The classified emails stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server contained information from five U.S. intelligence agencies and included material related to the fatal 2012 Benghazi attacks, McClatchy has learned.That's a problem for the next Leader of the Free World. Why is that?
Of the five classified emails, the one known to be connected to Benghazi was among 296 emails made public in May by the State Department. Intelligence community officials have determined it was improperly released.
“Even if Secretary Clinton or her aides didn’t run afoul of any criminal provisions, the fact that classified information was identified within the emails is exactly why use of private emails . . . is not supposed to be allowed,” said Bradley Moss, a Washington attorney who specializes in national security matters. “Both she and her team made a serious management mistake that no one should ever repeat.”There's a whole lot more in the linked article. All of it is worth your time.
President Obama’s defense of the complex and painstakingly negotiated nuclear deal that his administration reached with Iran boiled down to a simple, if controversial, contention: The only real alternative to the deal was war.So does Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agree with that assessment? According to testimony he gave on Capitol Hill yesterday, not so much:
Obama returned to that conclusion repeatedly Wednesday at a news conference that stretched for more than one hour.
“Without a deal,” he said in his opening statement, “we risk even more war in the Middle East.”
A few minutes later, in response to a reporter’s question, Obama dismissed concerns that the House and Senate might vote down the deal, forcing him to use his presidential veto. Wouldn’t a rejection of the deal by lawmakers make him question its wisdom?
“Either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through a negotiation or it’s resolved through force, through war,” Obama countered. “Those are — those are the options.”
President Obama’s claim that Congress must either back his deal with Iran or plan for war does not square with the advice he has received from his top general, Senate lawmakers learned on Wednesday.
Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, never presented Obama with such a binary choice. “At no time did that come up in our conversation nor did I make that comment,” Dempsey told Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) during a Senate hearing on the Iran deal. “I can tell you that we have a range of options and I always present them.”What's more, Dempsey argued against relaxing the sanctions against Iran:
Dempsey also acknowledged that he advised the president not to agree to the lifting of sanctions pertaining to Iran’s ballistic missile program and other arms. “Yes, and I used the phrase ‘as long as possible’ and then that was the point at which the negotiation continued — but yes, that was my military advice,” he told Senator Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.). In the event the new deal goes into effect, the arms embargoes will expire over the next several years.Alert readers may notice that I'm quoting National Review on yesterday's testimony, while I quoted a Washington Post story on Obama's initial claims. There's a tale behind that as well. Here is a screen shot of the Google Search I made to find information on yesterday's testimony:
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Chinese equities have suffered the sharpest one-day crash in eight years, sending powerful tremors through global commodity markets and smashing currencies across East Asia, Latin America and Africa.What happens if the Chinese gubmint loses control? No one knows for sure, but it won't be good:
The Shanghai Composite index fell 8.5pc despite emergency measures to shore up the market, with a roster of the biggest blue-chip companies down by the maximum daily limit of 10pc. The mood was further soured by news that corporated profits in China are now contracting in absolute terms, falling 0.3pc over the past year.
The violence of the moves unnerved investors worldwide, stirring fears that the Communist Party may be losing control after stoking a series of epic bubbles in property, corporate investment and equities to keep up the blistering pace of economic growth.
The long-standing assumption that the Chinese authorities know what they are doing has been shattered.Wobbles may be putting it mildly. Stay tuned.
The government’s heavy-handed measures include a ban on short sales and on new share issues, as well as pressure on the 300 largest companies to buy back their own stock, and forced purchases of stocks by brokerage houses.
Many investors are effectively trapped with margin debt used to buy the stocks. These liabilities cannot be covered without selling the stocks. The longer the market remains partially frozen, the more likely it will lead to extreme stress.
David Cui, from Bank of America, said $1.2 trillion of stock holdings are being carried on margin debt. This is 34pc of the free float of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. “When the market ultimately settles at a level that can be sustained on fundamental reasons, we expect that the financial system may wobble, due to high contagion risk,” he said.
Half of the Cuban men's field hockey team at the Pan American Games in Toronto defected to the United States, a player and sources close to the Cuban delegation said.We can pretend that Cuba is a decent place, but the people who live there don't agree.
The sources said eight of the 16 Cuban players had deserted, while team member Roger Aguilera put the number at seven, just the latest in a rash of Cuban defections across several sports.
