Tim Allen to tackle PC culture in comedy and colleges as part of a new docudrama Actor Tim Allen has joined the cast of new movie aimed at disrupting the liberal and PC culture in Hollywood, on college campuses and in comedy. Allen’s “Last Man Standing” sitcom was canceled last year and outraged fans believe ABC pulled the plug because the family comedy highlighted conservative values. ABC denied it was over politics. Allen has signed onto the docudrama “No Safe Spaces” that’s expected to hit theaters in the fall. Fellow comedian Adam Carolla and conservative radio show host Dennis Prager are making the movie to promote free speech at a time they say the entertainment industry, media and college campuses too often shut down or blackball controversial viewpoints. “Nothing kills comedy quite like people who are constantly offended,” Carolla told the Post. “It’s impossible to be funny if we’re not allowed to poke fun at each other and that’s what’s happening with a new generation of people who seem to be offended for a living. “If we can’t have fun with one another than we lose our humanity. If free speech goes, then our basic freedoms will follow soon after.” Agreed!! Can’t wait to see this!! To read more, click on the text above. 🙂
Dow ends January with a rally, extends winning streak Wall Street moved higher Wednesday, capping a strong run in January and clinching the Dow’s best winning streak since 1959. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 72 points to 26,149. The S&P 500 advanced 1.4 points to 2,823. The Nasdaq Composite was up 9 points at 7,411. Despite a pullback to start the week, the Dow and S&P 500 completed their best January performances since 2016. The indexes also posted their 10th consecutive monthly gains—the strongest run in nearly 60 years. The Nasdaq has seven straight monthly gains to its credit. “Equities continue to drift upward, achieving returns in the first four weeks of the year that are often typical for an entire year,” U.S. Bank Wealth Management chief equity strategist Terry Sandven wrote in a note to clients this week. “While year-to-date performance is superb, the data still seems supportive of higher stock prices.” Stocks pulled back slightly later in Wednesday’s session after the Federal Reserve signaled a possible interest rate hike in March. The central bank also raised its inflation forecast, encouraged by low unemployment and stronger household spending. Wednesday marked the end of the final two-day policy meeting Opens a New Window. under Chair Janet Yellen, who will be replaced by Jerome Powell in February. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond dipped slightly to 2.722% from 2.725%. Yields fall as bond prices rise. West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose 23 cents, or 0.4%, to $64.73 a barrel. AT&T (T) shares jumped in after-hours trading, as the telecommunications giant beat Wall Street’s estimates for fourth-quarter earnings. Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook (FB) also reported better earnings than expected. More great news!! 🙂
Dow pops 140 points, closes at record after Caterpillar and 3M earnings The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record on Thursday on the back of stronger-than-expected quarterly results from Caterpillar and 3M. The 30-stock index gained 140.67 points to close at 26,392.79. The Dow rose as much as 206 points but came off its highs after President Donald Trump told CNBC the dollar will get “stronger and stronger” under his leadership. The dollar index reversed losses and traded higher by 0.1 percent. The S&P 500 pared most of its gains and closed 0.1 percent higher at 2,839.25, a record. The Nasdaq composite gave up its gains and closed 0.1 percent lower at 7,411.16. Earlier, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq followed the Dow higher as a strong earnings season rolled on. “The numbers companies are releasing, along with the upbeat views from executives, is helping analysts lift their estimates and that’s helping stocks advance,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney. “You [also] have strong U.S. and overseas economic growth, and that is supportive for stocks.” Shares of Caterpillar rose as much as 2.8 percent before finishing 0.6 percent higher, while 3M gained 1.9 percent. Celgene and McCormick also reported better-than-forecast quarterly earnings and sales. “This is going to be earnings-driven for the next couple of weeks,” said Tim Dreiling, regional investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “Thus far, it’s been terrific news.” Terrific indeed!! To read the rest of this article, click on the text above. 🙂
