Headlines

Only 4 in 10 voters say Trump, Biden are in good health

Coronavirus updates: NYC Marathon cancelled as more states see rising case totals

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace doubles down following FBI ‘noose’ investigation

Cuomo: Nursing home order ‘wasn’t a mistake’

House Democrats tack to center with election year health care bill

IMF slashes its forecast for the global economy and warns of soaring debt levels

Mnuchin says next stimulus will be ‘jobs focused’

Sharpton continues pushing Taladega ‘noose’ story

DOJ, states eye potential antitrust probe of Apple

Appeals Court orders dismissal of case against ex-Trump advisor Michael Flynn

Bolton says he would consider testifying against AG Barr

Feds bust L.A. City Councilman Jose Hulzar for corruption

Headlines

Members of Congress took small business loans — and the full extent is unknown

Scientists hail dexamethasone as ‘major breakthrough’ in treating coronavirus

North Korea reportedly blows up inter-Korea border office after threatening to sever all communications with South Korea

NYC coronavirus tracers won’t ask about protest attendance

EU opens antitrust probes into Apple

IMF to cut forecasts and warns of a crisis ‘unlike anything the world has ever seen’

New outbreak at China market ... Beijing expands lockdowns ...

CHAZ demands retrials for all non-white violent convicts

Trump predicts a court battle over John Bolton’s book

Home building sentiment posts biggest monthly surge ever

Dollar crash ‘virtually inevitable’ over massive debt ...

Hypocrisy: NBC highlights dangers of Trump’s rallies

Headlines

Trump mulls NY, NJ, CT ‘quarantine’ ... Duomo slams ...

New York postpones Democrat primary amid coronavirus outbreak, the 11th state to do so

DeSantis expands quarantine to Louisiana travelers

Former Republican Senators, Tom Coburn, the ‘Dr. No’ of Congress, dies at 72

Rhode Island police hunt down New Yorkers seeking refuge ...

Coronavirus live updates: NY gov balks at federal quarantine talk, CDC warns on chloroquine

Trump authorizes DOD to order National Guard troops to active duty

Biden campaign denies sexual assault allegation

USA tops 100,000 cases ...

Trump push’s back against congressional oversight for $500 billion bailout fund

Spain logs 832 fatalities in 24 hours, IMF confirms world in recession ...

Dreamers to Supreme Court: Ending DACA amid coronavirus pandemic would be ‘catastrophic’

Headlines

Bloomberg in 2016: ‘Yes, Donald, I do love you’

Coronavirus Live update: Iran confirms two deaths, IMF chief issues warning on global growt

[Trump)] Goes on clemency spree, and list is long ...

Sanders: ‘I don’t think’ I’ll release more medical records

Andrew Yang joins CNN as political commentator

It’s never been this hard for companies to find qualified workers

Barr warns: I’ll walk if you keep tweeting ...

Report: Top NSC official could be reassigned amid speculation she is ‘anonymous’

Trump campaign hires alum of controversial data company

AG Barr takes aim at a key legal protection for Big Tech companies

Beijing expels three Wa Street Journal reporters ...

Fenton: Judicial Watch subpoenas FBI’s. Seth Rich records

Headlines

Republicans threaten revolt, may block Trump’s Mexico tariffs

The Fed is ‘indicating that a rate cut is coming,’ says former central banker

ISIS terror in Ebola zone ...

Joe Biden lied in 1987 with claim he marched in civil rights movement

Manafort will get no special treatment at Rikers Island, de Blasio says

Trade tensions have had a significant impact on China, IMF says

‘Straight Pride’ parade in Boston?

Border agency buying 2.2 million diapers to help migrants

Former Parkland school deputy arrested on 11 charges tied to school shooting

Japan’s Abe may walk a tightrope between Trump and Tehran

Homelessness jumps 16% in LA; officials stunned ... 59,000 live on streets ...

At least four dead in Darwin, Australia, mass shooting

Headlines

How Bloomberg plans to create his own lane in 2020

IMF says the world economic expansion  is loosing moment as it cuts its growth forecasts

Beijing confirms birth of gene-edited babies ...

Pence: Trump's immigration proposal is not amnesty

A temporary DACA fix for a permanent wall? Trump's proposal gathers more Dem resistance

Democrat Sen. Kamala Harris jumps into 2020 White House race

Second suicide bomb hit US convoy in Iraq ..

Gillette commercial becomes 28th most disliked YouTube ever

Trump tweets 40 times on day 30 of shutdown

Davos opens with the US vs. China contest emerging as 'the key problem of our time'

Freshmen Dems balk at impeachment ...

