Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Political Digest for March 7, 2012

The Old Jarhead Blog: Bringing you news and information the MSM is too busy covering American Idol, celebrity affairs and sensational missing person cases to cover. Please forward to friends who need to be informed.

I’ll be posting this before the Super Tuesday results are in. I’m getting reports from widespread folks of light turnouts. I think all the attack ads have left us dispirited about all the candidates, which helps Obama immensely. I will post follow-up articles the next day. ~Bob.

Blog Submissions
I appreciate everyone who sends me items for the blog, but especially those who format the item as I use them, as I often don’t have time to chase them down when you don’t include formatted info. That would be:
Bold Headline in 12 point times Roman.
Excerpt: with two or three sentences from the article.
Your short comment if any.
Thanks. ~Bob

Comment on “I Apologize Too.”
Thank you Mr. Hall. You have enumerated the issues we have with Islam as it is practiced by so many sick people without attacking our Muslim friends and neighbors who disagree with the crackpots and cannot speak out without fear of violence against themselves or their families. I have printed your comments and will carry them with me to read to others when the opportunity arises. Thank you and best of health to you. Anonymous because my profiles are business related...

Western Civilisation: Decline – or Fall? By John Mauldin
Excerpt: I had my nose in Niall Ferguson's newest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, at every possible moment during my recent trip to Hong Kong and Singapore. It's powerful and very, very timely, and I strongly recommend it. To help get the word out, I asked Niall for a short, somewhat personal piece on the thinking behind the book – in other words, what moved him to write it?

Choke! White House moves G-8 summit from Chicago to Camp David
Excerpt: In a surprise turnaround, the White House announced Monday afternoon that Chicago won’t be hosting the controversial G-8 summit after all. It will be held at Camp David instead of Chicago. The NATO summit will proceed here May 20-21. (We ask them to secure the border, but this administration can’t secure Chicago. Good news for those of us who live here in Crook County. I suppose Obama figured that an Occupy-pooper riot in the old home town wouldn’t help the poll numbers. Rahm can leash the dogs. The nihilists say the riots—I mean protests—will go on anyway. Think they should move them to DC, close to the action, but guess they want to bash NATO. ~Bob.)

James Q. Wilson (1931-2012) by Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: There are undoubtedly many people who are alive today because of James Q. Wilson, who died last week. … He saved lives because his penetrating analyses of crime, and the effect of the criminal law, debunked the theories of other intellectuals, which had led judges and legislators to ease up on criminals -- leading in turn to skyrocketing rates of crime, including murder.

AOL Drops Rush for “Slut” Remark, But Allows This? Hypocrites.
Excerpt: It’s time to take a good hard look at Rick Santorum’s faith.
Many of you will be shocked to learn what our possible future president believes, who he answers to, the bloody jihads his so-called church has carried on for centuries, and its current role as the tactical arm of the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
GOP Hopefuls Losing Ground to Obama Among Latinos, Poll Says
Excerpt: Despite growing disappointment in his handling of immigration issues, Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls, showed a Fox News Latino poll conducted under the direction of Latin Insights and released Monday.

Excerpt: Romney replied, “I want you to know how much I appreciate your son’s sacrifice for our country, and I appreciate your sacrifice, your family’s sacrifice for our country. To those who put everything on the line, we owe everything they need. And I can tell you if I’m president of the United States, I’ll not be raising co-pays on soldiers that are wounded, on men and women who serve this country. And I will do everything in my power to help your son and the men and boys and women and girls like him.”

Poll: Wisconsin Voters Now Oppose Walker Recall By 11-Point Margin
Excerpt: Ever since they announced their intention to do so, I've been publicly begging Leftists to waste spend tens of millions on a recall campaign against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. I was convinced that the Democrat-Union coalition would squander precious campaign resources in an quixotic bid to exact revenge on one of their most despised conservative bogeymen. A new poll from Rasmussen suggests that my instincts were correct. Wisconsinites -- who have voted to re-elect a conservative state Supreme Court justice and to protect a Republican State Senate majority since Walker's budget fix passed -- now oppose replacing the governor by an 11-point margin: (Recalling Walker would, I must admit, be good for those of us who live in Illinois. We are a fiscal disaster, getting worse by the day. If Wisconsin gets it fiscal house in order and stabilizes it, they will suck thousands of jobs from Illinois. Maybe me with them. ~Bob.)