Dead Sea Scrolls discovery: Obscure fragments deciphered One of the last two parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls has finally been translated, thanks to researchers at the University of Haifa. Dr. Eshbal Ratson and Prof. Jonathan Ben-Dov of the Department of Bible Studies managed to put together 60 tiny fragments over more than a year, obtaining fresh insight into a festival that marked the changing of the seasons. First discovered in a cave in Qumran in 1947, there are 900 scrolls which make up the Dead Sea Scrolls; together, the collection is considered to be the oldest copy of the Bible in known existence, thought to have been created around the 4th century B.C. The majority of the scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956, and have since been restored and published. Also included in the newly discovered fragment is a part that deals with the 364-day calendar, celebrated by the ancient Judean Desert sect. It’s unclear who created the Dead Sea Scrolls, but some researchers have suggested a group known as the Essenes are responsible. The Essenes existed from the 2nd century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. The festivals that were used to celebrate the changing of seasons include the festival of New Wheat, New Wine and New Oil, related to the Jewish festival of Shavuot. According to the calendar, the wheat festival took place 50 days after the Shabbat that followed Passover. Fifty days later, the wine harvest festival came and 50 days after that was the oil harvest festival. The scroll also said there was a special day for the changing of the seasons, known as Tekufah, which in Hebrew translates to “period.” “This term is familiar from the later Rabbinical literature and from mosaics dating to the Talmudic period, and we could have assumed that it would also be used with this meaning in the scrolls, but this is the first time it has been revealed,” Dr. Ratson and Prof. Ben-Dov explained in a press release. “The lunar calendar, which Judaism follows to this day, requires a large number of human decisions,” the researchers added. “People must look at the stars and moon and report on their observations, and someone must be empowered to decide on the new month and the application of leap years. By contrast, the 364-day calendar was perfect. Because this number can be divided into four and seven, special occasions always fall on the same day,” they wrote. Interestingly enough, Dr. Ratson and Prof. Ben-Dov were able to decipher the code from annotations made in the margins, by correcting omissions from the original author. “What’s nice is that these comments were hints that helped me figure out the puzzle — they showed me how to assemble the scroll,” Dr. Ratzon said in an interview with Haaretz. Fascinating!! 🙂
Angel Mom Agnes Gibboney on DACA: ‘We Don’t Owe Illegal Aliens Anything’ “We don’t owe illegal aliens anything. Why do people feel that we owe them anything?” asked Angel Mom Agnes Gibboney on Tuesday, reflecting on how she will soon commemorate her late son’s birthday at his grave. Her son, Ronald da Silva, was murdered in 2007 in El Monte, California, by an illegal immigrant gang member. Gibboney joined SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight, hosted by Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak, to share her views of ongoing Capitol Hill negotiations pertaining to the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy and broader immigration and border security issues. “In five days, my son would have been 45 years old,” said Gibboney. “In five days, I’m going to be sitting in a cemetery caressing his headstone, at the cemetery with a cupcake, singing “Happy Birthday” to him. So does he know what my pain is? We families that have lost a loved one because our government didn’t protect us are suffering, and we’re going to suffer until the end, until we go and meet our loved ones. They have no idea.” Gibboney read from a letter she composed and recently sent to President Donald Trump on behalf of her late son. “As a U.S. citizen born in Long Beach, California, in 1973, I am having my mommy, as I called her, sign this letter. You see, I am unable to sign it because my life was cut short by a previously deported illegal alien in 2002. I have no voice. I became a statistic. All I am is a memory.” The memories of American citizens killed or murdered by illegal aliens demand construction of a border wall, said Gibboney. “They need to know my son would have stood for this. All these victims that were killed by illegal aliens would have stood for the wall. Their dreams were cut short. Does anybody, does any politician ever talk about the dreams that our victims had?” Gibboney further listed her immigration reform and border security priorities in her letter to the president. “I ask you to please continue to fight for the wall–no DACA, no amnesty, end birthright citizenship, mandatory E-Verify, increased border patrol agents, end chain migration, [and] set up a biometric system to remove all visa overstays.” “Congress wants nothing but to protect illegal aliens,” said Gibboney about Capitol Hill’s focus on legislative amnesty proposals for illegal aliens. “I feel that the Democrats are standing in our way,” said Gibboney. “They are doing nothing but standing in President Trump’s way.” “Shame on them,” said Gibboney of