What on earth is the "chained CPI"?

The ins and outs of ‘chained CPI’ explained  " Here’s the bottom line: Using chained CPI instead of CPI-W means the rate at which those benefits tick up would be slower, because the former reflects substitutions consumers would make in response to rising prices of certain items.Therein lies the “chained” part of the name. The metric utilizes a basket of goods and services that are measured changes from month to month; much like a daisy chain. If the cost of a certain form of transportation goes up, for example, people might switch to another kind. This kind of “substitution” is part of what is factored into chained CPI."
So if the price of riding a bus goes up, they now figure you would ride a bike instead, as I understand it.
Some say this is a miniscule concession in order to get Republicans to agree on tax hikes, or Obama will attack them.

Wonkwire

Politico gives their explanation  ...."Moving to a chained CPI would make Social Security benefits increase by less each year. Since 1999, the chained CPI has increased by about .3 percent each year, less than the current CPI. With the same trend, people would overall receive a smaller increase in their benefits each year.
"Switching to the chained CPI would also serve as a tax increase, making more people qualify for certain tax levels or exempt for certain tax reductions."

Krauthammer’s Take: If We’re Stuck at Chained CPI, ‘We’re Going to End Up Like Cyprus’  So this is the most that Obama will do?
"Charles Krauthammer said on [Wednesday's] edition of Special Report that President Obama’s proposal to adopt chained CPI is a minimal concession, one recommended by virtually every expert and commission that has studied the matter."
 
Mr. Krauthammer does not even try to conceal his contempt for Obama in most of his commentary.

5 Things to Know About the Obama Budget plus a more in-depth assessment of it

The Obama Budget: Heritage Experts’ Analysis  "First, this budget is more than 60 days late (a whopping new record). The President had a statutory responsibility to deliver a budget proposal to the Congress on February 4. He did not do that, launching instead his “charm offensive.” The President’s budget is supposed to open the budget policy debates, giving the House and Senate his vision and agenda for them to consider as they develop their own budget plans. Not this year." Much more in depth in the article.  Massive New Government Preschool Initiative is discussed as is the "chained CPI".

The Foundry gives this concise summary of their objections to the Obama budget:   "President Obama finally released his budget yesterday—more than two months late.
"Heritage experts immediately went to work analyzing the mounds of new spending on education, manufacturing, “clean energy,” infrastructure, and small business.
"But the President didn’t stop at more of the same failed stimulus and Solyndra-type policies. He also piled on the tax increases—including on seniors, the poor, and the middle class.
"Five key things to know about President Obama’s budget:" Excerpts below:

1. It hikes taxes by $1.1 trillion....
...“There was little doubt that President Obama would propose a huge tax hike in his budget. It is a bit surprising, however, that the total tax increase he proposes is almost double what he claims it to be.”..
2. It underfunds defense....
...“While boosting domestic spending, the President remains indifferent to national security needs...
3. It doubles down on Obamacare....
The Obama budget actually expands parts of Obamacare and even includes new changes to Medicare that create two sneaky new “taxes” on seniors

 http://legalinsurrection.com/tag/a-f-branco/

4. It doesn’t balance and never will. ...
...“Because the budget never balances—it doesn’t even try—debt remains at dangerously elevated levels.”...
5. It’s irrelevant....
...The House and Senate have already passed their own budgets, and the next step is for the two chambers to come together to see if they can hash out a budget that both chambers can pass. At this point, why is the President bothering?

Stephen F. Hayes: Obama's Budget to Contradict 'Consensus Among People Who Know the Economy Best'  "How will raising taxes boost the economy? It won’t.

"In fact, Obama not long ago argued that raising taxes in a fragile economy would dampen growth, hurt business and create unemployment."

The economy that Obama worried about in early 2010 was coming off of a fourth quarter growth rate of 5.6 percent. Three years later the economy is growing at .4 percent. If Obama thought it was unwise to raise taxes with the economy growing at 5.6, why is it imperative to do so with the economy growing at .4 percent?

