Eric Schmidt's 2014 Predictions (video)

Eric Schmidt's 2014 Predictions - Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- In a rare interview, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt gives Bloomberg his outlook for 2014 trends. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Obama, ObamaCare, Mess Multiplied

The Obama administration is now in a panic over the Obamacare mess -- the headlines are hard to miss --

Obamacare Is Falling Apart Before Our Eyes | The Weekly Standard

Obama Repeals ObamaCare - WSJ.com: "... The White House argued at the Supreme Court that the insurance-purchase mandate was not only constitutional but essential to the law's success, while refusing Republican demands to delay or repeal it. But late on Thursday (Dec. 19), with only four days to go before the December enrollment deadline, the Health and Human Services Department decreed that millions of Americans are suddenly exempt (for 2014). Individuals whose health plans were canceled (due to Obamacare) will now automatically qualify for a "hardship exemption" from the mandate. If they can't or don't sign up for a new plan, they don't have to pay the tax. They can also get a special category of ObamaCare insurance designed for people under age 30...."

So what's wrong with this? We now have a law, upheld by the US Supreme Court as a valid tax,  mandating everyone buy or be covered by health insurance, but now filled with so many exceptions and exemptions arbitrarily imposed by Obama as to make the whole thing financially unsustainable. You don't think the health insurance companies are going to eat those losses, do you? As a result, prepare for massive increases in health insurance costs for 2015 and beyond. In their panic to appease millions who have lost their health insurance and were lied to by Obama about "if you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance," the Obama administration has now completely undermined the whole program. Obamacare only works financially if you force healthy Americans to buy health insurance they don't want -- in the same "pools" as those who have chronic health conditions. The insurance companies were not consulted before Obama issued these last-minute changes--legislating on the fly!

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2014 Prediction: Democrats Lose the Senate

The Obamacare mess (otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act) -- from the pathetic website (which cost half a billion dollars--LOL!) to millions of cancellations of health policies (that were affordable), and which people had been assured they could keep when Obama and other Democrats, for years, promised lied "if you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance," will lead to the Democrats losing seats in the November 2014 elections, including control of the US Senate --

Rough health law fallout tightens key Senate races: "....Thanks to the fiasco that followed the launch of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, Democrats are now bracing for hard-fought Senate races in states they hoped to win with ease just two months ago. Weeks of technical problems with the health insurance enrollment website combined with anxiety over insurance cancellations for millions have erased early advantages enjoyed by Democratic candidates Peters in Michigan and Mark Udall in Colorado...." source: AP (read more at link above)

GOP surges ahead of Democrats in 2014 generic ballot - CBS News: "... Democrats are being hurt by President Obama’s low approval ratings: 55 percent of those surveyed said they are more likely to vote for a Congressional candidate who opposes the president, versus just four in 10 who would choose a candidate who supports him. There has been a huge drop in support for Democrats among men. In October, 46 percent opted for the Democrat on the generic ballot. In the most recent survey, just 35 percent did...."

There are consequences in politics. You hit people in the pocketbook, you lie to them, you run their government incompetently, based on lies, spin and deniability, be prepared for blowback at the next election. Obama and Democrats can't spin themselves out of this vortex.

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Charity Scam Alert

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a "consumer alert" urging donors to do their homework. "Following major disasters, it is common for scam artists to impersonate charities to get money or private information from well-intentioned taxpayers," the IRS says. What can you do to help protect yourself against scamsters?

1. Check out the IRS website (IRS.gov), and go to "Exempt Organizations Select Check," which is designed to help donors find "legitimate, qualified charities."

2.You can also look for qualified charities on the website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema.gov).

"Be wary of charities with names that are similar to familiar or nationally known organizations"... "Some phony charities use names or websites that sound or look like those of respected, legitimate organizations." . . . "For security and tax-record purposes, contribute by check or credit card or another way that provides documentation of the gift." For more details, see IRS Publication 526. 

(sources for this post: IRS and Wall Street Journal)

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House Prices Boom, Why is this time different?