"Everyone knows what happened to our team, we have seven of them in the United States," said Aguilera, after the decimated Cubans were hammered 13-0 by Trinidad and Tobago.
The Boy Scouts of America is expected Monday to end its blanket ban on gay leaders — a turning point for an organization that has been in turmoil over the issue.As most people who read this feature know, the Benster is an Eagle Scout. I have been involved in Scout leadership at the Cub Scout and later Boy Scout level since Ben started in Scouts, for well over a decade. Is this a big change? Not as big as it would seem.
But some scouting groups will still be able to limit leadership jobs to heterosexuals.
To gain the acquiescence of conservative religious groups that sponsor many dens and troops, like the Mormon and Roman Catholic churches, the policy will allow church-run units to pick leaders who agree with their moral precepts.
Two-deep leadership on all outings is required. A minimum of two registered adult leaders, or one registered leader and a participating Scout’s parent or another adult, are required for all trips and outings. One of these adults must be 21 years of age or older.Two-deep leadership provides another set of eyes to ensure that a scout and an adult leader aren't in a position that could become an issue. And to make it explicit:
One-on-one contact between adults and youth members is prohibited. In situations requiring a personal conference, such as a Scoutmaster’s conference, the meeting is to be conducted with the knowledge and in view of other adults and/or youth.The ban also extends to electronic communication:
The policy of two-deep leadership and no one-on-one contact between adults and youth members includes digital communication. Leaders may not have one-on-one private online communication or engage one-on-one in other digital activities (games, social media) with youth members. Leaders should copy a parent and another leader in digital and online communication, ensuring no one-on-one contact exists in text, social media, or other forms of online or digital communication.I have served as a merit badge counselor, which requires me to communicate with scouts concerning the progress in earning the merit badges they are seeking. Whenever I need to communicate anything to a scout, I always copy the scoutmaster and/or the scout's parents in the communication. We take these guidelines seriously.
Mason put his comic chops to use in analyzing the inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities as it is laid out in the deal. “Instant” inspections will only take place 24 days after requested, giving time – he charged – to clean up the site to be inspected.Maybe if we can't get inspections, we could use Yelp.
"First Obama said we can inspect them any time, any place, whenever we please. Now it turns out ‘whenever we please’ except when they don’t allow it. If they don’t want it it’s up to them. So then we have to wait 28 days [sic] to inspect, as if to say for the 28 days we can trust them completely, because they’ll do nothing. They’ll just hold the bomb in front of us waiting for us to come so they can show it to us. That’s how stupid this negotiation is to us," he said.
"Do you know that in the restaurants of New York, they have an inspection system. You can surprise any restaurant without notice that you can walk in and inspect them… So we are protected in this city from a bad tuna fish. We’re not protected from a bomb but we’re protected from a bad quality of a tuna fish," Mason joked.
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It’s a good thing all the world’s serious human rights issues have been resolved. With more pressing problems out of the way, the UN Human Rights Committee appears now to have the leisure time to attend to a few loose ends here and there. The committee—which includes representatives from human rights bastions such as Uganda, Algeria, and Egypt—has released a report recommending that Britain fully outlaw the smacking of children at home.Nothing else to worry about in the world, of course. No, nothing at all should concern us.
The 11 million Americans who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year, the government said Wednesday, handing lawmakers a fiscal and political crisis in the middle of a presidential campaign.How might Congress act, you ask?
The trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare said the disability trust fund will run out of money in late 2016. That would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits, unless Congress acts.
There is an easy fix available for the disability program: Congress could shift tax revenue from Social Security's much larger retirement fund, as it has done in the past.So how long will the retirement fund last under the current setup?
President Barack Obama supports the move. And acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn Colvin said shifting the tax revenue "would have no adverse effect on the solvency of the overall Social Security program."
The trustees said Social Security's retirement fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2035, a year later than they predicted last year. At that point, Social Security will collect enough in payroll taxes to pay about 75 percent of benefits.But if the gubmint moves money from that fund to cover the shortfall in the disability fund, would the money really last until 2035? The article says it only changes the number to 2034. That's still less than 20 years from now.
Medicare's giant hospital trust fund is projected to be exhausted in 2030, the same date as last year's report. At that point, Medicare taxes would be enough to pay 86 percent of benefits.The hour is growing short. But let's talk about gay marriage and Donald Trump.
