SPD Press Release 10-27-14 (Shoplifting)

Fed Is Afraid of Stock Market Falling and Getting Blamed

The Federal Reserve played a major role in helping the stock market recover from its correction that peaked last Wednesday, when the S&P 500 Index fell 10 percent below its Sept. 19 record high, says MarketWatch columnist Howard Gold.

"Like the cavalry in those classic John Ford westerns, the Fed rode to the rescue," he writes.

First, James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, said the central bank might have to extend its quantitative easing that was expected to be ended at the Fed's meeting next week.

Then Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said he could "easily imagine" the Fed refraining from an interest-rate increase until 2016. Until recently, most economists had expected the Fed to move around mid-2015.

"They [Fed policymakers] are afraid of the [stock] market going down and getting blamed," Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, tells Gold. "They are definitely in the market manipulation business, and nothing has changed."

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Americans’ Gloom Marches Into Second Decade

In a recent poll, 65% of voters said the country had taken a wrong turn

“Good morning Pooh Bear…if it is a good morning… which I doubt.” –Eeyore, “Winnie the Pooh,” 1926

The depressive donkey in A.A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” stories pretty much matches the mood of Americans lately, according to the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week. When 1,000 potential voters were asked whether they think the nation is on the right or wrong track, 65% of them said the country had taken a wrong turn, and only 25% said the U.S. was on the right path.

The only time the public has felt worse was in October 2008, during the first, deep spasms of the recession. Then, 78% said the nation was on the wrong track, and only 12% felt good about the country’s direction. The last time “right direction” beat out “wrong track” was in January 2004 — and the last election cycle where that was the case was 2002.

“Why are people so gloomy? Well, it might just be everything,” says pollster Micah Roberts, sounding a bit like Eeyore himself. Mr. Roberts is vice president of Public Opinion Strategies, which along with Hart Research Associates conducted the poll. “We haven’t had a plurality saying ‘right track’ in over ten years so that’s pretty amazing. After 10 years it’s just part of the collective consciousness of Americans,” to think the nation’s gone off the rails, he added.

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7 Qualities Of Remarkably Well-Liked Leaders

I've had my share of leadership challenges over the years.

I'll never forget the time an employee who I called into work brought in the balloons she was tying up for her son's birthday party and decided to start throwing them on the floor of my office. It was a total meltdown. I should have asked a bit more about what she was doing instead of demanding that she come into work. (In my own defense: She probably could have offered up that information on her own.)

I was never a hated a boss, but there were times when my decisions led to employees disagreeing with me, arguing with me, and challenging my thinking.

I wish I had known how to deal with those challenges, but in many ways I just didn't develop these qualities. In recent years, I've met with many company founders and leaders in business, carefully noting what makes them so likeable. Here's what I've found out.

1. They ask detailed questions.

In my example of the employee who came into work and had a big fit, I didn't ask questions about why she wasn't available. Good leaders know how to do that. Before making a command or directing the work force, a good leader asks for more information. That kind of leader is easy to like because we all like passing on information and none of us like dealing with a tyrant who just tells us what to do.

2. They empathize.

One of my challenges as an introvert in leadership had to do with a failure to empathize. I've seen how a friend of mine runs his own business by always asking how people are feeling. How was your evening with the kids? Are you feeling OK about this project? What can I do to make your job easier and not so stressful? He asks about their personal life. Good leaders see employees as people. That creates a chain reaction as employees also recognize that you also have feelings. They will empathize (and like) you.

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5 Mistakes Every Startup Should Avoid

It's not enough to have a trailblazing business idea anymore. Between 80% and 90% of startups fail, according to several studies. Even ones that seem destined for success — those that have millions in funding and are backed by passionate entrepreneurs — can still collapse.

While startups fail for all sorts of reasons, there are five reasons that pop up over and over, including a lack of direction and an ineffective marketing strategy. If you're starting your own company, avoid these five common startup mistakes at all costs.

1. Lack of direction.

It's great to hire talented, excited, and ambitious people for your startup — after all, company culture is very important — but you also need to have people with experience who can guide your company toward long-term success. Sprinkle in a few seasoned employees who understand the nuances of growing a business from the ground up.

2. The wrong technology.

Some startups fail to understand their target audience and how they use technology. For instance, if you're creating an online source for retirees, then you have to recognize they would most likely prefer talking to a person instead of, say, text messaging or video conferencing. You can still add those features, but always take your audiences' tech habits into consideration when creating a product or service.

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SENIOR CAR WINDOW STICKER

LETTERMAN'S TOP 10 REASONS TO VOTE DEMOCRAT

#10. I vote Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my German Shepherd.

#9. I vote Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon at 15% isn't.

#8. I vote Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

#7. I vote Democrat because Freedom of Speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

#6. I vote Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves. I am also thankful that we have a 911 service that gets police to your home in order to identify your body after a home invasion.