The Tragedy of the SS St Louis in 1939

In 1939 a shipload of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany reached the US but were turned away, eventually returning to Europe where many died at the hands of the Nazis. This is an account of that of that odyssey.

From the Holocaust Museum comes this account  "The passengers did not return to Germany, however. Jewish organizations (particularly the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with four European governments to secure entry visas for the passengers: Great Britain took 288 passengers; the Netherlands admitted 181 passengers, Belgium took in 214 passengers; and 224 passengers found at least temporary refuge in France. Of the 288 passengers admitted by Great Britain, all survived World War II save one, who was killed during an air raid in 1940. Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 (14%) managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. 532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278 survived the Holocaust. 254 died: 84 who had been in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France.

Jewish Virtual Library  

S.S. St. Louis surrounded by smaller vessels in the port of Havana

After Kristallnacht in November 1938, many Jews within Germany decided that it was time to leave. Though many German Jews had emigrated in the preceding years, the Jews who remained had a more difficult time leaving the country because emigration policies had been toughened. By 1939, not only were visas needed to be able to enter another country but money was also needed to leave Germany. Since many countries, especially the United States, had immigration quotas, visas were near impossible to acquire within the short time spans in which they were needed. For many, the visas were acquired after it was too late. "The opportunity that the S.S. St. Louis presented seemed like a last hope to escape. " From the Jerusalem Post, April 11, 2013 The question as to who gave the order to turn the St. Louis back to Europe is answered in the Roosevelt Library Archive in Hyde Park, New York. The “secretary of the treasury” mentioned in the article was Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Morgenthau, a Jew, contacted both the coast guard captain and Long, and when he complained to the latter concerning the decision to turn back the ship, Long shot back: “Exactly whose side are you on – the Jews or the United States of America?” The odyssey of the SS St Louis, Part 1        Part 2, the mock trial of FDR Artifacts from the voyage    Photo album made aboard the ship

The Man Obama Fears the Most

Newsmax  " If the White House’s actions toward Fox News are any clue, it’s Roger Ailes."

 

...."Among these stories is the dramatic struggle that has been taking place between Fox News and Obama.

"To say that the president hates Fox News may be an understatement. Early in his first term Obama actually sought to ban Fox News from the White House press corps, ripping away its press credential. Even liberal media were aghast at the president’s authoritarian move. The Obama administration backed down and Fox kept its White House seat."
....

"Some of Chafets’ many surprising revelations include:...."  Read more.

Coulter: Liberals Go Crazy for the Mentally Ill

Ann Coulter  "The one clear thread that unites all the mass murders currently being exploited by the Democrats is that they were committed by visibly crazy people who were unaccountably not institutionalized. But Democrats refuse to do anything about crazy people. Apparently, the views of families with relatives murdered by severely disturbed individuals are no longer relevant when it comes to institutionalizing the mentally ill.
"If liberals had a decent argument for taking guns away from the law-abiding while doing nothing to prevent schizophrenics from getting guns, they’d make it. Manifestly, they don’t, so they send out victims to make the argument for them, knowing no one will argue with a person whose child has just been murdered.
"This allows liberals to act as if Republicans’ only counter-argument to their idiotic gun control proposals is: We don’t mind dead children."
....

"Warning: Read the bill. You will find nothing in any of the Democrats’ “gun safety” proposals that will make it easier to commit a crazy person or to prevent him from buying a gun."

Eric Holder’s Schedule: Frequent Meetings With Race-Based Groups

PJ Media  "Attorney General Eric Holder began his tenure by calling Americans cowards regarding racial issues. Newly released documents reveal that Holder’s schedule shows a preoccupation with racial issues: he spends an inordinate amount of time meeting with race-centered organizations.

