Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd - Volunteer Jam XIII

HITLER: THE RISE AND FALL, AND BARAK OBAMA

  The American Heroes Channel (AHC) is showing a series that follows Adolph Hitler; showing how he got
started, how he gained power, what he did to seize absolute control, how he terrorized millions, and how he was eventually defeated in a world war. When I see this series, having watched Barak Obama for 7 years, I see parallels that do not bode well for the future of the United States of America. Hitler was elected as a result of the 1929 global economic collapse and used propaganda and murder to seize absolute control over Germany. Hitler made promises he never intended to keep, such as more “rights” for women and minorities and prosperity for all Aryans. Once he was named vice-chancellor under Hindenburg, Hitler began to kill off any of his supporters he saw as potential future rivals. When Hindenburg died, Hitler was appointed Chancellor by his minions in the German Parliament. Once in the top position, there was nothing to stop Hitler as anyone who opposed him was quickly arrested and either hanged or shot.

Ernst Rohm was the head of the SA, Hitler’s original thugs, but became too vocal and had to be eliminated. In an event named “The Night of the Long Knives”, Hitler’s SS, the new terror organization labeled as an “internal security force”, set upon the SA leadership.   Hitler used Rohm’s open homosexuality and fakecorruption charges to surprise and arrest them, and soon executed Rohm and all of the SA leadership, a move that showed no dissent would be tolerated by Hitler and his henchmen. Once Hitler had gained absolute control he began his persecution of the Jews and the conquest of Europe. Schools became nothing more that Nazi indoctrination camps, just like our schools today with common core and political correctness being the only things taught. American students used to be the tops in the world in math, science, reading, and logical thinking, the core subjects of learning.  Read more

ALERT: Russia Considering NUCLEAR Strike On ISIS – Kremlin Awaiting Consent From Allies

Although Russia’s poising to use its nuclear weapons on ISIS, Russia held a secret meeting with NATO, reassuring them that Russia has no intentions on using nuclear weapons on either Georgia or the Ukraine, citing that attacking either of them would invoke a nuclear strike from NATO. Also Russia had consulted with the Syrian government as well as the governments of its allies in the region, who in turned told the Kurds and other allied militias of a possible nuclear strike, warning them to move allied civilians from areas that might be struck by Russia’s nuclear weapons.   Read more

Ted Koppel points to LDS Church's preparedness in book 'Lights Out'

The chance of a cyberattack on America’s power grids is high and the nation is ill-prepared to face the catastrophic consequences, writes Ted Koppel in his recently released book, “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath” (Crown Publishing, $26, 288 pages).

Koppel, the longtime anchor for “Nightline,” begins “Lights Out” by posing a hypothetical situation where such a cyberattack has occurred, leaving parts of America in a state of complete darkness with rapidly depleting resources. Koppel later asserts in his book that Mormons are one of the most prepared groups to face such a grim scenario. He devotes three chapters to the LDS Church and its level of organization, which he calls “extraordinary.”   Read more

HILLARY CLINTON WAS WARNED NOT TO BLAME BENGHAZI ON YOUTUBE VIDEO

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s embassy in Tripoli, Libya, warned State Department officials in Washington, D.C., not to blame the Youtube video, Innocence of Muslims, for the Benghazi terrorist attack.

The House Benghazi Committee released a new email Saturday that a Tripoli embassy official sent to Clinton’s underlings in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2012, two days before Susan Rice appeared on Sunday talk shows to use the administration’s “video” talking point.

“Colleagues, I mentioned to [redacted] this morning, and want to share with all of you, our view at Embassy Tripoli that we must be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer, adapting it to Libyan conditions,” the official wrote.  Read more

The Piano Guys Release Fight Song/Amazing Grace Mashup | LDS Daily

The Piano Guys Release Fight Song/Amazing Grace Mashup | LDS Daily

Economic and Political Power

Glen Campbell Jerry Reed Steve Hardin Mule Skinner Blues

Ted Cruz’s historic grand slam speech against the Washington Cartel

This is our real-life, current-day Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment.

