Underground Stories 04-07-14

 

This Is What Employment In America Really Looks Like…

The level of employment in the United States has been declining since the year 2000. There have been moments when things have appeared to have been getting better for a short period of time, and then the decline has resumed. Thanks to the offshoring of millions of jobs, the replacement of millions of workers with technology and the overall weakness of the U.S. economy, the percentage of Americans that are actually working is significantly lower than it was when this century began.

And even though things have stabilized at a reduced level over the past few years, it is only a matter of time until the next major wave of the economic collapse strikes and the employment level goes even lower. And the truth is that more good jobs are being lost every single day in America. For example, as you will read about below, Warren Buffett is shutting down a Fruit of the Loom factory in Kentucky and moving it to Honduras just so that he can make a little bit more money. We see this kind of betrayal over and over again, and it is absolutely ripping the middle class of America to shreds.

Below I have posted a chart that you never hear any of our politicians talk about. It is a chart that shows how the percentage of working age Americans with a job has steadily declined since the turn of the century. Just before the last recession, we were sitting at about 63 percent, but now we have been below 59 percent since the end of 2009… See charts: CLICK HERE

Hillary Avoids Benghazi Protest in San Diego

Hillary Clinton has canceled a prior scheduled, in-person appearance for April 11 at the 17th Annual Western Healthcare Leadership Academy conference in San Diego. Just two weeks before the conference, at which she is slated as the keynote speaker, Clinton cited "scheduling conflicts" as the reason she will now be speaking to the approximately 700 conference attendees from a remote location.

Clinton’s announcement comes after an announcement by San Diego citizen activists that they would protest her role in the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead.
Janet Iverson, the woman spearheading a group called "The Difference Matters," has been organizing the demonstration effort with an all-female steering committee.
Iverson, who is married to a physician, received notice of Hillary’s participation in the San Diego conference through a California Medical Association (CMA) mailing promoting the event. Janet’s response to the mailing was, “I will not let this stand.” In a phone interview, Iverson said that the message of the April 11 protest is: “We want to tell Hillary, ‘The difference does matter.’”
The CMA has become widely known for their work in pushing for Obamacare in California, according to Iverson. She also commented that the group seems to think this means they will have a seat at the legislative table, when the truth is, “they’re on the menu.” 
Ted Mazer, Speaker of the CMA House of Delegates, explained the invitation to Clinton to Fox 5 News, “We are trying to talk about where we are and where we are going in medicine.  Who is better to talk about that than someone with a history of about 20 years or more now dealing with health care reform.” In 1993, Clinton attempted and failed to pass Hillarycare, a precursor to the greatly troubled Obamacare mandate.
Iverson has been working with a number of San Diego Tea Party groups, the Volunteers in Politics (VIPs), Republican Women’s groups and the San Diego County Republican Party. Iverson also spent a Saturday handing out fliers at a local Harley Davidson dealership grand opening. The positive response and thankfulness for the protest event was overwhelming from the bikers, she said.
Pat Smith, mother of murdered Benghazi victim Sean Smith, will participate in the protest. According to Iverson, before Hillary cancelled, Smith decided to attend the three-day healthcare conference. When the San Diego County Republican Women Federated learned the cost would be $1,000, members donated Smith’s full cost to attend.
Subsequent to the growing enthusiasm for the event, as well as Pat Smith’s plans to attend the conference, Clinton’s pre-scheduled, in-person San Diego speaking engagement was suddenly changed to allow her to speak via satellite. Clinton’s April 11 ‘scheduling conflict’ does not seem to have affected her ability to appear in San Jose, CA on April 10.
Despite Clinton’s change in plans, “The Difference Matters” Benghazi protest will continue. With a potential Presidential bid looming, there have been similar calls for Hillary to answer for her part in Benghazi. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is on record regarding Clinton and Benghazi, as saying Clinton is “going to have so much to answer to when it comes to her position, especially as Secretary of State.”

