Sunday, August 14, 2011

Political Digest for August 15, 2011

Resources
For those who want further information about the topics covered in this blog, I recommend the following sites. I will add to this as I find additional good sources.

Book Recommendation: Never Without Heroes by Lawrence C. Vetter
A fine history of the Marine Third Recon Battalion in Vietnam by an officer who served with recon and led patrols. This book is well-written, with a lot of attention to personal details, from the heroic to the humorous...to the tragic. The men of Third Recon earned four Medals of Honor, 13 Navy Crosses, 72 Silver Stars, and numerous Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. They took many casualties and inflicted many more on a tough, professional enemy. The book had a personal note for me, an account of a rocket attack I was on the receiving end of in July of 1967, with details I didn't know. As a Radio Relay Team Chief, I was lucky enough to be in a much safer billet with Regt. HQ than these guys, but this book made me proud to have worn the same uniform. It will be appreciated by all Marines, everyone interested in military history or small unit operations, and those who appreciate human courage. ~Bob

Pawlenty Drops 2012 Presidential Bid
Huh. I didn't get to vote yet. Pawlenty was more conservative, had a better record and less baggage than Romney. So a few thousand folks get to make this decision for over 300 million. ~Bob. Excerpt: Tim Pawlenty announced an end to his presidential candidacy Sunday after what he called a "disappointing" third place finish in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll. The former Minnesota governor said he had hoped to get a jolt from the preference poll that is an early indicator of a candidate's potential strength in the primary season. "I'm ending my campaign for president," Pawlenty told ABC's "This Week," noting that he wished the scenario had been different but voters were looking for something else. The message Pawlenty was offering "didn't get the kind of traction or lift that we needed and hoped for coming into the and out of the Ames straw poll. We needed to get some lift to continue on and to have a pathway forward. That didn't happen," he said.

Obama wins
So far, every Republican who has announced or even thought of running has been piled on by hoards of Conservatives, libertarians, establishment Republicans, Tea Party folks, right or center pundits and their GOP rivals, all covered in depth by the Obots in the media, that whoever emerges as the GOP nominee will be at least as damaged as Obama. Great job, all. ~Bob.

Bachmann Wins GOP 2012 Test Vote
Excerpt: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won a test vote of Iowans on Saturday, a show of popularity and organizational strength for the tea party favorite five months before the state's caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating season. The result is the first indication of what Iowans think of the field of Republicans competing for the chance to challenge President Barack Obama next fall. But it's hardly predictive of who will win the winter Iowa contest, much less the party nod or the White House. Rather, Saturday's outcome suggests that Bachmann has a certain level of support and, perhaps even more important, the strongest get-out-the-vote operation and widest volunteer base in a state whose caucuses require those elements. Texas Rep. Ron Paul finished a close second while former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty placed a distant third.

Excerpt: Well, the results are in from the Iowa Republican straw poll. Turnout was 16,892, up from 14,302 in 2007 and 10,598 in 1995, but well below the 23,685 in 1999, when both George W. Bush and Steve Forbes spend lots of money and lots of time on the straw poll. In percentage terms, Michele Bachmann led Ron Paul 29% to 28%, with 14% for Tim Pawlenty, ahead of 10% for Rick Santorum and 9% for Herman Cain. Rick Perry got 4% as a write-in, better than the 3% for Mitt Romney, who was on the ballot and who won four years ago, and 2% for Newt Gingrich. Jon Huntsman and Thaddeus McCotter each got, rounded off, 0%. (Turnout was under 17k? In my first state senate race, I got almost 30k votes, and won by 9. In 1976, I got over 50k votes. Why do we allow such a small sample to have such a large impact on our presidential election? It's nuts. ~Bob.)

Must have read my book, Collapse. ~Bob. Excerpt: Former head of the Government Accountability Office and Comptroller General of the United StatesDavid Walker has issued a stark warning following the compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling. “We are less than three years away from where Greece had its debt crisis as to where they were from debt to GDP,” Walker highlighted in an interview with CNBC earlier today. Greece’s ratio of debt to GDP has surpassed 100% and is heading towards 150%, a factor that has meant without bailouts from the EU and the IMF, the country would have defaulted. The US is now nearing the same 100% margin with GDP growth floundering below 1%. “We should recognize that this could be a leading indicator for us,” Walker said, adding that something must be done now to significantly restructure government spending if a major collapse is to be avoided in the future.

