Sunday 01-31-16

Alzheimer’s can be transmitted from one person to another, new evidence suggests

The controversial theory that the “seeds” of Alzheimer’s disease may have been transmitted between patients during surgical procedures involving the use of donated human tissue has been supported by the discovery of new evidence.
Scientists have found a link between patients who received nerve-tissue grafts several decades ago and the presence of a protein in the brain that is normally seen in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Man with Alzheimer’s in emotional Facebook plea for friends to visit

The study supports findings published last September suggesting that people who had been injected with human growth hormone when they were children were harbouring the same seeds of Alzheimer’s disease at the time of their death several decades later.
The latest study was carried out on the stored brain samples of eight patients who had undergone tissue grafts in Austria and Switzerland but who had died from another brain disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which is now known to have been transmitted during the operation involving nerve tissue taken from human cadavers. 
The retrospective analysis of the eight patients found that seven of them, who had died at ages ranging from 28 to 63, had clumps of protein in their brain called amyloid-beta (A-beta). This is seen in the early stages of Alzheimer’s but is highly unusual in such a relatively young age group.
Five of the seven patients had also suffered visible damage to the vital blood vessels of the brain caused by the build-up of A-beta protein – an observation that is also highly unusual in such a young age group. 
A control group of 21 brains from patients who had died of sporadic CJD indicated that the results were not the result of CJD but likely to be caused by the tissue graft.
Other possible causes have yet to be conclusively eliminated. But scientists suspect that the seeds of the A-beta protein may have been transmitted to the patients at the time they had a surgical graft of the dura mater, a membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord – which at that time came from cadavers, before the practice was stopped in the 1980s.
The findings support the view that it may be possible for certain medical procedures to inadvertently transmit the seeds of Alzheimer’s disease from one person to another – although there is no suggestion that Alzheimer’s can be “caught” by touching or caring for someone with the degenerative brain disease.             

“The presence of the A-beta pathology in young individuals is highly unusual and suggests a causal relationship to the dural grafts,” according to the study by scientists from the University Hospital Zurich and the Medical University of Vienna, led by Herbert Budka of the Institute of Neuropathology in Zurich.
“The growing circumstantial evidence for such transmission should prompt a critical re-evaluation of the decontamination procedure for surgical instruments and drugs of biological origin, with the goal to ensure the complete absence of potentially transmissible contaminants.”
A study last year found that a small group of people who had been injected when they were children with human growth hormone prepared from human cadavers, and who had died of CJD as a result, also had A-beta protein in their brains.
Professor John Collinge, head of neurodegenerative diseases at University College London, said at the time that the growth hormone findings suggested that there may be another route to developing Alzheimer’s via contaminated surgical instrument or medical products.
“What we need to consider is that in addition to there being sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and inherited, or familial, Alzheimer’s disease, there could also be acquired forms of Alzheimer’s disease,” Professor Collinge had said then. 
On 29 January, he said the latest findings support the hypothesis that protein seeds leading to Alzheimer’s disease may be transmissible from one person to another during invasive medical procedures such as tissue grafts and hormone injections. “The find is consistent with our own,” he said. 

“The fact that this is a completely different situation that is nothing to do with growth hormone or growth deficiency, but in people who had to have a surgical procedure and we are seeing the same thing is consistent with our hypothesis that this represents transmission of A-beta seeds to these individuals.” 
He added: “If there are risks, one would expect them to be related to surgical procedures involving brain tissue and those are relatively rare procedures. Scientists should be thinking about this and whether it is possible to transmit these proteopathic seeds by medical procedures.”
Last September, the Governments’s Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, said: “There is no evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted in humans, nor is there any evidence that Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted through any medical procedure”.


This makes too much common sense.  Religions that want control over the lives of "their" people control the information they have access too.  Either by not letting them have the physical documents or making themselves the final authority in determining the meaning of the documents.  Either is bad

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/alzheimer-s-can-be-transmitted-from-one-person-to-another-new-evidence-suggests-a6842436.html

Islam and the Printing Press

1/25/2016

 

Printing by moveable type was invented in 1452, and by 1500 an estimated 20 million books and materials had been printed (Christopher Anderson, Annals of the English Bible, I, p. lx). The publication of Bibles exploded. The first printed book was a complete Latin Bible in 1455. By 1520, no less than 199 editions of the entire Bible had appeared, and this was just the bare beginning of the Bible printing revolution. Suddenly, for the first time in church history, common people could afford to own a Bible and they were eager to do so. The printing press was little used by Muslims, though. According to Islam, Arabic is the holy language and the translation of the Quran is discouraged. Historically, Muslim nations have not been friends of printing. Consider the Ottoman Empire (1299-1923). The Ottomans “were no friends to public education, independent news media and the printed word” (“Arab Media: The Web 2.0 Revolution,” Carnegie Reporter, Fall 2008). Books and printed matter were unknown in Turkish and Arabic before the end of the 18th century, and prior to 1840, “an average of only eleven books a year were published in the capital of Istanbul” (Ibid.). Jews, Greeks, and Armenians had printing presses in the Ottoman Empire, but they were not allowed to print materials in Turkish or Arabic. In 1900, 90% of Muslims were illiterate. In 2008, about 35% of Muslims (50% of women) were still illiterate. Only 350 books are translated into Arabic annually. Saudi Arabia did not have a high school until after 1930 and still has only 250 public libraries to serve 26 million people (and until 2006, females were not allowed to hold readers cards). There are about 550 universities among the 57 Muslim nations of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) compared with more than 5,700 in the U.S. and 8,400 in India.

(Friday Church News Notes, January 22, 2016, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Saturday 01-30-16

I was not going to post today, but I read something over on Survival Blog today, Mr. Rawles wife suggested a article, so here it is.  While I may not agree with all of it, it is worth reading and pondering it.  I normally would post it on Sunday, but that one is already done.  So here it is, hope you will ponder it and see if it applies to your life.