ES_32_2013-11-22

The current housing boom is the first nationwide boom since the postwar era not driven by increased demand for owner-occupied housing, but instead, investors. source

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Unemployment Rate? 7% or 13%? It Depends

Love Yourself Some Treasuries - Bloomberg: "The Fed has said it wouldn’t raise its federal funds rate until the unemployment rate -- now 7 percent -- comes down to 6.5 percent. That target is becoming less meaningful, however, because the decline in joblessness has been primarily the result of a falling labor participation rate, not rising employment. If the participation rate hadn’t dropped from its February 2000 peak because of the retirement of members of the baby-boom generation, discouraged job-seekers and youths who have stayed in school during the recession, the unemployment rate now would be 13 percent."

So now liberal progressive economists like Paul Krugman are in a real quandary -- they want Obama to look good by having a falling unemployment rate, and the statisticians in Washington have done everything they can by redefining unemployment as excluding  the long-term unemployed and discouraged workers from those classified as unemployed (hence a real jobless rate of 13% becomes 7%). Yet they do not want the Federal Reserve to start tapering and raising interest rates -- something that is a real possibility now that the official unemployment rate (7%) is only a half of one per cent from the target (6.5%) to start doing exactly that! So what to do?

If the liberals from inside the beltway to the New York Times were honest, they would tell the American people the truth -- the real unemployment rate is about 13%, the Obama recovery has been dismal, and tapering and raising interest rates by the Federal Reserve is way premature.

But how they spin it from here into 2014, is anyone's guess.

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Merry Christmas!

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Secret Donors, Conflicts of Interest, the Center for American Progress

The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks [Updated on 5/24] | The Nation: "The Center for American Progress, Washington’s leading liberal think tank, has been a big backer of the Energy Department’s $25 billion loan guarantee program for renewable energy projects. CAP has specifically praised First Solar, a firm that received $3.73 billion under the program, and its Antelope Valley project in California."

Washington institutions (like the liberal Center for American Progress) esteemed for their independent scholarship don’t disclose donations from corporations and foreign governments --

"CAP (Center for American Progress) is a strong proponent of alternative energy, so there’s no reason to doubt the sincerity of its advocacy. But the fact that CAP has received financial support from First Solar while touting its virtues to Washington policy-makers points to a conflict of interest that, critics argue, ought to be disclosed to the public. CAP’s promotion of the company’s interests has supplemented First Solar’s aggressive Washington lobbying efforts, on which it spent more than $800,000 during 2011 and 2012." (source supra)

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Dying with Grace

The United States cannot sustain, economically or otherwise, 7 out of 10 Americans dying in institutions, intubated, infiltrated, invalidated -- and wasting, needlessly, billions in Medicare funds for terminal conditions --

The Art of Dying by Gayatri Devi - Roundtable | Lapham’s Quarterly: "... In twenty-first century America, there is no such “how to” manual on dying. Nor does our state-of-the-art modern medicine offer much help.
Fact: Seven out of ten Americans wish to die at home, die the Good, the Valid, Death.
Jane abhorred whispering, so Steve and I included Jane in our discussion of the mechanics of her death.
Fact: Seven out of ten Americans die in institutions, intubated, infiltrated, invalidated.
“This is a treatable problem,” Steve said.
“Yes,” I said, “but she is going to be worse off afterward.”
We went back and forth like this for half an hour. Jane and Sam listened intently, following the argument like spectators at a tennis match. In the end, Steve acquiesced even though his suggestions were in line with what my hospital colleagues would recommend. What I was proposing was not the medical norm..." (read more at the link above)

There is a better way, dying with grace. 

Less is More.

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China, US, both waste resources, just differently

China may be throwing money away on "ghost cities" but the US government is throwing away money on useless things too -- like a bloated, unneeded military infrastructure --

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Does the US Have Enough Military Bases?: "...Questions: Given that any satellite can pick up this information, is there any rational reason to have "secret bases"? Is any base really a secret? Would US security be hampered if 25% of the bases were shut down? 50%? 80%? The answers are 1-no, 2-no, 3-no, no, no...." (read more at link above)

Coming -- a rebalancing of military spending (meaning cuts, big cuts) once Washington gets serious about reallocating limited resources, instead of just tax, spend, waste, and ask for more.