Rick Perry's College Transcript: A Lot Of Cs And Ds
Perry announces and the same day the Huffington Post has his college transcript. Obama started running for President six years ago--how does his transcript stack up next to Perry's? We'll never know--Mr. Transparency keeps all that as secret as John Kerry's military records. Where is Wikileaks when you need them? ~Bob

Excerpt: In 2004, Barack Obama's GOP opponent for Senate -- Jack Ryan -- "mysteriously" had his sealed divorce records un-sealed. But I'm sure that's just coincidental. You know, I find the media quite honest and diligent. It mocks and vilifies Rick Perry's college transcripts, yet somehow forgot about checking Barack Obama's:

It’s Perry Day in America: Wake Up and Smell The Idiocy Already Hurled at Him
This was in yesterday, but I'm told the link was broken. Hope this works. ~Bob.

The Tone-Deafness of Obama on Martha’s Vineyard
Excerpt: When your staunchest defenders criticize your cluelessness, you’d be wise to listen up. Colbert King, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist at The Washington Post, pulled no punches in his clear-eyed critique of the President’s upcoming vacation on chi-chi Martha’s Vineyard, where the likes of Mr. King’s late boss, Katharine Graham, had a house, as did the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as do Carly Simon, Walter Cronkite, James Taylor, Meg Ryan, Woody Harrelson, Caroline Kennedy Scholssberg, Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, film producers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, to name a very few. Oak Bluffs, an inter-racial community since the 1930s, is second home to Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., he of the Cambridge Police “teaching moment” of last year, and is where Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King, Jr. also vacationed. Spike Lee now owns an estate at Oaks Bluffs, above which he proudly flies the flag of the original Brooklyn Dodgers. That said, today, Colbert King let Mr. Obama in on a little secret that’s been making its way around the country for weeks, now: what a tone-deaf, horribly-conceived idea it is for him to fly off with his family to that particular destination.

Allen West- Ron Paul Not the Guy to be President
You can click "like" or "dislike," depending if you are a Paul or a West fan. I clicked "like." ~Bob.

£70m of British aid 'paid to the Taliban': Cash wasted on bribes and protection money, say campaigners
Excerpt: Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money could be ending up in the pockets of Taliban insurgents and corrupt Afghan officials, a damning report has revealed. The International Crisis Group warned that up to 10 per cent of overseas aid was being paid in bribes and protection money to the Taliban and officials in Kabul. Over the next four years, the Prime Minister has pledged to give £710million to Afghanistan alone. That could mean up to £70million of British money going to the very people we are fighting.

Prisoners use bedsheets to escape Lebanese jail
Excerpt: Five prisoners escaped from Lebanon's biggest jail on Saturday, using bedsheets to climb down a wall and then mingling with prison visitors before getting away, police said. Security sources said four of them were believed to belong to the Fatah al-Islam group which fought fierce battles with the Lebanese army in a Palestinian refugee camp in 2007. The Internal Security Forces said in a statement the five men, from Mauritania, Kuwait, Syria and Lebanon, escaped from Roumieh prison complex east of Beirut shortly before midday on Saturday. A sixth prisoner was caught as he tried to flee with them.

Qaeda Trying to Harness Toxin for Bombs, U.S. Officials Fear
Excerpt: American counterterrorism officials are increasingly concerned that the most dangerous regional arm of Al Qaeda is trying to produce the lethal poison ricin, to be packed around small explosives for attacks against the United States. For more than a year, according to classified intelligence reports, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has been making efforts to acquire large quantities of castor beans, which are required to produce ricin, a white, powdery toxin that is so deadly that just a speck can kill if it is inhaled or reaches the bloodstream. Intelligence officials say they have collected evidence that Qaeda operatives are trying to move castor beans and processing agents to a hideaway in Shabwa Province, in one of Yemen’s rugged tribal areas controlled by insurgents. The officials say the evidence points to efforts to secretly concoct batches of the poison, pack them around small explosives, and then try to explode them in contained spaces, like a shopping mall, an airport or a subway station.

Hamas reaches deal with U.S. to keep aid flowing to Gaza
Excerpt: We may be broke, but not too broke to use your tax dollars to fund terrorist groups. But, as Obama say, we must all chip in and pay our fair share for killing Jews. ~Bob. Excerpt: Hamas' power play failed for now, and they have backed off enough to keep the aid coming. To lose $100 million in aid would surely entail some political fallout for the jihadist faux-state, as lavish U.S. spending on Gaza is the one form of "pork" that is completely halal. But it appears to be a non-deal in the long run. Hamas has apparently not conceded its "right" to engage in the conduct that threatened the largesse in the first place. "Hamas official: We reached deal with US on Gaza aid," from the Jerusalem Post, August 13: A day after the United States said it had cut aid to Gaza, a Hamas official said the Islamist group and the United States have reached a compromise that will allow USAID to continue its operations in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported. The deal was reached by Hamas and USAID “through the United Nations,” the Hamas official said. On Friday, a US official told Reuters that the US had suspended operations of the aid organizations it funds in the Gaza Strip because Hamas had demanded confidential information about their work.

Australia: Radio host investigated for "inciting hatred against Muslims" by telling the truth about Muhammad
Excerpt: Strictly speaking, Michael Smith was wrong. Muhammad did not marry a nine-year-old and consummate the marriage when she was eleven. He actually married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine: "The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88. But that is not why he is being investigated. He is being investigated because he told a truth -- Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had sex with a child -- and Muslims consider truth-telling to be "inciting hatred against Muslims." Witless dhimmi Australian authorities are going along. It is ever thus. Last night the dishonest Imam Moustafa Zayed, in our second debate, kept claiming that I was inciting hatred against Muslims -- and there again, his only evidence was that I tell truths about Islam that he would prefer not be told.

American Man Kidnapped in Eastern Pakistan
Excerpt: Gunmen kidnapped an American development expert after tricking his guards and breaking into his house in Pakistan on Saturday, a brazen raid that alarmed aid workers, diplomats and other foreigners who already tread carefully in this country rife with Islamic militancy and anti-U.S. sentiment. The U.S. Embassy identified the victim as Warren Weinstein. Weinstein is the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a development contractor that has received millions of dollars from the aid arm of the U.S. government, according to a profile on LinkedIn, a networking website.

Turkish MP was beaten for ordering pork sausage in Germany
Excerpt: Turkish member of Berlin state parliament Orjam Mutluin was beaten in the restaurant, because he dared to order a sausage during Muslim Ramadan.

Muslims use Mosques as military installations to attack you--but Allah help you if you shoot at a mosque! ~Bob. Excerpt: Nabbed engineer Abu Sisi provides Israel with invaluable information about Hamas' operations, newly released documents reveal; terror group's military academy operated in Gaza mosques, he says.

Rape, mutilation: Pakistan's tribal justice for women
See, it's a cultural thing, and we must respect all cultures as equally valid. Tough for the women, but there it is. ~Bob. Excerpt: Peaceful Islam respects women, or so they tell us. ~Bob. Excerpt: On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous' home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside. ... Pakistan is the world's third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (http://link.reuters.com/jet92s) In its 2010 report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says almost 800 women were victims of "honor killings" -- murders aimed at preserving the honor of male relatives -- and 2,900 women reported raped -- almost eight a day. The bulk, or almost 2,600, were raped in Punjab alone, Pakistan's most populous province.

U.S. To Deny Taiwan New F-16 Fighters
Excerpt: Bowing to Chinese pressure, the U.S. will deny Taiwan's request for 66 new F-16C/D fighter aircraft, a Taiwan Ministry of National Defense (MND) official said. An armed U.S.-built F-16 fighter takes off during a drill in April. A Taiwan Ministry of National Defense official says Taipei will not be able to purchase new F-16s and is “so disappointed” in the U.S. decision. (Can't piss off the Commies who are buying our debt. As I say in my book, Collapse, China will slowly squeeze us out of Asia, bring first Taiwan, then S. Korea and Japan into their orbit. You are seeing here another step on that road. ~Bob.)

Vietnamese Security Forces Attack Christian Worshippers
Life as usual in the People's Paradise, brought to you by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and friends. ~Bob. Excerpt: On July 7, 2011, at approximately 8pm Vietnam security forces and police surrounded the village of Buon Kret Krot (H’Ra commune, Mang Yang district, Plei Ku city, in Gia Lai province, Vietnam). The villagers were praying in a Christian service when authorities charged them and started beating them with batons. 12 men and 4 women were beaten and some detained and repeatedly tortured. Injuries ranged from being stomped on while held on the ground to being struck with batons on their heads and bodies.

Obama's Ramadan Dinner Guest List Hides Attendance of Stealth Jihadists Tied to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood
Excerpt: The White House’s published guest list for this year’s Ramadan Iftar dinner was much shorter than previous years’ roster. It excluded the names of several controversial advocates who have attended the event in the past, including some who The Daily Caller can confirm did attend on Wednesday night. “It was a squeaky clean list,” said Durriya Badani, director of the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, an annual event organized by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center and the Qatari government. The guests on the published list are “not controversial at all,” said Badani, whose name is on the list the White House provided to reporters. “It was a lot more low-key … It was a more intimate event this year,” said Haris Tarin, the Washington director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, whose invitation was kept off the published list. “I have no idea why they didn’t publish [MPAC’s invite] … I’m going to learn about that a little bit more,” he told The Daily Caller.