The Way it Used to Be

Posted on January 13, 2016 by C.H. Fisher                                                                                  

“When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.” – Psalm 42:4
We have all heard and engaged in conversations about how life used to be.  The elders can tell some fascinating tales of no running water, of walking miles on a dusty road to the store, of freezing cold winters, frost so thick that it looked like snow, and a single pot-belly wood stove for heat.  But those were still the good ole days, deemed such because life seemed simpler and better.  The elders were respected, children more obedient, people were kinder, compassionate, honest, and hedonism existed only in the largest cities and only at night.  There wasn’t as much on TV, but there was more of what mattered in people’s hearts.
Today, the world is a dangerous place, and wickedness rules the night as well as the day.  Our children and young people are under a vicious attack by liberalism’s ripening and poisonous fruit.  There is virtually no sector of society that has not been invaded and infected by the toxic atmosphere being made ready for the Antichrist kingdom.
It is a perilous time, a time of great stress.  Professing Christians who are casual and passionless in their relationship with God cannot accept the reality, much less endure the weight of it.  The specter of a brutal future is too much for them to consider and prepare for.  Innumerable people, including a vast number of professing Christians, are buying into the lies of psychiatry and psychology that label every spiritual malady as a disease.  Some have become legal drug addicts.
Churches are founded, and in a few months, grow exponentially with stress-free preaching and world-centered entertainment.  Truth is being banned as the glaring factor hindering not only world peace and unity, but also the brass ring prize, a human-contrived utopia.   In a number of venues today, declaring oneself as a Christian is to become a social pariah.  Jesus is the most hated name in the world.  Sin is honored—godliness is cursed.  Political leaders now lie so profusely that they create a fantasy world each time they speak.  Up isn’t up any longer and down isn’t down, unless it is convenient.  Traditional morals are being rolled in the mud of tolerance and political correctness.  And it’s not going to get better.
In the midst of this caldron of diabolical influences and sin’s consequences, there are people who refuse to relinquish what they know is true for the obviously evil new social paradigm.  Good for them.  That paradigm is composed of several tenets.  Here are a few of them:

1. There are no absolutes, especially moral absolutes.
2. Humanity does not need a god. We can solve our own problems.
3. Christianity and Judaism are the remaining hindrances to world peace and unity.
4. Global Socialism is the panacea to all of society’s ills, including poverty and war.

