Daily Archives: September 21, 2013

09/21/13

Media Decry GOP’s Fighting Spirit

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The Republican Party is at a crossroads, not only on Benghazi, but on Obamacare. Does the GOP have the will to fight? The media are stirring with unease at the thought that Republican congressional leaders will finally and forcefully confront Obama about his scandalous foreign and domestic policies.

The decision has been made by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in response to internal pressure, to fight to defund Obamacare. Will he also permit the conservatives to investigate the truth about Benghazi?

AIM’s September 16th conference on Benghazi came under a frenetic attack from Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, who fears that pressure on Boehner will force him to agree to a Watergate-style committee investigating the Benghazi terrorist attack and cover-up. Such a probe, greatly feared by Obama and his allies, could finally get to the bottom of the scandal involving arms smuggling to terrorists in the Middle East and the deaths of four Americans. Rep. Frank Wolf’s (R-VA) H. Res. 36, to establish such a committee, has 176 co-sponsors. This is a strong majority of the Republican majority in the House. Yet, Boehner has so far refused to authorize the special committee.

Until recently, Speaker Boehner had no plans to use the budget battle to defund Obamacare. But pressure from within, from Tea Party and conservative Republicans, has forced him to act. The move is being distorted and twisted by the media, citing people like Karl Rove and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), into an effort that will only succeed in closing the government down and giving Obama a political victory of some kind. This is an argument, of course, for business as usual in Washington, another victory for Obama and the Democrats that will leave conservatives dispirited and demoralized.

The media know that the health care law is unpopular and that the Republicans have a winning issue in their fight to repeal it. Obama has delayed implementation of key aspects of the law because it was poorly conceived and rushed through without adequate review. Defunding the law is the only legislative mechanism available to House Republicans to save the American people from this unfolding disaster. The House has the power of the purse, and the media know it.

That is why the media enthusiastically quote “experts” such as Rove in order to try to derail the push to defund the law. CNN’s Gloria Borger argued, “… even Karl Rove in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today said look, Republicans are essentially on a fool’s errand here.”

In the end, Senate Democrats will protect Obama and his law. But is that a reason not to engage in a public fight to defund it?

Rove had argued that “…any strategy to repeal, delay or replace the law must have a credible chance of succeeding or affecting broad public opinion positively.”

Yet, through his column and numerous media appearances, especially on Fox News, he undermines those trying to influence public opinion in the right direction.

In a column, before GOP leaders in the House decided to change tactics and use the budget battle to defund Obamacare, Erick Erickson of RedState had warned that the Republican establishment and its conservative base were moving far apart. “If the GOP does not make a stand against Obamacare, they will not see the energy they need to effectively compete in 2014,” he said.

The Republican establishment in the House finally got the message on Obamacare.

When Boehner caved in, Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express, the nation’s largest Tea Party political action committee, said the voice of the grass roots “was too loud for the House leadership to ignore.”

What’s missing from the coverage is an examination of the record of Republicans such as Rove and McCain, and whether their political “expertise” is worthwhile. Rove spent $300 million in 2012 to try to elect Mitt Romney and guarantee a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate. He failed.

In order to make the case that Republican efforts to defund Obamacare are “self-defeating,” Rove cites a poll purporting to show that such a move would turn off independent voters. But polls haven’t been kind to Rove and other “experts” who had used them to predict a Romney victory in the 2012 presidential election. Rove’s controversial record and predictions were a factor in his being dropped as an analyst by Fox News after the election, before being inexplicably rehired.

Since his failure as the Republican nominee for president against Obama in 2008, McCain has emerged as one of the biggest supporters of Obama’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood policy in the Middle East. Most Egyptians welcomed the overthrow of the Obama-backed Muslim Brotherhood regime in their country. But McCain went to Egypt on Obama’s behalf to argue for the return of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in some fashion.

McCain has been in the news lately as a proponent of arming the Syrian “rebels,” many of them identified as connected with al Qaeda. To promote this policy, he quoted a Wall Street Journal writer, Elizabeth O’Bagy, who had claimed a non-existent Ph.D. She has been fired not only by the Institute for the Study of War, where she worked, but by a Syrian rebel group she had been serving as “political director.”

However, I have not seen Senator McCain being questioned by anyone in the media about his reliance on this fake scholar. McCain always remains a media favorite, no matter how ridiculous he looks.