All Americans, especially those who follow politics lightly or not at all, should HEAR THIS SPEECH. 

Granted, most Democrats are already a lost cause. They cannot be dissuaded; they can only be defeated.

And the same is true for GOP Establishment (GOPe) insiders and hangers-on who live off the system that they’ve created and only pretend to oppose.

But for the rest of us, this is the speech to hear and understand — the whole thing.  This is Senator Ted Cruz, speaking from the floor of the Senate, Oct 29, 2015, in what is arguably the most important speech in decades.  Read more

Once it gets started...

Parents call superintendent a liar amid ‘God is myth’ lesson scandal

A day after officials in the Katy Independent School District accused a student of lying about a classroom assignment about God, several other students are coming forward to confirm her story.

West Memorial Junior High student Jordan Wooley, 12,testified before the school board Monday about a class assignment in which her reading teacher asked students to classify specific statements at fact, opinion or commonplace assertion – which the teacher characterized as a myth.

When Wooley and numerous other students answered fact to the statement “There is a God,” the teacher told them they’re wrong, God is a myth, Wooley said.  Read more

Senate approves budget deal and here’s how they voted

Ted Cruz last night called this budget deal a corrupt betrayal of the people as he spoke over an hour and a half.

The vote was mostly Democrats voting to pass it but a fair number of Republicans voted for it as well. Here’s how they voted:  See list

Academia’s Rejection of Diversity

ONE of the great intellectual and moral epiphanies of our time is the realization that human diversity is a blessing. It has become conventional wisdom that being around those unlike ourselves makes us better people — and more productive to boot.

Scholarly studies have piled up showing that race and gender diversity in the workplace can increase creative thinking and improve performance. Meanwhile, excessive homogeneity can lead to stagnation and poor problem-solving.  Read more

WHITE HOUSE WANTS CLINTON EMAILS INVOLVING OBAMA KEPT PRIVATE

As the U.S. Department of State continues to release thousands of pages of former secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server emails, the White House wants some electronic communications between she and President Barack Obama to remain private.

The State Department on Friday released 7,000 additional pages of Clinton’s emails that were kept on a non-government email server while she was the department chief — its sixth and largest mass email release so far this year.

More than half of Clinton’s private server emails have now been released, in accordance with a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act.  Read more

Google plans to kill Chrome OS, fold it into Android

ChromeOS has been a success in many respects. While not universally loved, and still limited compared to Windows or OS X, the simple operating system has a small, loyal following, and laptops based off it often appear on Amazon's top-selling list.

Yet that's not enough to earn it a stay of execution, as The Wall Street Journalreports that insiders say Chrome OS will soon be given the axe. It apparently will be folded into Android next year, and Chromebooks will no longer be sold as of 2017.

Google's decision to get rid of its desktop operating system is apparently linked to a planned revision of Android that will help it span multiple categories of devices, including 2-in-1s. This interest isn't a huge surprise given the recent announcement of the Pixel C, an Android powered tablet with an optional keyboard cover.  Read more

Personal Spending, Income Miss Expectations

American consumers edged up their spending in September at the slowest pace since January, suggesting slowing job creation and economic turmoil overseas may be introducing some caution into purchasing habits.

Personal spending, which measures how much Americans paid for everything from sofas to taxi rides, rose 0.1% in September from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Friday. Consumption climbed 0.4% in August and 0.3% in July.

Personal income, reflecting Americans' pretax earnings from salaries and investments, climbed 0.1% in September. That was the smallest increase since March 2015.  Read more

Icahn Sees 'Grave Risk' to US as Pfizer Looks to Move Offshore

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor who Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to name Secretary of the Treasury, is urging Congress to change the tax code so that companies don't have an incentive to move outside the U.S.