The world’s societies are merging because of the Internet and digital technology.  Thus, the new paradigm requires a New World Order.  To succeed in establishing a New World Order, forces in the secular and religious world are systematically breaking down the old order.  The fact is, they will accomplish what they are attempting to do, because eschatological prophecies must be fulfilled.  There will be an Antichrist heading a global government, and a False Prophet leading the one-world religion.  No one but God can stop that from happening.  It will come on the heels of a cashless economy, which in the hands of evil people will bring every individual on this earth under submission to a ruler.
If we are at that point in history, we will have to face some facts, make some adjustments to our mindsets, and cease trying to conduct “business as usual”.  Professing Christians must either cease dodging the reality checks or deception will overtake them.  The storm is coming.  It will arrive no matter how well people manage to avoid the reality of its approach.
Now for some harsh truth that does not bring me joy to report.  America is not going to be restored to some point in history when we enjoyed the “good, ole, days”.  America is under judgment, and the worst is yet to come.  Our nation has slaughtered over 50 million babies.  Aborted babies (I reject the word “fetus”) have been harvested for decades for cosmetics and scientific research, but sufficient outrage and appropriate action never materialized.  Now the merciless and calloused abortion industry is selling the body parts of aborted babies.  The outrage over the revelation of that latter atrocity did not linger openly in society longer than the outrage over the killing of Cecil, the lion.
America’s leaders have kowtowed to liberals, especially in the news media, and have permitted the incremental expulsion of God and His word from public recognition.  However, our government infested by the same liberals insists that we honor Allah, Islam, and the Koran.  Allah does not have the attributes of God, Whom the Scriptures clearly portray as love.  The first Commandment is not ambiguous as God declares, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” – Exodus 20:3
America has accepted and honored the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, homosexuality, which is the ultimate defilement by Satan in effigy of the image of God.  Professing Christians who condone this sin join the rebellious besmirching of God’s nature.  They are subject to becoming just as reprobate as homosexuals (Romans 1:28-32).  Thus, there is now a significant number of ordained ministers, and even some denominational leaders, who are reprobate or apostate.
That leads me to another point, but not by any means the final factor in America’s spiritual declension.  American Christianity is now accepting to a significant degree the worship and prayer practices of people who worship false gods and idols.  Israel was repeatedly judged for this sin. With the acceptance of Contemplative Spirituality, professing Christians have opened the religion to the entrance of many corrupt activities and heresies.
Millions of people have accepted Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, in which he promotes Contemplative Spirituality.  Warren was appropriately named “America’s Pastor”.  It seems as if the gates were opened and the walls were breached.  A flood of New Age doctrines has poured into Christianity.  Sarah Young’s “Jesus Calling” has influenced millions of gullible professing Christians.  Other heretical books by influential professing Christians, such as Sue Monk Kidd, Ruth Haley Barton, Richard Foster, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, et al., have flooded the Christian literature market.  Numerous conferences convene across the nation to disseminate more of the heresies.  Entire denominations have embraced the spiritual sewage.  One of the most troubling consequences is that Protestant leaders are encouraging ecumenism with Roman Catholicism.
Christianity (the religion), now riddled with vile and extremely dangerous heresies, is too weak to mount a viable protest against the marketing of baby body parts.  It cannot mount a defense, much less an offense, as a diabolically controlled society aggressively forces its evil agenda, systematically erasing every vestige of God.  I keep waiting for a response that is significant enough to, at least, slow down the encroaching evil, but it never comes.  There are only smatterings of pitiful complaints that have about as much effect and power as vapors in the wind.
Finally, I want to point out the fallacy of longing for and striving for a return to the good ole days.  In every statement and every effort to return Christianity to the good ole days, there is a mistaken belief that referencing a certain period in history, promoting a religious paradigm, presenting a particular societal pattern, and so forth, can undo the apostasy that permitted this catastrophic and ubiquitous invasion of evil.  The modern world does not want the good ole days.  They have bought into the promise of a new world of peace and unity.
However, not even the dreamers of the good ole days are being honest.  Do they wish to return to the time of a Great Awakening, when people were honest with God?  Or do they desire to return to the era when they had a measure of respect in the world, when they had the means to influence society, yet flitted it away by focusing on the gifts more than the Giver.
Long before Contemplative Spirituality, before New Age gurus masquerading as Christians spoke at denominational conventions, before Sarah Young channeled a demon impersonating Jesus, and before Rick Warren’s heretical bestseller, Christianity was being inundated by the Positive Confession doctrine and the excesses of the Charismatic Movement, including its host of false prophets and money-hungry false teachers.  Nobody stopped this horde of wicked people.  Their heresies were not rejected, but adopted.  No wonder that many evangelicals today cannot recognize or resist this new wave of heresies.  A significant number did not reject the first wave.
Listening to popular preachers today, I recognize in their statements the influence of decades-old heresies.  They take up offerings as if God is desperate and the givers need to be promised a return (something that cannot be delivered).  I have watched recent conferences designed to mount a pushback against the diabolical tide.  They want to return to the days when they played loosely with the gifts of God.  It was an era when numerical growth was the standard of success.  During that period church buildings were built, not as tools for the kingdom of God, but as monuments to the pastor presiding over numerical growth.  Now that the halo of that period has past, and the gloomy cloud of apostasy looms over everything, they frantically attempt to revive religious patterns and practices.  They hack at the symptoms while leaving the roots intact.  They are more interested in their demonstrative and exciting style of preaching, and in peppering the congregation with provocative buzz words and phrases, than in dealing with the underlying problem.
The problem is not alcohol consumption, the worldliness of professing Christians and their church meetings, lack of preaching the Gospel and no altar calls, the absence of emphasis on certain fundamentals of denominational belief systems, etc.  The reason the world system has now become more powerful than Christianity in American society is simple:  Christianity has proportionately become so weak because devotion to God, His nature, His authority, and His truth has been abandoned.
“Oh, but that’s too simple,” people may declare.  There’s no denying that everything in the kingdom of darkness is designed to distract people from being devoted to God.  Adam and Eve sinned after listening to Satan.  The first and major casualty of their sin was devotion to God.  God came as usual in the cool of the evening, but they hid from Him.  The fact is that professing Christians have been prayerless, have not maintained intimacy with God, became materialistic, frolicked with the world system in numerous forms of entertainment, and allowed their spirits to be plundered by diabolical indulgences.  Church meetings are either cold, formal, and dry, or are hyper-charged with licentious reveling in spiritual wickedness.  In either case, the result is the same—departure from fellowship with God.
Thus, I do not believe professing Christians wish to return to a life of commitment, passion, devotion, and total obedience to God’s will.  They only want to return to an illegal status quo, a period when God was dealing with them but they were too busy enjoying His benefits to respond to Him.  It was a period during which He was pointing out their unfaithfulness and warning them of the consequences, if they persisted in doing things their way.  However, they were too preoccupied enjoying the fruits of Churchianity.  While they played, Satan worked.
In my opinion, we are now at the point where judgment has arrived.  Judgment is coming in greater measure.  The condition of the world is too far gone to turn around.  Diabolical forces are ravaging society.  An exceedingly dangerous response would be to lead people to believe that everything is going to be okay.  It is not going to be okay.  It does not matter how much professing Christians are electrified with emotion by demonstrative and stimulating speeches, books, or meetings.  The world system outside of the church building is in exactly the same condition as before—and worsening.  In fact, during the time of the Sunday morning church meeting, its condition may have actually worsened.
Our response to the impinging wickedness must remain to expose and oppose it.  However, our response to the reality of its unprecedented gains in modern society must be to prepare for more and increasingly harsh judgment upon this nation and the world.  We are at the point when pastors and other Christian leaders ought to be informing their listeners that we can no longer expect God to bless America.  I do not expect many of them to do so, because neither they nor their congregations can endure the negativity.  However, the only way to survive this end-times darkness and subsequent judgment is to prepare for it.  Not one person will be prepared who does not believe that he or she has to prepare.
This is not a pleasant article to read.  It is not pleasant to think about, to consider the ramifications if it is true, and to motivate oneself to respond accordingly.  The temptation is to flee to the safety of churches and preachers who are placating the stressed-out masses with prophecies of peace when there is no peace.  There will be strong impulse and subsequent temptation to reject the message by impugning the legitimacy of the messenger.  The overwhelming desire will be to deny that things are as bad as represented here.  There will be reverse optimism of pointing to the minuscule representations of godliness while ignoring the preponderance of wickedness.  Verses will be taken out of context, conjecture added, and the result confidently preached and repeated to persuade minds to accept a different narrative.  In spite of all the effort to project an alternate portrait of the period we are in, each day will bring news and information to the contrary.
We may be aboard a mighty ship navigating through icy waters.  One each side and in front there are floating masses of ice.  They increase in size and number as the captain, crew, and everyone else reassure us that we will eventually break into clear water.  But look ahead, if you can bring yourself to do so.  See that solid mass of ice?  There is no clear water in the direction we are headed.  However, no matter how much we protest or attempt to get people to see what we are seeing, the ship continues on the same course.
Do we join the deluded ones, eat, drink, and be merry?  Should our response be to remain silent, pray, and hope that we are wrong about what we have seen?  Do we continue to warn people even when they are becoming angry by our intrusion into their fantasy of a safe voyage to a secure harbor?
The case could be made based on the weight of majority opinion that I am wrong.  Of course, I could in fact be wrong.  History is evidence that Christianity and subsequently the world have righted themselves repeatedly.   Someone could point out that the world system has never been godly.  True, but it has been influenced by godliness to the extent that it was much less obtrusively antichristian.  But can one conclude that I am wrong by considering relevant data?
At some point, the utopia that the multitudes under diabolical influence are striving and cajoling for will be reached, albeit briefly.  If people hold out from recognizing the truth until that point is reached, then they will be deceived and join the world-wide partying.
All that the majority of professing Christians need to be convinced at this moment that we are not in the end-times is for Satan to throw them a bone—a semblance of peace, prosperity, and security.  In America, a conservative or republican president would do it.  The church bells would ring, horns would honk, and millions of professing Christians would breathe a massive sigh of relief heard and felt around the world.  They would engage in highly emotional high-fiving, flock to the pleasure pools, revel in sports, go shopping, and bury their minds in television for several hours each evening, only without the portent of government oppression.
They would also consign the “naysayers” (and I am one) to oblivion.  All the excesses, the heresies, heretics, prayerlessness, and every other aberration in Christianity would be embraced with renewed vigor and a sense of vindication.  In fact, Christianity would enter the fast track to apostasy with no hills and roadblocks to slow down its ecumenical consummation with Roman Catholicism and other religions.  There would be no impending doom to deter the remaining holdouts.  No one would think about God’s judgment and certainly would not consider the ramifications of the merger.
Truly, they will deem the dark cloud to be lifted.  The party will begin.  Weak professing Christians will be swept up in the celebration of the apostate ones.  They will readily accept the laws and regulations that would alarm them if the same legislation were introduced today.  Individuals crying out warnings will be demoted to the status of yapping dogs.  In the inebriating ecstasy of perceived “victory” over the forces of evil, they will be susceptible to anything.  They will have narrowly “escaped” a dictatorship, the presidency of the “wicked witch of the south”, and believe that they have the upper hand.
What would be lost in such a celebration is the fact that the ship is still headed for a massive iceberg the size of a large city.  The underlying factors that caused apostasy and a hedonistic antichrist spirit in a huge section of Christianity and the world system still remain.  There would not actually be a victory in the election of a conservative or republican president.  It would be merely a deceptive façade that millions of professing Christians will mistakenly view as a spiritual turnaround in America.
While it would be less stressful, and we would enjoy a period of joy and excitement, there would be at least four more years before we again consider our nation’s decrepit spiritual and social condition.  Although there would be relief from the prophetic voice, it would be very dangerous for the spiritual condition of America if a conservative or republican were elected president.  We would not return to the good, ole days.  Instead, we will have taken a philosophical drug that, like a terminally stricken patient on morphine, would immunize us from the pain of an advanced spiritual cancer.  Our appointment with judgment will still be fulfilled at the appointed time.
Therefore, I will not join in the desperate hubbub to select a “deliverer” from the consequences of this nation’s wickedness.  I will vote for a godly person as a matter of duty.  But I have no unction to view such an individual as the answer to this nation’s affliction.  Besides, at any moment, a catastrophic terrorist or natural event could devastate our nation or world.  I will hope that with more four years we will win some people to Christ, and convince more people to prepare for the coming storm.  It may be more difficult to accomplish those goals, but I will always hope.
The fact is, we are as fragile eggs being rolled about in a room of sharp corners by forces that we cannot control.  The answer is not in or of this world.  The answer is to return to God, to devote our lives and put our hope in Him and His great salvation.  The danger is in trusting that humanity and its devices will somehow overcome the judgment and wrath stored up by godless and rebellious society.  That is not going to happen.  If professing Christians believe that it is, and that somehow emotional church meetings, elections, or anything else can bring it about, then self-deception has broken through the last barrier.
“O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.
Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” – Hosea 14:1-3

