Be Prepared: Wall Street Advisor Recommends Guns, Ammo for Protection in Collapse

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ammoA top financial advisor, worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a “bug-out bag” that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive.

David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, “Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.”

His memo is part of a series addressing the potential for a “financial apocalypse.” His view, however, is that the problems plaguing the country won’t result in armageddon. “There is the possibility of a precipitous decline, although a long and drawn out malaise is much more likely,” said the Charlottesville, Va.-based president of Marotta Wealth Management.

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Senator Urges UPS to Refund Customers Whose Christmas Packages Were Late

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A U.S. senator is calling on UPS to refund customers whose Christmas packages got caught up in widespread delays.

“In a very real sense, Christmas is on the line,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a written statement Thursday. “I call on UPS to do the right thing and provide refunds to people whose Christmases were a little less cheery as a result of their late deliveries.”

The senator said he recognizes the “tremendous work” that UPS, as well as the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx, put in this time of year. However, he said he was “disappointed” to learn so many people in his state and across the country were “left empty-handed” on Christmas.

Both UPS and FedEx were playing catch up Thursday after poor weather and overloaded systems delayed packages that were intended to be delivered in time for Christmas.

Neither company said how many packages were delayed but noted it was a small share of overall holiday shipments. But the problems appear to have affected many parts of the country.

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California Schools Prepare for Transgender Rights Law

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

With a law that spells out the rights of transgender students in grades K-12 set to take effect in California, school districts are reviewing locker room layouts, scheduling sensitivity training for coaches, assessing who will sleep where during overnight field trips and reconsidering senior portrait dress codes.

But administrators, counselors, teachers and school board members also are watching and waiting. The law, the nation’s first requiring public schools to let children use sex-segregated facilities and participate in the gender-specific activities of their choice, could end up suspended within days of its Jan. 1 launch if a referendum to repeal it qualifies for the November ballot.

To obtain a public vote on the law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, a coalition of conservative groups called Privacy for All Students has collected hundreds of thousands of signatures. Counties have until Jan. 8 to verify them through random spot-checking.

Depending on how many are found to be valid, the secretary of state will approve the referendum, determine that it failed or order a review of every signature.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen when kids come back from their holiday vacation,” said Republican state Sen. Steve Knight, who voted against the law. “Are there going to be 15-year-old girls talking in the bathroom and in walks a boy? What are they going to do? Scream? Run out?”

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IRS Proposing New Regulations That Would Silence Obama’s Critics

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Barack Obama’s Internal Revenue Service was caught this year targeting conservative groups with harassment that included invasive probes into the content of prayers and unwarranted delays.

That issue is being worked out in court. But the IRS, nevertheless, remains on the attack, proposing new regulations that would silence the president’s critics.

Mathew Staver, founder and chief counsel of Liberty Counsel, said that after “being caught intentionally targeting conservative groups in the prior two elections, now the president wants his IRS to totally silence the voices of his political adversaries.”

New rules proposed in the Federal Register, Staver said, are “designed to silence and greatly restrict the activities of Liberty Counsel Action and other 501 (c) 4 nonprofit organizations during the upcoming election year.”

The rules were announced quietly in late November. They haven’t received much attention, Staver said, yet because the news cycle has been occupied by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to change Senate rules to let Democrats approve radical judicial and administrative appointments and the reaction to “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson’s comments about homosexuality.

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Patchwork of ObamaCare Insurance Deadlines Adds to Confusion

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

So you’ve signed up for health care on the ObamaCare exchanges. Think you’re covered? Not quite.

As with any insurance plan, new enrollees still have to pay their first month’s premium to lock in coverage. But the deadlines for that task are different all over the country, adding to the confusion over an already-perplexing sign-up process.

“It makes an already kind of chaotic situation even more chaotic,” Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers said.

The deadlines in the ObamaCare enrollment process have been a moving target. For those seeking coverage for the start of the new year, the deadline to sign up was originally Dec. 15. Then it was moved to Dec. 23, and then again to Dec. 24. Even after that deadline passed Tuesday night, the administration announced that those who ran into technical problems on HealthCare.gov could still seek an exemption and get covered by Jan. 1.

Then comes the next set of deadlines. After appeals from the Obama administration, major health insurers announced earlier this month that they would give people until Jan. 10 — as opposed to Dec. 31 — to pay their first month’s premium and have coverage effective Jan. 1.

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New Study: Health Insurance Shoppers are Terrible at Choosing Cost-Effective Plans

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Health insurance shoppers do a terrible job of picking the plan that will serve them best, according to a new study.

The study presented subjects with health insurance websites that mirror the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act and asked them to pick a plan. The results were not pretty: Left to their own devices, consumers who selected their own plans ended up only slightly better off than they would have had their plans been assigned randomly.

When given four options, the consumers chose the most cost-effective plan only 42 percent of the time. When given eight options, the success rate plummeted to 21 percent—a rate indistinguishable from random assignments.

