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Kiev. As cited by Itar Tass, Ukraine’s new Minister of Economic Development and Trade Aivaras Abromavicius said on Wednesday the country was in fact a bankrupt. “The state, as a matter of fact, is a bankrupt, so, it is simply unrealistic to expect us to offer real, but not declarative, programmes of motivation,” he said at a session of the Verkhovna Rada /parliament/ committee for economic policy. “Hence, the main thing now is not to impede businesses, and business will put things at rights.” He promised that it would take about two years for Ukraine to be ranked among top...

Every December, the people at TIME magazine choose the “Person of the Year,” who is described as “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.” Two of the candidates for the 2014 honor were: the Ferguson, Missouri, protesters, “who took to the streets ... following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer;” and the Ebola caregivers, who are still fighting the biggest outbreak of the disease in history, which has so far claimed the lives of nearly 7,000...

As the infighting among the world’s oil producers heats up, the global price of oil is heading down. Open sniping between leading members of OPEC put new downward pressure on oil prices, with the price of benchmark U.S. crude falling another 5 percent, or $3.07, to $60.75 a barrel in trading Wednesday. Oil prices, which topped $107 this summer, have now fallen more than 40 percent since June. Analysts said the price fall, which is having profound ramifications throughout the global economy, reflects a variety of factors, from slumping demand in China and political instability in Libya to new sanctions...

EASTON, Pa. — Prosecutors say necrophilia motivated a Pennsylvania man to fatally shoot his stepdaughter last month. Gregory Graf was charged after police found 33-year-old Jessica Padgett’s body buried on his property in Northampton County.

Governor Palin responded tonight to the proposed ‘Omnibus Spending Bill’ currently being proposed before the U.S. Congress: Governor Palin provided two links in support of tonight’s post.Some more on what the solution is: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/mitch-mcconnell-ted-cruz-lame-duck-session-111017.htmlGOP leaders already going wobbly, hoping us peons won’t notice: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/09/GOP-Whip-Steve-Scalise-Comes-Under-Fire-For-Supporting-Obama-s-Executive-Amnesty-Via-Omnibus-Backing Check ‘em out!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[ Update 11:25 pm ]Sarah Palin’s warning to establishment GOP leaders was reinforced with an article by Breitbart News contributor Matt Boyle that emphasized the links provided in the Governor’s post. The first is a Politico story that details how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell differ greatly on how to handle this lame duck session of...

African American staffers on Capitol Hill plan to stage a protest Thursday in solidarity with similar demonstrations nationwide.African American Congressional staffers are planning a protest on the U.S. Capitol steps Thursday afternoon, disrupting their workday to speak out against the Eric Garner and Mike Brown grand jury decisions. The protest follows large demonstrations in New York and other major cities last week, which were held to speak out about the deaths of these two African American men. “Black staffers on Capitol Hill wanted to do something in support of ongoing national and global protests against police aggression,” an organizer said,...

Kate Kelland, Reuters December 10, 2014LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Drug-resistant superbugs could kill an extra 10 million people a year and cost up to $100 trillion by 2050 if their rampant global spread is not halted, according to a British government-commissioned review. Such infections already kill hundreds of thousands of people a year and the trend is growing, the review said, adding: "The importance of effective antimicrobial drugs cannot be overplayed." Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill, who led the work, noted that in Europe and the United States alone around 50,000 people currently die each year from...

A suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel, killing six soldiers and wounding 11 on Thursday on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, the Defense Ministry. Five Afghan school children were also reported killed in a foreign forces airstrike, local officials said. The international coalition had no immediate comment. Thursday's bombing comes after almost a two-week lull in Taliban attacks in Kabul in the wake of a wave of bombings on guesthouses, government officials and vehicles of foreign aid workers in the heavily-guarded capital last month. Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks in recent months in Afghanistan...

All senior U.S. officials and CIA agents who authorized or carried out torture like waterboarding as part of former President George W. Bush's national security policy must be prosecuted, top U.N. officials said Wednesday. It's not clear, however, how human rights officials think these prosecutions will take place, since the Justice Department has declined to prosecute and the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court. Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said it's "crystal clear" under international law that the United States, which ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994, now has...

Quiet allegations of Iranian cheating on its interim nuclear agreement are fueling speculation in the Israeli press that Israel may be preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, reports the Algemeiner. The official position from Washington has been reflected in Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertions that Iran has so far adhered to the November 2013 Joint Plan of Action nuclear agreement, which bound Iran to suspend certain work at its Arak heavy-water reactor designed to produce plutonium. “Iran has held up its end of the bargain,” Kerry said last month in Vienna while announcing a seven-month...

President Obama referred to the Bible during a speech on immigration Tuesday in Nashville. But there was a problem: Strictly speaking, one of the lines he cited appears nowhere in scripture. "The good book says, don't throw stones in glass houses," the president said. "Or," he added, "make sure we're looking at the log in our eye before we are pointing out the mote in other folks' eyes."

What can we expect from the federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Mike Brown?When St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced that a grand jury didn’t believe there was enough evidence to pursue charges against Officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, many thought that any chance for justice for the Brown family had evaporated. In fact, there are two venues for them to pursue some accountability for the loss of their son. They can file a civil suit alleging that Wilson or the Ferguson Police Department is...

THE COLLEGE RAPE CLUB December 10, 2014 Sorry this column is late. I got raped again on the way home. Twice. I should clarify -- by "raped," I mean that two seductive Barry White songs came on the radio, which, according to the University of Virginia, constitutes rape. TAKE BACK THE NIGHT! Even the feminist-whipped media parted company with Rolling Stone magazine over Sabrina Rubin Erdely's story about an alleged fraternity gang-rape at the University of Virginia -- since retracted. But while dismantling every part of this preposterous rape claim by a woman Rolling Stone calls "Jackie," journalists rush to...

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) A Missouri inmate has been executed for beating a 63-year-old woman to death with a hammer in 1998. Paul Goodwin was put to death early Wednesday, the 10th man executed in Missouri in 2014. That breaks the state’s previous high of nine executions in 1999 and matches Texas for the most in the U.S. this year. Goodwin sexually assaulted Joan Crotts in St. Louis County, pushed her down a flight of stairs and beat her in the head with a hammer. Goodwin was a former neighbor who felt Crotts played a role in getting him kicked...

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has indicated he will try and get around member states’ veto powers over fiscal issues when he proposes new laws to clamp down on tax avoidance. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said he may use a majority vote to get a forthcoming law on the automatic exchange of tax rulings (letters that give companies favorable tax conditions) passed. “I have not excluded that we change the rules using a qualified majority (of member states). I will leave the technical and legal aspects aside now, but it would affect aspects of administrative...

The latest eye-opener comes from the U.S. Treasury, a department tasked with managing the country’s debt as well as the banking system as a whole. According to a new report the Treasury Department has ordered over $200,000 Survival Kits for as many as 3,814 employees who oversee the federal banking system. It’s not clear why the federal government has ordered the kits, but perhaps they are expecting some sort of disturbance to take place and they want their employees to be prepared for it. According to Zero Hedge, the kits will be delivered to every major bank in the United...

Exodus: Gods and Kings comes to us courtesy of 20th Century Fox, which is distributing Ridley Scott’s $140 million would-be epic. The producers this time around are Chernin Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, Babieka, and Volcano Films. The film opens wide in America on December 12th, 2014, and it has already opened in some overseas markets as of December 3rd. Over the next few months, it will of course attempt to play a two-sided game. On on hand, the film will be targeting the overtly religious moviegoers that have made quite a bit of noise this year. On the other hand,...

Today, the Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James, came out in support of lifting the military’s ban on transgender service. In an interview with USA Today, when asked about the current ban, she said, “From my point of view, anyone who is capable of accomplishing the job should be able to serve.” She also said the current ban “is likely to come under review in the next year or so.” The repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy allowed lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals to serve in the military openly and honestly. However, while the...

Obamacare has been far more frustrating than I’d ever dreamed. Obamacare brought us new health insurance options, but cost us our more affordable plans. “You will keep your health insurance,” President Obama promised in 2012. The fact that this wasn’t true would be our biggest disappointment. In November 2013, Jim learned his small-business policy would be canceled because it didn’t comply with the new mandate to cover pediatric dentistry and maternity care. So Jim went to Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, to look for coverage for his employee and himself. The individual plan I had with Blue Cross...

With widely watched amateur videos of police killings as a backdrop, New York City police are hoping to arm more officers with stun guns as an option for subduing emotionally disturbed people and other suspects who resist arrest. Preliminary plans call for 450 additional officers to carry the electroshock weapons while on patrol, police officials said Wednesday. The department would first have to find funding and develop more precise guidelines on which circumstance are appropriate to use the devices. …