http://www.truthkeepers.com/?p=1082

Friday 01-29-16

I guess this is the day of stupid stuff




https://twitter.com/OCSD

Hundreds of DHS badges, guns, cell phones lost or stolen since 2012

Feb. 20, 2014: A U.S. Customs and Border Protection arm patch and badge is seen at Los Angeles International Airport, California. (Reuters)

Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years -- raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.

Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.

The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.

The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees, though others were cited as belonging to TSA and ICE workers. The agencies all fall under DHS. 

The missing badges and guns suggest a shocking lack of security from federal law enforcement officers and represent a significant security risk, experts say.

“It’s scary that you’d have that number of credentials out there that someone could manipulate,” Tim Miller, a retired Secret Service special agent, told FoxNews.com.

While Miller said the phones are likely to have enough protocols in place to prevent them from being used for nefarious purposes, the badges and credentials are an entirely different matter and could allow access to sensitive areas such as cargo.

“The thing that’s particularly concerning is that if you get real credentials, it’s very easy to manipulate them, and you’ve got someone else’s picture on what law enforcement would see as valid," Miller said. "Then you factor in terrorism, it’s a significant concern that people would run around with authentic credentials and be able to access areas they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.” 

When reached for comment, DHS did not dispute the inventory report data -- which Complete Colorado, a Colorado-based online news site, had obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. The reporter who obtained the data also works with Denver-based free-market think tank the Independence Institute. 

In a statement to FoxNews.com, a DHS spokesman said they strive to be “good stewards of government resources” and have improved oversight and reduced the number of lost or stolen items over the past few years.

“If a credential holder loses or has their credentials stolen, the holder must report the incident to their supervisor and credential issuance office immediately,” spokesman Justin Greenberg said. “Once the incident has been reported, this information is entered into appropriate DHS and law enforcement databases, which disables use of the lost or stolen item.”

He also noted that DHS encrypts all mobile devices, laptops and tablets.

Miller said officials need to be doing more, considering the sheer number of guns and badges that have been lost or stolen.

Lawmakers also have expressed concern about the safety of DHS property in the past. In December, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved legislation that would tighten screening of TSA workers, review security protocols and increase fines and enforcement requirements related to missing credentials.

The legislation was put forward after members of the committee wrote to TSA officials in March expressing concern about reports of unaccounted TSA badges, and the reported use of badges to bypass security checkpoints.

“Officials entrusted with protecting the American public cannot consider the loss of sensitive items normal or routine," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., chairman of the committee, told FoxNews.com.

"When the Commerce Committee looked at lost and missing airport security credentials, we discovered that existing rules weren’t being effectively enforced. Mistakes happen, but if we don’t work to eliminate them and insist on accountability, then we’re left with unacceptable risk,” Thune said.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/27/hundreds-dhs-badges-guns-cell-phones-lost-or-stolen-since-2012.html

 

Police said the girl will be fined, even though the pepper spray stopped her attacker. Photo: Colourbox

Danish teen fought off her attacker - now she'll face fine

A 17-year-old girl who was physically and sexually attacked in Sønderborg will herself face charges for using pepper spray to fend off her assailant.