The researchers then repeated the study, but this time with added “cost calculators” on the mock website aimed at helping consumers. Even then, shoppers picked the most cost-effective option only 47 percent of the time, typically choosing plans that would cost them an extra $364.

In a final iteration, researchers offered the shopping choices to M.B.A. students enrolled in a consumer finance class. In this pool—where more than half of the subjects came from consulting or financial-services related fields—consumers made the most cost-effective choice 73 percent of the time, and the average mistake dropped to $126.

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Even Mother Jones Blasts Obama Economy

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

That the U.S. is going through the worst economic downturn and longest unemployment crisis in generations is news to almost no one.

That a left-leaning longtime advocate for Barack Obama’s socialist policies would admit it is.

The blast at the Obama economy came this week from the far left Mother Jones, which said, “Not since the Great Depression has the United States experienced such massive and persistent long-term unemployment.”

The article, under a trio of bylines including Dave Gilson, Tasneem Raja and AJ Vicens, noted that while the Great Recession of 2007 “ended in Jun 2009,” the economy remains full of holes.

“In less than a week, emergency federal unemployment benefits for 1.3 million of these jobless Americans are set to run out. Proponents of ending the benefits argue that the economy is expanding and that the benefits prevent people from finding work,” the report explains.

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Appeals Court Orders Utah on Christmas Eve: Move Forward With Same-Sex Marriages

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Deseret News, Tom Smart

Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Deseret News, Tom Smart

A federal appeals court has refused yet again to stop gay marriage in Utah, making it more likely that same-sex weddings in the home of the Mormon church are here to stay for the immediate future.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of Utah’s request for an emergency order to put gay marriage on hold marked yet another legal setback for the state. Utah lawyers have repeatedly struck out in their bid to block gay marriage, getting rejected on four occasions in recent days.

Utah’s last chance to temporarily stop the marriages would be a long-shot request before U.S. Supreme Court. That’s what the Utah attorney general’s office is prepared to do, spokesman Ryan Bruckman said. Gov. Gary Herbert’s office declined to comment on the decision.

“We’re disappointed in the ruling, but we just have to take it to the next level,” Bruckman said.

Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at Virginia’s University of Richmond who has tracked legal battles for gay marriage, said he expects the U.S. Supreme Court to make a decision by Friday. He thinks Utah faces long odds to get their stay granted, considering two courts have already rejected it and marriages have been going on for days now.

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Cleveland Settles, Pays Gun Owner for Weapon Seizure

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Derrick Washington is a law-abiding gun owner with a valid concealed-carry permit.

Last February, Washington called local police to report a shooting near his home in Cleveland, Ohio. When police arrived on the scene, they began questioning Washington about the incident.

Although he didn’t tell them initially, probably because it wasn’t germane to the investigation, Washington later admitted that he was a licensed gun owner and that he had a firearm stored in his parked car. The firearm was not linked to the shooting in any way.

According to police reports, officers claim that Washington said he had two vodka drinks that night– a claim that Washington vehemently denies.

Since Washington had been allegedly drinking and because he waited to tell the officers that he was a law-abiding gun owner with a carry permit, the officers put him in cuffs, confiscated his .38-caliber Taurus from inside his vehicle and charged him with using weapons while intoxicated and illegally carrying a concealed weapon.

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Santa’s Workshop Was Not the Problem; It Was Delays at UPS and FedEx

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

By Fox News.

It wasn’t a problem at Santa’s workshop that held up Christmas presents for some this year, but rather, shipping problems at UPS and FedEx.

The delays were blamed on poor weather earlier this week in parts of the country as well as overloaded systems. The holiday shopping period this year was shorter than usual, more buying was done online and Americans’ tendency to wait until the last possible second to shop probably didn’t help either.

Neither company said how many packages were delayed but noted it was a small share of overall holiday shipments. While the bulk of consumers’ holiday spending remains at physical stores, shopping online is increasingly popular and outstripping spending growth in stores at the mall.

The problems appear to have affected many parts of the country. The Associated Press spoke to people in Alabama, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia who didn’t receive presents in time for Christmas.

Many were left with little or no time to make alternative plans.

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Shipping overload leaves many Christmas giftless

By Shelly Banjo.

Many shoppers are blaming online retailers for stealing Christmas.

Companies from Amazon.com Inc. to Kohl’s Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. promised to deliver items from headphones to television sets before Christmas, but shipping delays left gift-givers across the country without anything to put under the tree.

On Christmas Eve, Brandon Scott was still waiting for a 46-inch Samsung TV and Kate Spade watch he ordered from Amazon on Saturday.

“I’m frustrated because these items could have easily been purchased at various retailers in my area, something I would have gladly done had Amazon not guaranteed’ their arrival before Christmas,” said Mr. Scott of Ann Arbor, Mich.

An unexpected surge of online orders in the past few weeks appears to have strained the limits of delivery and fulfillment infrastructure at retailers and parcel carriers. While instances of bad weather, Web glitches and late deliveries from manufacturers also played a part, the sheer volume may have been the problem, according to retail analysts.

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