Having deferred to conservatives on Obamacare, Speaker Boehner and other members of the Republican establishment are now feeling the heat over Benghazi. AIM’s conference to launch the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi captured much of the unrest over Boehner’s curious failure to create a Watergate-style committee to investigate the scandal. Speakers said that the scandal could implicate the President in illegal operations that are international in scope.

Special Operations Speaks launched a billboard campaign to pressure Boehner to create the special committee, while Revive America USA has been running “Fire the Speaker” ads over his resistance to the idea. Those ads have run on Fox News, Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, and the Mark Levin radio show.

The ads say:

“Speaker Boehner promised he’d repeal Obamacare, but now refuses to even defund it!

He surrendered to Obama’s higher taxes and spending, and when House Republicans complained, Boehner punished them. Speaker Boehner won’t allow a special ‘Watergate’ committee to investigate the 9/11-Benghazi terror attack, even though a majority of House Republicans demand it! After 3 years of broken promises and secret back-room deals with Obama—You’re Fired, Speaker Boehner!”

Boehner has caved on Obamacare. Will he do so on Benghazi?

In the Senate, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked for unanimous consent for passage of his Senate Resolution 225 to create a special committee in that body to investigate Benghazi, but liberal Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) objected, thereby defeating the idea.

“Given the yearlong collective failure of our government either to gain clarity on what happened in Benghazi or extract any retribution for the terrorist attack,” Cruz said, “Congress should form a Joint Select Committee to launch a proper investigation.”

Despite the clear case for such a committee, Cruz has only 23 co-sponsors. McCain and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) are not among them.

Despite what the Republicans may think or do, of course, the Senate is run by Democrats like Boxer, and they will never agree to a special committee to investigate the Obama policies that resulted in Benghazi. The House is a different matter.

Bob Adams of Revive America says Boehner is under tremendous pressure to authorize the special committee on Benghazi, or get out of the way and let the conservatives do the job. The argument that the Senate won’t agree with the House doesn’t apply in this case, since House Republicans can set up this special committee on their own.

The future of Boehner’s speakership, the Republican Party, and even Obama’s presidency may hang in the balance.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].

09/21/13

Parent Arrested from Common Core Meeting for Speaking Out of Turn

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Cross-Posted at Right Wing News and Gateway Pundit

Robert Small was arrested for speaking out of turn at an MSDE-sponsored informational meeting on Common Core, the new federal curriculum for Maryland schools.

Robert Small:

He said: “I want to know how many parents here are aware that the goal of the Common Core standards isn’t to prepare kids for full-fledged universities, it’s to prepare them for community college…..Parents, take control. We’re sick of this. This is not a CNN political game. This is a public town hall… Listen, don’t stand for this. You’re sitting here like cattle. You have questions. Confront them. They don’t want to do it in public…. Parents, you need to question these people….Do the research, it’s online.”

Shame on those other parents for not standing up with that father. What are you? A bunch of spineless sheep? Abridging a man’s First Amendment right under the color of law is now acceptable? Common place? Especially when the law enforcement officer was simply a security officer and not acting as a cop on duty. This is fascist! Simply because parents object to Common Core standards being forced upon their children should not be an act punishable by jail time.

The Blaze:

A parent in Towson, Md., was arrested Thursday night at a public forum after vocally expressing his concerns about the Baltimore County School District’s plan to use Common Core standards in its curriculum.

Robert Small, a concerned father, was forcefully removed from the meeting by a police officer after he interrupted Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance during the question-and-answer portion of the forum.

The meeting apparently didn’t allow parents to stand up and ask questions or comment. Parents and other attendants were instead asked to write their questions on a piece of paper and officials would read them.

However, Small began speaking out against the district’s use of Common Core, prompting a security guard, who was also a police officer, to approach him and order him to leave. “Let’s go!” he said sternly.

I watched the video, there was no shoving. So now they want to hit this father with $5000 in fines and up to 10 1/2 years in prison? They pulled this same crap on me in Nevada when my kids were in school. You could go to the damned meetings, but weren’t allowed to speak without permission. Get your kids out of the public schools. This is monstrous and will only get worse.

Read for yourself:

When Small didn’t immediately comply, the officer began pulling his arm and pushing him towards the exit. Some audience members gasped at the cop’s use of force.

“Don’t stand for this,” the father said as he was dragged out. “You are sitting here like cattle! Is this America?”