Study: Income inequality didn’t cause the financial crisis and Great Recession By James Pethokoukis
Excerpt: Was income inequality a key cause the financial crisis and the Great Recession? President Obama and the Democratic Party think so. … Economist Raghuram Rajan has presented a more balanced version of this argument that concedes a rise in inequality but mostly blames Washington’s response of pushing home ownership. His thesis is outlined in new study, “Does Inequality Lead to a Financial Crisis” by economists Michael D. Bordo and Christopher M. Meissner:

Ten Questions Obama Should Be Asked at Tuesday’s Press Conference by Lachlan Markay
Excerpt: In light of these and other happenings over the last few months, here are ten questions that we feel should be asked of the president when he takes the podium on Tuesday. (But won’t be. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: Geithner and the 'Privilege' of Being American By Lawrence B. Lindsey
Excerpt: Philosophically, the concept that being an American is a "privilege" upends the whole basis on which America was founded. Privileges are things granted to one individual by another, higher-ranking, individual. For example, in my house my children's use of the family car is a privilege. One presumes Mr. Geithner believes that the "privilege" of being an American is granted by the presumably higher-ranking, governing powers that be. This is an age-old view that our Founding Fathers rejected. (Again, if an article is blocked when you click on it, you can usually find the full article if you the Google the title. ~Bob.)

Longtime New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne dies from colon cancer
Excerpt: Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), a 12-term member of Congress and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), died Tuesday at age 77.  He announced in February that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer, and his condition deteriorated in the last week. (If any on the right tweet the kind of vile comments that the left sent on Breitbart’s death, the media will scream racism. Hopefully not. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: Shifting Winds
Excerpt: The GOP’s self-absorption and obsession with pleasing its conservative base in presidential candidates’ rhetoric and in policy initiatives at the congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative levels have taken a toll. While tea party folks like to boast that they provided the GOP with its majority in 2010, I didn’t notice many of them voting to put Nancy Pelosi in as House speaker in 2006 or to elect Barack Obama president in 2008. In the Bible, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. In politics, it is pretty much independents who giveth and taketh away. (WAKE UP! WAKE UP! Ron P.)

McCain Calls for Air Strikes on Syria
Excerpt: As the bloodshed intensifies in Syria, Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., on Monday became the first senator to call publicly for Washington to launch air strikes on President Bashar al-Assad's forces to protect the Syrian people in their fight to overthrow the longtime leader. The crisis in Syria has reached a decisive moment, McCain said on the Senate floor. "The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through air strikes on Assad’s forces. To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country." (Why is it that when Obama says things like this, he’s called a “statesman,” and when others say it, they’re “warmongers?” Ron P.)

Tea Party Marine Investigated for Disloyalty to Obama
Excerpt: The Armed Forces Tea Party reports that Camp Pendleton Marine Gary Stein is being officially investigated for making disloyal comments about Obama. “The comments in question were made by his personal Facebook profile during a discussion about ‘NATO allowing the trial of US Troops for burning the Koran’ on a Facebook Group and since been deleted,” a post today explains.

Immortality: Andrew Breitbart’s 5 Gifts to Generation Y Conservatism
Excerpt: During the final years of his life Breitbart transformed into the Bad Guy, apolitical assassin in the vast right-wing conspiracy who could fire lightning bolts to sizzle political careers and collapse Marxist organizations. He became the dark lord Voldemort, the great Boogeyman masterminding the Tea Party New Media Revolution.

ICE Detention facilities provide luxuries for those awaiting deportation by Kimberly Dvorak
Excerpt: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is charged with implementing the nation’s immigration laws and part of that responsibility includes detaining and deporting those who break the law. However, the Obama Administration, ICE Director, John Morton, and DHS Secretary, Janet Napolitano made changes to the process and will provide a litany of “special perks

Holder: U.S. can lawfully target American citizens
Excerpt: The U.S. government has the right to order the killing of American citizens overseas if they are senior al-Qaeda leaders who pose an imminent terrorist threat and cannot reasonably be captured, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday. (I rarely agree with Holder on anything, but do on this. To suggest otherwise is to say that Lincoln violated the constitution by not sending the police to arrest the Confederate Army and try them individually in court. They were in arms against the United States, thus forfeiting any protections. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: Wisconsin Recall Realigns Campaign Spending
Excerpt: Unions and conservative groups have turned Wisconsin's battle over labor rights into a national, multimillion-dollar war that will reverberate through the presidential and congressional races this fall. … All told, the two sides spent some $44 million last year for or against the recall efforts there, according to the nonpartisan political-finance watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, and that may be a low estimate, said director Mike McCabe. This year, recall spending could reach $60 million, according to people on both sides of the fight. (Maybe elections have become the main vehicle for wealth redistribution. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: The Obama administration’s remake of the U.S. health care system stands on three legs. One, it makes the purchase of insurance compulsory. Two, it doles out new entitlements via expanded Medicaid, subsidies, and certain coverage requirements. And three, it promises to control the growth of medical costs. These three parts differ in their implications and prospects. The first leg may give way altogether; the second is partially already in place; the third provides the rationale for centralized allocation of resources in health care.

What's the truth about the unemployment numbers?
Excerpt: But other numbers show a much weaker job market and economy; the average unemployment duration remains near its all-time high, hiring is stuck near record lows, and there are almost 3 million workers in part-time rather than full-time jobs. Further, GDP grew just 1.7% last year and few new companies are being started.