His latest warning followed confirmed merger talks between Pfizer Inc., the largest U.S. drugmaker, and Ireland-based Allergan Plc. The companies have a combined market value of about $320 billion, which would be a record-breaking deal for the pharmaceutical industry.  Read more

Gallup Poll: Blacks Worse Off Now Than in Obama's First Term

African Americans say that their lives are worse off during President Barack Obama's second term than during his first four years in the White House, a new Gallup Poll released Thursday says.
In a "well-being" poll conducted by Gallup and Healthways, Americans were asked whether they considered themselves as "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering" based on a numbered scale.

Their responses were then averaged on a percentage basis. They were asked these questions earlier this year and in 2012.  Read more

Europe's Last Dictator Has Become the Darling of the Bond Market

He’s known as Europe’s last dictator, he mangles financial terminology and his secret service once jailed the chief executive officer of the world’s biggest potash miner. He’s also turning into a darling of the bond market.

Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, is showing a softer side that’s helped cut the premium on the country’s debt to the lowest in almost a year compared with other emerging markets. The bonds have climbed at twice the pace of Russia’s since February. And Ashmore Group Plc, which owned Belarus Eurobonds as of the end of September, says the rally has further to go.  Read more

China's Graying Migrants Have a Hidden Stash of Money to Spend

Migrant worker Guo Huailiang is planning to live it up a bit in his retirement.

After 19 years living in cramped quarters in Beijing, rising at 5:30 a.m. for a 12-hour shift, the 52-year-old construction worker is socking away money that would allow him to return to his eight-room house and 4-acre plot in the countryside, spend a bit of cash and travel. He’s dreaming of trips to Hainan Island, Taiwan and even South Korea.

Multiply Guo by the millions who migrated to China’s cities, toiling away in factories and building sites for decades, and you have a hoard of savings that stands to revolutionize China’s consumer market. It turns out that China getting old may just help create the balanced economy its leaders have been aiming to engineer.  Read more

More Pain, Slow Gain as Europe's New Bank CEOs Expect Grim Years

Europe’s biggest investment banks are telling investors that it will take years for their overhauls to bear fruit.

John Cryan, Deutsche Bank AG’s co-chief executive officer since July, said on Thursday the next two years will be tough as plans to shed workers and businesses and revamp technology hurt results. He echoed remarks by Tidjane Thiam, Credit Suisse Group AG’s new CEO, who laid out his reorganization plan last week. Rising charges for misconduct and restructuring forced Barclays Plc to cut its profitability target for 2016.

More than seven years after the financial crisis, Europe’s biggest securities firms are still shaking up their businesses to cope with stricter regulation and fines for misleading clients and manipulating markets. The three banks have yet to dispel investor doubts about their growth prospects in the face of increasing capital requirements and competition from U.S. rivals.  Read more

Yuan Rises Most Since 2005 as PBOC Mulls Easing Capital Controls

The yuan surged the most since China scrapped a dollar peg in 2005 as the central bank said it will consider a trial program in the Shanghai free trade zone allowing domestic individual investors to directly buy overseas assets.

The Chinese currency rose 0.62 percent, the most since July 2005, to close at 6.3175 a dollar in Shanghai, according to China Foreign Exchange Trade System prices. The offshore yuan in Hong Kong climbed 0.51 percent to 6.3260 as of 4:41 p.m. local time. The People’s Bank of China earlier strengthened its daily onshore reference rate by 0.16 percent to 6.3495.  Read more

Oil Producers Curb Megaproject Ambitions to Focus on U.S. Shale

Big U.S. oil companies are starting to think small.

A stubborn 16-month crude rout with no end in sight is driving the largest U.S. oil producers away from costly, high-risk megaprojects long touted as the industry’s future and toward safer shale operations that generate the cash needed to satisfy anxious investors.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips and Hess Corp. have all either delayed or abandoned projects that range from the deep seas of the Gulf of Mexico to Canada’s oil sands and the U.S. Arctic. At the same time, Exxon and Chevron both announced plans to substantially increase U.S. crude production, largely as a result of their shale operations.  Read more

Did Russian Airstrikes Force U.S. to Include Iran in Syria Talks?