 

The teenager told police that she was attacked in central Sønderborg on Wednesday at around 10pm by a dark-skinned English-speaking man. She said the man knocked her to the ground and then unbuttoned her pants and attempted to undress her. 

 

The girl was able to save herself from further assault by using pepper spray on the attacker, but now she may be the one who ends up in legal trouble. 

 

“It is illegal to possess and use pepper spray, so she will likely be charged for that,” local police spokesman Knud Kirsten told TV Syd. 

 

The case has sparked a backlash among some Danes who point to increasing reports of sexual harassment in Sønderborg and other Danish cities at the same time that police say they are stretched too thin to properly carry out their duties. 

 

Numerous readers wrote in the comments section on TV Syd’s story about the incident that they would be willing to pay the girl’s fine, which will most likely be 500 kroner. 

 

The man who attacked the 17-year-old fled from the scene and has not been charged. 

 

Sexual assaults have been in the news in Sønderborg recently after several women in the town reported earlier this month that they sometimes feel harassed by the aggressive behaviour of some male asylum seekers and refugees at the local asylum centre. 

 

It is not known, however, if the assailant in this latest incident was an asylum seeker or refugee.

 

In related news, a nightclub in Sønderborg is now barring guests from entering if they cannot speak Danish, English or German. Other Danish nightclubs are also reportedly considering similar moves. 

 

http://www.thelocal.dk/20160126/danish-teen-fought-off-her-attacker-with-pepper-spray-now-shell-face-fine

Thursday 01-28-16

I saw a report that said it was a government murder, the state is supposed to give their response to the allegation's later on Wednesday.

Oregon stand-off militiaman killed in shootout with the FBI: Traffic stop turns into deadly gunfight, ending with militia's spokesman dead and leader Ammon Bundy arrested along with seven others

Oregon militia spokesman LaVoy Finicum has been shot dead after a traffic stop escalated into a shoot-out that saw Ryan Bundy wounded and eight leaders of the occupation movement arrested.

The group's leader Ammon Bundy was among the militiamen arrested during the encounter on Tuesday afternoon as they drove to attend a community meeting in the neighboring town. 

It is the climax of a tense stand-off between federal agents and the activists more than three weeks after they took over a government building in Burns, Oregon, to protest two ranchers being jailed. 

According to local media, shots were fired within minutes of the traffic stop, killing Finicum and wounding Ryan Bundy.

It is not clear who opened fire first.

Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, and three other leaders of the occupation - Ryan Payne, Brian Cavalier, and Shawna Cox - were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers,Oregon Live reports. 

 

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KILLED: Oregon militia spokesman LaVoy Finicum (pictured) has been shot dead after a traffic stop escalated into a shoot-out between the activists and FBI agents on a highway on Tuesday afternoon

  

ARRESTED, CHARGED: Ammon Bundy and six other militiamen were arrested at the scene and charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers'. It is three weeks after they took over a government building in Oregon

 

WOUNDED, ARRESTED, CHARGED: Ryan Bundy received minor wounds from the shoot-out, reports claim

  

Sgt. Tom Hutchison stands in front of an Oregon State Police roadblock on Highway 395 between John Day and Burns by Oregon State police officers Tuesday after LaVoy Finicum and Ryan Bundy were shot

 

Another Oregon State police officer stands by a vehicle on Highway 395 after arrested five of the occupiers

 

The group was driving to a community meeting on Tuesday when they were stopped by traffic cops. Pictured: the highway between Burns, Oregon, and John Day, where they were driving to attend a meeting

Oregon occupation leader Ammon Bundy arrested by FBI

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WHO WAS LAVOY FINICUM? 

LaVoy Finicum, 55, of northern Arizona, has been the right-hand man to the occupation's leader Ammon Bundy since the stand-off began on January 2.

Acting as spokesman for the group, he gave numerous press conferences to communicate their position. 

At one point he personally climbed up a pole to dismantle surveillance cameras in an apparent show of defiance against the government.

But he has not always held such a strong anti-government stance.

Last year, he told the St George News that he complied with federal land controls until Cliven Bundy's stand-off in Nevada in 2014. 

The episode, he said, struck a chord with him. 

He joined the Bundys and 'did a lot of soul-searching' until he 'realized that Cliven Bundy was standing on a very strong constitutional principle—and yet, here I was continuing to pay a grazing fee to the BLM.'

Finicum's wife of 23 years recently arrived in Oregon, traveling up from Arizona, to celebrate his 56th birthday. 

Beyond life as a militiaman and rancher, Finicum was a father of 11 and grandfather of 23 who also found time to write a novel, Only By Blood And Suffering, about a time when guns are no more, cars have stopped working, the market has imploded, and the Chinese control everything.

Officials would not confirm the identity of the militiaman shot dead. However, numerous sources close to the occupiers identified Finicum on Twitter, and Nevada state Rep. Michele Fiore confirmed it was him, according to Gawker. 

Daughter Arianna Finicum Brown confirmed her father's death to The Oregonian, saying 'he would never ever want to hurt somebody, but he does believe in defending freedom and he knew the risks involved.' 

In an interview with MSNBC three weeks ago, Finicum declared that he would rather die than face arrest. 

'There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them,' he said at the time. 'I'm prepared to defend freedom.'

Finicum, a Mormon rancher from Arizona, was a father of 11 and grandfather of 19 who was married to his wife for 23 years. 

His daughter Challice Finch told NBC News after the deadly standoff that her father and his fellow protesters were 'all committed to not firing on federal agents.'

Speaking to The Oregonian on the eve of his death, LaVoy Finicum noted that law enforcement officials 'have become more hardened' as of late.

'They're doing all the things that show they want to take some kinetic action against us, and we're saying, "Why be so unfriendly?"' the militia spokesman told the paper.  

