The impacts are real….  swear.   Parents and babies are dying…. school children are crying every morning….  dogs and cats are howling daily….  the animal kingdom is crying out for more government – more government….  people are really suffering because the government cannot spend more next year than this….  or something. 

WASHINGTON DC – White House spokesman Jay Carney lamented during a press conference Tuesday that the media are not covering the sequester’s “impacts on real people.”

“The impacts are real,” Carney insisted during an exchange with Fox News’ Ed Henry, “and they effect real people. And I know that there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of the impacts on real people.” (more…)

As most people are now aware in the nation of Cyprus a system of forced confiscation from bank depositors was announced and refined over the past two weeks.    Any amount held in a Cyprotic bank over  €100,000 is now being forcibly “haircut” by 40%.   Meaning 40% of the holdings in any bank account are being taken by the government.   However, word now leaking that prior to the announcement – the President Of Cyprus removed dozens of millions from bank accounts and transferred to London, England.

Do they have Tar and Feathers in Europe?

(Via ZeroHedge)  A day after former Cypriot President Vassilou was found to be among many elite Cypriot (politicians and businessmen) who had loans written-off by the major (now insolvent) banks; it appears the rot is far fouler than expected.

In a somewhat stunning (or purely coincidental) revelation, ENETEnglish reports that Cypriot newspaper Haravgi claims that current President Nicos Anastasiades’ family businesses transferred ‘dozens of millions’ from their Laiki Bank accounts to London just a week before the devastating depositor haircuts were unleashed upon his people. (more…)

(Via Freedomworks)  I am currently in my freshman year of high school and the incidents are happening more frequently and I believe are more severe.  As you can imagine, the ongoing pressure and bullying has been disturbing to me, my friends and my family.

Just before the 2010 Midterm election, I was on the front page of the local newspaper for my political volunteer work and my teachers noticed. One of my seven teachers made it very clear that she dissaproved of my civic engagement. In a period of two months, my Geography teacher frequently would take me aside after school for a few minutes and tell me how stupid, wrong and misguided I was for being Republican. The harassment with this specific teacher got so bad, I had to switch schools halfway through the year.  At this time I was only 12 years old. To my knowledge, this teacher was not disciplined at all for her actions. (more…)

What is it with the Socialist, Progressive mindset? Why do they think that all production value (earnings) belong to the state? Seriously. If income belongs to the state, then what about the production value (productivity) that creates the income? If you follow this to the natural end…. Hollande wants to own people

Washington Times – A court may have shot down French President Francois Hollande’s attempt to stick the wealthy with a 75 percent tax on earnings above a certain amount. But he’s not giving up. Mr. Hollande’s new plan: Stick the 75 percent tax on businesses.

Companies — not individuals — would have to pay the high tax on any salaries that are paid over a million euros, under Mr. Hollande’s latest proposal, Newsmax reports.

“I am sticking by my pledge,” Mr. Holland said, as quoted in Newsmax.

The Socialist leader is trying to reignite a sluggish economy — as he promised during his campaign — but is facing dwindling poll numbers and approval ratings. His recent attempt to tax wealthy at a 75 percent rate was denied in a constitutional court.  (read more)

THINK PROGRESS – It’s a great story: the virtually unknown, 15th seeded Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), has made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. But there’s something you might not know about FGCU: its economics department is, as a consequence of grants from Randian businessman John Allison and the Charles G. Koch Foundation, a haven for Ayn-Rand Style thinking:

At Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, every student who majors in economics and finance gets a copy of Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged…FGCU now has a core group of a half dozen economists whose research supports the ideas of free-market capitalism, still an unpopular subject in most faculty lounges. They teach this material to more than 250 economics and finance students (one class is titled “The Moral Foundations of Capitalism”), organize lectures by leading thinkers, publish their research in well-respected journals and hold influential positions in groups that promote free markets.

[ROFLMAO ..they say this like it’s a bad thing… /SD]

(more…)

HatTip Tara – This is an update to the Detroit Protest that Jesse Jackson had called for.  Original story here

DETROIT – Detroiters are the victims of Jesse Jackson’s last – and worst – shakedown.  Unlike his past antics – allegedly designed to help the little guy in his struggle against The Man – this one is about Jackson trying to prove his relevance at a time when he has become irrelevant. Many people – OK, me – believe the tears Jackson shed in Chicago when Barack Obama won the presidency were not tears of joy – but rather tears of jealousy that the first black president was not him. Obama’s elevation rendered Jesse irrelevant.  The Reverend Un-necessary.