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday Russia’s military intervention in Syria had not compelled the administration’s shift in policy on letting Iran participate in multilateral talks on ending the conflict.

“Is the U.S. forced to include Iran in the process?” Kirby was asked at his daily briefing, one day before widely anticipated talks in Vienna to which Iran has been invited for the first time.  Read more

Senate passes budget and debt deal, sends measure to Obama

In a rare late-night session, the Senate gave final approval to an ambitious budget and debt deal early Friday, sending it to President Barack Obama to sign.

The final vote on passage was 64-35, as Democrats joined forces with Republican defense hawks over the objections of GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, all of whom voted against the deal. The bill is aimed at averting a debt default, avoiding a partial government shutdown and setting spending priorities for the next two years.

Earlier in Friday's session, the Senate voted 63-35 to end debate on the measure. The vote to approve the bill was taken just after 3 a.m. EDT.  Read more

China's Easing of Birth Limit a Boon to Couples, Companies Read more: China's Easing of Birth Limit a Boon to Couples, Companies

China's decision to abolish its one-child policy is a boon not only to couples but to sellers of goods from formula to diapers to toys. And it might help to defuse economic stresses caused by an aging population.
The impact of the surprise change announced Thursday is expected to be gradual. But with incomes rising in the world's most populous country, even a small uptick in births could translate to higher demand from Chinese that ripples around the world.  Read more

Moldovan Parliament Dismisses Govt, Bringing Instability

The Moldovan government lost a no-confidence vote Thursday and was dismissed by Parliament, plunging the impoverished East European country into uncertainty.
Sixty-five lawmakers in the 101-seat legislature voted against the government of Prime Minister Valeriu Strelet, who was appointed July 30. Parliament now has three months to approve a new government or a new election will be held.
After the vote Thursday, Democratic Party leader Marian Lupu said he wanted to form another pro-European government.
Tensions within the pro-European ruling coalition have grown since the Oct. 15 arrest of Vlad Filat, the prime minister from 2009 to 2013, over a massive bank fraud. Filat was arrested on charges of taking bribes of $260 million, allegedly linked to a fraud in which up to $1.5 billion went missing from three Moldovan banks ahead of the November 2014 parliamentary election.  Read more

The 51 Coolest Cars of the last 50 Years

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US GROUND TROOPS IN SYRIA IS "ILLEGAL, BIG MISTAKE", RUSSIA WARNS OBAMA OF "UNPREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES"

The change in rhetoric (and apparent shift in strategy) comes just days after the US seemingly prepared the public for what might be coming by releasing helmet cam footage of what Washington says was a raid on an ISIS prison by Delta Force (accompanied by the Peshmerga). 70 prisoners were allegedly freed although not before the US suffered its first combat death in Iraq since 2011.

The timing of the video is suspect, to say the least. It came just days after Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford visited Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi in an effort to dissuade Baghdad from requesting Russian airstrikes on ISIS targets. In short, it appears as though Washington is trying to simultaneously,  i) prove to Mid-East governments that the US can still be effective in the fight against terrorism even as questions remain about ulterior motives and even as Russia racks up gains in Syria, ii) prepare the public for the possibility that America is about to put boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Here’s more from WSJ on Washington’s new “strategy”:

The White House is seriously considering deploying a small squadron of Apache attack helicopters to Iraq as part of a package of new assistance programs to counter Islamic State, according to U.S. officials.

