The threat of a default on the debt is a political ploy and an extension of a crook’s book keeping. (The crook is the government.)

Failure to raise the debt limit would not necessarily precipitate a default by the United States–not unless the politicians orchestrate such a default, which they invariably do.

The U.S. government has debt obligations and other expenditures. It raises sufficient revenue from We The suckers to discharge its obligations.

The federal government raises trillions of dollars in tax revenue each year, though there are many different kinds of taxes. Some taxes fund specific government programs, while other taxes fund the government in general. … Total federal tax revenues in fiscal year 2014 are projected to be $3 trillion.

(National Priorities Project)

As PAT TOOMEY pointed out 2 years back, when the same “debate” was being rehashed, “If Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, the federal government will still have more than enough money to fully service our debt.”

UPDATE (9/30): OBAMA BANANA. There once was an African “leader” by the name of Canaan Banana. Truly. He was far and away a better man than Obama. Just free associating.

Here is Mark Steyn on Obama Banana’s attitude to debt:

This is the United States of America,” declared President Obama to the burghers of Liberty, Mo., on Friday. “We’re not some banana republic.”

He was talking about the Annual Raising of the Debt Ceiling, which glorious American tradition seems to come round earlier every year. “This is not a deadbeat nation,” President Obama continued. “We don’t run out on our tab.” True. But we don’t pay it off either. We just keep running it up, ever higher. And every time the bartender says, “Mebbe you’ve had enough, pal,” we protest, “Jush another couple trillion for the road. Set ’em up, Joe.” And he gives you that look that kinda says he wishes you’d run out on your tab back when it was $23.68.

Still, Obama is right. We’re not a banana republic, if only because the debt of banana republics is denominated in a currency other than their own — i.e., the U.S. dollar. When you’re the guys who print the global currency, you can run up debts undreamt of by your average generalissimo. As Obama explained in another of his recent speeches, “Raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt.” I won’t even pretend to know what he and his speechwriters meant by that one, but the fact that raising the debt ceiling “has been done over a hundred times” does suggest that spending more than it takes in is now a permanent feature of American government. And no one has plans to do anything about it. Which is certainly banana republic-esque.

Google Lakim Faust. No major American news outlet pops up on the search other than The Examiner’s report, which tells it like it is: “Indictments: Black man shot four whites because of race.” Next is CBS Crimesider, which covers up for Lakim Faust with the usual lame non sequitur: “A man who investigators think shot four people near a Greenville Wal-Mart appears to have planned the shooting but picked out his victims at random. …

Investigators haven’t found any links between Faust and the four victims, Aden said at a news conference. But evidence gathered during a search of Faust’s home appears to show he had some plan for the attack and wanted to shoot a number of people

Because no “links between Faust and the four victims” were identified—it is inferred that the motive for murder could not have been racial. This is classic backward reasoning.

In “Dropped Into The Black Hole Of Disinformation,” I traced this exculpatory illogic offered up by the Spokane Police with respect to the murder of WWII veteran Delbert Belton:

Mark Griffiths, another genius from the Spokane Police, seconded that “there was no indication that [the 88-year-old WWII veteran] would have known these people prior to the assault.” Ergo, the motive was robbery.
In non sequitur land, strangers do not harbor hate, and criminals do not multitask—in other words, never do they rob people while simultaneously acting out their darkest desires. (And, by logical extension, the Nazis, who killed millions of strangers, could not have been motivated both by hate and greed.)

The Examiner now features a “black on white crime” search chronicling what the liberal and libertarian media refuse to chronicle:

Black teen admits killing white man because he ‘had a hard day’
Second suspect arrested in beating death of Spokane veteran
Facebook: Picture of suspect wanted in murder of Spokane vet violates standards
New Black Panther leader: Hunt down and kill white people
Spokane police looking for black males in beating death of World War II veteran
Spokane remembers murdered WW2 veteran Delbert Belton in candlelight vigil, memorial fund set up
Senseless black on white crime…and NO outrage from ‘supposed’ black leaders
DHS employee’s website: ‘We are going to have to kill a lot of whites’

My source for this story is Praag.org, the website of Afrikaner activist Dan Roodt.

“The Warmongers: Not Looking Out For Us” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

To listen to U.S. government officials there is only an upside to the punitive sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and a reluctant European Union. Consequently, the emphasis is forever on how to toughen the punishment; never on whether to lift economic sanctions on the long-suffering people of Iran.

But what about the effects of trade boycotts on American businesses?

Chris Harmer of The Institute for the Study of War estimates that the Boeing Company alone forfeits a minimum of $25 billion in business every year because of U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran, a niche market that is filled by the Russians. Overall, Harmer puts the value to U.S. business of trade lost due to the economic embargo on Iran at approximately $50 billion per annum.

For example, Iran imports $1.5 billion worth of cars a year, the beneficiaries of which are companies like Nissan, Toyota and Peugeot (when they might have been General Motors and Chrysler). Peugeot does an added half a billion dollars’ worth of commerce with Iran just in car parts.

The Iranian economy, moreover, has diversified and is adapting to life without the U.S. The rest of the world—pockets in Europe and most of Asia—has not isolated Iran, with the result that the country has many trading partners other than the U.S. And while Iran has lost petroleum revenue due to sanctions, the trend will not endure. China, Japan and South Korea are hungry for the country’s crude.

Not to be overlooked are the costs to Americans of sanction enforcement, avers Harmer. In addition to the opportunity costs—the missed business aforementioned—there are “direct costs.” The Office of Foreign Asset Control in the U.S. Treasury Department squanders around $1 billion a year in developing lists of “financial institutions that are subject to sanctions,” and then infringing on the rights of individuals and companies to freely exchange privately owned property.

“Indirect costs” are incurred in the course of cultivating a massive U.S. intelligent infrastructure—a veritable alphabet soup of agencies—upon which the Treasury draws in enforcing a regimen of sanctions.

So too are the “deterrent costs” borne by the American taxpayer who pays for patrolling the Persian Gulf, the Northern Arabian Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz. …

… As a general rule, state-enforced boycotts harm honest, hard-working Americans who use the economic means to earn their keep. …”

Read the entire column. “The Warmongers: Not Looking Out For Us” is now on WND.

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During their reporting on the Navy Yard shooting in the capital, today, media made frequent mention of a white culprit, who was supposed to have assisted shooter Aaron Alexis.

For one hopeful moment, mass media seemed to have held out hope that the dastardly deed, in which 12 people were killed, was a product of a collaboration between a black and a white man.

Via Policymic:

“…the deputy mayor for public safety stated that one previously identified person of interest, who was previously described as white male wearing a tan military uniform, is no longer a suspect.”

Misidentified hastily by the likes of NBC’s Chuck Todd, poor Navy lieutenant Rollie Chance was soon ruled out as a suspect.

The New York Magazine confirms, however, that “Police continue to seek a black male between 40 and 50 years old with gray sideburns for questioning.”

Alas, media hopes were dashed. Ebony and ivory did not come together in perfect criminality.