Joseph O'Shaughnessy and Peter Santilli were arrested in Burns soon after the traffic stop and shoot-out. 

An eighth group member, Jon Ritzheimer, was arrested in Peoria, Arizona, after turning himself in to the police department, Fox reported.

All of those arrested face federal charges of conspiracy to use force, intimidation or threats to impede federal officers from discharging their duties, the FBI said.

The hospital where Ryan Bundy and LaVoy Finicum were taken, St Charles Medical Center, was placed on lockdown in the wake of the shootout.

Some 25 miles of Highway 395 was shut down in both directions following the incident, a dispatcher for the state department of transportation said. 

According to Oregon Live, the leaders had been en route to John Day - 70 miles from Burns - to appear as guest speakers at a meeting with hundreds of local residents.

The crowd was informed the group would not be able to make it to the event after the dramatic traffic stop.

Frustrated local and state officials have been increasingly urging the FBI to do something to resolve the situation.

Bundy and his group have held frequent news conferences at the site, traveled to meet with sympathizers and others to espouse their views and some even attended a community meeting last week, where local residents shouted at them to leave.

Federal authorities have taken a hands-off approach so far and say they want a peaceful resolution. 

Bundy has been in contact with an FBI negotiator and local law enforcement. 

On Friday, Bundy went to the Burns Municipal Airport, where the FBI has set up a staging area, and met briefly with a federal agent. 

(More to this article)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3418491/Ammon-Bundy-arrested-three-fellow-militiamen-shots-fired-Oregon-stand-off.html

The best and most useful PM when you need it.

Buy Ammo

I have never, ever had anyone tell me that he had too much ammunition.  Not in a combat zone, not in a civil disaster, not even in peacetime.  Never.  Nor have I lived through a time where our governing class was so deeply corrupt, so utterly foolish, and so dangerously focused on the perpetuation of its own power that it risked bringing down everything we have built not merely in the United States but in the entire West.
Right now, if you are watching the news, you have questions about the future.  And the answer to all of them is to buy ammo.
Buying ammo is a no-lose proposition.  Look, the worst thing that happens if you buy more ammo is that you have more ammo.  Plus, much of our consumer ammo is made by hardworking Americans, and many of those ammo makers are located in red states where the right to keep and bear arms is celebrated and respected.  So you’re helping fellow conservative Americans, which is good.  And you’re infuriating people like that sanctimonious, Second Amendment-hating incompetent infesting the White House, which is great.
Of course, buying ammo presumes you have already fulfilled your duty as a law-abiding, able-bodied American citizen and obtained sufficient firearms for the defense of yourself, your family, your community, and your Constitution.  I can’t tell you how many people in the last year have confessed to me that they have finally decided to visit their local gun seller to do what they had put off for far too long and transition from sheep to sheepdog.
A handgun and a long weapon per adult is merely the minimum.  We call that “a good start.”  Now, while you can really efficiently carry only two weapons at once, when all hell breaks loose you’re going to have friends who were the grasshopper to your ant and did not prepare for winter.  You may wish to share the contents of your armory with them when the time comes; keep in mind that the only thing in a gunfight that’s better than having a black combat rifle is having your buddy there to provide supporting fire with a black combat rifle.  

Or a shotgun – diversity is a good thing.

Don’t forget training.  Malpractice with a weapon is a bad thing, particularly when the foolishness of our leaders has led to the kind of chaos where hospitals are deserted and antibiotics are hard to come by.  I oversaw the weapons training of at least 20,000 troops over my career (Sergeants actually do the training; officers oversee the planning, resourcing, and big picture range operations, then find their sharpest sergeant to run them through some refresher drills so they can shoot “Expert” when they hit the firing line and qualify in front of everyone).  I am a big fan of weapons training.  You need to learn safety, and you also need to learn how to hit what you are shooting at.  Don’t be like the gangbanging, side-shooting nimrods in Democrat inner cities who can’t hit the other scumbags they’re shooting at and instead take out nice ladies walking home from church.  Having lots of ammo on hand facilitates training.
Now, many of our urban liberal friends will not understand why we insist on ensuring that we have plenty of guns and ammo.  They are, not coincidentally, the same urban liberals who don’t understand how creating economic and political chaos by screwing up the economy, coddling crooks, allowing unrestricted immigration, refusing to defeat our enemies, and frittering away the rule of law all act to undermine this wonderful island of relative peace and stability we call the United States.  The über-beta editor of a well-known liberal website once chided me on Twitter for pointing out the fact that civilization walks on a tightrope over a chasm of chaos, telling me I was essentially nuts for thinking this could all fall apart much faster and much more violently than any of us imagine.  But I was not nuts.  I was remembering.  I was remembering Los Angeles on fire during the Rodney King riots.  I spent three weeks on the streets with the Army during that little life lesson based out of an armory south of I-10 and east of the 405.  Let’s just say that it was a looty, shooty area.  So I don’t need chaos lessons from some tweedy femboy, nor do you.  It may not be apocalypse now, but it could very well be apocalypse soon.

Do you think our elite is going to protect you during the next “uprising?”  Remember, it’s a “riot” only if elite liberals are at risk like they were when Beverly Hills got threatened; it’s an “uprising” if only you are.  Remember that “stand down” order in Baltimore?
Do you think the Iranians and our other enemies haven’t been watching Team Feckless in inaction and thought about popping off a hot rock or two a hundred miles above Kansas City to fry all our wonderful electronic gizmos with EMP?  A couple days after our logistics networks go down those urban hipsters are going to learn what really constitutes a “food desert.”
Do you think a country this politically divided can’t devolve into violence?  People in Kosovo were pretty sure everything was hunky dory while Tito was alive.  People resolved their differences through the institutions.  And then Tito died, and the game changed.  In just a few years, it became very bad.  
Right now we have a president who thinks he can ignore or modify the law unilaterally, justifying it with the baffling argument that he shouldn’t have to ask Congress because Congress will just say “No” – which I always thought was kind of the point of checks and balances.   So what happens when President Clinton, who identified you and me and the 50% of Americans who aren’t her supporters as her enemies, decides she gets to make her own laws because, well, she knows better and feels like it?  Nothing good.
But deterrence is a wonderful thing.  An armed, trained populace is not only prepared for when things go bad, but the fact that it is armed and trained makes it much less likely that things will go bad in the first place.  Last year, Americans voted for liberty by buying well over 15 million new guns.  That’s roughly 40,000 a day, every day.  That’s enough to arm three infantry divisions.  
Every.  Single.  Day.
Just don’t forget to buy ammo.