Money for the con game was gone. Al Sharpton knew it – and quickly got a gig on MSNBC (hosting a pathetic show -but it paid the bills). But Jackson was stuck.

Reverend Jackson needed a new shakedown.  […]   Now along comes the opportunity of a lifetime: a broken Detroit! A white, millionaire governor stealing Detroit from its people!  He swept into the city and promised mass civil disobedience.  It was like old times again!

But just 35 people showed up to protest Monday, the first day of the Emergency Manager. (continue reading)

(CNN) – If you think Paris is expensive, the City of Light costs a lot more when you’re traveling with the vice president.  Recent documents posted to a government website give a rare glimpse of Vice President Joe Biden’s overseas travel expenses.

Official business took him last month to Europe, a trip that included a bill of $585,000 for his one-night stay in Paris.

Also on the receipt was $321,665 for a limousine company and $459,338.65 for a hotel stay in London.

And while Biden was only in each town for one night, the London hotel bill, for example, included 136 rooms for multiple nights for his advance team, according to the documents posted on the website for Federal Business Opportunities and unearthed by the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard. (more…)

CYPRUS – Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has struck a deal with the European Union and International Monetary Fund that will seize up to 40% of uninsured funds from wealthier depositors with over 100,000 euros and will not siphon funds from those below that amount.

The 10 billion euros ($13 billion) bailout plan calls for the Cyprus Popular Bank to be dissolved and all its viable assets transferred to the country’s biggest bank, Bank of Cyprus.

Presently, Cypriot banks have imposed a 100 euros ATM withdraw limit, and Cyprus border officials at air and sea ports have been ordered to confiscate the funds of any traveler attempting to leave with over 10,000 euros. (more…)

Most articles discussing “Prepper Motivation” focus on simplistic words like ‘Apocalypse’, and ‘The End of Civilization’ when they highlight information. In general the media portray ‘those who prepare’ as some kind of goof or wing-nut; That is profoundly unfair.

Think of those people in Long Island after Hurricane Sandy, do you think their lives would have been better if they were prepared to be totally self-sufficent for a month or more.

The example of anarchy in New Orleans should still be fresh on the minds of those who would ridicule or diminish such prudence, yet they do it anyway.

Having had personal experience in dealing with the total fracturing of societal rules of governance, along with the collapse of civil and moral rules on self-controlling behavior, I can tell you it ain’t pretty…. and most people have no idea how bad it can get – QUICKLY.

(Daily Mail Article)  Imagine if suddenly, and completely without warning, the world experienced a total blackout – no electricity, no mobile phones, no banks, no internet, no TV, no emergency services. Nothing.

Highways quickly become jammed with cars that have ground to a halt; an aeroplane falls from the sky; a satellite view of the planet shows it rapidly plunging into darkness.

As it becomes apparent that the lights are never coming back on, nations are plunged into chaos, mass riots break out in major cities and, without electricity, governments are toppled. Into the vacuum step ad-hoc militias, armed and ready to enforce their own rule of law. (more…)

A hilarious attempt by Mayor McCheese to discuss logic and avoid unintended consequences.   Hilarious, because that would actually require progs to think about legislative constructs without emotional attachment – they are constitutionally incapable of such thinking.   Everything is about emotion for a progressive.

NEW YORK – When Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly passed tough new gun control measures in January, he faced a raft of criticism for skipping the standard deliberative period and allegedly ignoring the more minute legislative details. The criticism recently found new substance with the bill’s apparently unworkable 7-bullet magazine requirement, which Albany is now working to reverse. And, on his weekly radio show with John Gambling, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that “one criticism” may indeed have merit.

“This is true of a lot of things,” Mr. Bloomberg said after accusing an unrelated City Council bill of having unintended side-effects. “You asked before about the magazines in Albany. We just got to start to thinking a little bit more about the implications of things before we rush to legislate and rush to legislate everything.” (more…)