"Recently, the Department of Justice began making Holder’s daily schedules available online. Although the schedules are far from complete and heavily redacted, the compiled summary below (links to documents provided) shows how much time and access the office of the attorney general allocates to ethnocentric lobbyists and race-based associations."
"The following months are missing from DOJ’s released library of Holder’s schedule:

• 2009 January, April, December
• 2010 January — March; May — December
• 2011 July —
• Read more.

On left and right, Obama's budget anticipated as a dud

USA Today  "President Obama will unveil his budget later Wednesday, offering a fiscal plan that even before it's officially released is eliciting groans from his conservative opponents as well as his backers on the left.
"The president's 2014 budget details a plan for cutting the deficit by $1.8 trillion over the next decade, while also calling for billions of dollars in new spending to repair the country's infrastructure and bolster education, according to a White House overview of the document."

Obama’s Baby Step   "The president has some decent proposals, but his budget is still far from what we need."
...."Besides, anything that makes MoveOn.org and the AARP this angry can’t be all bad."

Small Gestures, Not a Grand Bargain  "President Obama’s budget will reportedly claim to reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion. Based on what we know, that number will result from the same double-counting and gimmickry of the Senate Democrats’ budget."

Obama’s 2014 budget plan to be delivered Wednesday — into a yawning political void  "The president’s proposal contains the same set of policies that Republicans rejected just a few months ago during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. Putting that plan into writing has failed to change many GOP minds, but it allows Obama to argue that he has met their demands to cut Social Security and Medicare. And it sets him up to blame Republican intransigence over taxes if a deal fails to materialize before Congress faces another showdown over the federal debt limit this summer."
In other words, I cannot see any trace of seriousness in this president nor any desire to govern. I see only a long-term desire to destroy opposition and to place America into the hands of socialists, whose economic policies have been proven over and over to be, well, bankrupt. On more than one level. TD

The battle over the 2014 budget: Explore the spending cuts and revenue changes under the main budget proposals currently on the table

 

Gutless wonders racing off a sinking ship

World Magazine  "The ship of marriage is sinking fast. Last week saw another noted public figure evacuating in a lifeboat from the S.S. Traditional Wedlock: Jim Wallis of Sojourners, who as recently as five years ago was for biblical marriage of a man and woman, is now for homosexual marriage. He has evolved. "
....
"A word about “evolving” at this point. In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, two erstwhile intellectual sparring partners meet to discuss their time at the university. I quote in part from the one who repented, speaking to the one who still prefers hell to humility and truth:

“Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned? … When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith? … We were afraid … afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, afraid of ridicule. …” 

  ...."Their only talent is to put their finger to the wind and detect a doomed current. These are men controlled by the idols of prevailing fashions of thinking."  Andrée Seu Peterson

Why Do We Laugh at North Korea but Fear Iran?

The Atlantic    "A man starves his own people and threatens to start a nuclear war, and Americans laugh. What a bizarre thing to do."
...."Of course, North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn't. One might think that the country with a bomb - with whom we are still technically at war, no less -- would be more of a threat than the country without one, but at least judging by the way we talk about them, that's not the case. Why do we consider North Korea to be such a joke?
....

"Iran has this patina, at least, of this super-religious extreme folks that might actually not care if they were wiped out in response to one of their attacks. There are some folks in Iran who ... might actually care less ... than the North Koreans do, because the North Koreans care only about regime-serving." "Unlike Iran, where leaders value religion more than the state, North Korea cares too much about its own survival to ever actually use its bomb."
Well, true; TW has published Norktoons, but not Irantoons. Other than this:

And this:

http://www.conservativedailynews.com/

 

Tributes to Lady Thatcher

http://netrightdaily.com/2013/04/the-iron-lady/

 

Irony illustrated

TheComicalConservative

 

Iranian Nukes and Global Oil

The American Interest   "Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program is one of the most acute national security challenges facing the United States, for reasons that are not entirely well appreciated. Whatever else it would portend, an Iranian nuclear breakout would pose first-order challenges to the stability of the entire global economic order via its impact on energy prices, a concern with obvious broad strategic implications."