From Judicial Watch:

Touted by the Obama Administration as key to overhauling the nation’s immigration detention system, a program that monitors illegal aliens instead of jailing them regularly loses track of offenders and the government distorts records to cover it up.

Operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the intensive monitoring program allows illegal aliens to check in by phone, wear ankle monitors and obey a curfew rather than go to prison while they wait for court appearances. ICE claims the alternatives-to-detention program is a huge success and Obama assures it’s a great model for his plans to create a more humane immigration detention system.

But records and statistics obtained by a Houston newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) tell a much different story. Nearly one in five illegal immigrants who participated in the tracking project absconded while under supervision during the last five years, according to the records. Authorities were unable to locate nearly 20% of 6,373 illegal aliens enlisted in the program during that time. About 5% were subsequently rearrested for other matters.

5% of 6373 is 319 people (rounded up) and 20% is 1274. So 319 people went on to be arrested for “other matters” which would include rapes, murders, thefts, assaults and child molestations and another 1274 are simply unaccounted for.

Sounds like a great program.

Which I’m sure they’ll simply do indefinitely because of all the hope and change in the air. Surprisingly this report is from CNBC:

The US is too dependent on Japan and China buying up the country’s debt and could face severe economic problems if that stops, Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson told CNBC.

“It’s almost Armageddon if the Japanese and Chinese don’t buy our debt,” Robertson said in an interview. “I don’t know where we could get the money. I think we’ve let ourselves get in a terrible situation and I think we ought to try and get out of it.”

Robertson said inflation is a big risk if foreign countries were to stop buying bonds.

“If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent,” he said.  “It’s not a question of the economy. It’s a question of who will lend us the money if they don’t. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation where we’re totally dependent on those two countries. It’s crazy.”

Robertson said while he doesn’t think the Chinese will stop buying US bonds, the Japanese may eventually be forced to sell some of their long-term bonds.

“That’s much worse than not buying,” he said. “The other thing is, they’re buying almost exclusively short-term debt. And that’s what we are offering, because we can’t sell the long-term debt. And you know, the history has been that people who borrow short term really get burned.”

The only way to avoid the problem, he said, is to “grow and save our way out of it.”

“The U.S. has to quit spending, cut back, start saving, and scale backward,” Robertson said. “Until that happens, I don’t think we’re anywhere near out of the woods.”

There’s also video at the link so check it out. But remember, we’re “out of the recession” so everything is just fine.

The mood on the street is obviously not as hopeful as the Obamunists would have liked:

NEW ORLEANS — Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can’t keep up with the nation’s demand for ammunition.

Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have never seen such shortages. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammo, in part because they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation — even though nothing specific has been proposed and the president last month signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.

Gun sales spiked when it became clear Obama would be elected a year ago and purchases continued to rise in his first few months of office. The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that 6.1 million background checks for gun sales were issued from January to May, an increase of 25.6 percent from the same period the year before.

[…]

“We are working overtime and still can’t keep up with the demand,” said Al Russo, spokesman for North Carolina-based Remington Arms Company, which makes bullets for rifles, handguns and shotguns. “We’ve had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7. It’s a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business.”

Americans usually buy about 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, according to the National Rifle Association. In the past year, that figure has jumped to about 9 billion rounds, said NRA spokeswoman Vickie Cieplak.

I myself have been hoarding ammo, but again the media has it wrong. It isn’t about Democrats (entirely) but about a collapsing dollar, looming hyperinflation and a government that is causing food shortages that we will begin seeing soon. Don’t get me started on the wheat crisis. In other words, smart folk see the possibility of America sliding into second world status so quickly there may be civil unrest.

But that doesn’t fit the narrative of Obama as savior so it looks like we’ll keep getting stories of how we’re paranoid gun nuts.

h/t Drudge