Venezuela, in a squeeze for hard currency, devalued its currency for foreigners another 44%, following an initial devaluation of 32% by Chavez in February.  The move is seen as a necessity to keep Venezuela from defaulting on sovereign debt when reliance on excessively high levels of public spending has been the tool of Chavez and his successor, Maduro, to maintain their grip on power.  It is the 6th such major devaluation in a decade.
The move is essentially a bookkeeping sleight-of-hand – it allows the Venezuelan central bank to balance its books by “earning” more Bolivars for its oil export sales, at a time when overall sales volume has decreased dramatically.

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No, this is not a spoof – it’s an actual news story.   There are many people in Iceland who take their belief in Elves very seriously.
Very seriously.

The Nordic island’s “Huldufolk” or “hidden folk” affect construction plans so regularly that the road and coastal administration has come up with a stock media response for elf inquiries.
It reads: “Issues have been settled by delaying the construction project at a certain point while the elves living there have supposedly moved on.”
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https://www.facebook.com/chickphiladay
You can expect a lot of this from the crew at Em-Ess-En-Bee-Cee:
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Scott Gurney was the executive director of the Duck Dynasty 2012/13 season (10 episodes), and listed as current executive producer.   Given his background and gay lifestyle  the recent controversy begins to make sense.  It does not take a deep thinker to see how Mr. Gurney would be ideologically torn between being gay himself and yet producing a show where the family beliefs are in diametric opposition to his own.

One of the common denominators with gay militancy is their willingness to advance their demands of acceptance at any cost.      

(Via Raw Story) The producer and creator of the A&E show “Duck Dynasty” once starred in a dark, homoerotic indie film about the gay porn industry called “The Fluffer.”
BuzzFeed reported Friday that in 2001, Scott Gurney played a “gay-for-pay” meth addict who acts in erotic videos. The film premiered that year at the Toronto Film Festival.
“The Fluffer” revolved around the destructive relationship between Gurney’s character and a gay college student — played by Michael Cunio — employed to keep Gurney aroused on set during filming. For now, noted BuzzFeed reporter Kate Arthur, the film remains proudly displayed on Gurney’s IMDB page.
The revelation provides an interesting — and some would say amusing — counterpoint to the media flap that has swept up around remarks by “Duck Dynasty” Phil Robertson.  (read more)

The New York Times reports that middle class Obama voters are less than happy with finding out that their private plans are being cancelled, and that the Obamacare plans are much more expensive than their private coverage.
The Times describes them as “frustrated”. (!)
…. “We are just right over that line,” said Ms. Chapman, who is 54 and does administrative work for a small wealth management firm. Because their plan is being canceled, she is looking for new coverage for her family, which includes Mr. Chapman, 55, a retired fireman who works on a friend’s farm, and her two sons. “That’s an insane amount of money,” she said of their new premium. “How are you supposed to pay that?”
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What is “trolling” ?

[…] The Duck Dynasty patriarch led a small Bible study group in his home town church in West Monroe, Louisiana on Sunday, granting MailOnline exclusive access.
And the deeply religious outdoorsman stood by his incendiary statements – which saw him call homosexuality a sin and led to his suspension from the hit reality show by network bosses at A&E.
During Sunday’s speech, he defended himself, saying he was simply quoting from the Bible and even went so far as to say Jesus could save gay people.
‘I love all men and women. I am a lover of humanity, not a hater,’ he added. (more…)

Kitty Werthman is a 85 year old survivor of the Anschluss and after WWII suffered for 3 years under Soviet Occupation.

She has been speaking out about Liberalism, Socialism and its incremental advancement for over a decade.  She is the President of the South Dakota Eagle Forum and has been an advocate for liberty and family issues for many years.

In 2003, she wrote an essay warning about National Identity cards (the REAL ID that the government has been trying to enforce), loss of free speech that was deemed politically outlawed and gun registration, among other topics.
More recently, she gave a speech in New Jersey to a Tea Party which a You Tube subscriber interspersed with quotes from Obama about socialism, universal healthcare, gun registration and gun control.
“How could a Christian nation, almost 100%, elect a monster like Hitler?  The truth is, at the beginning, Hitler did not look like or talk like a monster at all.  He talked like an American politician ….”
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Methinks ValJar doth protest too much.  Apparently there is a lot of scrutiny surrounding the abysmal approval ratings for lip-syncing Milli Vanilli Obama.   Scrutiny which leads to band director Valerie Jarrett trying to parse a position as merely an abject observer and not participant in the scheme.   W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r.
WASHINGTON DC – Valerie Jarrett says she has “very specific responsibilities” in the Obama White House and focuses on them, rather than on an all-encompassing portfolio.
“I’m not the shadow chief of staff,” she said, responding to the use of the term by POLITICO’s Ben White at a Morning Money breakfast.
She mentioned her roles in outreach to women and girls, and to the business community and local government officials.
Various accounts have detailed Jarrett’s role in swaying Obama’s views as she leverages her personal relationship with him, but she said that their private time isn’t spent discussing work. “We do compartmentalize,” she said. (more…)