analysis policy in all the world

Thứ Ba, 3 tháng 1, 2012

Awesome: White House forcing approval of immigration requests, even those with 'fraud, eligibility or security' concerns

And I had such high hopes for the Obama administration:

Higher-ups within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to rubber-stamp immigrants’ visa applications, sometimes against the officers’ will, according to a Homeland Security report and internal documents exclusively obtained by The Daily.

A 40-page report, drafted by the Office of Inspector General in September but not publicly released, details the immense pressure immigration service officers are under to approve visa applications quickly, sometimes while overlooking concerns about fraud, eligibility or security.

...high-ranking USCIS officials said the pressure has heightened after the Obama administration appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as director in August 2009 during an effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform, bringing with him a mantra of “get to yes.”

...At least five agency veterans seen as being too tough on applicants were either demoted, or given the choice between a demotion or a relocation from Southern California — where their families were — to San Francisco and Nebraska, according to sources and letters of reassignment provided to The Daily.

Those kind of threats have caused lower-level employees to fall in line, sources said.

Dammit! Every time I think I've finished The Complete List of Barack Obama's Historic Firsts, they roll out a new one.

Hat tip: The Drudge Report.

Yikes! Total amount of debt that must be refinanced in 2012 equal to... only about all of the cash in the world

The global Ponzi scheme needs some ~~fresh fish~~ new recruits -- desperately:

Developed economies will see $7.6trn worth of debt mature this year, with Italy towards the front of the refinancing queue at a time when its borrowing costs remain elevated.

The $7.6trn figure for the G7 economies and the BRICs is up from $7.4trn last year, according to Bloomberg, and comes at a time of slowing global growth and higher bond yields for many countries.

Japan and the US, which will have to rollover $3trn and $2.8trn worth of debt respectively in 2012, saw borrowing costs drop in 2011 as investors fled to safe havens.

But Italy, which remains at the epicentre of the eurozone crisis, has to rollover $428bn this year. This is the third highest amount, followed by France with $367bn and Germany on $285bn.

Italian 10-year bond yields continue to hover around the critical 7% mark, the figure currently standing at 6.88%, and the country had mixed fortunes with two debt auctions at the end of 2011.

But wait -- that's not all!

Turns out that there's another $1 trillion in corporate debt that must be rolled over this year as well.

All-in-all, the debt loads are becoming awesome and face what Bloomberg describes as a bad combination:

"The buyer base for peripheral Europe has obviously shrunk at the same time that the supply coming to the market is increasing, which is not a good combination," said Michael Riddell, a London-based fund manager at M&G Investments.

...but we agree with the following that it will be mid-year (March onwards) that the real problems of excess supply hit (and pre-judging when this gets (or how much of this is) priced into forwards is anyone's guess):

Investors should be most worried about the period after the ECB’s second three-year longer-term refinancing operation scheduled in February, according to Ignis’s Thomson... "The amount of liquidity that has been supplied by central banks, with more to come from the ECB in February, suggests the first couple of months will be a sort of phony war as far as the supply is concerned."

But, wait -- I'm not done!

Care to guess how much short-term consumer credit card debt needs to be rolled? According to CreditCards.com, there's about $800 billion in revolving debt on Americans' plastic.

In short, it would appear that the world needs to find someone to loan it about $10 trillion this year alone.

And how much cash is there in the world?

While it's difficult to say with any certainty how much cash and cash equivalents are floating around at any given time, the last estimate by Mike Hewitt in 2009 produced a figure of around $12.3 trillion.

So, basically, we need almost all of the cash in the entire world to fund this year's debts (and don't ask about the next few years).

The good news: if Paul Krugman can pull off that alien invasion he proposed a few months ago, we could find some new ~~marks~~ investors in the global Ponzi scheme.

Andrea Mitchell Opines on the All-Important Detroit Caucuses

Remember when NBC's senior political ~~hack~~ analyst Andrea Mitchell belittled the state of Iowa, asserting that "it doesn't represent the rest of the country - too white, too evangelical, too rural"?

The petulant artisans at iOwnTheWorld subsequently filed an official rebuttal in the form of a poster.

Calls to Ms. Mitchell were not returned at press time, though an NBC spokesman confirmed that tingling sensations had been felt in the newsroom.

Larwyn's Linx: Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians for 2011

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Cornucopia

Pure, unadulterated genius: Knuckle-draggin' (NSFW)
Stanley Ann’s Legacy: A Crafty Gift: MOTUS
It Could Be Worse: Knuckle-draggin' (NSFW)

Image: Frontpage Magazine
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Rick Santorum Money Bomb

QOTD: "Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." --Alexis de Tocqueville

Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 1, 2012

Odd Coincidence: Soros-Affiliated Brazilian Company Looks to Win Major DOD Contract Over U.S. Competition

For some reason unbeknownst to me, legacy media has chosen not to report this particular story. Go figure.

It seems after investing around $100 million in this project, Hawker-Beechcraft has been excluded from a contract, worth almost $1 billion, to build a new light air support plane.

What intrigues me is the Brazilian company Embraer, the likely contract winner, is currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department, for possible violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...

Well, amigo, that certainly seems curious. I wonder how that might have happened?

...it seems George Soros has a connection to Embraer through Harbin-Embraer Aircraft a Chinese-Brazilian joint venture, and Hainan Airlines, which Soros owns a significant stake in.

Surely that must be a coincidence.

...[There may be] nothing sinister going on behind the scenes.