#5. I vote Democrat because I'm not concerned about millions of babies being aborted so long as we keep all death row inmates alive and comfy.

#4. I vote Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, and we should take away Social Security from those who paid into it.

#3. I vote Democrat because I believe that businesses should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrat Party sees fit.

#2. I vote Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

… And, the #1 reason I vote Democrat is because I think it's better to pay $billions$ for oil to people who hate us, but not drill our own because it might upset some endangered beetle, gopher, or fish here in America. We don't care about the beetles, gophers, or fish in those other countries.

Just Kidding

Michael Brown and Race Hoaxes

Back in August, when news first broke of a shooting in Ferguson, Mo., the media world, perpetually tingling with eagerness for white-on-black violence stories, plunged into delirium. An unarmed, black 18-year-old "gentle giant" had been shot in the back while running away from a white police officer! He was just preparing to enter college in the fall. He had been assassinated while holding his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness.

"Hands up; don't shoot," chanted protesters. The "hands up" gesture immediately achieved iconic status among demonstrators from Boston to New York to San Francisco.

If the early reports of the tragedy had been accurate, I would have been happy to jump on a plane and march with the protesters. I wouldn't have set fire to any convenience stores or beauty parlors -- nor would I, as Missouri's governor and U.S. attorney general did, imply that "justice" would mean the "prosecution" of the officer -- but I would have demanded a full investigation and, if the evidence supported it, an arrest.

But the reports were not accurate, and we had reason to doubt them as soon as the video of the convenience store robbery emerged. The theft and rough shoving of the owner didn't look very gentle. The small cigars Brown stole are often filled with pot.

Now, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Washington Post are reporting, more evidence is emerging that supports the officer's account. The autopsy (first released in September) shows that Brown was not shot in the back. He was hit in the chest, arm and forehead. The entry wounds show that his hands were not raised when he was hit, and blood-spatter evidence suggests he was advancing on Officer Darren Wilson. A wound on Brown's hand contained gunpowder residue, supporting Wilson's claim that Brown went for his gun while Wilson was seated in the car. There is forensic evidence showing that the gun did, as Wilson testified, go off in the car.

Seven or eight African-American eyewitnesses, reports the Post, support Wilson's account of what happened that afternoon but have remained out of the public eye for their own safety.

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Seconds After Firing Smith & Wesson for the First Time, Something Had Him Running in Pure Panic: ‘Move, Move!’

WATCH: Video shows tree collapse to the ground after bullet hits it (content warning: language):

Video posted online shows a man fire a .500 Smith & Wesson firearm for the first time — and then run in pure panic when he realized its ramifications.

After the man pulls the trigger, appearing to fire a round at a target pinned on a tree trunk, footage shows the piece of timber fall down toward him.

“Watch out! Move! Move!” the man filming shouted. “Oh sh**!”

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Barack Obama, Bewildered Bystander

He’s angry, but not angry enough to fix what’s wrong.

The president is upset. Very upset. Frustrated and angry. Seething about the government’s handling of Ebola, said the front-page headline in the New York Times last Saturday.

There’s only one problem with this pose, so obligingly transcribed for him by the Times. It’s his government. He’s president. Has been for almost six years. Yet Barack Obama reflexively insists on playing the shocked outsider when something goes wrong within his own administration.

IRS? “It’s inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it,” he thundered in May 2013, when the story broke of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS.”

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Obama: Ebola is a “Trial Run” For a Deadlier Airborne Disease

President's comments raise eyebrows

In little noticed comments made earlier this week, President Barack Obama said that the Ebola outbreak in the United States could be a “trial run” for a deadlier airborne disease in the future.

During remarks made after a White House meeting with the administration’s Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain, Obama tried to reassure the public that the U.S. health infrastructure was prepared to deal with additional cases of Ebola.

However, the President raised some eyebrows when he suggested that the current outbreak could merely be a precursor to a more deadly epidemic.

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Jimmy Carter: ‘If Texas Doesn’t Want to Have Gay Marriage, Then That’s a Right for Texas People to Have’

Jimmy Carter doesn’t think marriage laws should be decided at the federal level.

“I’m kind of inclined to let the states decide individually,” the former president told WFAA, an ABC affiliate, in an interview that aired Sunday.

“As you see, more and more states are deciding on gay marriage every year,” Carter said. “If Texas doesn’t want to have gay marriage, then I think that’s a right for Texas people to decide.”

He also spoke out in support for the religious liberty of church leaders who do not support same-sex marriage.

