Record 90 Million Americans Not in Labor Force

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Just after Labor Day, the Bureau of Labor statistics reported more than 90 million Americans age 16 and older were not in the labor force in August, the highest level recorded since the Department of Labor began collecting the data during the Truman administration three years after the end of World War II.

On Friday, the BLS reported that the 90,473,000 Americans not currently in the labor force marked the first time the figure exceeded the 90 million threshold.

In January 2009, when President Obama first took office, there were 80.5 million Americans 16 years and older not in the labor force, meaning the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased 10 million during his presidency.

For men, the BLS reported the labor force participation rate, the percentage of the population working or considered looking for work, was 63.2 percent in August, basically unchanged from 63.5 percent in July. It’s also a record low.

The BLS also reported the unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percent to 7.3 percent in August, but the figure was almost completely driven by negative factors.

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Drone Hunters Line Up for Colorado Town’s ‘license’ Ahead of Vote – $100 Bounty for Fed’s Drones

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picture - Drone Hunding CO townThe tiny Colorado plains town of Deer Trail has yet to vote on a proposal that would create drone-hunting licenses and bounties, but that hasn’t stopped the man behind the initiative from selling 100 of his own licenses online.

The Denver Post reports that Phillip Steel, a traveling structural inspector who spearheaded the drone-hunting initiative, is selling the $25 novelty licenses to anyone who applies on his website, droneshooters.com.

Deer Trail, population 500, on Oct. 8 will vote on whether to issue permits to hunt drones. The proposal calls for a $100 bounty reward for shooters who bring in debris from an unmanned aircraft “known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government.”

Steel, who insists the initiative is a symbolic stand against government surveillance, said he’s given part of the income he’s received from selling the fake licenses to the town.

“These are not big drones you see on TV that look like airplanes. These are little 55-pound things that can come right down into your land,” Steel told The Associated Press.

Steel got the idea after seeing news reports about the National Security Agency’s domestic spying efforts. “Do we really want to become a surveillance society? That’s what I find really repugnant,” Steel said.

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If Obama Wants to Bomb Someone, How About the Syrian Terror Training Camps of the Benghazi Attackers?

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Photo Credit: Front Page Mag

Photo Credit: Front Page Mag

If Obama really wants to bomb someone, how about bombing them? Instead Obama sent the FBI to Benghazi on a failed mission after the killers of Americans who still walk free, but wants to send cruise missiles to Damascus.

Maybe he couldn’t spare a drone the night of the attack, but he certainly should be able to dig one up now. Or a cruise missile or two.

U.S. intelligence agencies earlier this month uncovered new evidence that al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Benghazi are training foreign jihadists to fight with Syria’s Islamist rebels, according to U.S. officials.

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U.S. Intercepts Iranian Order for Attack on U.S. Interests in Iraq

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iran_gamesThe United States has intercepted an order from an Iranian official instructing militants in Iraq to attack U.S. interests in Baghdad in the event the Obama administration launches a military strike in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The American embassy in Baghdad was a likely target, according to unnamed U.S. officials quoted by the newspaper. The Journal said the officials did not describe the range of potential targets indicated by the intelligence.

In addition, the State Department issued a warning on Thursday telling U.S. citizens to avoid all but “essential” travel to Iraq.

President Barack Obama has asked the U.S. Congress to back his plan for limited strikes in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians that the United States blames on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

The Journal reported that the Iranian message was intercepted in recent days and came from the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force. The newspaper said the message went to Iranian-supported Shi’ite militia groups in Iraq.

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Air Force Cracking Down on Christians

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A 19-year Air Force veteran who was relieved of his duties because he disagreed with his openly gay commander over gay marriage is now facing a formal investigation after he told me his story.

Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk found himself at odds with his Lackland Air Force Base commander after he objected to her plans to severely punish an instructor who had expressed religious objections to homosexuality. During the conversation, his commander ordered him to share his personal views on homosexuality.

“I was relieved of my position because I don’t agree with my commander’s position on gay marriage,” he told me. “We’ve been told that if you publicly say that homosexuality is wrong, you are in violation of Air Force policy.”

In one of her first meetings with Monk, the commander expressed concern about the chaplain who would deliver the benediction at her promotion ceremony.

“She said she wanted a chaplain but objected to one particular chaplain that she called a bigot because he preached that homosexuality is a sin,” Monk said.

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Undecided Dems Key to Syria Decision

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Democratic lawmakers are confronting an unpleasant reality: It will be up to them to support military strikes in Syria if they want to save President Barack Obama from a dramatic defeat in Congress.

Take Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat who doesn’t yet know how she’ll vote on the measure. Gabbard worries about the unintended consequences of a strike in the Middle Eastern nation, which is riven by a complex civil war.

“If this authorization is approved and this limited strike occurs as the president has presented, there are a number of things outside of our control that could occur, which could potentially further obligate us into something within Syria and the region,” Gabbard told POLITICO Friday morning after leaving a classified briefing.