Supreme Court: Obama's minimum wage executive order unconstitutional

Last week, President Obama issued an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. But the Supreme Court said that executive order is unconstitutional, the National Review reported Monday.
In the case of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the court said “the President’s power, if any, to issue the [executive] order must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.”
Additionally, the court said, “when the president takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter.”
In short, Peter Kirsanow wrote, the Constitution does not give Obama the authority to unilaterally set or change the minimum wage.
While Obama generally has authority to improve the efficient discharge of federal contracts, Kirsanow added, his order is "incompatible with the expressed and implied will of Congress."
Congress, he added, has expressed its will in four separate statutes: The Service Contract Act, the Davis Bacon Act, the Walsh-Healey Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The minimum wage for most federal contractors is the prevailing minimum wage for employees in the specific job classification in the locality where the work is to be performed, he explained.
"Interestingly, the executive order, replete with enough double negatives and disjunctive clauses to make the average federal bureaucrat’s head explode, contains a severability and savings clause as well as several qualifiers that the order be implemented 'consistent with applicable law,' 'to the extent permitted by law,' and consistent with 'prevailing wage law,'” Kirsanow said.

Felon and Indicted California State Senators Suspended WITH Pay

Democrat Rod Wright is a convicted felon, eight counts.  Democrat Ron Calderon was indicted on 24 counts.  Leland Yee, an anti-gun Democrat is being charged with wire fraud, accepting bribes, oh and selling heavy weapons he got from Muslim terrorists in the Philippines—guess he didn’t want competition for his weapon sales.
The State Senate voted to suspend, with pay, these three crooks. Just one Senator is demanding they not be paid:
Please, I know, innocent till proven guilty.  Why should the people of California continue to pay $8,000 a month while these folks are preparing their appeals and defenses?  S
Sadly, Republicans voted to suspend with pay, like Huff, Nielsen and Knight.  Previously Knight was loudly demanding crooked Senators be thrown out—now he decided it is OK to throw them out, as long as they get paid:

A lone Republican lawmaker is calling on the California State Senate to expel three of its Democratic members that are facing criminal charges.
State Senator Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, the lone dissenter in Friday’s vote to suspend with pay three members of the state Senate, said that his three colleagues, who stand accused of criminal charges ranging from weapons trafficking to public corruption, should be expelled.
“There should be only one measure on this floor,” Anderson said in his floor speech, “and that’s to expel these members.”

Senator Joel Anderson also wanted to throw them out—he voted NO, because he did not want to pay them.  Would you?

Gaddafi kept enemy's head in his freezer and had a dungeon built below a university where he would rape students, new documentary reveals

• Gaddafi ordered the hit men to decapitate one of his victims to prove he was killed
• The head was stored in a freezer for decades and viewed periodically by the despot
• He also ran a sex dungeon at Tripoli University where he would rape coed after giving speeches
• These disturbing revelations were made in the documentary 'Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi'

More disturbing details have emerged telling of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s iron-fisted rule over Libya.
The despot kept the severed head of one of his enemies in a freezer for 25 years and built a secret sex dungeon on the campus of a college specifically to rape coeds, according to a new documentary on his brutal regime.
He also stored the bodies of other rivals he had killed and would visit them occasionally at a walk-in freezer. The sex chamber was built on the campus of Tripoli University.
The barbaric horrors are revealed in British filmmaker Christopher Olgiati’s new documentary called ‘Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi.’
The film includes an interview with a renegade CIA operative Frank Terpil who ran a ‘murder for hire’ team used by Ghaddafi. The dictator dubbed it ‘Murder Incorporated.’

Terpil says in the film he was given $1m to kill one of the dictator's rivals and deliver his head back to Libya.

Terpil claims Ghaddafi, who was killed by rebels two years ago after his regime was overthrown, kept the head in a freezer along with the bodies of other victims he had murdered.
‘I was in Geneva… [a Ghadaffi relative] opened up a letter of credit for a million dollars for [the target's] demise, on the caveat that his head be delivered back in a cooler to Libya so Gaddafi could actually look at the results of the work,’ he says in the biopic, according to the Post.
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One night in Brussels: Barack Obama spends $3million taxpayer dollars on…. rental cars?