Democrat leader: Ban teens from wearing MAGA hats

Headlones

No shutdown end in sight as all sodas dig in

Government shutdown to last until at least Dec. 27 as lawmakers fail to reach deal

Top U.S. envoy in  ISIS fight resigns ...

IMF: Inflation in Venezuela to hit 1.4 million percent by end of year

Republicans warn Trump against firing Fed chair

Trump reportedly wants to fire Fed chair. a move that could wee k havoc on financial markets

Beijing tests submarine nuke missile that can strike anywhere in the U.S.

Donald Trump 'Prepare for a very long sgutdown'

2019 governors' races teatime endangered species: conservative Dems

Santa Claus rally: No ho-ho-ho

Nicaraguan authorities raid, shut down critical TV station

Trump admin. revokes Obama-era school leniency policy for minorities

Headlines

Nikki Haley flips the script on Trump

Trade tensions could trigger another global financial crisis, but investors appear complacent: IMF

Sears prepares bankruptcy ...

Trump: Democrat immigration policies aren't just wrong, they're lethal ...

Dems line up to take on Collins after Kavanaugh vote

Trump says he doesn't like what the Fed is doing, central bank is going too fast raising rates

Paper: Break up AMAZON before it does any more damage to America ...

Former Canadian PM: Updated NAFTA is 'pretty good deal' for us

Trump considers Mae-a-Lago for Kim summit

US greenlights more than $54 billion in military equipment to foreign governments

Study: TV coverage of Trump 92% negative ...

Hillary Clinton: 'Civility can start again' if Dems control Congress

Headlines

Is Trump driving women away from the GOP for good?

Google did not disclose security bug because it feared regulation, report says

Hurricane heads for Florida Panhandle ...

Robert Redford feels 'out of place' in bigoted, mean-spirited America

Trump's ethanol rule delivers gift to corn country

IMF cite global growth forecast, citing trade disruptions

Japan passport most powerful in world ...

Reports: Kim Jong-un to meet Vlafamir Putin in Moscow

Trump: No plans to fire Rosensrein

Richard Branson gives Elon Musk some advice: Learn to delegate and get some sleep

UN report on 'global warming' carries life-or-death warning ...

Hillary Clinton suffers coughing fit at Oxford University

Headlines

Cohen drops libel suits against Buzzfeed, Fusion GPS

Ex-Awan partner: The family transferred [Congressional] data to Pakistani government

Officials investigating suspicious death of McMaster's father ...

Twitter blocks Down Syndrome girl for posting 'pro-life pictures'

Comey's other target in new book: Rudy Giuliani

Lockheed Martin just moved one step closer to giving hypersonic weapons to the Air Force

Survey: 75% ultra-rich forecast recession ...

Fresno Prof. who celebrated Barbara Bush's death placed on leave

Corker says Democrat is ahead in race to succeed him

Global debt is at historic highs and governments should start cutting levels bow, the IMF warns

Cohen would turn against president if charged, counselor warns ...

Hogg cashes in: Inks book deal

The Grasshoppers

I know that John Hinderaker is generally my go-to guy at the Powerline blog, but Paul Mirengoff has a very pity entry on the debt debacle in Greece ... see: Greek Farce Explained. In this posting, Paul quotes a lot of the inside skinny about how the Greek poobahs misplayed their hands at the financing negotiations with the rest of the European Economic Community (EEC). Talk about the JV playing against the L.A. Lakers. This arrogant bunch of lefties from Athens carried with them there the grasshopper's attitude that the world owed them a living. They may have learned a very hard lesson ... which I don't think is over yet.

I myself have a few comments on these Mirengoff revelations:

- How can Finland be made to adsorb such of heavy burden of this Greek indebtedness? This posting reveals that this country is being asked to pay out 10% of its annual budget and 2.5% of its GDP to hold Greece's head above water. This can't be fair. If the rest of the EEC ponied up the same relative amounts, I suspect that this would cover Greece's shortfall many times over.

- How can the EEC or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lend Greece any more money when they know that they are not going to repay what has already been lent? Yes I know that the formation of the Euro has benefited Northern Europe, mainly Germany, greatly ... GNP growth-wise. But nevertheless, if you have to lend someone money to buy your products ... and you know that this debt will never be repaid ... this seems a silly commercial strategy.

- The U.S. generally has assumed an attitude that all this European economic kerfuffle does not affect us. But we forget that we contribute something like 18% to the IMF funding ... so what the IMF loses, we also partly lose.

Isn't rather ironic that present-day Greeks seem to have forgotten Aesop's lesson from "The Grasshopper and the Ant?"

