Did You Know?

Indiana Senator Richard Lugar was crushed in the GOP primary by Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock.  Lugar’s downfall: he voted for both Supreme Court Justices Sotamayor and Kagan, voted for the DREAM Act, voted for nuclear disarmament, and worst of all: he compromised.  Here is a man who pressed for a balanced budget amendment, cuts to social safety net programs, opposed healthcare reform, and opposed the debt limit increases.   Conclusion: The Club for Growth that bankrolled Mourdock’s campaign and other alleged fiscal conservative Tea Party-aligned organizations are really concerned about race, the white race and threats from minorities.  This fiscal conservative mantra is hoax.

A vote in the Colorado legislature to allow civil unions never came to pass as Republican Speaker Frank McNulty stalled long enough so that a midnight deadline could be reached to end the legislative session.  If passed, this law would have made a Colorado the 1^st state that had previously banned same-sex marriage to allow civil unions.  Alas, another politician prevented the vote from ever happening.  Shame on you Mr. McNulty.

Facebook’s $104Billion market value, for basically a company to sell ecommerce advertising, is close to the following:

·         Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squib combined

·         Daimler and BMW combined

·         Caterpillar and Boeing combined

·         Morgan Stanley and Citigroup combined

·         Kraft Foods, Kellogg, and Heinz combined

According to CNBC.com, 8 in 10 Facebook users say they have hardly ever or never clicked on an ad.  $104Billion, huh?

According to Bloomberg.com, in the 51 years since JFK took the office of President, the 23 years with a Democrat in the WH have increased private jobs by 42million; for the 28 years under GOP control, the number is only 24million.  Still undecided?

Since mid-2009, the number of federal government employees is unchanged.  While at the state level, 100,000 jobs have been shed, and at the local level 500,000 jobs have been lost.  Hopefully, the bottom has been reached and the return of hiring education professionals is near.

Still think electing a successful businessman is a good idea? Look at Florida and Rick Scott, 9% unemployment and a governor with 34% approval rating.  Still undecided?

Israeli Arabs and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox)are not required to comply with the state’s mandatory civilian or military service requirement.  That’s about to change now that Netanyahu’s Likud party is unified with centrist Mofaz’s Kadima party.

438 white rhinos were illegally poached in 2011 and in 2012 the pace is expected to increase to 600.  At this rate by 2016 more rhinos will be killed than are born.

66% of Russians think government corruption will increase under the new Putin regime while 64% think they themselves will be victims of police or prosecutorial abuse.

During the 1^st quarter, Fannie Mae actually made a profit of $2.7Billion, marking the 1^st time that the GSE didn’t need federal funding since it was taken over by the government in 2008.

Sad news for Team Palin.  North Dakota has passed Alaska as the country’s number two oil producing state.  Drill Baby Drill has been surpassed Frack Baby Frack.

There was a little battle within the Tea Party in Nebraska.  State representative Deb Fischer upset the Huckabee/Tea Party Express backed Attorney General Jon Bruning and the Santorum/Club for Growth/DeMint backed state treasurer Don Stenberg.  Could it mean success for Democrat Bob Kerrey in November?

Scott Walker has a $25million war chest for his recall campaign of which 60% came from out of state donors including Sheldon Adelson and Rich DeVos.  Thank you Supreme Court.

From The Atlantic: Germany’s entire police forces fired only 85 bullets in 2011.  In New York City the police fired 84 shots at a single murder suspect in April.