Don’t Believe the Hype. Meet the Real Rick Perry: Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas Sends Warning to Republicans Nationwide About Perry’s Tax and Spend Record
Excerpt: Texas Governor Rick Perry may be the flavor of the day for a lot of Republicans, but Texas Republicans who are familiar with his record are a lot less enthusiastic about his presidential run. “Perry has a unique talent for finding new ways to raise taxes and loves to use taxpayer money to subsidize his business cronies,” says Secretary Dave Nalle of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas. “His supposed belief in limited government and states rights conveniently disappears whenever it conflicts with the demands of the special interests and corporate cronies who he serves.” Governor Perry’s record of big government, big spending, big taxing and attacks on the fundamental rights of Texas citizens is a familiar to Texans, but seems to be much less well known to Republicans outside of the state, which may explain his high initial showing in the polls. The Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas is compiling a complete dossier on Perry to share with fellow Republicans outside their state so that they can be informed about what they are being sold in a Perry presidential candidacy.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Discontent​s
Excerpt: Is Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood moderate? That’s what everyone wants to know now that Hosni Mubarak is out of power and the Islamists are flexing their muscles, not only against the military junta’s transition authorities, but also against the liberal activists who brought the autocratic president down. The Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesmen have been waging a PR campaign in the West for many years. They know exactly what to say and what not to say. They tell Western reporters that they’re activists for democracy and civil society. They don’t say they want to ban alcohol, force women to wear headscarves or veils, or further restrict the rights of religious minorities. The term “moderate” is relative, though. Surely the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate compared with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but that’s a meaningless standard. The Taliban and al-Qaeda are the most politically extreme Islamist organizations on earth. Fidel Castro is moderate compared with Pol Pot, and the Ku Klux Klan is moderate compared with the Nazis, but so what? It hardly matters at all that the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate compared with mass-murdering totalitarians whose weapon of choice is the suicide bomber.

Missing: Where are the children now?: Rebel takeover prompts questions about kidnappings, slavery, torture
No way for me to verify. Maybe the administration, which has recognized the rebels as the government, has information. ~Bob. Excerpt: There are persistent reports that children from government-run homes for orphans and abused children are missing and feared kidnapped, possibly tortured and sold, by rebels who recently took the town of Misrata in the western part of Libya near its capital of Tripoli, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.  Informed sources tell G2Bulletin that some 53 female and 52 male children ages 1 year to 12 years are missing, and the whereabouts of another group from 12 years to 18 years is unknown. Sources in Tripoli say that these children are some of more than 1,000 who have disappeared over the past six months since rebels entered Misrata and "went on a killing spree." The sources add that the children were "kidnapped" since they are no longer in their government-run orphanages and other homes for children without parents.

Obama's cheap 'shot'
Excerpt: Thirty American troops came home to Dover Air Force Base last week. They died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan by Taliban with rocket-propelled grenades. Many were members of SEAL Team Six, the fabled special operations unit that flew stealth choppers into Pakistan after Osama bin Laden, putting the old monster down in a pile of his porno tapes. Nineteen of the 30 families asked for no media coverage of the ceremony at Dover — that request for privacy was, of course, honored. By everyone, that is, except Barack Obama. He slipped in a personal photographer, who snapped a dramatic photo of the president saluting in silhouette. This was not an item for the private Obama scrapbook, to go beside a copy of the Standard & Poor’s letter downgrading America’s credit rating. The White House pushed it to every major media outlet, and made it “Photo of the Day” on its official website. It was an obvious attempt to carve an iconic image into the American consciousness with a mass-media chisel. Confronted about this remarkable show of disrespect, White House spokesman Jay Carney responded that it was no big deal because there weren’t any caskets in the photo. Besides, Carney said, the White House “released the photo in the interests of transparency, so that the American people could have as much insight as possible into this historic and sobering event.”

What Happened to Obama? Absolutely Nothing. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.
Excerpt: It's open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship. Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: "He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is." More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even "the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians." And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even "recall a soaring passage from a speech." Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany's Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his "weakness is a problem for the entire global economy." In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast—a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause "the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal," all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon—has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the "god" Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.

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