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A Southerner Repents

My sins creep up on me, sent by the Devil, and beset me by surprise. I know not what to do. A month ago, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I sat on the banks of the Rappahannock River, upon which as a stripling I had canoed and fished, and reflected on how much I liked the South. I knew I should not. At least I am told that I should not, chiefly by people who would make a hoe seem a pinnacle of intellect, but these are the bedrock of Yankee society, and I must respect them.

Besides, I fear that meridional leanings are in my blood. Yes, alas. I am tainted. I am Frederick Venable Reed. Charles Scott Venable was on Lee’s staff, and Andrew Reid Venable of the staff of Jeb Stuart. We have never looked fondly on Federal intrusion. So there I am.

And yet, much as I loved the peace and light of the riverbank in that Southern town, much as I treasured a boyhood of BB guns and bare feet and dogs with no licences and people who talked slow and suppple as the Good Lord intended, I had to concede the sins of the South. Even today, the dark stains remain. The signs are everywhere.

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Cop Suspended After Footage Captures Him Give Teen Profanity-Laced Threat After Simple, Legal Act

A Philadelphia police officer captured on video issuing a profanity-laced threat to a teenager for making eye contact with him will be disciplined, the department said over the weekend.

According to WCAU-TV, the department is aware of the footage circulating on social media and will hold the officer responsible.

A 12-second video posted earlier this month on Facebook depicts the cop cursing at a teenager after he made eye contact with the officer while with his group of friends. It’s not clear from the video, however, what took place before the video was recorded.

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Caption Contest: "No Tongues"

To 'prove' everything is fine, President Obama met with and hugged Ebola-survivor Nina Pham today... The White House confirms no bodily fluids were exchanged during the meeting...

• *EARNEST SAYS OBAMA SAW NO RISK HUGGING NURSE CURED OF EBOLA

"No Tongues!"

Source

Aberdeen Proving Ground Sends Chemists To Help With Ebola Outbreak

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (WJZ) — Aberdeen Proving Ground is sending a team of Army chemists to West Africa to help with the Ebola outbreak.

Marcus Washington has the plan to battle the deadly virus.

This mission is not like many others. Instead of heading into a combat zone, these soldiers are joining a humanitarian mission.

In Army tradition, family members, loved ones and fellow soldiers are sending the unit off with a colors painting ceremony, where they cover the flags until the unit arrives in Liberia.

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ISIS was spawned in Saudi Arabia

This is our ally?  The Saudi's have been funding radical Islamists mosques and schools around the world, including inside the U.S.  And we fund it with payments for oil.

The Islamic evil that is ISIS was spawned in Saudi Arabia

Posted on October 22, 2014 by John MyersViews: 9,937

“Saudi Arabia is the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world. It’s also a missionary state. It’s expending huge efforts — has been for many years — to disseminate its extremist Wahhabi-Salafi version of Islam, all with U.S. backing.” — Noam Chomsky

تظهر يديك! is Arabic for “Show your hands!” I heard it from two giant bodyguards standing only inches away from my father and me. They yelled it while gesturing with submachine guns in hand, which is a more effective language tool than anything you get from “Hooked on Ebonics.”

It happened when the elevator door opened to the penthouse in a hotel in Geneva after my dad had gumshoed our way into an OPEC meeting in the 1980s.

My father wanted to get the scoop on why Saudi Arabia was driving the price of oil down from an OPEC benchmark price of more than $35 per barrel to less than $11. He understood that Saudi Arabia was the world’s swing producer and that with enough convincing by its closest ally in the world, the United States, the Saudis could pretty much do anything they wanted when it came to the price of crude. That was because Saudi Arabia could pump up to 14 million barrels per day and controlled nearly one-third of the world’s oil reserves. What my father had forgotten from his trips to Saudi Arabia in the 1960s was how ruthless the House of Saud could be, especially when it came to dealing with infidels and interlopers.

Looking back, that seems incredulous because as an oil publisher and guest of Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in the early 1960s, my dad was treated to a weekend of entertainment that included public beheadings. Whether or not there was an implicit message for Western petroleum producers I can’t even hazard a guess. What I know is that a close friend of mine who has been to Saudi Arabia was also invited to such a spectacle.

According to broadcast news, only ISIS is evil

Last week, the news media finally carried a couple of stories about the brutality inside Saudi Arabia. Newsweek wrote this headline, “When It Comes to Beheadings, ISIS Has Nothing Over Saudi Arabia.” From the story:

The escalation of the war against the Islamic State was triggered by widespread revulsion at the gruesome beheading of two American journalists, relayed on YouTube. Since then, two British aid workers have met a similar grisly fate. And another American has been named as next in line by his terrorist captors.

Yet, for all the outrage these executions have engendered the world over,decapitations are routine in Saudi Arabia, America’s closest Arab ally, for crimes including political dissent—and the international press hardly seems to notice. In fact, since January, 59 people have had their heads lopped off in the kingdom, where “punishment by the sword” has been practiced for centuries.

