Obama Administration

This Ebola outbreak is being called the “most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times“, and the U.S. health care system is completely and totally unprepared for it.  The truth is that most U.S. hospitals are simply not equipped to safely handle Ebola patients, and most hospital staff members have received little or no training on Ebola.  And the fact that Barack Obama and our top public health officials are running around proclaiming that Ebola is “difficult to catch” is giving doctors and nurses a false sense of security.

Running a multi-billion dollar energy company isn’t easy. Just ask the executives in the corner suites of some of the energy companies that have gone bust over the years. Some, like Enron, were brought down because of insider malfeasance. A few, like ATP, blamed damaging government policies, while others went off the rails due to market forces that left the company and its shareholders flat-footed, deep in debt, and eventually broke. Here are the bankruptcies that will be etched into the tombstones of failed energy fortunes for time immemorial.

It was heinous. It was underhanded. It was beyond the bounds of international morality. It was an attack on the American way of life. It was what you might expect from unscrupulous Arabs. It was “the oil weapon” -- and back in 1973, it was directed at the United States. Skip ahead four decades and it’s smart, it’s effective, and it’s the American way. The Obama administration has appropriated it as a major tool of foreign policy, a new way to go to war with nations it considers hostile without relying on planes, missiles, and troops.  It is, of course, that very same oil weapon.

Given our previous comments that "air traffic is the driver," it is perhaps not surprising that the Obama administration announced Wednesday that airline passengers arriving from the three West African countries experiencing an unprecedented Ebola outbreak will now be screened for potential exposure to the deadly disease when they arrive at five major U.S. airports. The screening will include having their temperatures taken. As AP's Alicia Caldwell explains, here are five things you need to know about the screenings...

"I think we're looking at kind of a 30-year war... one that will have to extend beyond Islamic State to include emerging threats in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere.

Global economic growth remains weak and vulnerable and the global financial system remains very fragile. The ebola virus has the potential to be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back. 

Stocks and commodities fell globally today due to concerns about the spread of Ebola and declining economic growth. Precious metals bounced from near multi month lows.

UPDATE: *ENHANCED EBOLA SCREENINGS TO START AT JFK FIRST: CNN

Following CDC Director Frieden's warning yesterday, the AP reports, US Homeland Security has unveiled additional more stringent monitoring of all travelers to the US for the Ebola virus:

*U.S. AIRPORTS TO TAKE TEMPS OF TRAVELERS FROM W. AFRICA: WPOST
*FIVE OF BUSIEST U.S. AIRPORTS TO TAKE TEMPERATURES, POST SAYS

Just hours after President Obama dined at a $10,000-per-plate fundraiser in Washington, former Obama administration CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lamented with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell how "there is a feeling that the president has given up on the big issues facing this country." The problem, Panetta explains, is Obama "approaches things like a law professor," when he should be "rolling up his sleeves." With allies like that, who needs ISIS?

As Martin Armstrong exclaims, Obama is out of control. According to NewZimbabwe.com, Washington has said it will accelerate sanctions imposed against Harare in 2003, due to the Robert Mugabe-led government's closer ties with Russia over the US$3 billion Darwendale platinum project. Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru (who is thought to be Mugabe's spokesman), reported, Washington explained its expectations on Zimbabwe, namely that Zimbabwe was expected (read required) to support those sanctions by avoiding any association with companies sanctioned by the Americans and their Western allies, or their subsidiaries or affiliates. Manheru said "it was ridiculous for the US to refuse to lift sanctions against Harare and then demand support for its measures against Moscow... This is where I am tempted to tell the American government to go and hang, hang on a banana tree, bums up."

While one can't help but snicker when the administration of a Nobel Peace Prize winner has launched at least 7 offensive wars, mostly against Muslim countries with virtually none obtaining prior approval from Congress, until now Obama at least showed the sense to realize that maintaining proper "made for propaganda media" optics matters, even if his underlying actions were the very definition of hypocrisy. And then something snapped. As reported by Yahoo News, the White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq. A White House statement confirmed the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria's Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

We Need to Stop PRETENDING We're Prepared ... and Actually GET Prepared

Health experts all over the United States are promising us that we do not need to be worried about Ebola whatsoever.  Even though one case has already been confirmed in Dallas, Texas and another potential case is being monitored, health authorities assure us that we have the greatest health system in the history of the planet and that we will be able to handle any isolated cases very easily.  And all over the mainstream media on Wednesday, there were headlines declaring that the arrival of Ebola in America is a non-event. So are they right?  Should the rest of us just kick back and relax because a bunch of really smart guys are assuring us that our health system can easily deal with anything that Ebola can throw at us?  The following are 10 quotes from prominent experts promising us that Ebola will not be a problem in this country...

While the Obama administration is furiously scratching its head how to write off the debt of a few hundred million Americans, so they can once again load up on debt from scratch, spend like drunken sailors, and blow up the system once more, others are already a few steps ahead, such as UK's largest payday lender, the Wonga Group Ltd., which we learn today has written off the debt of 330,000 customers after British regulators introduced tougher rules to "protect consumers" such as Master Elliot Gomme, 20, who admits he lied to get a loan: "the 20-year-old admitted lying on his application and told Newsbeat it was "too easy" to be accepted."

Will Obama be the Commander-In-Chief Who Lets Ebola Infect America?

You have heard of the "No Fly List", right?  Well, now the Tories are pledging that if they win the next election in the UK they will establish a list of “extremists” that will have to have their social media posts “approved in advance by the police” before they post them.  There are also plans to ban “extremists” from broadcasting and speaking at public events.  The stated goal of these proposals is to crack down on terrorism, but in the process the civil liberties of the British people are going to be flushed down the toilet. To help explain, below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents.