-ports-gaffe#ixzz2bNsa5aFs
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HRW,
If you show up today, here’s something on our conversation yesterday. As the author says, correlation isn’t causation, but there sure seems to be some relation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-07/america%E2%80%99s-urban-distress-how-much-problem-can-we-blame-liberal-politics
“But what about politics? Does ideology play a role?
By popular demand (at least based on comments on the earlier articles, especially on Zero Hedge), below are two charts that compare unemployment rates to political bias for 218 cities.
Although the figures for political bias are from a 2005 report, they’re still relevant in my opinion, considering that:
1.City-wide biases are unlikely to change rapidly.
2.Political actions have long-term effects on economic performance.”
Also see,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-03/america%E2%80%99s-urban-distress-which-states-and-regions-set-their-cities-fail
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There seems to be a full court press against Terry McAuliffe. Citzens United has produced a 30 minute documentary which Virginia television stations will air 20 times prior to the election. Republicans were upset with a Clinton documentary airing 3 years before the presidential election but are supportive of a documentary created by a lobby group to air throughout the year prior to an election. In this case, one would acccurately call this a 30 minute attack ad. I wonder why corporate groups are so upset …..
As for urban political alliances and ideologies, much of it is correlation. North eastern cities were Democratic prior to, during and after the great manufacturing boom. The current unemployment has more to do with with Rust Belt cities being unable to re-orient themselves especially medium size cities which don’t have the same attractive pull as the larger centers. In either case, both successful and unsuccessful cities in the northeast are liberal.
Meanwhile, the logic of capitalism moves forward. Older outdated areas of manufacturing are abandoned and newer more efficient centers are opened elsewhere and thus the Rust Belt bleeds jobs while other areas (the old south and the pacific) gain new jobs. Employment in the interior is not relevant in this discussion since most of its based in resources or agriculture. My own city resembles this in miniature. Along the north end near the port and railway yards, there are countless half empty factories, steel mills, refineries, etc which the city desperately wants new industry to clean up and once again fill up with new industry and jobs. There are countless incentives to motivate companies to move there but almost without exception newer industries prefer to establish their plants on the south end near freeways and the airport. The same pattern plays out nation wide. And political ideologies have very little to do with this.
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link for the day
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/07/1229087/-15-things-everyone-would-know-if-there-were-a-liberal-media#
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HRW,
“There seems to be a full court press against Terry McAuliffe. Citzens United has produced a 30 minute documentary which Virginia television stations will air 20 times prior to the election.”
Why shouldn’t they? If not for them, who would expose his shady dealings and associations? The “unbiased” liberal media? They failed to do so thus far. I doubt that changes between now and election day. But CU appears to be willing to do the job they won’t. Nope, no bias there at all. 🙄
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You apparently didn’t read my link above your comment. The media isn’t liberal — its corporate and is motivated by short term profit like any other corporation in America.
And its the “liberal” media which is running this so called documentary 20 times prior to the election.
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HRW, I have heard most of those theories from the liberal media. Of course I need more proof that they’re true than the very biased Daily Kos.
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