Bernanke Pursuing Failed Policies of the Past, Pushing For Yet Another “Stimulus”

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Photo Credit: DerFussi

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, delivered a detailed and forceful argument on Friday for new steps to stimulate the economy, reinforcing earlier indications that the Fed is on the verge of action.

Calling the persistently high rate of unemployment a “grave concern,” language that several experts described as unusually strong, Mr. Bernanke made clear that a recent run of tepid rather than terrible economic data had not altered the Fed’s will to act, because the pace of growth remained too slow to reduce the number of people who lack jobs.

The federal government said on Wednesday that the economy expanded at an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the second quarter, slightly higher than its initial estimate of 1.5 percent but lackluster in normal times. A measure of consumer confidence hit a three-month high on Friday, but that, too, was impressive only in comparison with the immediate past. The government will release a preliminary estimate of August job growth next week; it is expected to show that the unemployment rate remains above 8 percent.

Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed’s efforts over the last several years had helped to hasten economic recovery, that there was a clear need for additional action and that the likely benefits of new steps to stimulate growth outweighed the potential costs.

“It is important to achieve further progress, particularly in the labor market,” Mr. Bernanke said. “Taking due account of the uncertainties and limits of its policy tools, the Federal Reserve will provide additional policy accommodation as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions in a context of price stability.”

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TLC’s ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Ratings Top the Republican National Convention

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Photo credit: Ted Drake

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and their Toddlers and Tiaras daughter, hit another ratings high Wednesday night.

The fourth episode of Honey Boo Boo pulled in just shy of 3 million viewers at 10 p.m., according to Nielsen overnight ratings, growing 30 percent from last week’s 2.3 million haul.

In the demo, Honey Boo Boo did even better. The half-hour series’ showing among adults 18-49 bested all other cable outings for the night — including coverage of the Republican National Convention — to pull a 1.3 rating.

Fox News gave the show its closest competition with a 1.2 adults rating in the same time period. On the broadcast networks, Honey Boo Boo bested ABC and CBS’ demo showing for the RNC combined and topped NBC by two-tenths of a point. Aggregate coverage of the RNC across networks obviously eclipsed Honey Boo Boo considerably.

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio sees an ally in Mitt Romney

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Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told Arizona delegates at a luncheon Thursday that he’s confident Mitt Romney would work with Arizona to increase border enforcement—something he said President Barack Obama has failed to do.

“Something has to be done, and I’m very well convinced that Mitt Romney, when he gets to the White House, will look at the problem,” he said. “I fully believe that he’s not just talking. I’m convinced that in the first year at the White House, he will bring this issue up.”

Gov. Jan Brewer was also present but did not speak at the luncheon that took place at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo. At least five protesters attempted to make their way into the event, which was in connection to the Republican National Convention, but were asked to leave.

The Sheriff , Brewer and other Republicans from Arizona have long criticized Obama, saying the president has failed to secure the United States-Mexico border. Their criticism comes even after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has repeatedly said that the border has never been more secure.

Though Arpaio endorsed Rick Perry for president over Romney, the Sheriff said he still supports Romney’s stance on immigration, saying it is in line with his. They both favor ramping up enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border, implementing an employment verification system and they are both against in-state tuition for undocumented youth.

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Video: Even if the World Collapses Around Us, There’s Good News

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This new video was just emailed to us today. Although I have not read the book that is referenced at the end and cannot endorse it, the video itself is encouraging. It’s well worth the two minutes it will take to watch it.

The Strange, Strange Story of ‘Gay Fascism’ Deniers

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There has been an article floating around the Internet for a long time by a self-described “gay left-wing man” named Johann Hari, a columnist for the London Independent. The article is titled “The Strange, Strange Story of the Gay Fascists,” and you can read it for yourself at the vehemently pro-”gay” Huffington Post website. It contains the remarkably forthright admission that homosexuality and fascism have always gone hand in hand. Hari writes:

The twisted truth is that gay men have been at the heart of every major fascist movement that ever was – including the gay-gassing, homocidal Third Reich. With the exception of Jean-Marie Le Pen, all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in the past 30 years have been gay. It’s time to admit something. Fascism isn’t something that happens out there, a nasty habit acquired by the straight boys. It is – in part, at least – a gay thing, and it’s time for non-fascist gay people to wake up and face the marching music.

Now, I have a special interest in this article because I am the co-author, along with Orthodox Jewish researcher Kevin E. Abrams of “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party,” which makes a nearly identical claim, but one backed with nearly 400 pages of documentation.

What I find most interesting about Hari’s article is that it has garnered virtually no opposition. The few comments on the HuffPo page are mostly benign, and if you do a search on Hari’s name you find not a single suggestion that his article constitutes “Holocaust revisionism” or that he, himself, is a “homophobic bigot.” That’s very strange, because I’ve been called both a revisionist and a bigot for writing “The Pink Swastika.” Indeed, the Southern Poverty Law Center (that legendary beacon of fair-mindedness) has labeled me a “hate group” for writing it (though they refuse to publicly debate me on the issue).