http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2016/01/25/buy-ammo-n2109112

Wednesday 01-27-16

The Right to Tell the Government to Go to Hell: Free Speech in an Age of Government Bullies, Corporate Censors and Compliant Citizens

 
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”― George Orwell
Free speech is not for the faint of heart.
Nor is it for those who are easily offended, readily intimidated or who need everything wrapped in a neat and tidy bow. Free speech is often messy, foul-mouthed, obscene, intolerant, undignified, insensitive, cantankerous, bawdy and volatile.
While free speech can also be tender, tolerant, soft-spoken, sensitive and sweet, it is free speech’s hot-blooded alter ego—the wretched, brutal, beastly Mr. Hyde to its restrained, dignified and civil Dr. Jekyll—that tests the limits of our so-called egalitarian commitment to its broad-minded principles.
Unfortunately, our appreciation for a robust freedom of speech has worn thin over the years.
Many Americans have become fearfully polite, careful to avoid offense, and largely unwilling to be labeled intolerant, hateful, closed-minded or any of the other toxic labels that carry a badge of shame today. We’ve come to prize civility over freedom. Most of all, too many Americans, held hostage by their screen devices and the talking heads on television, have lost the ability to think critically.
Societies that cherish free speech relish open debates and controversy and, in turn, produce a robust citizenry who will stand against authoritarian government. Indeed, oppressive regimes of the past have understood the value of closed-mouthed, closed-minded citizens and the power inherent in controlling speech and, thus, controlling how a people view their society and government.
We in the United States have a government with a ravenous appetite for power and a seeming desire to turn the two-way dialogue that is our constitutional republic into a one-way dictatorship. Emboldened by phrases such as “hate crimes,” “bullying,” “extremism” and “microaggressions,” the government is whittling away at free speech, confining it to carefully constructed “free speech zones,” criminalizing it when it skates too close to challenging the status quo, shaming it when it butts up against politically correct ideals, and muzzling it when it appears dangerous.
Free speech is no longer free.
Nor is free speech still considered an inalienable right or an essential liberty, even by those government entities entrusted with protecting it.
We’ve entered into an egotistical, insulated, narcissistic era in which free speech has become regulated speech: to be celebrated when it reflects the values of the majority and tolerated otherwise, unless it moves so far beyond our political, religious and socio-economic comfort zones as to be rendered dangerous and unacceptable.
Consider some of the kinds of speech being targeted for censorship or outright elimination.
Offensive, politically incorrect and “unsafe” speech: Disguised as tolerance, civility and love, political correctness has resulted in the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite. Consequently, college campuses have become hotbeds of student-led censorship, trigger warnings, microaggressions, and “red light” speech policies targeting anything that might cause someone to feel uncomfortable, unsafe or offended.
Bullying, intimidating speech: Warning that “school bullies become tomorrow’s hate crimes defendants,” the Justice Department has led the way in urging schools to curtail bullying, going so far as to classify “teasing” as a form of “bullying,” and “rude” or “hurtful” “text messages” as “cyberbullying.”
Hateful speech: Hate speech—speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation—is the primary candidate for online censorship. Corporate internet giants Google, Twitter and Facebook are in the process of determining what kinds of speech will be permitted online and what will be deleted.
Dangerous, anti-government speech: As part of its newly unveiled war on “extremism,” the Obama administration is partnering with the tech industry to establish a task force to counter online “propaganda” by terrorists hoping to recruit support or plan attacks. In this way, anyone who criticizes the government online is considered an extremist and will have their content reported to government agencies for further investigation or deleted.
The upshot of all of this editing, parsing, banning and silencing is the emergence of a new language, what George Orwell referred to as Newspeak, which places the power to control language in the hands of the totalitarian state. Under such a system, language becomes a weapon to change the way people think by changing the words they use. The end result is control.
In totalitarian regimes—a.k.a. police states—where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used. In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind lest they find themselves ostracized or placed under surveillance.
Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination and infantilism.
Thus, while on paper, we are technically still free to speak, in reality, we are only as free to speak as a government official or corporate censor may allow.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long been the referee in the tug-of-war over the nation’s tolerance for free speech and other expressive activities protected by the First Amendment. Yet as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the Supreme Court’s role as arbiter of justice in these disputes is undergoing a sea change. Except in cases where it has no vested interest, the Court has begun to advocate for the government’s outsized interests, ruling in favor of the government in matters of war, national security, commerce and speech. When asked to choose between the rule of law and government supremacy, this Court tends to side with the government.
In the 225 years since the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted, the rights detailed in that amendment—which assures the American people of the right to speak freely, worship freely, peaceably assemble, petition the government for a redress of grievances, and have a free press—have certainly taken a beating, but none more so than the right to free speech.
Nowhere in the First Amendment does it permit the government to limit speech in order to avoid causing offense, hurting someone’s feelings, safeguarding government secrets, protecting government officials, insulating judges from undue influence, discouraging bullying, penalizing hateful ideas and actions, eliminating terrorism, combatting prejudice and intolerance, and the like.
Unfortunately, in the war being waged between free speech purists who believe that free speech is an inalienable right and those who believe that free speech should be regulated, the censors are winning. Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms.
If we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property, if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views, if we no longer have the right to voice our opinions in public—no matter how misogynistic, hateful, prejudiced, intolerant, misguided or politically incorrect they might be—then we do not have free speech.
What we have instead is regulated, controlled speech, and that’s a whole other ballgame.
Just as surveillance has been shown to “stifle and smother dissent, keeping a populace cowed by fear,” government censorship gives rise to self-censorship, breeds compliance, makes independent thought all but impossible, and ultimately foments a seething discontent that has no outlet but violence.
The First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to speak their minds, air their grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world. When there is no steam valve—when there is no one to hear what the people have to say—frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force a conversation.
The problem as I see it is that we’ve lost faith in the average citizen to do the right thing. We’ve allowed ourselves to be persuaded that we need someone else to think and speak for us. The result is a society in which we’ve stopped debating among ourselves, stopped thinking for ourselves, and stopped believing that we can fix our own problems and resolve our own differences.
In short, we have reduced ourselves to a largely silent, passive populace, content to watch and not do. In this way, we have become our worst enemy. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once warned, a silent, inert citizenry is the greatest menace to freedom.
Brandeis provided a well-reasoned argument against government censorship in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927). It’s not a lengthy read, but here it is boiled down to ten basic truths:

1. The purpose of government is to make men free to develop their faculties, i.e., THINK. 2. The freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are essential to the discovery and spread of political truth. 3. Without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile. 4. The greatest menace to freedom is a silent people. 5. Public discussion is a political duty, and should be a fundamental principle of the American government. 6. Order cannot be secured through censorship. 7. Fear breeds repression; repression breeds hate; and hate menaces stable government. 8. The power of reason as applied through public discussion is always superior to silence coerced by law. 9. Free speech and assembly were guaranteed in order to guard against the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities. 10. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground (a clear and present danger) to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent, and that the evil to be prevented is a serious one.

Perhaps the most important point that Brandeis made is that freedom requires courage. “Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards,” he wrote. “They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.” Rather, they were “courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government.”
In other words, the founders did not fear the power of speech. Rather, they embraced it, knowing all too well that a nation without a hearty tolerance for free speech, no matter how provocative, insensitive or dangerous, will be easy prey for a police state where only government speech is allowed.
What the police state wants is a nation of sheep that will docilely march in lockstep with its dictates. What early Americans envisioned was a nation of individualists who knew exactly when to tell the government to go to hell.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_right_to_tell_the_government_to_go_to_hell_free_speech_in_an_age_o

Feds foresee $30 trillion debt, blame looming tax hikes and Obamacare

 
The federal government will be flirting with $30 trillion in debt within a decade, the Congressional Budget Office reported Monday, blaming an aging population, new spending and tax cuts approved on Capitol Hill, and the growing burden from Obamacare for erasing the progress Washington had made over the past few years.
Analysts said Obamacare will chase more workers out of the labor force over the next five years, adding pressure to an economy still struggling to spring to life more than seven years into the Obama recovery.

 

The Affordable Care Act itself is still struggling to attract a customer base, the CBO said, lowering its estimate for the number of people who will sign up for the exchanges from 21 million to 13 million — a drop of nearly 40 percent in projections. Customers collecting taxpayer subsidies this year will be 11 million, down from the 15 million the CBO projected a year ago.

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The grim news comes with less than a year left for President Obama to put the law on firmer footing as he seeks to head off what is likely to be a last effort at repealing the act after November’s elections.
The economic front is somewhat brighter for Mr. Obama, who seven years into the recovery will finally see significant sustained growth of 2.5 percent this year and 2.6 percent next year, the CBO said.
That will be followed by a cooling off, with growth dropping below 2 percent in 2019 and 2020. The economic gains will continue to go disproportionately to the wealthy, helping boost income tax revenue but limiting payroll taxes, which will put even more pressure on the entitlement programs that are driving up deficits.

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The biggest fiscal dent, however, was made late last year when Mr. Obama and the Republican-run Congress struck a deal. The president won significant spending hikes, and Republicans insisted on a new round of special tax breaks that, combined, reversed years of progress and added nearly $750 billion to projected deficits over the next decade.
“After six consecutive years in which the deficit has declined relative to the size of the economy, this year’s deficit — at 2.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) — is anticipated to increase for the first time since it peaked at 9.8 percent in 2009,” the CBO said.
Deficits will continue to rise over the next 10 years, topping $1 trillion again in 2022 and reaching $1.4 trillion in 2026, the analysts said.
The accumulation of those deficits will deepen the gross public debt from $18.1 trillion at the end of 2015 to $29.3 trillion in 2026. By contrast, the debt stood at $10.6 trillion when Mr. Obama took office in 2009.
Looking decades into the future, the picture only gets worse, the CBO said.
“Beyond the 10-year period, if current laws remained in place, the pressures that had contributed to rising deficits during the baseline period would accelerate and push debt up even more sharply. Three decades from now, for instance, debt held by the public is projected to equal 155 percent of GDP, a higher percentage than any previously recorded in the United States,” the analysts concluded.
The grim picture has sparked fear among budget watchdogs and on Capitol Hill — though Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over the best way to tackle the problem. Republicans favor tax cuts to spur the economy, and Democrats call for tax increases and government spending to invest in growth.
In the short term, the tax cuts have deepened the deficit, the CBO said. But so have the tax increases under Mr. Obama’s policies, including the Affordable Care Act’s levy on high-income taxpayers.
“The ACA’s largest effect on the labor market — especially as overall employment conditions improve — will come from provisions of the act that raise effective marginal tax rates on earnings, thereby reducing how much some people choose to work,” the CBO said. “The act also directly imposes higher taxes on some people’s labor income. Because both effects on labor supply will grow over the next few years, CBO projects, they will subtract from economic growth over that period.”

On the enrollment side, the news is also troubling. The exchanges, which are the online marketplaces where those without coverage can buy plans, are struggling to meet goals.
The CBO said enrollment this year is now likely to be only 13 million customers — down from the 21 million projected a year ago. Of the enrollees, just 11 million will get government subsidies — down from the 15 million the CBO previously projected.
The updated projections were released as part of the CBO’s 2016 budget outlook and confirm the administration’s own dim estimates of how many people would take advantage of the health care exchanges, which are at the heart of the Affordable Care Act.
The Obama administration already dropped its own projections of enrollment, saying the pool of available customers was smaller than it thought, so there are simply fewer people to be nudged into signing up.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jan/25/warning-feds-now-foresee-30-trillion-debt/