It’s troubling, however, that Hawker-Beechcraft was given no real explanation for this decision. It’s also troubling we’d buy a military aircraft from a foreign manufacturer, under any circumstances. As bad as Americans need jobs, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Never mind the national security factor.

Hawker-Beechcraft isn't giving up.

It's still a mystery... but it's one that Hawker Beech intends to get to the bottom of... Hawker Beechcraft has confirmed that they will file a suit with the Court of Federal Claims following notification late last week that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has declined to review its protest of the decision by the U.S. Air Force to exclude the company's Beechcraft AT-6 from the Light Air Support (LAS) competition.

The company still has no concrete reasons for the AT-6's exclusion, having been denied explanation by the US Air Force on two occasions. The LAS contract is valued at nearly $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money and exclusion of the AT-6 could result in a de facto award to a non-U.S. company.

Hawker says that keeping the contract in the U.S. would preserve 1,400 jobs at 181 companies around the U.S.

But leave it to President Obama -- who "will not rest" until every American has a good job -- to outsource the construction of military aircraft.

Hat tip: Winter Soldier.

A little reminder for 2012: which RINO hacks voted to confirm Eric Holder

Has there been a more malevolent, malicious and partisan attorney general in American history than Eric Holder?

• Holder's Justice Department orchestrated "Operation Fast and Furious", which sent thousands of military-grade weapons to Mexican drug cartels and resulted in the killings of hundreds of Mexican nationals and at least two U.S. law enforcement personnel.

• Instead of owning up to the disastrous operation, the Holder DOJ has engaged in a massive cover-up including an endless series of fabrications, deflections and outright lies. Holder's behavior has been so outrageous that Judiciary Committee member James Sensenbrenner has threatened impeachment and more than 50 members of Congress have called for him to resign.

• Under Holder, the Justice Department is suing a series of states for enforcing immigration law -- while tolerating sanctuary cities in other states.

• The Holder DOJ has withheld and redacted critical evidence of Justice Elena Kagan's relationship with the defense of Obamacare, a potentially criminal matter.

• Furthermore, Holder has now confirmed that at least nine Department of Justice appointees worked directly or indirectly (e.g., filing Amicus Curae briefs) as terrorist advocates. Other DOJ political appointees also worked for law firms that participated indirectly in the defense of Gitmo terrorists.

• This comes on the heels of Holder's shocking failure to prosecute the New Black Panthers who intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling station in 2008.

And Holder, of course, had a singularly evil track record that should have clearly warned Congress against his confirmation: he had helped free FALN terrorists for Bill Clinton in an apparent quid pro quo; he had approved the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich after his wife had donated millions to Bill Clinton; and he'd had deep involvement in a variety of other situations that should have disqualified him instantly from holding any public office.

Many months ago, Michelle Malkin helpfully reminded us of the list of Republicans who had voted to confirm Holder:

Alexander (R-TN)

Bennett (R-UT)

Bond (R-MO)

Chambliss (R-Ga)

Collins (R-ME)

Corker (R-TN)

Graham (R-SC)

Grassley (R-IA)

Gregg (R-NH)

Hatch (R-UT)

Isakson (R-GA)

Kyl (R-AZ)

Lugar (R-IN)

McCain (R-AZ)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Sessions (R-AL)

Snowe (R-ME)

Specter (R-PA)

Voinovich (R-OH)

Voinovich and Specter no longer count, of course.

But the usual suspects -- Dick Lugar (up for reelection in 2012), Olympia Snowe (2012), Susan Collins (2014), Lindsay "Goober" Graham (2014), and John McCain all voted for Holder -- along with a bunch of more solid Republicans who definitely should have known better.

I urge you to remember these names and to support their primary opponents:

• Richard Mourdock is taking on Dick Lugar in Indiana

• Andrew Ian Dodge is facing off against Olympia Snowe in Maine

It's time to take action.

Nice: Occupy Movement Crashes Rose Parade with 70-Foot Octopus "Float" That Pins Economic Woes On... Well, You Know

Yeah, you remember that conspiracy orchestrated by those greedy, corporate, Wall Street globalists?

Planning to walk behind the nationally-broadcast Rose Parade Monday demonstrators against Wall Street 'greed and corruption' have constructed a 70-foot-long octopus entirely from recycled plastic bags... The octopus is said to represent the tentacles 'that reach into your pocket to get your money and a tentacle to get your house,' activist Mark Lipman told the Los Angeles Times.

...During a dress rehearsal of their plastic creature in November outside City Hall, activists carrying signs reading Teacher, Home Owner, Retiree and of course, 99 per cent, one-by-one stepped into grabbing point of the activist-raised arms pulling them in.

Say, where have we seen that octopus symbolism before?

Oh, yeah, that's right:

Are people so afraid to stand up against the hatred, public hatred broadcast for the entire world to see? The image of the octopus has been used in attacks on the Jews for over a century. Here's a roundup on the Jewish conspiracy octopus at the Coordinating Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism.

And the local organizers didn't even try to hide their hatred.

People keep saying that the Occupy movement is all about fairness and "getting money out of politics."

Right.

This is the modern Left in action. It tries to divide Americans against one another: rich vs. poor, black vs. white, union vs. non-union, urban vs. rural, you name it.

This kind of rhetoric defies American tradition and, furthermore, it's downright dangerous. Nothing good can come from demonizing arbitrary groups of Americans.

Thứ Ba, 3 tháng 1, 2012

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Thứ Hai, 2 tháng 1, 2012