The move could ultimately require the deployment of hundreds more U.S. service members to Iraq. Among other proposals, U.S. officials said some in the military recommend openly deploying a small number of forces on the ground in Syria, embedded among moderate rebels or Kurdish forces there, for the first time.  Read more

22 Ancient Shipwrecks Discovered Near Greek Island

Shipwrecks were the stuff of lore around the craggy coasts of Fourni, a Greek archipelago close to Turkey in the eastern Aegean Sea. Generations of local fishermen and sponge divers had seen piles of ancient pottery collecting algae on the seafloor. Last month, a group of marine archaeologists finally investigated the waters, and their wealthof findings far exceeded expectations.

During the very first dive of the expedition, the team found the remains of a late Roman-period wreck strewn with sea grass in shallow water. By day 5, the researchers had discovered evidence of nine more sunken ships. The next day, they found another six. By the time the 13-day survey was finished, the divers had located 22 shipwrecks— some more than 2,500 years old — that had never been scientifically documented before.  Read more

Steve McQueen and the Sexiest Cars and Motorcycles on Film

In 1970, Steve McQueen, Hollywood’s King of Cool and outspoken gearhead, had it all—until he began making Le Mans, his movie about the famous 24-hour French race. Production was plagued by money problems, on-set rivalries, and his own torrid love life, chronicled in the new documentary Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans. Before the film’s Nov. 13 premiere, we look back at the actor’s most famous roles, in which the vehicles are as memorable as he is.

Click to view

Cooling Off the South China Sea

Conflicting claims over the sea don’t have to degenerate into open hostility.

On Oct. 27 the simmering waters of the South China Sea came to a slow boil. A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Lassen, conducted a freedom-of-navigation cruise within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese-built artificial island in the Spratly archipelago. The Chinese government vowed to “firmly react to this deliberate provocation.”

There’s a scenario in which gunboat diplomacy degenerates into outright hostilities. Ships bump, planes collide, shots are fired. Sailors and airmen die. Carefully cultivated diplomatic relations unravel, and commerce and investment between the world’s two biggest economies break down.  Read more

Why the FDA Is Worried About Chinese Drugs in Your Medicine Cabinet

• Inspections find deleted data, altered quality test records
• Chinese companies supply ingredients to top brand drugmakers
• When FDA inspectors showed up at a Chinese company that supplies key ingredients to two of the U.S.’s biggest drug companies, a curious thing happened.

  After lunch, they walked into a quality control lab on the second floor, where they saw a worker pull what looked like a memory stick from a computer and put it in the pocket of his lab coat. The inspectors asked to see what he’d taken.

  And then the man turned and ran.

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors at Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Co. never found out what the worker took from the computer, but they found plenty of other things, according to agency documents describing problems at the company, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg. There was evidence that quality control staff deleted records of tests that might show a drug was impure. Audit trails disappeared. A paper shredder was kept close by machines that recorded quality data.  Read more

The Trouble With Saving 21 Trillion Yuan

Economist Liang Hong argues that Chinese authorities are missing a trick in their efforts to fix what ails the nation’s economy. The central bank is cutting interest rates to ease China’s heavy debt burden, but the fiscal authorities are working in the opposite direction. They’re sucking more money out of the economy through taxes, fees, and other measures than the government is giving back, Liang says. Public institutions have so much money that they’re socking away huge sums in bank deposits, “a peculiar phenomenon existing only in China,” she wrote in an August report.

“The government is oversaving,” Liang said in a September interview in her office at the Beijing headquarters of China International Capital (CICC), an investment bank where she serves as chief economist. As a result, she says, “the economy is not running efficiently.”  Read more

FBI WARNING NATION’S POLICE OF ‘ANARCHIST HALLOWEEN REVOLT’ PLOT

The FBI has issued an alert to police departments across the country warning that anarchist groups are planning a “Halloween revolt” plot aimed at attacking local police during Halloween week.

The New York Post learned the FBI said that a group called the “National Liberation Militia” is planning to don costumes and then to causes disturbances that will draw police to the scene. Then, the FBI warns, the groups intend to ambush the responding officers.

The FBI has refused to comment further on the threat, only saying that the alert sent to police agencies across the country was part of a “continuous dialogue” with police departments.