Small also urged other parents to demand answers on Common Core and the curriculum being used to educate their children.

As the Baltimore Sun reports, the officer then “pushed Small and then escorted him into the hall, handcuffed him and had him sit on the curb in front of the school.”

Small was charged with second-degree assault of a police officer and faces a $2,500 fine and up to 10 years in prison. He was also charged with disturbing a school operation, which carries an additional $2,500 and up to six months in jail.

This father had every right to speak. There has been a three year blackout on Common Core in Maryland — trying to keep the details from parents until it is too late to object.

Parent’s questions went unanswered or modified before being read. It was a dog and pony show, not to change anything or to address concerns, but to give the appearance of giving a crap — which the administrators don’t. They took a whole lot of money from the government to brainwash our kids into little Marxist robots and line their own pockets. They have betrayed the institution, the children and their trust as educators.

This is how schools are run under iron-fisted governmental rule. Why would any parent sit still for this?

09/21/13

Arguing With Idiots: A 2nd Amendment Primer

By: Gerald Loeffers

With the Navy Yard shooting fading away in the race baiting memories of the liberal media, I thought we should give them a lesson in history as well as politics. We know the media was so eager to be first with the story that they got both the weapon use wrong, as well as the ID of the suspect. They did this two to three times over and one CNN reporter even breathlessly reported that an AR-15 shotgun was used. Many of my pro-gun Facebook friends made fun of this and rightfully thought that CNN was making crap up. Many of them didn’t know that there are two brands of AR-15 platform shotguns out on the market. When the dust had settled, the real suspect was found and killed. We lost 12 people and we found out that the suspect was a discharged Navy Reservist with a history of mental illness and emotional control issues. He had an arrest record as well. What was even weirder is some of the staff from Glenn Beck’s network at THE BLAZE knew this guy at the restaurant where he worked. They went there often. And the staff didn’t notice anything wrong with the guy… he was always working and they found out later that he was spending all his free time with video games, like Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft. A 34 year-old man! Time to dump the video games dude. Some in the media back peddled, but not many and not enough of them even called to apologize to the wrongfully accused man for their screw up about him. Then the usual political hacks didn’t let this tragic event go to waste. With the information that the suspect was a black man, all their hopes for a white guy, TEA party member faded away.

A LITTLE KNOWN TRUTH

So, as a gun owner, do you think the current government hates guns or do they just hate you the citizen for giving them pause?

FACT: The government doesn’t hate guns at all. In fact, they’re in love with them more then you are. Just look at all the armed divisions of government there are and they are on the INCREASE with DHS buying BILLIONS of hollow point ammo, THOUSANDS of COLT fully auto rifles, FULLY armed DRONES and ARMORED APCS. They just love their guns on their boats, on their cars or cradled in their loving arms. Just look at the enforcement arm of OBAMACARE requiring agents in both the IRS and EPA to increase their armed employees and to increase SWAT teams.

TRUTH: What the government does hate is you the average armed citizen who gives them moral pause for their actions and who knows you’re the real guardian of the Republic and liberty. That you hold the real power. You are the watcher of the Constitution and of America; not the corrupt politicians or the parties. You are the watcher with TEETH.

I hear the same excuses from all the gun control rank and file… my own mother included:

“We just need more reasonable regulation;”
“We just want the assault rifles off the street;”
“It will reduce murder and violence;”
“We need to get rid of extreme guns for a safer society.”

None of these reasons work and they have already failed on principle alone. Can you say — Chicago? It’s the largest city with the highest murder rate in the country besides Washington, DC. They have a GUN FREE ZONE citywide ordinance and yet they have the highest murder rate. Yes, even under the not-so-watchful eye of Senator Obama, who did nothing in his entire short Senate term.

Yes, that’s right, you OBAMANAUGHTS! He let Chicago burn around him. He wasn’t interested in helping people and saving lives. Hello! He’s a corrupt scumbag!

THANK YOU COLORADO

Well, well… it seems according to the biggest losers in Colorado liberal politics, it was due to “Voter Suppression.” They were recalled and lost their jobs. Oh, boo hoo! Cry me a river. After the movie theater shooting in Colorado, two of the biggest gun grabbing douche bags in the state thought it would be great to take away rugged and liberty minded Colorado citizen’s gun rights. That started a boulder rolling downhill that had the great company MAGPUL leave the state and a JOE THE PLUMBER grassroots movement recall two of the hacks and IT WORKED. Not bad for some people that were never politically active before. Good job Colorado! It’s my hope that other people will follow this example and follow suit in other gun owning oppressive states. Remember… only you have the power and you own the power, not the politicians.

ARMED WITH HISTORY

When the Founders were debating the Constitution and how to construct its very structure, one of the things they knew before, during and after the Revolutionary War was that arms in the hands of the farmer and the merchant and the everyday citizen was how they won the war. They also knew from their own history reading that an armed society was the best way to keep any government in check and a cause for pause. The British Empire before the war had over and over again passed all kinds of rules and laws to restrict weapons use and ownership by the colonists with the last straw being the enforced theft of a town’s arms storage site by the Redcoats. The Founders knew that they needed an amendment that would cover the rights of the armed citizen and restrict the government in any future form from interfering with this right and secondly they also realized that an armed society was the best course for self defense against an out of control tyrannical government, violent criminals and they also would be a vital part of the country’s defense against foreign invasions. The Second Amendment was technology neutral on purpose. The Founders knew that weapons and arms would change over time. It didn’t matter to them if you used a Brown Bess or an AK-47… it’s all arms to them and they deemed them your absolute right to own. Not even the Supreme Court can deny you this right. It’s their job to protect the Constitution, not translate it. With progressive politicians on both sides going to war with the First, the Second, the Tenth and the Fourteenth amendments on a daily basis and their focus on the First and Second in particular; it is obvious it is because they know if they destroy the Second and collapse the First, the rest will follow.

“IN AN INSANE WORLD ONLY THE RESPONSIBLE ARMED CITIZEN CAN KEEP THE PEACE WHERE GOVERNMENT FAILS” – GERALD LOEFFERS

“ITS NOT A SAFE ACT TO DISARM THE CITIZEN AT LARGE” – GERALD LOEFFERS

“A GOVERNMENT DISARMING OF THE CITIZEN IS A GOVERNMENT SLAUGHTERING OF THE CITIZEN DOWN THE ROAD” – GERALD LOEFFERS

In closing, the fight to keep your rights must carry on. Don’t be fooled that Obama might be backing off the gun rights debate. He hasn’t and won’t. He’s already destroyed THE CIVILIAN MARKSMANSHIP PROGRAM with the waive of the pen this week — he was worried that a gang banger would use a 10lb M1 Garand rifle in a liquor store hold up. The U.N. SMALL ARMS TREATY is still not far from his mind either. I am sure he wouldn’t mind a bloody battle over foreign troops going door to door to grab our guns. In fact, I know he’s looking forward to it. He’s the kind of evil scumbag that loves Americans only when they’re divided amongst themselves and not united and working together for the common cause of liberty; not stopping the welfare state or his Islamic Nazism.

Can I ask a favor from my NoisyRoom readers? Please read this article… make copies and share with others and then please e-mail it to all of your Senators, Representatives and all members of Congress you can get a hold of. They need to be reeducated about what’s important and it’s up to us to do that. No matter the party or the results. THANK YOU ALL.

09/21/13

Washington Post Distorts Commission Probe of Benghazi

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

The Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB) started off with a powerful message: “We are here and planning on staying until we get the answers we’re seeking.” But, some in the media just don’t get it. Dana Milbank of The Washington Post delivered one of his Dennis the Menace, snarky rants about the view of “Benghazi, as seen from the grassy knoll.” Yes, Dana Milbank is calling this group of patriotic Americans who have given so much for this country a bunch of lunatic conspiracy theorists.

To Milbank, Benghazi is, to quote the administration talking point, a phony scandal: “It’s a pity that those seeking answers on Benghazi can’t focus on what really matters: Could anything have been done to prevent the deaths of the four men lost in Benghazi that night? And what can be done to make sure such a thing never happens again?”

While those are certainly important questions, and need to be addressed, that’s not enough. That sounds like it would make for a nice conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, Media Matters, and the primetime line-up of MSNBC. But how about holding people accountable for their actions and inactions that could have saved four lives, and for lying to the American people in an attempt to sweep it under the rug?