6 More Questions ...

For Liberals (including that uber-Liberal in the White House)::

1) Why, while championing infrastructure spending, would you put the kibosh on the Keystone XL Pipeline?

2) Exactly how will extending unemployment insurance beyond 99 weeks ever create even one job?

3) Why, since the Social Security System is on the fiscal ropes, should we extend any cuts to FICA taxes?

4) What does the U.S. do when Iran finally has the A-bomb and is about to (or does) use it on Israel?

5) Should the U.S. contribute even one dime to the bailout of the Euro (including through the IMF)?

6) What does the U.S. do if the relative peace in Iraq starts to unravel soon after we exit there?

A Snipe Hunt

Recently I blogged a piece about the International Monetary Fund and, in it, referenced its incredible lack of transparency (see:  I.M.F...ing).  Since then I have spent time on the IMF site (see: IMF Site) trying to find out exactly how much money the United States contributes and has contributed to this fund ... and into all the various slush-fund pockets it seems to have?  Ditto for China. Ditto for Russia. Ditto for Germany and France.  Etc.  And I would also like to find out who is lent (given?) this money on a year by year basis from these various slush funds?  And how much of this money has been paid back historically?  And how much has never been paid back?  What interest rates are charged? 

How much does the IMF spend annually for operating expenses?  (The former IMF head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn spent $3,000 per night for the hotel room where he was caught in his peccadilloes.) Specific salaries (I found on the NY Times how much Strauss Kahn was paid.  He made $442,000 per annum with a $79,120 expense account ... see: NY Times Article)?  What does the IMF income statement look like?  How about its balance sheet?  A cash flow statement?  Who has contributed gold to the IMF reserves?  Has much of this gold has been sold or otherwise disposed of?

If any reader out there has a week or so to devote to this snipe hunt on the above referenced web site, I welcome your travails and answers.  Like the U.N. (see: The U.N.) and the World Bank (see: The World Bank), I suspect  that the real meaningful numbers are locked up in New York or Geneva or Washington somewhere where prying eyes such as mine will never find them.  (I just hope that the Congress has access to this data.)  The only thing that these international (unelected) agencies allow us schnooks to see is the mountains of  gibberish and spin provided on their web sites.  They are self-perpetuating bureaucratic mazes whose major function seems to be politically correct arm waving and spending someone else's moolah.  If any U.S. corporation were as opaque as these international organizations, its entire management team would be peeking out from behind bars.

International Monetary F...ing

Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), now estimates that, in order to fully protect the European Economic Community (EEC) from cascading debt default, it will cost the IMF €3 trillion (see Lagarde Unloads).  The IMF now has about €300 billion in available funds which means that it is €2.7 trillion short of this needed bailout reserve.  The question then becomes ... what will it cost the United States to put this gigantic finger in the financial dike?  Well the Wall Street Journal states the our additional share of this shortfall would be at least 17.1% to 19% ... or even possibly more (read the: WSJ Article).

This translates into a $618 billion to $687 billion reach into the (empty) U.S. piggy bank to bail out Europe!  Wow! This is more than five times the 2008-inflation-adjusted cost of the post-World-War-II Marshall plan (see: Bailout Costs).

The operational idea behind the IMF seems to be -- "from each according to its ability, to each according to its need."  Hmmm, what does this sound like?  (By the bye, the world's second largest economy, China's current related IMF assessment percentage is ... I think ... below 4% ... and it may be 0% ... the IMF is not very transparent about these things.)

Credit Blogging

Your blogger has somewhat anticipated this story -- the French Socialist head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been accused of attempted rape of a New York City hotel chamber maid and his DNA has been collected as evidence.  See: Dominique Strauss-Kahn).  In a post here twelve days ago it was discribed how the U.S. has lent its credit cards to the IMF and the rest of the world (see: The High Cost of Linguica). Now we find out that our credit cards are being used for $3,000 per night suites at swanky New York hotels ... but apparently not for condoms.

The High Cost of Linguica

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed to bail out the Portuguese economy to the tune of some $116 billion. See: Portugal Bailout  This is after the fact that these same parties had bailed out (with almost equally large largess) Greece and Ireland last year.  Now, seeing that the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in large part back in 2008-2009, bailed out the major European banks (see Bernanke's Secret) and that the United States is a major contributor to the IMF (See: U.S and the IMF), it seems that the United States is once again handing our (over-extended) credit card to the rest of the world. 

Not only is the United States expected to pay the very high cost of defending the free world, but now, it seems, we must pick up the tab for their profligate social-engineering policies too.  Enough!