For Barack Obama, one night in Brussels ain’t free either. Well, actually it was free. For Barack Obama. For the American taxpayer, his twenty four hour jaunt to Belgium cost a cool three million dollars. To paraphrase Michelle Obama, “All of this for a damn speech!”

In the era of budgets and deficits measured in the trillions, that is not even a blip on the radar. But that is the problem. It should be.

Obama went to Brussels to give a speech to a European Union summit. America isn’t a part of the European Union begging the question, why was Obama there?

Obama’s team took up 387 rooms at a building called “The Hotel.” That bill alone was $1.5 million. 387 rooms! Was the third assistant undersecretary for boll weevil eradication at the Department of Agriculture the only guy they didn’t take to Brussels?

That wasn’t the only hotel occupied by the Obama Regime. The Regime also spent $396,000 for rooms at the Crowne Plaza. Seriously, was anyone left at the White House besides Joe Biden and the janitor?

Granted we aren’t going to ask Tom Bodett to leave the light on at a Motel 6 for the President but seriously, why does he and his staff need hundreds of rooms at a cost of almost two million dollars? To move these staffers around, the White House rented 143 rental cars at $1.05 million dollars. That translates out to over $7300 per vehicle. Over $7300 per vehicle for less than a week’s rent? Enterprise has better rates and they will come to you.

The obvious question is, what kind of cars were these that were rented? Were they stretched, pimped out Hummer limos?

Perhaps the greater question is, when is someone in Washington going to start acting like a grown up. Barack Obama and his team act like 18 year olds heading off to college with their parent’s credit card for “emergencies.” Emergencies for 18 year olds and the Obama Regime are beer and pizza.

Last year, the Obamas took a $100 million dollar vacation to Africa. This year, not only have they had multi-million dollar vacations to Hawaii, they’ve also been to Colorado, Barack Obama has been on golf vacations and most recently Michelle Obama’s vacation to China with mom and ‘the girls.’

The Obamas act more like royalty than they do public servants. Every time a Republican speaks, they talk about fiscal responsibility. Perhaps real Americans need to start asking when the GOP is going to impose fiscal responsibility on the Obama travel budget.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell don’t want to shut the government down over Obamacare. How about shutting it down over Obama’s $100 million dollar vacations? Barack Obama acts as if the public treasury is his private piggy bank and the Republicans go around trying to schedule another symbolic vote to repeal Obamacare.

The left loves to talk about “shared sacrifice.” Millions of real Americans are sacrificing. Millions of real Americans are out of work. Millions of real Americans have lost their homes. Millions of real Americans have lost their health insurance.

UPS to Union Bullies in NY: You’re Fired!

In a move that may make some union members think twice about attempting to bully companies into personnel decisions, UPS recently fired 250 Queens, NY drivers for walking off the job. Back in February, a long-time employee, who was a driver for 24 years as well as a union activist, was let go. In response, 250 drivers walked off the job for 90 minutes.

The New York Daily News reports that the firings have enraged union leaders, but UPS management contends that the drivers knew their jobs were at risk if they walked off.

Twenty employees were terminated Monday after their shifts — and the remaining 230 notified that they’ll be canned as soon as replacements are trained, a company spokesman said. 
“They just called me in … (and) said, ‘Effective immediately, you are no longer on the payroll,’” said Steve Curcio, 41, a 20-year employee earning $32 an hour. 
The mass firing has enraged Tim Sylvester, head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 804, especially since the company gets some lucrative perks from the city.

Reportedly, city officials will attempt to bring both sides together to reverse the firings. The argument being made is that UPS has a $43 million contract with city and state agencies for delivery of packages and also participates in a special program that reduces or negates parking tickets that amounts to millions in savings. Public Advocate Leticia James, referencing this, says, “We’ve given UPS breaks, particularly as it relates to this (parking) program. They should not treat workers in this manner.”