Sure, who cares that Hillary Clinton’s State Department ignored the requests to beef up security, and refused to withdraw our personnel, as the Brits and the Red Cross had done? Wouldn’t that send the wrong message? Wouldn’t it have said that Libya was a mess, run by jihadists and al-Qaeda affiliates after the great liberation of 2011? After all, al-Qaeda flags were flying in Benghazi just days after the “liberation” of Libya. We wouldn’t want to mess up the President’s narrative in the middle of a presidential election by asking the tough questions, now would we? Remember, bin Laden is dead, GM (and Detroit) are alive and booming, and al Qaeda is on the run. Obama reiterated that in a speech last month to Marines at Camp Pendleton in California:

“Because of you, the 9/11 generation, we are accomplishing what we set out to do,” the President said. “The core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on the way to defeat. We are going to make sure that Afghanistan is never again a source of attacks against our country.”

What is often forgotten is a point made by former CIA director James Woolsey a few years back: “Al-Qaeda is both an organization and, in a sense, an ideology. And I think we’re having better luck dealing with the top level of the organization, particularly after the Afghan war, than we are with the ideology.” That remains true to this day.

Milbank is the reporter the Post usually sends out to cover events where conservatives gather so he can offer his sarcastic little commentaries to belittle the people involved. Take a look at the bio of Milbank: Skull and Bones at Yale—part of the elite—plus a career working mostly for left-wing publications and TV shows, like Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” when it was still on MSNBC.

Now take a look at the biographies of the people on the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, people who Milbank delights in belittling: people like Clare Lopez, a long-time CIA officer. The commission also includes people like Admiral James Lyons (Ret.) and Retired Generals Tom McInerney and Paul Vallely. There are 13 of us altogether, including 12 who were either top CIA agents, or high-ranking military officers, collectively with hundreds of years of service to the security of this country.

Milbank came up to me at the conference and asked how we were approaching this topic. What areas were we looking at as scandals? Was it the security failures in advance of September 11th of last year, the day-of failure to deliver military assets, or the cover-up—though he didn’t call it that? I told him yes to all three, but there was a fourth area as well—the media coverage. He didn’t want to go there. Was there a main angle, he asked. I told him that what I thought mostly motivated these retired admirals, generals, colonels, and CIA agents was the failure on the day of the terrorist attack to attempt a rescue. That is the point that Paul Vallely made to Milbank in a one-on-one interview that at least, to his credit, Milbank found reasonable.

Of Vallely, Milbank said, “At least one participant at the Heritage gathering seemed to have the right perspective. Retired Gen. Paul Vallely wasn’t concerned about after-the-fact talking points or al-Qaeda conspiracies or whether Clinton signed diplomatic cables about security requests. He wanted to know why the U.S. military didn’t at least try to get reinforcements to the besieged Americans in Benghazi.”

Milbank quoted Vallely: “‘Obviously there was not even an attempt at a rescue,’ he told the 40 people in the audience. ‘That’s the bottom line of it all.’ Vallely, a frequent critic of President Obama, said he doesn’t believe administration claims that there wasn’t enough time to send help to Benghazi.”

Milbank’s friends at Media Matters, the even nuttier left-wingers, the George Soros wing of the Obama protection squad, couldn’t abide that and criticized Milbank for straying from their talking points, which they often coordinate with the White House.

Watch Wayne Simmons, for example, a CIA agent for 27 years, talk about the men who died during the terrorist attack in Benghazi, and why he is involved with the commission: “So you can only imagine, I suspect, how I must have been feeling and guys like me must have been feeling when we were reliving and continue to relive what we know in our heart of hearts, what the final moments were like for these guys to go through. Because if they were close enough to each other at some point, those warriors turned and looked into each others’ eyes and they knew it was over. That tears my heart out, angers me, disgusts me, knowing that there were decision makers in the United States at the very highest levels, including the White House, that had an opportunity, we believe, to change that course. To have that look that those men gave each other, be saved for another day, and maybe never. But it didn’t work out that day for those guys. They realized they were sold out. They knew help was not coming. It is absolutely the most horrifying thought you could ever imagine.”

But there was also some real journalism that related what went on at the conference. World Magazine, Breitbart and The Washington Free Beacon covered it. “A CIA employee who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi Libya has been suspended as a result and forced to hire legal counsel, according to a top House lawmaker,” reported the Free Beacon. “The CIA reiterated its denial in a Tuesday call to a Free Beacon reporter, calling [Rep. Frank] Wolf’s allegations ‘categorically false.’”