Black lives matter? Apparently not in New York City.Shocking? Not sure why. It's what Margaret Sanger intended.
A “Pregnancy Outcomes” report from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reveals in 2013, more black babies were aborted than born in the city.
A chart on page 7 shows 24,108 “non-Hispanic black” babies were born while 29,007 faced “induced terminations” — or abortions.
A second undercover video shows Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Directors’ Council President, Dr. Mary Gatter, haggling over payments for intact fetal specimens and offering to use a “less crunchy technique” to get more intact body parts.And she's a savvy negotiator, too:
It is similar to last week’s viral video showing PPFA Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola admitting to using partial-birth abortions to get intact parts and suggesting a price range of $30 to $100 per specimen.
Gatter is a senior official within Planned Parenthood and is President of the Medical Directors’ Council, the central committee of all Planned Parenthood affiliate medical directors.
Gatter twice recites Planned Parenthood messaging on fetal tissue collection, “We’re not in it for the money,” and “The money is not the important thing,” but she immediately qualifies each statement with, respectively, “But what were you thinking of?” and, “But it has to be big enough that it’s worthwhile for me.”Needs to wet her beak, I guess. There's more:
Gatter also admits that in prior fetal tissue deals, Planned Parenthood received payment in spite of incurring no cost: “It was logistically very easy for us, we didn’t have to do anything. So there was compensation for this.” She accepts a higher price of $100 per specimen understanding that it will be only for high-quality fetal organs: “Now, this is for tissue that you actually take, not just tissue that someone volunteers and you can’t find anything, right?”No word on whether she ever got her Lamborghini, but if she did, one can assume it runs on biodiesel. Video at the link.
By the lunch’s end, Gatter suggests $100 per specimen is not enough and concludes, “Let me just figure out what others are getting, and if this is in the ballpark, then it’s fine, if it’s still low, then we can bump it up. I want a Lamborghini.”
Sen. Al Franken on Monday said that remarks he made more than 15 years ago — before he became a senator — about Sen. John McCain’s military service were a joke.So what did our august solon say, exactly?
The Minnesota Democrat’s remarks are similar to those of Donald Trump, who ignited a firestorm after telling a crowd in Iowa on Saturday that McCain is “not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Franken’s remarks also appeared in a 2000 Salon article.Franken did, too:
That story quotes Franken as saying, “I have tremendous respect for McCain, but I don’t buy the war hero thing. Anybody can be captured. I thought the idea was to capture them. As far as I’m concerned, he sat out the war.”
During Vietnam, I was in college, enjoying my student deferment. The government wisely felt that, in my case, military service was less important than completing my studies to prepare me for my chosen career: comedian.Of course. Franken is still a comedian, you see:
He also condemned Trump’s remarks from Saturday, saying “I don’t know what’s going on in Donald Trump’s head or through his hair, but I condemn him for a lot of things he’s said.”I'm sure we'll just accept ol' Al's explanation. Why wouldn't we? We take Jon "Clown Nose On, Clown Nose Off" Stewart as a legitimate news purveyor, except when we don't. That's how we roll in America. Accept it, haters.
The US is considering providing an extensive military package to Israel in the wake of the Iranian nuclear accord, Channel 2 TV reported Sunday.So, let's think about this:
Days after the deal was signed in Vienna last Tuesday, sources in Washington indicated they will provide the Jewish state with advanced weaponry and technology, apparently to compensate for the boost the deal will give Iran.
In a Saturday phone call with former president Shimon Peres, National Security Adviser Susan Rice explained that the US was ready to offer Jerusalem a military compensation package that was unprecedented in its scope, the TV report said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the notion of a reimbursement package Sunday, saying that no amount of compensation would be enough to confront a nuclear armed Iran “sworn to our destruction.”
“Why should we need to be compensated if the deal is supposed to make us safer?” he asked. “The deal endangers our security, our survival even, and the security of the Middle East and the world.”