Democrats. “Instead of working with our government to secure our borders to make sure that American citizens and people that are coming to visit this country are safe, not being taken over by illegal aliens disrespecting this country, demanding things be given to them, shutting down offices in Washington, DC. This is an outrage.” “Why are we having to negotiate with our government to obey our laws?” asked Gibboney. “We have laws for illegal immigrants. We have laws pertaining to immigration. Anyone who breaks these laws or enables another person to do should be deported or imprisoned. I don’t understand why we’re having such a discussion.” Any extension of amnesty to DACA recipients must be narrow, said Gibboney, listing her preferred criteria for such a measure: “You can apply [for a green card], but if you have any criminal record, if you have ever applied for public assistance, you’re out. And I’m not talking about a felony that was reduced to a misdemeanor that most of the time they’re doing now. Any criminal record, you’re out. You have to have graduated from high school, college, and have an ability to support yourself. And none of this giving legal papers to the mother and three or four siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins. None of that anymore. We need to stop that. President Reagan did that several years ago, and it’s proven to be a disaster. We can’t go on like that. We can’t make the same mistake.” Having recently seen border wall prototypes near the southern border, Gibboney expressed hope. “Those prototypes, those samples gave me hope. Hope that not another American citizen will be killed.” “The physical wall is necessary,” added Gibboney, noting that varying topography along the U.S.-Mexico border with require varying forms of barriers. Wow.. A powerful personal story here; a story that needs to told.
Senate approves Alex Azar as HHS secretary The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Alex Azar as secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, entrusting a former pharmaceutical executive to tamp down drug prices and steer President Trump’s attempts to reshape Obamacare. A handful of Democrats joined all but one Republican in approving the nominee, 55-43, brushing aside liberal voices who said Mr. Azar’s track record of raising prices at drugmaker Eli Lilly made him the wrong man for the job. Republicans said Mr. Azar’s resume was an asset, not a liability. A sharp lawyer who served in the Bush administration, Mr. Azar is said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of how HHS works and a firm grasp on how perverse market incentives are driving drug prices upward. “His distinguished record – including prior HHS service as deputy secretary and private-sector work – shows he is the right man for the job,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnnell said. “It is vital that this department be headed by a leader with Mr. Azar’s extensive qualifications and excellent reputation.” Mr. Azar will fill a secretary chair that’s been occupied by acting boss Eric D. Hargan for several months. President Trump’s first pick for the job — former congressman Tom Price — resigned amid revelations he used expensive charter planes for business travel. Once installed, Mr. Azar will oversee a sprawling, $1-trillion agency that regulates and approves drugs, combats disease and runs public health programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
CNN claim that an unmonitored asteroid could slam into earth during government shutdown is debunked Sadly, this is CNN. CNN personalities already blame virtually everything on President Trump and now the network has floated a theory that the earth could be jeopardized by an asteroid because of the government shutdown — but don’t worry, experts have already dubunked the fake news. CNN correspondent Tom Foreman said on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” that NASA could potentially stop monitoring asteroids during the shutdown. “A big one, by the way, is expected to brush by Earth on February 4,” Foreman said on Friday’s show. He explained that this occurred back in 2013 during the Obama administration when the government last shut down. “For more than two weeks, NASA reportedly stopped monitoring potentially dangerous asteroids,” he said. Foreman might not be the best when it comes to measuring things, as he said the anticipated asteroid will “brush by earth,” but it will actually be roughly 2.6 million miles away, according to Space.com. “NASA representatives say there’s no chance that it will collide with Earth,” Space.com reported. Center for Near-Earth-Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Paul Chodas told the site, which bills itself as “the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news,” that the asteroid CNN hyped “has no chance — zero — of colliding with Earth on Feb. 4 or any time over the next 100 years.” CNN has really become a laughing stock. It’s almost as bad as MSNBC; utter garbage and fake news.