So why is Anderson Cooper from CNN not over there covering this story? One reason may be that he has come out as a homosexual. And in Saudi Arabia they give gays the chop! Oh, yes, Connie Chung, the Saudi religious police also beat women who drive cars, ride bicycles or are out in public unattended by their male guardians.

Yet the gay/feminist lobby and all the liberals say nary a word about Saudi Arabia. That’s because people like President Barack Obama, whether he is a Muslim or not, bow to King Abdullah.

Truth is not much has changed in Saudi Arabia when it comes to their barbaric ways for the past half century. And if you think about it, not much has changed since the Prophet Muhammad, a man who had close relationships with young boys half a millennium ago. The big differences are the result of the discovery of massive oil reserves, which has created incredible riches. And all of that took off when the United States made a deal with the Saudi devils in 1945.

That blood oath made by the U.S. has allowed America access to massive Saudi oil fields and fueled the denial of them to other great powers. It is still a bedrock deal today regardless of what the House of Saud does, including their full-fledged backing of the most barbaric terrorists in the world.

Thus, Saudi money is spilling over to the Islamic State (ISIS); and some of those petrodollars are being funneled from the United States and its unmitigated faith in the House of Saud. Yes, your taxpayer money is going to the very groups that want to kill you.

And if you think ISIS is bad, the group doesn’t carry a candle to the House of Saud when it comes to beheadings or other kinds of violence.

You can search YouTube for “Saudi Arabia beheadings” and see for yourself; but having done so myself, I would strongly recommend against it. Growing up in the country, I didn’t much like it when my dad took the hatchet to the chickens; and as you can imagine, that pales in comparison to seeing it happen to a human.

Yet beheadings are high times in Riyadh, spectacles with crowds you might imagine for a really big grudge match under the Friday night football lights. I don’t know if popcorn is served; but, of course, beer is off-limits. That would go against the will of Allah.

According to Newsweek: “People will gather to watch you die. They are the ‘only form of public entertainment’ in Saudi Arabia, aside from football matches.”

And while Allah may prohibit alcohol and women in public without a shower-curtain draped over their heads, there doesn’t seem to be much else that upsets the Muslim god and his sadistic prophet. Devotees, backed by their religious police, are free to murder, maim and collect all the arms and oil revenues they can — most of them provided by Uncle Sam. And while Saudi Arabia will kill homosexuals, young men in Saudi Arabia are sequestered from women and, thus, privately have sexual relations constantly with each other — but only in private.

Sleep soundly, Hollywood; the Saudis only kill people, not ducks

Movie stars have been making pilgrimages to Alberta over climate change. They come to Alberta to make movies and to protest dirty oil sands where hundreds or even thousands of ducks have been soaked in oil. No doubt, big stars like environmentalists Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo have discussed this, perhaps over pomegranate duck dinner. I have a suggestion for these two and other big stars. Try flying your Gulfstream jets into Saudi Arabia and carry a banner to one of the weekly beheadings. That way, you can sacrifice yourself for a good cause — that being we don’t have to hear your hypocritical arguments added to the liberal choir that is always fussing that carbon is being spilled into the atmosphere but couldn’t give a rat’s rear end about blood flowing throughout that desolate desert where there is no pity, no morality beyond the razor’s edge of a Saudi sword. And before one of you liberal critics attacks me over this, ask yourself this: When was the last time the Canadian government beheaded somebody, and when was the last time you ate duck?

Will ISIS be the future rulers of Saudi Arabia?

Washington is clamoring because the main goal of ISIS is the rich oil fields of Saudi Arabia. ISIS has already flanked this corrupt and despicable regime, and our government will send your sons and daughters to die for Saudi oil. You can bet on it. But in the end is ISIS, the devil we don’t know, any worse than the House of Saud, the devil we do know? Neither wants to drill for petroleum in the United States or run a pipeline from Canada. That is an evil that Obama and most of Congress cannot accept.

So the oil keeps flowing, the blood keeps spilling and dollars roll in like a tidal wave to one of the most baseless, evil nations in the world. Thank you, Al Gore!

Yours in good times and bad,

Ellen Sauerbrey

Giving Back to our One Maryland

Thank you to all of the Marylanders who served throughout Maryland during this year’s Day to Serve. Once again, our state joined together in this regional effort with Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington D.C and achieved a record level of service.

In 2014, 27,000 Marylanders participated in 479 service projects across the State. This year, Maryland volunteers:

• recorded 100,000 hours of community service — a 66% increase in volunteer hours from 2013;
• collected over 395,000 pounds of food to help feed the hungry;
• removed nearly 3,500 pounds of trash from our environment — almost twice as much as last year; and
• planted 3,110 trees — doubling last year’s efforts.

Why so much violence and mayhem in Wilmington?