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Dealing Gov. Scott Walker a victory just as his presidential campaign gets underway, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a sweeping decision Thursday ruled the governor's campaign and conservative groups had not violated campaign finance laws.The victory isn't Walker's, actually. It's a victory for free speech and against some truly awful behavior on the part of John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County prosecutor behind the act, and his bobo special prosecutor Francis Schmitz. Writing for the majority, Justice Michael Gableman was categorical in his assertions about the case:
The ruling means the end of the investigation, which has been stalled for 18 months after a lower court judge determined no laws were violated even if Walker's campaign and the groups had worked together as prosecutors believe.
"It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing," Gableman wrote.It's about time. The case has stunk on ice from the outset. It's bad enough that the investigators were conducting nighttime raids on people who had done nothing wrong, but the prosecutors were regularly leaking results of their "investigation" to willing henchmen in the media. The process itself was the punishment, as Gableman noted in his opinion (via Ann Althouse):
Calling the challengers brave, Gableman wrote that their litigation gave the court "an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation."
"The breadth of the documents gathered pursuant to subpoenas and seized pursuant to search warrants is amazing. Millions of documents, both in digital and paper copy, were subpoenaed and/or seized. Deputies seized business papers, computer equipment, phones, and other devices, while their targets were restrained under police supervision and denied the ability to contact their attorneys. The special prosecutor obtained virtually every document possessed by the Unnamed Movants relating to every aspect of their lives, both personal and professional, over a five-year span (from 2009 to 2013). Such documents were subpoenaed and/or seized without regard to content or relevance to the alleged violations of Ch. 11. As part of this dragnet, the special prosecutor also had seized wholly irrelevant information, such as retirement income statements, personal financial account information, personal letters, and family photos."Sweet stuff, that. I don't know whether Chisholm or Schmitz will be looking at any repercussions for their actions, but they should really get the full Nifong. The entire investigation was an abuse of power and their conduct was reprehensible.
In case you missed it, [Major] Garrett asked how Mr. Obama could be “content with all the fanfare around this (nuclear) deal” with Iran after missing the opportunity to include four Americans languishing in Iranian prisons as part of the negotiation. The president took exception to the way the question was framed––and after scolding Garrett the way a teacher does a insubordinate student (“That’s nonsense. And you should know better…”)––he really didn’t provide an answer to the question in between all the long pauses. It was as if the president found the situation so rare, he began searching the room for Candy Crowley to jump in and save him from himself (again).Here's the video:
CNN’s Dana Bash said after the presser, “There’s a fine line between asking a tough question and maybe crossing that line a little bit and being disrespectful, and I think that happened here.”Yeah, reporters are always respectful of the President:
“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”I don't see why they wouldn't shout it from the housetops. After all, as Kevin Williamson astutely points out, parts is parts:
Nucatola also describes how Planned Parenthood abortionists move the preborn child into a breech delivery position so that the body can be preserved while the brains of the child are removed. This account is an almost exact medical description of partial-birth abortions which are illegal in the United States.
Planned Parenthood, though, appears to be concerned internally about the legality of their own behavior, as Nucatola notes how, “At the national office, we have a Litigation and Law Department which just really doesn’t want us to be the middle people for this issue right now.”
Planned Parenthood—and supporters such as Mrs. Clinton—have always argued that what’s in play here is not the butchered body of a child at all, but a meaningless blob of tissue. (What kind of tissue, I wonder? Jackrabbit tissue? Rutabaga tissue?) If Mrs. Clinton and Planned Parenthood and the rest are right, why should it be a crime to deal commercially in these meaningless tissues? Shouldn’t there be a robust marketplace for those little hearts and livers and “lower extremities,” which, we are assured by all the best people, are not little human hearts and livers and lower extremities, but something else? Why not sell them on eBay? Why not have billboards?
I haven't been able to confirm this independently, but I believe that the Iranian regime is celebrating its successful negotiation of a nuclear treaty with the United States by lobbing a few gay people off of rooftops in Tehran.
Okay that's a little snarky. Still, you have to wonder why anyone would believe that the Iranians a trustworthy. It seems to me that you would not ordinarily put much stock in the assurances of people who routinely chant "death to America" in their public demonstrations. I can only assume that my confusion on this issue stems from my usual lack of nuance in such matters.
Peace in our time, yet again.
Of course, what I think doesn't matter very much. What the Saudis and the Israelis thank will be considerably more important.