Los Angeles police have determined that the warning is not based on a “credible threat” in their city. New York police also reported that there is no known threat to the Big Apple.  Read more

Seriously? Energy Department smashes pumpkins for causing climate change

Richard's comments: The Climate Extremists just can't leave anything alone anymore.  That's because they believe everyone else is STUPID!

How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”  Read more

Next Year’s UN Human Rights Council Will Have the Smallest Proportion of ‘Free’ Members, Ever

The U.N. Human Rights Council in 2016 will have just 18 countries rated as “free” out of a total of 47 – the lowest number in the body’s decade-old history.

For the first time since the HRC was created in 2006, the proportion of members designated “free” by the Washington-based democracy watchdog, Freedom House, will drop next year to below 40 percent.

The United States will not be a member next year, having served the maximum two consecutive terms following the Obama administration’s decision to re-engage with the Geneva-based HRC in 2009.

American taxpayers account for 22 percent of the HRC's operating budget.  Read more

Paris Protocol Amounts to Massive Transfer of the Wealth of Nations

Delegates from around the world willmeet in Paris in December to negotiate an international climate treaty with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Some countries will push a “green” agenda to increase use of energy resources such as wind and solar, and decrease the use of more affordable, reliable, and efficient energy from coal, oil, and natural gas.  Read more

The Fatal Blindness of Unrealistic Expectations

We are damned to fail when we avoid hard truths.

My old employer, Yahoo!, has been in the news again of late.

Its latest CEO (and former Googler), Marissa Meyer, is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where she has just given her first televised interview detailing her strategy for the beleaguered web giant.

I wish her and the current team at Yahoo! well with their plans, I really do. The saga of Yahoo!'s descent over the past decade was heartbreaking to watch and experience from the inside. I'd love to see the company find a way to become a leader again.

But I don't have faith. 

In my opinion, the company can't be "fixed." At least not the way the tech pundits and the past parade of Yahoo! CEOs have touted it can.

Why? Because of a congenital failure to define its identity, paired with a chronic refusal to be honest with itself.

I get asked a lot for my opinion regarding Yahoo!'s fall from grace. I believe the seeds of its failure were sown from the beginning, and I've come up with the following analogy to make it as intuitive as possible. It all starts at the very formation of the company.  Read more

SCALIA: ‘LIBERAL’ SUPREME COURT DESTROYING OUR DEMOCRACY

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told an audience at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley that the Supreme Court is “liberal,” not conservative–and that its views herald “the destruction of our democratic system.”

The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Scalia also blasted the notion of a “living Constitution,” one whose meaning changes over time for different circumstances–as interpreted by judges with their own personal biases.

“For Pete’s sake, [the Constitution] is a legal document…It means what it says and it doesn’t mean what it doesn’t say….People don’t say anymore, ‘It’s unconstitutional.” Instead, anything you hate should be prohibited and anything you love should be supported by the Constitution. I don’t know where this comes from,” he said, according to the San Jose Mercury News.  Read more

Demand for Gold Surges in Third Quarter; Chinese On Pace for Record

Investors and central banks around the world are buying gold.

Overall worldwide demand for the yellow metal surged during the third quarter. According to a Reuters report, demand for gold coins and gold bars, along with buying by central banks, drove a 7% Q3 increase.

"Demand for gold coins and bars jumped by 26% year-on-year in the last quarter, GFMS analysts at Thomson Reuters reported in the Q3 update of their Gold Survey 2015. Retail investment surged in top consumers India, China and Germany, with buying rising 30%, 26% and 19% respectively. Those three markets alone accounted for an additional 26 tons of retail buying.”  Read more

Pending Sales of Previously Owned U.S. Homes Unexpectedly Fall

• NAR's monthly index declines by most since December 2013
• Purchase contracts decrease in all four U.S. regions

Contract signings to purchase previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly fell in September by the most since the end of 2013, indicating the residential real estate market is cooling from its recent brisk pace.