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Stan Druckenmiller on government spending, Charllie Rose video

Stan Druckenmiller on government spending
Published on Dec 4, 2013
Stan Druckenmiller, founder of Duquesne Capital on government spending, from the Charlie Rose Show

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"Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials"

Bad week for the NSA, first the Court ruling declaring NSA practices likely unconstitutional. Then the day after Obama met with tech leaders for two and half hours (solely about the NSA), the White House releases the Report, and having read it, here's a money quote:

Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence  and Communications Technologies --

“Americans must never make the mistake of wholly “trusting” our public officials. As the Church Committee observed more than 35 years ago, when the capacity of government to collect massive amounts of data about individual Americans was still in its infancy, the “massive centralization of . . . information creates a temptation to use it for improper purposes, threatens to ‘chill’ the exercise of First Amendment rights, and is inimical to the privacy of citizens.” ( p. 116) (read more at the link above)

If I were with the NSA (or CBS News), I would be looking for a rock to crawl under.

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Mark Carney on economic recovery, Charlie Rose video

Mark Carney on economic recovery
Published on Dec 10, 2013
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England on economic recovery, on the Charlie Rose Show

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Is Congressman Mike Rogers a Liar?

(Tip of the hat to: "UT Documents: The trustworthiness of Congressman Mike Rogers")

Fox News, December 2, 2013: The evidence surrounding the case of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggests he did not act alone when he downloaded some 200,000 documents, according to the Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee. "We know he did some things capability-wise that was beyond his capabilities. Which means he used someone else's help to try and steal things from the United States, the people of the United States. Classified information, information we use to keep America safe," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Fox News.

Reuters, today (11 days later) - reporting on comments made in "a rare interview at NSA's heavily guarded Fort Meade headquarters" with "Richard Ledgett, who leads a task force responding to the leaks": The NSA's internal review has determined about 98 percent of the scope of the material that Snowden had accessed, and officials have found no evidence that he had help either within the NSA or from adversary spy agencies.
So how could Congressman Rogers have known something that the NSA itself says there is no evidence of? Just more pathetic lies from Washington officials about the NSA -- Congressional oversight? -- LOL!

Clowns and fools and LIARS! At this point, anybody who votes for Mike Rogers is irresponsible. He didn't do his job of oversight as Committee chair, and he has lied to the American people about the facts. Guys like this are not worthy of holding public office or serving in any capacity in government.

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John Hagel: Move to the City, Learn Faster (video)

John Hagel: Move to the City, Learn Faster- Published on Dec 1, 2013 - Cities of Knowledge: Why We Learn Faster in Cities Than We Could On Our Own -- " . . . In our 'flat' digital world, in which we can connect virtually with anybody we want, one could argue that the notion of an innovation hub is outdated. However, in today's lesson, innovation guru John Hagel explores the paradox that, despite the fact that technology infrastructure has made location unimportant, we're becoming more urbanized at a more rapid rate than ever before. Why is this? According to Hagel, learning faster is becoming more and more important, and we simply learn faster in cities than we could on our own...."

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Liberal Progressives Take Over New York City, Time to Get Out

After years on the sidelines, New York's liberals retaking control," by Reuters' Victoria Cavaliere : "With Bill de Blasio taking office as mayor in January, New York City appears poised for a resurgence of liberal policies. After 20 years of Republican leadership, not only will America's largest city have the most liberal mayor in a generation, helping him implement change will be a progressive-leaning City Council and a longtime liberal ally in the new public advocate. ... [T]he last election marked a major change in New York City politics, with a new breed of highly liberal politicians ready to enact a series of progressive policies that would have been dead on arrival under Bloomberg or his predecessor Giuliani. (from Reuters via Mike Allen at Politico)

Douglas Muzzio, an expert on New York City politics and a professor at Baruch College at the City University of New York. ‘People projected their frustration, their anxiety, their expectations, their dreams on Bill. In that sense it wasn't dissimilar from the 2008 election of Obama.’ …(source supra)

Time to get out of New York City (if you haven't left already). And don't just take my word for it, here is (one of  his many posts on the subject) Andrew Sullivan. What I like particularly about the progessive liberal takeover of New York City, is that the whole nation can watch, from afar, the disastrous results of progressive liberal policies as they occur over the next few years. I expect the so-called mainstream media will at first exist in a state of denial about the disaster taking place in front of their eyes. But eventually, the results will be too painful for even them to ignore. How long will it take?