These are the rules that the far left of the Democrat party has set for anyone who dares step onto their playing turf, where most of legacy network media admittedly play the refs for them. No one is more equipped to make them play by their own rules than Scott Walker. Furthermore, there is this narrative developing from GOP Corporate that in order to move the country beyond the divisive class vitriol that has dominated Obama’s policies (rhetoric that, by the way, won’t end once he leaves office) the proper role of a candidate is to bring people together in Washington and heal the country. This was a prevailing theme of Mitt Romney’s campaign and is now taking shape with Jeb Bush.Emphasis mine. Scott Walker has put skins up on the wall. He's beaten a particularly rabid strain of Democrats in Wisconsin three times since 2010. And he's been successful because he doesn't take the bait. He doesn't play the identity politics game. In Wisconsin, he has let the Democrats emote, stage their protests in the Capitol building, hang out in Rockford rather than voting on a bill. He's waited them out and he has stayed on message. If he can continue to stay on message, he'll have a chance.
On Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David, invoking the spirit of Henry Clay, quipped “a good compromise leaves everybody dissatisfied.” Compromise is the sort of talking point constantly pushed by moderates that pleases absolutely no one beyond the Beltway journalists feeding it to them. Conservatives–not even just the true-red hardcore ones, but the moderates as well who are tired of losing–don’t want a President who will reach across the aisle and work with Democrats. They want someone who will steamroll them like Obama did during his first two years, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. And Scott Walker? He’s certainly not going to be touting his record of working with Democrats in Wisconsin, not after signing Act 10, concealed carry, and Right-To-Work legislation into law…and that’s exactly why he’s enormously popular. Conservatives dream of someone who will break what’s left of the tired and aged Democratic minority in Congress, and leave them on an ash heap, barely able to comprehend how old and outdated their party faces have become while wallowing in the mess left for them to clean up as their own demi-god strolls out of office singing “Amazing Grace” to himself. There can be no compromise this election.
It has a goo-spewing mouth on its belly, is covered in toxic slime, hosts a brain-eating parasite and, like any ambitious mutant monster, the New Guinea flatworm is invading the U.S. by way of sunny Miami.Being a hermaphrodite is common to all worms, but we'll leave that aside. This dude is nasty:
There’s also this: The worm is hermaphroditic, so it can multiply anywhere, anytime.
While humans face little risk from the worm, it thrives on snails and will eat any slug, worm or soft critter living in soil. And its appetite is voracious. Robinson has seen pictures of a Giant African Land Snail — another invasive marauder — being attacked by a pack of 30 to 40 flatworms.It often works as a bureaucrat. And it brings other gifts as well:
The worm latches onto the shell’s opening, then spits its stomach out through the mouth on its belly. An acidic goo from the stomach dissolves the snail’s flesh so the worm can re-swallow both stomach and prey.
The New Guinea flatworm carries the rat lung parasite, which burrows into the brain and can spread to humans. They are also coated in a toxic slime, so shouldn’t be handled.Alan Grayson has not yet commented, most likely out of professional courtesy.
Greece reached a deal with its European creditors Monday, pledging stringent austerity to avoid an exit from the euro and the global financial chaos that could have followed.I'll admit it -- I wanted to see what would happen if there were a Grexit. The creditor nations, particularly Germany, couldn't afford to blink, especially with Portugal and Italy standing in the wings. We'll continue to watch the story.
The deal calls for Greeks, already reeling from harsh measures and economic decline, to cut back even further in exchange for more loans without which its financial system would surely collapse. The deal, which still needs approval from Greece's parliament, will be the country's third bailout in five years.
During an interview that was live-streamed on the app Periscope, Bush made the comments to New Hampshire’s The Union Leader answering a question about his plans for tax reform.The reaction I've seen to this statement is ridiculous. A sample, from my social media feed:
“My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours” and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in.”
So China’s extraordinary years of lending and growth have surely created an economic bubble, but they have created two other bubbles as well. First, a political bubble based in the belief that China’s government techniques can defy the laws of economic gravity and create long-term, stable, above-market rates of growth in the developing world. Second, a geopolitical bubble based on the belief that China’s stellar economic record of the last few decades will continue indefinitely into the future with immense consequences for the international order. That is, the country’s success has encouraged authoritarian regimes and technocrats all over the world to believe that markets can be managed long term, and that market forces can be indefinitely held at bay.My employer deals extensively with Chinese companies, especially trading companies. Many of the financial arrangements in China are murky, at best. If the Chinese economy crashes, the effects are going to be significantly greater than what is happening in Greece.