An index of pending home sales dropped 2.3 percent in September after a 1.4 percent decline a month earlier, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. The decrease exceeded the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

A limited selection of properties may be dissuading some from trading up, while stricter credit standards are making it difficult for others to qualify for loans. At the same time, housing demand will probably be underpinned by cheap borrowing costs and employment opportunities.  Read more

Economic Growth Cools as U.S. Companies Rein in Inventories

The economy in the U.S. expanded at a slower pace in the third quarter as companies took advantage of gains in consumer and business spending to reduce bloated stockpiles.

Gross domestic product grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate, in line with the 1.6 percent median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, Commerce Department data showed Thursday in Washington. Excluding the biggest swing in inventories in four years, the pace of growth was 3 percent compared with 3.9 percent in the previous three months.

Household purchases, buoyed by job and income gains, will probably continue to underpin the world’s largest economy even as weaker demand from overseas customers holds back exports and manufacturing. The quick re-balancing of stockpiles to be more in line with domestic demand heading into the holiday season indicates factory production will soon stabilize, eliminating a source of weakness.  Read more details

China Ends One-Child Cap After Three Decades to Lift Growth

Richard's comment:  Apparently, China needs more citizens to boost economic growth.  Great reason to have kids.  Will this cut in half the 13 million abortions they perform every year?

• Policy change part of Xi Jinping's new five-year plan
• Shares of baby-formula maker Danone jump on news of change

China abandoned the one-child policy that has shaped society since the late-1970s as the ruling Communist Party tries to boost a shrinking workforce and manage the country’s transition to an era of slower economic growth.

The party’s Central Committee approved plans to allow all couples to have two children, the official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday, citing a communique released at the end of a four-day party policy meeting in Beijing. The move, which had beenexpected, comes after a previous effort to relax the policy fell well short of the goal of boosting births by 2 million a year.  Read more

China abandons one-child policy, allows two children for all: Xinhua

China says it will abandon its more than 30-year-old one-child policy and allow couples to have two children, Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday. The news come at the end of a four-day Communist Party gathering in Beijing, where party leaders discussed measures to ensure growth. China eased its one-child policy in 2014 in a bid to tackle serious gender imbalances and rapid aging of the population. Under the revised policy from 2014, couples were allowed to have a second child if either was an only child, but the expected baby boom failed to appear.

More to come...

World Congress of Families kicks off with message of action

SALT LAKE CITY — Action was the word of the day at the World Congress of Families, which kicked off its first conference on U.S. soil Tuesday.

Over a day of forums and panels, speakers repeatedly declared the battle over abortion, marriage and families is reaching a critical point.

Gov. Gary Herbert and Utah's first lady Jeanette Herbert gave a brief welcoming speech Tuesday evening. The Herberts, avoiding mention of any specific hot-button political issues, touted Utah as a family oriented state and talked about the importance of raising children with strong morals, rooted in strong families.  Read more

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS: THE SECRET TO THEIR SUCCESS

A new survey highlights the traits that female business owners share—and where they could stand to improve.

Men launch businesses at about twice the rate that women do, according to the Kauffman Foundation. That being said, the number of women-owned firms from 2007 to 2014 increased by 17 percent, compared to an overall increase of 13 percent, American Express Open research found.

GET SUPPORT: Learn how being an NFIB member can help you run your small business and save thousands of dollars.

What traits are shared by women who start a business? KPMG’s recent survey Women Entrepreneurs: Passion, Purpose and Perseverance notes these trends:  Read more

Scientists say this 191-year-old symphony could help your heart health.

I'm going to play you a song.

You probably know it. In fact, you probably know it extremely well.

When it comes to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the fourth movement pretty much gets all the love, glory, and fame (not to mention all the sweeeeet electric guitar covers). Which is a shame.

Because the third movement might have magical healingpowers.