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Federal Reserve Creates a Bust to Bubble Economy

The whole problem with the Federal Reserve is that the mistake of the double mandate requires them to try to achieve a full employment economy. Unfortunately, that means creating a "bubble economy" because "full employment" only occurs in a "bubble economy" in the modern world as created by central bankers and governments around the world -- and what's the inevitable fallout? --

Nouriel Roubini warns that policymmakers are powerless to rein in frothy housing markets around the world. - Project Syndicate: "....In countries where non-recourse loans allow borrowers to walk away from a mortgage when its value exceeds that of their home, the housing bust may lead to massive defaults and banking crises. In countries (for example, Sweden) where recourse loans allow seizure of household income to enforce payment of mortgage obligations, private consumption may plummet as debt payments (and eventually rising interest rates) crowd out discretionary spending. Either way, the result would be the same: recession and stagnation. What we are witnessing in many countries looks like a slow-motion replay of the last housing-market train wreck. And, like last time, the bigger the bubbles become, the nastier the collision with reality will be."

Remedy: repeal the double mandate; have the Federal Reserve focus solely on a sound currency and banking system. Unemployment is an issue of fiscal policy (President and Congress) not monetary policy (Federal Reserve).

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First Secret Courts, Now the Secret Federal Reserve -- Had Enough?

Rand Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ bill: " . . . See the pattern? The Federal Reserve fought against releasing its emergency lending data. It was finally forced to, and the sky didn’t fall. It’s been fighting to keep evidence of foreclosure abuses secret, making people wonder whose interests it serves. And it doesn’t appear to be drafting the rules that would circumvent its own bailout powers, to the worry of many. These are the abuses that stick with people and make the public think there’s more shadiness that they don’t know about. These are all self-inflicted wounds, and reflect the choices that the Federal Reserve has made on its own. Reform happens. Whether it comes from people who want to see the Fed do a good job or those who are looking for excuses to be for hard money is a choice that the Fed has helped influence...."

Arrogance, secrecy, lack of accountability . . . . power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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Microsoft in Decline

Yes Microsoft is still profitable -- but for how long? BlackBerry was profitable until everyone realized that the iPhone wasn't some fluke --

Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): The Microsoft Future - Seeking Alpha: "The problem that Microsoft faces is that its market share has been declining over the past five or six years. Around 2008, Microsoft had a 90 percent market share for Global Computing Platforms and a 90 percent market share of Personal Computing Devices Shipped. Microsoft is losing market share. In terms of Global Computing Platforms, Android now has the biggest market share at 60 percent of the market. In 2008, Android had nothing! Microsoft is still ahead of Apple who has just 14 percent of the market. In 2008 Apple has about 6 percent."

The irony is that Microsoft has trashed the one market it had a lock on -- desktop and notebook PCs -- by forcing users to adopt Win8.x, an OS optimized for touchscreen tablets!

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New York City mayor-elect faces immediate fiscal crisis

I've already made clear my prognosis for New York City -- get out while you can. Meanwhile, reality is slowing dawning upon the New York City electorate who voted de Blasio into office --

NYC mayor-elect will face immediate fiscal crisis | CharlotteObserver.com: "... New York City Mayor-elect . . . de Blasio's most immediate crisis is presented by some of his staunchest allies: the city's unions. All 300,000 members of the municipal labor force have been working on expired contracts for years, declining to negotiate with outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg in hopes of striking a more favorable deal with de Blasio....If de Blasio were to fully acquiesce to the unions, his scramble to fund the raises would have immediate and dramatic ramifications. Agency budgets would be slashed, meaning vital services, from trash pickup to police staffing to school supplies, would likely be cut. City workers would be laid off. And de Blasio would have little choice but to raise the one tax he can control, the property tax, which could drive homeowners and businesses from the city...."