On a recent speaking trip to Oklahoma City, my arrival was featured in the newspaper in a story characterizing me as a “Holocaust revisionist.” This label has been permanently added to the “gay” activist talking points about me, as well as the canard that “the book has been discredited by historians.” It has not.

The Hari article is not the only admission by homosexuals that the Nazi Party was filled with “gays.” At least a fifth of the sources we cited in “The Pink Swastika” were homosexuals.

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9 Hilarious Quotes From Clint Eastwood’s ‘Invisible Obama’ RNC Speech

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Even if you’re liberal and you feel like you have to “hate” Clint Eastwood for aligning with the enemy and speaking at the Republican National Convention, you can’t. All that Twitter talk about him sounding crazy and senile last night is ludicrous. That’s just people reacting to the message, not the man. Eastwood was adorable and funny, got his main points across simply but with that endearing edge, like your dad might have if you were debating politics with him. And talk to me when YOU are 82 years old and aren’t slurring at least a few words here and there, K? The “invisible Obama” set-up was a little awkward, granted. But the man pulled it off. The audience laughed and cheered. I laughed and cheered … at these in particular:

[Explaining that there ARE Republicans in Hollywood] “Conservative people by nature of the definition play it a little closer to the vest, they don’t go around hot-dogging it. But they are there.”

“I remember 3-and-a-half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election, and though I wasn’t a supporter I was watching that thing. And there were talking about ‘hope and change’ and ‘yes we can’ … I thought it was great. Everyone’s crying. Oprah’s crying. Even I was crying. I haven’t cried so hard since I found out there are 23 million unemployed people in this country. That is a national disgrace.”

[Talking to Invisible Obama, who is “sitting” in an empty chair next to the mic] “What do you want me to tell Romney? I can’t tell him to do that. He can’t do that to himself. Your’re absolutely crazy. You’re getting as bad as Biden. Course, we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.”

“I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to be President anyway. They are always taught to argue everything … and they are devil’s advocating this and bifurcating this and bifurcating that. It’s maybe time for a businessman. How about that? A stellar businessman.”

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Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Makes First Visit by an Egyptian Leader to Iran in Decades

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Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi arrived in Tehran on Thursday in the first visit by an Egyptian leader to Iran in decades.

The Egyptian president was attending a summit of the Nonaligned Movement, and is supposed to transfer leadership of the 120-nation bloc to Tehran.

Iran’s state TV in a live broadcast showed Morsi being received by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the summit conference hall in Tehran.

Tehran cut diplomatic relations in 1979 because of Egypt’s peace accord with Israel. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has considered Israel as its arch foe.

Iran’s leadership welcomed the 2011 uprising in Egypt that ultimately brought Morsi, an Islamist, to the presidency.

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Global Food Prices Soaring, Result of Crop Failures in US, Russia, ethanol

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Photo credit: CraneStation

Global food prices have leapt by 10% in the month of July, raising fears of soaring prices for the planet’s poorest, the World Bank has warned.

The bank said that a US heatwave and drought in parts of Eastern Europe were partly to blame for the rising costs.

The price of key grains such as corn, wheat and soybean saw the most dramatic increases, described by the World Bank president as “historic”.

The bank warned countries importing grains will be particularly vulnerable.

From June to July this year, corn and wheat prices each rose by 25% while soybean prices increased by 17%, the World Bank said. Only rice prices decreased – by 4%.

In the United States, the most severe, widespread drought in half a century has wreaked havoc on the corn and soybean crops while in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wheat crops have been badly damaged.

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Alaska Pursuing Shale Oil to Fill Pipeline

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Canada may have its Albertan oil sands, and North Dakota has its Bakken oil formation. But don’t count Alaska out when it comes to producing unconventional oil.

Alaska, which has fallen behind North Dakota in oil output and whose Prudhoe Bay oil fields are waning, is exploring the possibility of extracting oil from the source rock on the state’s North Slope. The state has leased more than half a million acres of its land to exploration companies, and even some environmentalists believe that the shale oil development could be the best way to increase output with relatively modest damage to the environment.

As in shale developments in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere in the lower 48 states, the key to unlocking Alaska’s shale oil is a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, a method of injecting a mix of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure to free up captured oil and gas.

As in Canada and North Dakota, a pipeline is playing a key role in the public debate over this new technological frontier. But whereas a new pipeline — the Keystone XL extension — is needed to get oil to markets in the lower 48, the quandary in Alaska is how to fill the existing Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. That pipeline is operating at less than one-third of its total capacity, as the Prudhoe Bay fields decline.

For the moment, it remains unclear whether Alaska can replicate the shale oil boom that is reshaping North Dakota and parts of Texas. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) issued its first assessment of the North Slope’s shale rock resources in February, estimating that the region contained between zero and 2 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, along with between zero and 80 trillion cubic feet of gas.

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