Pompeo: North Korea ‘Handful of Months’ Away from Threatening U.S. with Nuclear Weapons Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) forum on the future of U.S. intelligence operations, CIA Director Mike Pompeo warned that North Korea could be a “handful of months” away from plausibly threatening the continental United States with nuclear weapons. Pompeo warned North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is advancing at a “very rapid clip.” He added that U.S. intelligence fears Kim would aggressively use nuclear weapons as a tool to conquer the entire Korean Peninsula. Pompeo repeated his recent warnings that “North Korea is ever closer to being able to hold America at risk,” but said the intelligence community is helping to hold them just shy of achieving their goals. “I said that was a handful of months,” he recalled. “I said the same thing several months before that. I want everyone to understand that we are working diligently to make sure that a year from now, I can still tell you they are several months away from having that capacity.” Later in his appearance, Pompeo clarified that he was not laying out a timeline where North Korea might be fielding nuclear missiles by the end of the summer, or anything quite so immediate. He said it was inappropriate to think in terms of timelines to landmark missile test launches. Instead, the real issue is reliability—“Can they reliably deliver the pain which Kim Jong-un wants to be able to deliver against the United States of America?” He explained: ” It’s one thing to be able to say, ‘Yes, it’s possible if everything went right, if the missile flew in the right direction, we could do it,’ as opposed to certainty. This is the core of deterrence theory. In the deterrence model, you have to be certain that what you aim to deliver will actually be successful. At the very least, you need to make sure your adversary believes that it is certain.” “That’s what Kim Jong-un is driving for. He is trying to put in our mind the reality that he can deliver that pain to the United States of America. Our mission is to make the day that he can do that as far off as possible,” Pompeo said. He disputed the commonly reported notion that the intelligence community was caught by surprise when North Korea’s nuclear program surged forward. “We’ll never get the week or the month right on something that’s this complicated, but we can get the direction of travel and the capacity for the rate of change right, and we did,” he insisted. During a question-and-answer session with AEI’s Marc Thiessen, Pompeo cautioned that he was not at liberty to divulge sensitive intelligence about North Korea, other than to say, “They have moved at a very rapid clip, make no mistake about it.” “They’re testing capacity has improved. The frequency that they have tests which are more materially successful has also improved, putting them ever closer to a place where Americans can be held at risk,” he said. Pompeo said the CIA believes Kim Jong-un to be a “rational actor,” and that his rational strategy is about more than achieving deterrence against conventional military action by the United States and its allies since the massive North Korean artillery threat to South Korean cities already provides such deterrence. Pompeo said the CIA believes that Kim wants “more than just regime preservation,” which is why the Trump administration is so determined to prevent him from achieving nuclear ICBM capability. They suspect Kim will not be content to become merely the latest authoritarian ruler sitting on an inventory of nuclear weapons he would never dare to use. Thiessen asked if Kim’s status as a “rational actor” meant limited military action to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program is possible since a rational state would not respond in a manner that guaranteed its own destruction. “I’m thrilled that you asked that. I’m equally happy not to answer,” Pompeo replied. “Let me say this, though: the American people should know we’re working to prepare a series of options to make sure that we can deliver a range of things, so the president will have the full suite of possibilities.” “We are in a much better place today than we were twelve months ago,” he said. “We are still suffering from having gaps. Part of that is not the intelligence community’s fault per se. These are difficult target sets. I’ll concede that at the outset. But it’s completely inadequate for the CIA to say, ‘Well, that’s a hard problem.’ Of course it’s a hard problem. That’s why you pay us.” He said the CIA’s top priorities in North Korea included analyzing its command structure, determining how sanctions affect various individuals and layers of North Korean society, and who might be helping the Kim regime mitigate the effects of sanctions.