OK let's see how the progressive liberal deals with reality. More to come.

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Well Run Organizations vs Obama Administration, HealthCare.gov

How Willful Ignorance Doomed HealthCare.gov - Clay Shirky - POLITICO Magazine: "Testing means seeing what works and what doesn’t, and acting on that knowledge, even if that means contradicting management’s deeply held assumptions or goals. In well-run organizations, information runs from the top down and from the bottom up."

When did the Obama administration stop listening? And I don't mean fund raising events, or Rose Garden or other photo-ops, I mean really listening. To the people.

Why did Snowden do what he did? The NSA and the government, as a whole, stopped listening, and even prosecuted whistleblowers. 

Dysfunctional organizations, led by inepts and incompetents, wake up and wonder what happened and why.

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Michelle Obama, First Lady

One of the few "good ones" left in Washington -- the First Lady --

Michelle Obama 'leans in', just not in the direction privileged feminists want | Enuma Okoro | theguardian.com: "...I am not even sure where to start to respond to Michelle Cottle's recent Politico article in which she calls first lady Michelle Obama a "feminist's nightmare".... What these so called feminists fail to see is that Michelle Obama is a social and political activist working passionately in arenas commonly ignored by white politicians and white feminists: the needs of the children and youth raised in low-income communities, including equal access and availability to health and nutritional education. Focusing on obesity and exercise for young people is not only a needed form of social activism to help predominately minority youth break cyclic issues of health, education and low self-esteem, but it also shows foresight and wisdom towards creating and sustaining healthier communities overall...." (read more at the link above)

Amen.

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Memo to Marissa: Katie Couric, Old Media will NEVER save Yahoo

Marissa Mayer has just made her first major mistake, throwing away countless millions of Yahoo's limited assets on Katie Couric --

Leaving ABC News, Couric Describes Move to Yahoo as ‘Being of the Moment’ -- Katie Couric said that her decision to join Yahoo as its “global news anchor” came after the new chief executive, Marissa Mayer, reached out to her....

This is laughable. Katie Couric, as Leo Laporte and others have noted, is a has-been. Old media will never save nor help Yahoo to get to where it needs to go. What was Marissa thinking? I am afraid she acted way outside her competence zone on this one. It was truly, a move of the moment, because whatever flash it brought will soon quickly die out. Marissa would have been wiser to spend all the money she is throwing away on Couric, on bright, talented engineers and programmers.

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ICANN, like NSA, a self-serving bureaucracy killing the internet

All of the hopes, dreams, and promise of the internet, dashed by the NSA and ICANN et al:

ICANN leaders push for broad-based Internet governance | PCWorld: "The revelations this year of NSA surveillance by former contractor Edward Snowden have stirred up Internet governance issues, Chehadé said. “That’s, frankly, almost irrelevant at this point,” he said. “What is more important is to focus ... on a future that allows all people—governments, businesses, civil society, technical organizations—to feel that they together have an equal footing in the governance of the Internet. That’s the future.”

Such grand words! Unfortunately, ICANN abandoned "serving in the public interest" and instead has adopted its own self-serving mission of greed -- read more here.

And the NSA long ago went astray of its mission, and became an out-of-control self-serving bureaucracy, complete with secret rubber-stamp FISA court, in the absence of any real overight or Presidential direction, all in the name of "national security." The legacy of the Bush-Obama era is that the NSA and the other self-serving bureaucracies, DHS, TSA, et al, have made "national security" a suspect phrase. No thinking American today believes anything that the NSA or these other acronyms say, as they have been shown to lie consistently to the American people, including under oath to Congress, and as a result, they are not trustworthy. And they have almost nothing to show for all of the billions of dollars wasted on their grand schemes of "keeping America safe." Puh-leeze, get off the security theatre and BS! And stop lying to the American people!