Authorities are investigating whether a gun associated with a Bureau of Land Management employee was used in the fatal shooting of a young woman on a tourist-heavy San Francisco pier, an agency spokesperson said.For his part, Sanchez claims it was all an accident:
"The matter is under investigation, and law enforcement is working to confirm the origin of the weapon," the spokesperson said in a statement.
Sources familiar with the investigation say the gun belonged to a federal agent and may have been stolen recently. It is unclear whether the firearm was a government-issued service weapon or a personally owned gun.
Earlier this week, Sanchez told ABC station KGO-TV in a jailhouse interview that he started wandering on Pier 14 Wednesday, July 1 after taking sleeping pills he found in a dumpster. He said he then picked up a gun that he found and it went off.I believe that. Happens all the time. Just the other day I was talking to a few of my neighbors and they were sharing their tales of found pharmacology. In fact, one guy found a rocket propelled grenade launcher and a stash of Valium in a dumpster just down the road from here. Wait, you don't believe that? It's at least as plausible as the story Sanchez is offering.
The worst of the air hung over a large swath of Minnesota from the south to Duluth and a pocket along the northeast border for much of Monday, gradually shrinking and lessening by mid-evening.
On an air-quality scale that ranges from 0 to 200, some parts of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, pushed into the mid-170s and 180s, said Steve Mikkelson, a spokesman for the MPCA.
“That’s unusually high,” Mikkelson said, pointing out that he hasn’t seen readings this high for more than a decade. “We’ve had alerts in the ‘unhealthy for everyone’ range of the scale before, but not this high.”
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Foreign investors are selling Shanghai shares at a record pace as China steps up government intervention to combat a stock-market rout that many analysts say was inevitable.How will the Chinese government react? Early results aren't particularly encouraging:
Sales of mainland shares through the Shanghai-Hong Kong exchange link swelled to an all-time high on Monday, while dual-listed shares in Hong Kong fell by the most since at least 2006 versus mainland counterparts. Options traders in the U.S. are paying near-record prices for insurance against further losses after Chinese stocks on American bourses posted their biggest one-day plunge since 2011.
The latest attempts to stem the country’s $3.2 trillion equity rout, including stock purchases by state-run financial firms and a halt to initial public offerings, have undermined government pledges to move to a more market-based economy, according to Aberdeen Asset Management. They also risk eroding confidence in policy makers’ ability to manage the financial system if the rout in stocks continues, said BMI Research, a unit of Fitch.It's likely that the Chinese government doesn't have that many options left. As things deteriorate, will the government try to distract the populace through some foreign policy bellicosity in the region? That's a possibility as well. As the old Chinese curse has it, may you live in interesting times. It's getting interesting, all right.
“It’s coming to a point where you’re covering one bad policy with another,” said Tai Hui, the Hong Kong-based chief Asia market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, which oversees about $1.7 trillion. “A lot of investors are still concerned about another correction.”
The shouts and huzzahs from the governor’s office when the business news channel CNBC recently named Minnesota as the best state for business likely made it difficult to hear the heavy sighs of the business owners who have a completely different lived experience.If you work for an established business with infrastructure, it's not too bad here. But if you're a startup, the taxes and regulations are significant hindrances:
There is no good reason to just dismiss the overall conclusion of the CNBC study, as the facts CNBC lined up to put Minnesota just ahead of No. 2 Texas seem convincing. It’s also easy to find people here who will happily admit they love running a business in a region with a great quality of life and a highly educated workforce.
But to conclude that everything is just fine here for “business” means accepting the comical idea that every business owner’s situation is the same.
The CNBC study ranked Minnesota 35th in the cost of doing business, and the personal income tax rate here causes business owners heartburn, too.That's a pretty tough load, especially if you want to expand your business and bring on more workers. I recommend you read the whole article.
Big companies can just pay executives a little more, but for a mom-and-pop taxed as a Subchapter S or other pass-through company, the business money and the personal money are the same. The personal income tax rate here tops out at 9.85 percent, among the highest in the nation.