State Dept. “Missing” $6 Billion Under Secretary Hillary Clinton

The State Department has lost track of approximately $6 billion used to pay its contractors, according to a report from the department’s Inspector General.

An inability to file paperwork properly and a “lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted dollars over the last six years,” State Department Inspector General Steve Linick said in a “management alert” made public Thursday.

Linick was appointed to his current position in 2013 after the State Department went without an IG for nearly five years, the longest that any federal agency has gone without a chief auditor, the Washington Post reported.

“The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department’s contract actions,” the alert states.

The department’s mismanagement of contract funds and contract-related files started a little before Hillary Clinton was appointed Secretary of State. It continued throughout her entire tenure at the State Department.

The IG’s alert, which was published on March 20, but only made available this week, comes at a time when the federal government struggles with contracts and payments to private contractors, the Fiscal Times reported.

F-16s scrambled after plane enters restricted airspace over Washington

Two F-16 fighter jets briefly intercepted a small plane Sunday that was flying in restricted airspace over Washington without communicating with air-traffic controllers, the Air Force said, adding that the pilot apparently had no hostile intentions.

The two jets were scrambled from Joint Base Andrews about 12:30 p.m. when the plane, a Cessna, was detected over Washington and its pilot did not immediately respond to air-traffic controllers, said Canadian Army Capt. Jennifer Stadnyk, a spokeswoman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), in Colorado.
When the F-16s arrived, the Cessna’s pilot already had diverted out of restricted airspace and soon began talking with air-traffic controllers, Stadnyk said.
The pilot, whose identity was not made public, apparently was flying over the nation’s capital “without realizing that he was somewhere where he shouldn’t be,” Stadnyk said. She said she did not know whether the plane was forced to land.
NORAD’s involvement ended when the plane left restricted airspace, and any follow-up investigation would be done by the Federal Aviation Administration, Stadnyk said.

Obama Just Took One Big Step Towards Marijuana Legalization 

As the nation marches further down the long but seemingly inevitable road of marijuana decriminalization and legalization, President Barack Obama just made things a lot easier. On Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Obama administration is ready to work with Congress to take marijuana off the federal government's list of the most dangerous drugs. 
"We'd be more than glad to work with Congress if there is a desire to look at and reexamine how the drug is scheduled, as I said there is a great degree of expertise that exists in Congress," Holder said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing. "It is something that ultimately Congress would have to change, and I think that our administration would be glad to work with Congress if such a proposal were made."
This is a strong affirmation from an administration that seems to be increasingly moving towards a more lenient, if not open stance on marijuana legislation reform. Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, the attorney general has the authority to "remove any drug or other substance from the schedules if he finds that the drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule." However, Holder didn't say that he would utilize this power and seems more interested in working together with interested members of Congress. 
Working together. Luckily for Holder, it shouldn't be too difficult to find interested members of Congress. Though there is still a lively debate on the issue, numerous congressmen have indicated an interest in rescheduling marijuana. In February, 18 congressmen went as far as to send Obama a formal letter indicating their strong desire to reevaluate how the federal government treats marijuana. This came shortly after Obama told David Remnick in the New Yorker that he believes pot is no more dangerous than alcohol.

US has reportedly started supplying Syrian rebels with anti-tank weapons

Rebels embattled against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have reportedly come into possession of high-powered anti-tank weaponry, the likes of which may have been supplied by the United States.
Images of rebels equipped with heavy arms have begun to circulate in recent days, and at least one news site has claimed that the source responsible is the US government.
On Monday, Israel’s Debkafile website reported that two moderate Syrian rebel militias — the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Revolutionary Front — have been supplied with advanced US weapons, including armor-piercing, optically-guided BGM-71 TOW missiles, thanks to the Pentagon.
According to Debkafile’s report, US Gen. Martin Dempsey — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs — asked officials in Israel last week to help get Saudi Arabian fighter jets stationed at the kingdom’s Faisal Air Base at Tabuk near Jordan positioned in a manner that would provide air cover as American forces moved the weapons into southern Syria. Debkafile attributed the claims to unnamed military sources.
Late last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that US President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah “appeared to narrow their disagreement on assisting Syrian rebels” amidst a meeting between the two. According to the Journal’s report, Obama administration officials said the meeting ended with the White House agreeing to increase its level of assistance to Syrian rebels.