Seriously.Read more

According to a group of fancy Oxford University scientists, listening to the third movement of Beethoven's No. 9 might actually lower your blood pressure and help fight heart disease. In real life

Cops Fired For Telling the Truth about Black Violence

If you know a cop, you know a hero.

And today, heroes are getting fired for a new kind of bravery: telling the truth about black crime and black on white racial hostility.

They already have enough to do: George Orwell famously said “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

In Salt Lake City, it is going to take a crowbar to remove the police department t-shirts from the backs of two grateful 20-something sisters who were recently attacked and stabbed by a black intruder. A cop rushed in and killed the predator as he tensed to thrust his knife into one of the sisters. Again. Probably for the final time.  Read more

Tuberculosis now rivals AIDS as leading cause of death: WHO

For the first time, tuberculosis infections rivaled HIV/AIDS as a leading cause of death from infectious diseases, the World Health Organization said in a report released on Wednesday.

It found that during 2014, 1.1 million people died of TB in 2014. During the same period, HIV/AIDS killed 1.2 million people globally, including 400,000 who were infected with both HIV and TB.

Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO TB program, said the report reflects the dramatic gains in access to HIV/AIDS treatment in the past decade, which has helped many people survive their infections. But it also reflects disparities in funding for the two global killers.  Read more

AP-GFK POLL: AMERICANS STILL FEELING ECONOMIC GLOOM

Americans are more likely than they were a year ago to have positive views of the nation's economy, but they're still feeling more pessimism than optimism, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll conducted ahead of CNBC's GOP primary debate on Wednesday.

The candidates will attempt to impress Republicans in particular, who the poll finds feel much gloomier about the economy than Democrats.

Here are some things to know about opinions on the economy from the latest AP-GfK poll:  Read more

Rep. Gosar Introduces Bill to Repeal ‘Wet Foot, Dry Foot’ Cuban Amnesty

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has introduced legislation to repeal “outdated policies” he says "provide amnesty to Cuban aliens" - including the Clinton-era “wet foot, dry foot” policy.

The Ending Special National Origin-Based Immigration Programs for Cubans Act of 2015 would repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which originally allowed any Cubans who had been living in the U.S. for two years to become legal permanent residents.

In 1976, the Act was amended to reduce the residency requirement to one year.  Read more

UN Official Warns of 'Amputation' of Christianity's DNA in the Middle East

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres expressed concern Tuesday over the exodus of Christians in the Middle East because of the conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Guterres said that speaking “as a Christian,” he was “worried about what’s happening in the Middle East.” Guterres referenced the Middle Eastern origins of Christianity and said a religious cleansing of Christians from that part of the world would be “an amputation in the DNA of Christianity and in the DNA of the Middle East.”  Read more

EPA’S CLEAN POWER PLAN IS A DIRTY TRICK, SAYS SMALL BIZ

Small business won a victory against overregulation with the temporary blocking of the WOTUS rule. But it sure didn’t take the EPA long to come up with another business-busting plan.

That’s why, on Oct. 23, the NFIB Small Business Legal Center announced that it would lead a coalition of business groups in a lawsuit to invalidate the EPA’s new power plant rule, which forces states to shutter many of their coal-power electric energy generators, which supply most of America’s electricity, in favor of costly alternatives that might not be as reliable.

Even the administration expects its Clean Power Plan to drive up the cost of electricity, the impact of which will fall hard on small businesses that depend heavily on affordable energy. A recent NFIB survey shows that the cost of electricity is already a top concern among small business owners across the country.  Read more

Fed circles December for possible rate hike

Central bank holds interest rates steady at nearly zero.

The Federal Reserve kept interest rates close to zero for yet another meeting but said it would focus on its “next meeting” in mid-December on whether to raise interest rates.

In new language in the statement, the Fed said it would determine “whether it will be appropriate to raise the target range at its next meeting.” Previous statements have not had any time element to this statement, saying only that policymakers “would determine how long to maintain” rates close to zero.Read more