Greece lurched into uncharted territory and an uncertain future in Europe's common currency Sunday after voters overwhelmingly rejected demands by international creditors for more austerity measures in exchange for a bailout of its bankrupt economy.What happens next? It could go a variety of ways, but I can promise you that a number of other debtor nations are watching closely.
Results showed about 61 percent voted "no," compared with 39 percent for "yes," with 100 percent of the vote counted. The referendum — Greece's first in more than four decades — came amid severe restrictions on financial transactions in the country, imposed last week to stem a bank run that accelerated after the vote was called.
Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. Federal officials say they are determined to see that the requests are scaled back.Yep -- that's 54% in Minnesota. Doing a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation for my own health insurance, that would mean an extra 3 grand a year for my family. For a lot of others, it would be worse. Can you afford an extra 3 grand?
Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.
This Fourth of July, families across the nation will gather around hot dogs (or their favorite vegetarian alternative) and potato salad to spend some quality time together, watch fireworks and reflect on the holiday’s meaning. But as much as we love our families – and we do, seriously –we don’t always agree when it comes to current events, like last week’s Supreme Court decision upholding tax credits that help make insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) more affordable for millions of people.In the interest of familial harmony, here are a few points I'd suggest instead:
Misinformation about the ACA is everywhere, and there’s been a lot of money spent to spread that misinformation – as much as half a billion dollars in ads, according to one 2014 estimate. Not surprisingly, many Americans still don’t know how changes the law made to insurance and the health care system can help improve their lives.
You should be prepared when Aunt Janine says something like, “Obamacare hasn’t helped anyone!” So here are a few points to remember during this long holiday weekend:
Today, President Obama will visit La Crosse, Wis., to make the case that the federal government should require employers to pay overtime to all salaried workers who earn less than $50,000 per year.Story two:
The proposal is the latest salvo in the nation’s broader debate about economic fairness, which intensified during the slow recovery from the 2009 recession. Only in the past year has U.S. joblessness dropped below pre-recession levels. Wage growth, meanwhile, has stagnated.
Gov. Mark Dayton gave big raises to his cabinet Wednesday, prompting a swift attack from Republicans as he boosted the salaries of some agency commissioners overnight by 30 percent or more.
The raises for top executives, which go as high as $155,000, are far above those that rank-and-file state workers will receive. Recent contract agreements with the state’s two largest public employee unions resulted in 2.5 percent increases this year and next.
When the University of Missouri at Kansas City was looking for a celebrity speaker to headline its gala luncheon marking the opening of a women’s hall of fame, one of the names that came to mind was Hillary Rodham Clinton.What to do? Well, if you can't get Sinatra to play your room, you can always get Frank Sinatra Jr.:
But when the former secretary of state’s representatives quoted a fee of $275,000, officials at the public university balked. “Yikes!” one e-mailed another.
So the school booked the next best option: her daughter, Chelsea.What do you get for the money?
The university paid $65,000 for Chelsea Clinton’s brief appearance Feb. 24, 2014, a demonstration of the celebrity appeal and marketability that the former and possibly second-time first daughter employs on behalf of her mother’s presidential campaign and family’s global charitable empire.
The schedule she negotiated called for her to speak for 10 minutes, participate in a 20-minute, moderated question-and-answer session and spend a half-hour posing for pictures with VIPs offstage.The median household income in the United States for 2013 was $51,939. Chelsea got more than that for an hour's work. And do you know what? Gloria Steinem would have worked for a lot less:
The e-mails show that the university initially inquired about Chelsea Clinton but her speaking agency indicated she was unlikely to do the speech. At that point, a university vice chancellor urged organizers to “shoot for the moon” and pursue the former secretary of state, who proved too expensive.Do you remember, back in the late 90s, when the Clintons made life uncomfortable for Steinem? She and her associates in the women's movement had to pretend that Bill Clinton's dalliances with Monica Lewinsky were no big thing. Now they can't even get a sniff for a women's hall of fame luncheon and the Clintons get the money. I suppose it's good to know your value in the marketplace.
So the university turned back to others, eventually choosing Chelsea Clinton when the agency indicated she was willing. Just shy of her 34th birthday, Clinton commanded a higher fee than other prominent women speakers who were considered, including feminist icon Gloria Steinem ($30,000) and journalists Cokie Roberts ($40,000), Tina Brown ($50,000) and Lesley Stahl ($50,000), the records show.