Top 4 Reasons Obama Will Be Seen As A Failure


As Barack Obama moves toward the end of his career, expect to hear lots of talk about his legacy.
I believe the first African-American president will be remembered kindly by the academic establishment, writing from their ivory towers, because of the historic nature of his election.
But for average Americans, it’ll be a different story. Most Americans judge a president based on what he promises versus what he delivers, and they judge him using the question Ronald Reagan asked voters in 1980: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
At this point in the Obama presidency, the answer is a resounding “No.” Obama promised big results, but he’s failed to deliver.
For example, look at these four promises and the eventual results. They cover what are arguably his biggest accomplishments.

1. Obama’s $825-billion stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8% as he promised. After the stimulus passed, America still lost over one million jobs. If you count people who have become discouraged and are no longer seeking jobs, some economists believe that the real unemployment rate is still above 20%.
2. Obama called his healthcare package one of his major accomplishments. He told CBS News’ Steve Kroft that he was “putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering healthcare costs.” Yet Obamacare has failed to make health insurance more affordable. According to FactCheck.org, Obamacare is actually making healthcare “less affordable.” Workers paid an average of $132 more for family coverage this year.
3. Obama predicted that his investments in green energy would create five million jobs, but The Wall Street Journal reports: “The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade, America would have five million green jobs, but so far, some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.”
4. Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half, saying: “And that’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.”  Obama then enacted his deficit reduction plan, which was comprised of a series of massive tax increases. Yet the deficit is still more than twice what he promised.

Based on these results, I’d give the president a solid “F”!
Don’t expect much reporting on the president’s record, though. Instead, watch as the media continues to focus on polls. They like to judge politicians this way because they can control the outcome. Just ask any honest pollster – it’s easy to game the outcome of a poll by manipulating the questions.
In fact, the news media is almost desperate to ignore Obama’s record… and so is the president himself. He’s constantly changing the subject when it comes to his record, focusing instead on topics like “income inequality.”

Al Sharpton's Secret Work As FBI Informant

APRIL 7--When friends and family members gathered recently at the White House for a private celebration of Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday, one of the invited partygoers was a former paid FBI Mafia informant.

That same man attended February’s state dinner in honor of French President Francois Hollande. He was seated with his girlfriend at a table adjacent to President Barack Obama, who is likely unaware that, according to federal agents, his guest once interacted with members of four of New York City’s five organized crime families. He even secretly taped some of those wiseguys using a briefcase that FBI technicians outfitted with a recording device.
The high-profile Obama supporter was also on the dais atop the U.S. Capitol steps last year when the president was sworn in for a second term. He was seated in front of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two rows behind Beyonce and Jay Z, and about 20 feet from Eric Holder, the country’s top law enforcement officer. As head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Holder leads an agency that once reported that Obama’s inauguration guest also had La Cosa Nostra contacts beyond Gotham, and engaged in “conversations with LCN members from other parts of the United States.”
The former mob snitch has become a regular in the White House, where he has met with the 44th president in the East Room, the Roosevelt Room, and the Oval Office. He has also attended Obama Christmas parties, speeches, policy announcements, and even watched a Super Bowl with the First Family (an evening the man has called “one of the highlights of my life”). During these gatherings, he has mingled with cabinet members, top Obama aides, military leaders, business executives, and members of Congress. His former confederates were a decidedly dicier lot: ex-convicts, extortionists, heroin traffickers, and mob henchmen. The man’s surreptitious recordings, FBI records show, aided his government handlers in the successful targeting of powerful Mafia figures with nicknames like Benny Eggs, Chin, Fritzy, Corky, and Baldy Dom
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