Federal Spending Set Record During Shutdown Federal spending for the fourth Monday in January set a record of $16,596,000,000 for that day in January even though the federal government was shut down, according to the Daily Treasury Statement. The House of Representatives did not pass the current short-term continuing resolution to fund the government and end the latest shutdown until 6:09 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday. That was after the close of the business day in Washington, D.C., which made Monday the one federal-government business day effected by the lastest shut down. (The other two days of the shut down were a Saturday and a Sunday.) But the $16,596,000,000 that the federal government spent on Monday–when it was shut down–was more in constant inflation-adjusted dollars than the federal government has spent before on the fourth Monday in January, according to the Daily Treasury Statements (going back to 1998) that are posted on the website of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The second highest federal spending on a fourth Monday in January came on Monday, Jan. 26, 2009—six days into Barack Obama’s presidency. On that Monday, the federal government spent $14,667,000,000 in constant December 2017 dollars (adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator). The third highest federal spending on a fourth Monday in January came on Monday, Jan. 24, 2011, when the government spent $13,761,140,000 in constant December 2017 dollars. In 1998, the earliest year for which the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has posted Daily Treasury Statements online, the federal government spent $7,725,230,000 on the fourth Monday of January (Jan. 26, 1998) in constant December 2017 dollars. Although the federal government spent a record $16,596,000,000 on the fourth Monday in January this year—and even though the federal government was shut down that day—the federal government did not run a deficit on that day. That is because it brought in $17,117,000,000 in tax revenue. That was not a record for tax revenue for the fourth Monday in January. On Jan. 23, 2018—the fourth Monday in January of last year—the federal government brought in $17,117,000,000 in tax revenue in constant December 2017 dollars. The largest expenditure the federal government made on Monday—when it was shut down—was $3,746,000,000 in “marketplace payments,” which are subsidies for health insurance plans purchased on the Obamacare exchanges. The second largest expenditure was $1,971,000,000 for Medicare and other Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services expenses. The third largest was $1,764,000,000 spent on Department of Education programs.
Comcast hopes for a TV windfall from Super Bowl, Olympics Comcast’s NBC is airing both the Super Bowl and the Olympics in February, a double-whammy sports extravaganza that the company expects to yield $1.4 billion in ad sales, helping it justify the hefty price it’s paying for both events. NBC is banking heavily on these sports events since traditional TV ratings have slumped in recent years. Live sports are marquee TV events that draw most of the largest TV audiences, but even those ratings have declined. More Americans are dumping their cable packages — Comcast lost 33,000 video customers in the fourth quarter and 151,000 for all of 2017 — and advertisers are following consumers to their phones. Spending on U.S. TV ads is expected to grow an anemic 0.4 percent this year, according to eMarketer. In the October-December quarter, NBCUniversal’s broadcast TV ad revenue fell 6.5 percent, after a boost in 2016 from election ads. As it adapts to a slowing TV market, NBC is continuing some digital efforts from Rio and expanding others to meet viewers wherever they are — whether in front of a TV or not. The Super Bowl reaches more than 100 million people in the U.S., outstripping every other TV event. It’s the most expensive ad time on TV. This year’s Super Bowl is Feb. 4 and follows a two-year slump in regular-season NFL ratings, according to ESPN . But NBC has said it is not worried about a lack of interest. The game is an event that “transcends sport and even the game itself,” Dan Lovinger, an NBC Sports ad-sales executive, said in January, about three weeks before the game. NBC said then that it had nearly sold out Super Bowl ad spots and that on average, companies are paying more than $5 million for 30-second ads during the game. Kantar Media expects rates slightly higher than last year’s $5.05 million. Fox aired the Super Bowl in 2017, and said it had $500 million in ad revenues for the day. NBC has predicted about $500 million for the game and associated events this year. NBC also makes money from ads during events before and after the game and a special episode that day of its hit drama, “This is Us.” For the first time, it’s selling ads for the game that will only appear on its app or website. NBC is paying $963 million for the broadcast rights to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, which follow a Summer Olympics in Rio two years ago that disappointed in some ways. NBC ruled the airwaves during the Rio Games, besting other networks, and raked in $250 million in profit. But ratings for the prime-time broadcast declined compared to the London Olympics in 2012, so NBC had to give advertisers some extra ad slots to make up for it. This time around, NBC will sell ads for this Olympics based on total viewership, counting cable and digital viewers as well as those who tune into NBC proper. That gives them more leverage with advertisers, said Brian Wieser, an ad analyst for Pivotal Research Group. NBC expects to sell more than $900 million worth of ads for the Olympics, which it says would be the highest ever for a Winter Games. (Summer Games are more popular.) The company is offering more hours of programming this year, both on TV and online, than it did for the Sochi Games in 2014. Past Olympics have been criticized by fans for tape-delayed events. This year, NBC will air its nightly prime-time broadcast simultaneously across the country. That means the West Coast evening broadcast will start early, at 5 p.m. For more, click on the text above.
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