So how does a low-level government contract worker walk off with all of the NSA top-secret classified documents? That's not hard to do when the government agency, in this case the NSA, is an arrogant, fat, lazy, inept, self-serving bureaucracy, accountable to no one except the small-minds who run the NSA. And to think that the NSA had Congress and the public believing they were doing a good job and were good stewards of the billions in tax dollars wasted on their grand schemes of spying on Americans and the rest of the world! That is, until Mr. Snowden exposed all of their secrets to the world. One man did what the FISA court, Congress, and the President all failed to do -- hold the NSA accountable.

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Maybe Microsoft is Starting to "Get It"

So maybe, just maybe, Microsoft may get it --

Maybe Microsoft is Starting to "Get It" - Julie Larson-Green, Executive Vice President, Devices and Studios at Microsoft, November 21, 2013 - UBS_LarsonGreen.docx: "So I think there will always be for a long time, for my lifetime, there will be desktop computers where people are doing precision movements with a mouse which are highly tuned towards productivity and typing, as well as maybe something on your wrist, or something on your head, or something in your pocket that you will want to interact and see your e-mails, hear notifications, get access to corporate data that you need to do your job, as well as interact with friends and family...."

So, Julie, When is Microsoft going to make an up-to-date OS for desktop computers "where people are doing precision movements with a mouse which are highly tuned towards productivity and typing" and a non-touch screen?

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NSA and its "Golden Age of Sigint" crushed by Snowden

It's always a good thing when arrogant pricks like the NSA get their comeuppance --

N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power - NYTimes.com: "...Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries [that probably includes ordinary Americans] in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to “revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically increase operational impact."..."

The strategy document, provided by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, was written at a time when the agency was at the peak of its powers and the scope of its surveillance operations was still secret. Since then, Mr. Snowden’s revelations have changed the political landscape."

In other words, the big, bad NSA with its grand schemes and plans, billions of  taxpayer funds to just throw away on useless projects, and free to do as it pleased by a clueless President, rubber-stamp secret Court, and dysfunctional Congress, was stopped by just one David -- thank you Mr. Snowden!

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US Military Spending Grossly Excessive (video)

How America’s military spending stacks up (Nov 27, 2013)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail

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Why Care About the NSA? (video)

Why Care About the N.S.A.? - Video - NYTimes.com: "Why Care About the N.S.A.? BY BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER November 25th, 2013 A short film explores whether ordinary Americans should be concerned about online surveillance."

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The Ineffectiveness of NSA Programs

Defund the NSA (National Security Agency), if for no other reason than it just isn't producing anything of value that couldn't be replicated for less money by several other existing federal agencies --

Wyden, Udall Issue Statement on Effectiveness of Declassified NSA Programs | Press Releases | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden: ". . . . it appears that multiple terrorist plots have been disrupted at least in part because of information obtained under section 702 of FISA. However, it appears that the bulk phone records collection program under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act played little or no role in most of these disruptions. Saying that “these programs” have disrupted “dozens of potential terrorist plots” is misleading if the bulk phone records collection program is actually providing little or no unique value. . . ."

That pretty much sums up the NSA: providing little or no unique value.

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How Obama's Willful Ignorance Sunk His Presidency

Any President, including the present person occupying the office, who decides to rely on "deniability" as his or her key strategy, is courting disaster in the long-run:

How Willful Ignorance Doomed HealthCare.gov - Clay Shirky - POLITICO Magazine: "HealthCare.gov is a half-billion dollar site that was unable to complete even a thousand enrollments a day at launch, and for weeks afterward. As we now know, programmers, stakeholders and testers all expressed reservations about HealthCare.gov’s ability to do what it was supposed to do. Yet no one who understood the problems was able to tell the president. Worse, every senior political figure—every one—who could have bridged the gap between knowledgeable employees and the president decided not to. And so it was that, even on launch day, the president was allowed to make things worse for himself and his signature program by bragging about the already-failing site and inviting people to log in and use something that mostly wouldn’t work. Whatever happens to government procurement or hiring (and we should all hope those things get better) a culture that prefers deluding the boss over delivering bad news isn’t well equipped to try new things...."

Pardon me, but don't blame the culture, blame the leader.

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