But reporting what actually went on there was not how the Post, nor the Soros controlled left-wing attack machine, viewed their job. They are there to put up phony arguments to defend the indefensible positions and policies of this administration. Milbank went after Clare Lopez for asking, “Are we involved in the Middle East to help the forces of Islam, of al-Qaeda, of the Muslim Brotherhood, of jihad and sharia?”

Apparently in Milbank’s world, that is a controversial view, even in light of Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and at home, and now his efforts to get involved in Syria, which could potentially help al-Qaeda linked rebels. Presumably Milbank wasn’t aware of President Obama’s plan to sign a waiver of “a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to ‘vetted’ opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.”

Maybe now he will be.

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at [email protected].

09/21/13

The Dow Jones Index Has Again Been Injected With Epo And Growth Hormones

By: Wim Grommen

It is becoming more and more meaningless to compare the performance of the Dow 30 from one period to another — with the continuing replacement of constituent companies with underperforming and lower priced stocks (losers out), with companies with higher priced stocks with greater future prospects for price appreciation (winners in). We explain below exactly what this reconfiguring (and the further change in the Dow Divisor) encompasses and exactly how it will affect the performance of the Index. Read on, its significance is absolutely dramatic! This manipulation of the performance of the Dow 30 has been going on since 1928 and it was further denigrated this week with a 3 constituent swap which will, in effect, assure that the Dow 30 continues to rise in the long term.

On September 23rd, the Dow got the biggest facelift since 2004 in one fell swoop with the removal of 3 company constituents: Hewlett-Packard Co. (+21.5% ytd), Bank of America, Inc. (+52.0% ytd) and Alcoa, Inc. (-1.8% ytd); and the addition of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (+25 ytd), Nike, Inc. (+27% ytd) and Visa, Inc. (+18% ytd), which are expected to have greater future price performance appreciation. (Read: The New Dow Stocks in Three Charts)

What is even more striking is that the three companies removed from the Index have a low share price (HP is trading at an approximate price of $22, BoA at $14 and Alcoa at $8 for a sum total of $44), while the three stocks added have a high market price (Goldman Sachs at $164, Nike at $67 and Visa at $184 for a sum total of $415). Of course there is the Dow Divisor which supposedly ensures that the value of the Dow Jones with the new shares is the same as the value of the Dow Jones with the old shares, but this effect is only short-term as, in the long-term, the profits of the higher priced stocks will be greater/stronger than those of the weaker stocks that they replaced.

The Dow 30 is calculated by dividing the sum of the 30 constituents’ shares by the Dow Divisor. On September 10th, the Dow Jones ended at 15,191 points. The Dow Divisor currently has a value of 0.130216081. This means that the current total of 30 shares is worth $1,978 (15,191 x 0.130216081 = $1,978).

HP is trading at an approximate price of $22, BoA at $14 and Alcoa at $8 (sum total of $44). These shares will be replaced by Goldman Sachs at $164, Nike at $67 and Visa at $184 (sum total of $415), which is 9.4 times more. This means that the new sum of the 30 stocks have a value of $2,349 (1978 – 44 + 415 ) and, therefore, we expect that the Dow Divisor will be adjusted from 0.130216081 to 0.154631 to get back to the original 15,191 Index points (15,191 x 0.154631 = $2,349).

Given the above, had the three old shares increased by 10% each in price in the past, the Dow 30 would have increased by 33.8 points in total (10% x 44 divided by 0.130216081 = 33.79 points), assuming there was no change in the price of the other 27 stocks.

As of September 23rd, however, a corresponding 10% increase in the price of each of the new shares would contribute 268.4 points to the rise of the Dow 30 (10% x 415 divided by 0.154631 = 268.38) or 7.94 times more points.

The influence of the 3 losers was: $44 of $1978 is 2.2% of the Dow Jones Index.
The influence of the 3 winners becomes: $415 of $2349 is 17.67% of the Dow Jones Index.
This stinks of manipulation, double manipulation!

Overview from 2000: winners in, losers out.

September 23, 2013: Hewlett-Packard Co., Bank of America, Inc. and Alcoa, Inc. will be replaced by Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Nike, Inc. and Visa, Inc.

Alcoa went from a 2007 price of $40 and dropped to $8.08. Hewlett-Packard Co. went from a 2010 price of $50 and dropped to $22.36. Bank of America went from a 2007 price of $50 and dropped to $14.48. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Nike, Inc. and Visa, Inc. have risen 25 %, 27 % and 18 % respectively in 2013.