If Obama hopes for victory in Congress, he must gain the support of undecided Democrats like Gabbard, who served in the military in Iraq and remains active in the National Guard. Democrats are expected to shoulder a Senate vote, if it’s successful. Few rank-and-file Democrats have taken the step of publicly expressing their support for Obama and his Syria mission, even though Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) predicts the legislation will ultimately pass the Senate.

And the House simply cannot pass — at this time — a use-of-force measure without support from the vast majority of the House Democratic Caucus. A vote in the House is expected in the “next two weeks,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wrote in a memo to colleagues Friday.

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Microsoft and Yahoo Voice Alarm Over NSA’s Assault on Internet Encryption

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Photo Credit: EPA

Photo Credit: EPA

Two of the world’s biggest technology companies, Microsoft and Yahoo, expressed deep concern on Friday about widespread attempts by the US and UK intelligence services to circumvent the online security systems that protect the privacy of millions of people online.

Microsoft said it had “significant concerns” about reports that the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ, had succeeded in cracking most of the codes that protect the privacy of internet users. Yahoo said it feared “substantial potential for abuse”.

Google said it was not aware of any covert attempts to compromise its systems. However, according to a report in the Washington Post on Saturday, the company said that it had accelerated the encryption of information in its data centres in a bid to prevent snooping by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of other governments.

Documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published jointly by the Guardian, the New York Times and the nonprofit news organisation ProPublica on Thursday show that agents at GCHQ have been working to undermine encrypted traffic on the “big four” service providers, named as Hotmail (the Microsoft email service now known as Outlook), Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

Yahoo responded with a strongly worded statement on Friday. “We are unaware of and do not participate in such an effort, and if it exists, it offers substantial potential for abuse. Yahoo zealously defends our users’ privacy and responds to government requests for data only after considering every applicable objection and in accordance with the law,” a spokesman said.

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I Came, I Saw, I Skedaddled

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Photo Credit: GARY LOCKE

Photo Credit: GARY LOCKE

Chief Executive of Sparta,
Barack Leonidas Obama,
at the Battle of Thermopylae

Stand down, men. The chairman of the Greek City States Alliance Joint Chiefs of Staff has indicated to me that our capacity to execute this mission against Xerxes is not time-sensitive.

Julius Barack Caesar Obama
Crosses the Rubicon

I am crossing the Rubicon. Brrr, the water’s chilly. Deep, too. I’m going for a walk along the riverbank to look for a bridge. And I will cross the Rubicon as soon as the weather warms up. The die has been cast. That is, the deck has been shuffled. Or the Wheel of Fortune has been spun. And I’ll buy a vowel.

Pontius Barack Pilate Obama,
Matthew 27:24

When he saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of these just persons, but I’ll ask the Senate back in Rome for authority to do something-or-other, although it may have to wait until after Good Friday.”

Christopher Barack Columbus Obama

Many prominent experts, including Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, maintain that the earth is flat. This is a debate I would like to have. Meanwhile, I have discovered a new route to France.

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Palestinian Authority Takes $148M from US, Doles Out ‘Grants’ to Convicted Terrorists

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Palestinian Authority is doling out millions of dollars in cash grants to convicted terrorists recently released from Israeli prisons in a program announced the same day as the P.A. accepted $148 million in the latest round of U.S. aid.

The authority announced Aug. 18 it would disburse $15 million in so-called “Dignified Life Grants” to more than 5,000 prisoners who had served more than five years in Israeli lockups, but had been recently released as a show of good faith by the Jewish state to bolster the Middle East peace process, according to Palestinian Media Watch.

The announcement came on the same day the State Department’s Michael Ratney, consulate general of the U.S. in Jerusalem, signed off on $148 million in aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, currently in the throes of a budget crisis.

Although the U.S. funnels about $400 million per year in aid to the authority, none of the money, by law, is supposed to go to terrorists or former terrorists. Critics say there is no way to separate money from U.S. taxpayers and the funds which go to the former prisoners.

“We have a lot of funding that goes to the PA that is fungible and co-mingled and there is a lot of concern the money is going to radical causes and extremist issues,” Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the bipartisan think tank, Foundation for Defense of Democracy, told FoxNews.com.

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Syria: Pope Warns Barack Obama that Military Strike Would be ‘futile’

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Photo Credit: ALESSANDRO DI

Photo Credit: ALESSANDRO DI

In a sharply-worded intervention in the debate on the Syrian conflict, Pope Francis also accused world leaders of having stood by and allowed a “senseless massacre” to unfold in the country.

The Pope wrote in a letter, delivered to Vladimir Putin but addressed to all the G20 leaders meeting: “To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution.”

He added: “Rather, let there be a renewed commitment to seek, with courage and determination, a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiation of the parties, unanimously supported by the international community.

“Moreover, all governments have the moral duty to do everything possible to ensure humanitarian assistance to those suffering because of the conflict, both within and beyond the country’s borders.”

The widespread killings in Syria had spiralled due to a lack of interest from the world, he said. “It is regrettable that, from the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, one-sided interests have prevailed and in fact hindered the search for a solution that would have avoided the senseless massacre now unfolding.”

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