September 20, 2012: UnitedHealth Group, Inc. (UNH) replaces Kraft Foods, Inc.
Kraft Foods, Inc. was split into two companies and was no longer suitable for the Dow. The shares of UnitedHealth Group, Inc. had risen in two years by 53% for inclusion in the Dow.

June 8, 2009: Cisco and Travelers replaced Citigroup and General Motors.
Citigroup and General Motors have received billions of dollars in U.S. government bailouts to survive and were not representative of the Dow.

September 22, 2008: Kraft Foods, Inc. replaced American International Group.
American International Group was replaced after a decision by the government to take a 79.9% stake in the insurance giant. AIG was narrowly saved from destruction by an emergency loan from the Fed.

February 19, 2008: Bank of America Corp. and Chevron Corp. replaced Altria Group, Inc. and Honeywell International.
Altria was split into two companies and was no longer suitable for the Dow.
Honeywell was removed from the Dow because the role of industrial companies in the U.S. stock market in recent years has declined and Honeywell had the smallest sales and profits among the participants in the Dow.

April 8, 2004: Verizon Communications, Inc., American International Group, Inc. and Pfizer, Inc. replace AT&T Corp., Eastman Kodak Co. and International Paper.
AIG shares had increased by more than 387% in the past decade and Pfizer had an increase of more than 675% behind it’s addition. Shares of AT&T and Kodak, on the other hand, had a decrease of more than 40% in the past decade and were removed from the Dow.

The Dow Jones Index is a fata morgana.

In many graphs the y-axis is a fixed unit, such as kg, meter, liter or euro. In the graphs showing the stock exchange values, this also seems to be the case because the unit shows a number of points. However, this is far from true! An Index point is not a fixed unit in time and does not have any historical significance. An Index is calculated on the basis of a set of shares. Every Index has its own formula and the formula gives the number of points of the Index. Unfortunately many people attach a lot of value to these graphs which are, however, very deceptive.

An Index is calculated on the basis of a set of shares. Every Index has its own formula and the formula results in the number of points of the Index. However, this set of shares changes regularly. For a new period, the value is based on a different set of shares. It is very strange that these different sets of shares are represented as the same unit. In less than 10 years, 12 of the 30 companies, i.e. 40%, were replaced in the Dow Jones. Over a period of 16 years, 20 companies, i.e. 67%, were replaced in the Dow Jones. After such a quick period, the value of a basket of apples in now being compared to the value of a basket of pears.

Even more disturbing is the fact that with every change in the set of shares used to calculate the number of points, the formula also changes. This is done because the Index, which is the result of two different sets of shares at the moment the set is changed, must be the same for both sets at that point in time. The Index graphs must be continuous lines. For example, the Dow Jones is calculated by adding the shares and dividing the result by a number. Because of changes in the set of shares and the splitting of shares, the divider changes continuously. At the moment the divider is 0.130216081, but in 1985 this number was higher than 1. An Index point in two periods of time is therefore calculated in different ways:

Dow 1985 = (x1 + x2 + …….. + x30) / 1
Dow 2013 = (x1 + x2 + …….. + x30) / 0.130216081

In the 1990s, many shares were split. To make sure the result of the calculation remained the same, both the number of shares and the divider changed. An increase in share value of 1 dollar of the set of shares in 2013, resulted in 7.7 times more points than in 1985. The probable cause of the exponential growth of the Dow Jones Index is the fact that in the 1990s many shares were split. At the moment, the Dow is at 15,191 points. If we used the 1985 formula, it would be at 1978 points.

The most remarkable characteristic is of course, the constantly changing set of shares. Generally speaking, the companies that are removed from the set are in a stabilization or degeneration phase. Companies in a takeoff or acceleration phase are added to the set. This greatly increases the chance that the Index will rise rather than go down. This is obvious, especially when this is done during the acceleration phase of a transition. From 1980 onward, 7 ICT companies (3M, AT&T, Cisco, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft), who were the real engines of the latest revolution, were added to the Dow Jones and 5 financial institutions, which always plays an important role in every transition.

Real truth and fictional truth.

The number of points the Dow Jones is at has created truth or fictional truth.
The number of points says absolutely nothing about the state of a society. You had better look at the number of people in society who use food stamps. That is the real truth.

Wim Grommen

The first part of this article refers to the article Manipulation of the Dow Jones: This is how it works! (in Dutch) written by Ronald Hendrickx of beurs.com.