The High Cost of the Fed's Cheap Money
Excerpt: During the past three years, the Federal Reserve has tripled the size of its balance sheet -- in effect printing $2 trillion -- something it had never done in its nearly 100-year history. The Fed has lowered short-term interest rates to zero and signaled that it will keep them at that level for years. Inflation-adjusted short-term rates, or real rates, have been in the minus 2 percent range during the past couple of years for the first time since the 1970s. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch.

Quote from Twitter
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism. - Thomas Sowell

Obama administration hires lobbyist it attacked in 2008
Well, he attacked raising the dent ceiling too. ~Bob. Excerpt: As Politifact notes, although the president signed an executive order codifying this pledge on his first full day in office, the administration has made use of a loophole in the order that permits “waivers” for former lobbyists to serve. In some cases, the administration has hired former lobbyists without a waiver and without disclosing details to the public.

Latest Gitmo recidivist statistics released
Excerpt: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has released new summary statistics on the recidivism of former Guantanamo detainees. At present, 167 ex-Gitmo detainees are either "confirmed" or "suspected" of reengaging in "terrorist or insurgent activities" after their release, according to the ODNI's latest estimate. The ODNI's summary is based on intelligence available as of December 2011.

Special Forces soldier dies trying to save NC kids
Excerpt: A Green Beret recently home from Afghanistan died trying to rescue his two young daughters from their burning home near Fort Bragg in North Carolina early Tuesday, and the girls were also killed in the blaze.

Netanyahu and Obama Still Divided Over Iran
Excerpt: Netanyahu sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat to his country's future, and Israeli officials have been openly suggesting they might conduct military strikes against Iran's nuclear sites this summer. Obama regularly says that he will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons, but just as regularly says that he believes the hard-hitting economic and diplomatic sanctions on Iran should be given more time to work.

Former German official: Iran tested bomb in N. Korea
Excerpt: A senior German defense figure said in a report this week that Iran may be significantly further ahead in its nuclear weapons program than public intelligence assessments have so far suggested. Hans Ruhle, who directed the planning department of the German Defense Ministry from 1982 to 1988, argued that Iran may have been involved in the detonation of an experimental uranium nuclear bomb in North Korea in 2010.

EXCLUSIVE: Unmasking the world’s most wanted hacker
Excerpt: An unemployed computer programmer, welfare recipient and legal guardian of two young children, Monsegur did not go to college and is a self-taught hacker. Although his skills and intellect could command a lucrative salary in the private sector, those who know him say he is lazy, an underachiever complacent with his lifestyle. (He will doubtless become a hero to the Left, who love destructive scum. ~Bob.)

Warren Buffett Company: Please Hike Cut Our Taxes
Excerpt: But when a Buffett company had a chance to tackle both problems, it chose to do the opposite. And it spent handsomely on
K Street
to get it done. Berkshire Hathaway-owned NetJets Inc. spent more than $2.5 million on a squadron of lobbyists who successfully crafted tax legislation to benefit a handful of private jet companies, according to a HuffPost analysis of lobbying disclosure records.

This is no time for Republican gloom by Rich Lowry
Excerpt: If anyone does a year-end wrap-up of the worst ideas of 2012, losing the presidential election deserves to be high on the list. A note of gloomy wishfulness has entered Republican thinking of late. Maybe a loss in November (if Mitt Romney wins the nomination) won’t be so bad because a cleansing fire will rid the party of moderates once and for all.

Gun Sales Rise as People Fear 4 More Years of Obama
Excerpt: Ideological wars are not won with guns. Good ideas beat bad ideas. The reason bad ideas win, at least politically, is because there are enough people who will vote for politicians who campaign on the platform that they will take money from one group of taxpayers with the promise that it will be given to them, the faithful party voters.

Woman sells three-year-old Chicken McNugget for $8,100
Excerpt: A Nebraska woman has sold a three-year-old McDonald's Chicken McNugget that resembles President George Washington for $8,100 on eBay. (Here’s a little light news. One of the truisms of retailing is “if you can get enough traffic, you can sell poop in plain brown paper bags for a big profit.” eBay has a WHOLE lot of traffic. And, as P. T. Barnum once said, “…there’s one born every minute.” It’s not a very good likeness, either; the hooked nose looks more like England's George III to me. Ron P.)

Leadership Rift Emerges in Pakistani Taliban
Excerpt: The Pakistani Taliban faced the prospect of a damaging leadership rift on Monday when the abrupt dismissal of a senior commander provoked an angry reaction in the militants’ ranks, offering the Islamabad government a fresh opportunity to weaken a foe that in recent years has killed thousands of Pakistanis and tried to detonate a crude car bomb in Times Square in 2010. (I understand the Taliban has a very effective “severance” package. ~Bob.)

Egyptian Lawmaker Forced to Resign Over Nose Job
Excerpt: The first political scandal of Egypt’s fledgling electoral democracy erupted Monday after an Islamist lawmaker was expelled from his ultraconservative party, accused of fabricating a story that he was viciously beaten by masked gunmen. Doctors said that the bandages on his face in fact covered up plastic surgery on his nose. (I suppose boob jobs for the wives are out of the question. ~Bob.)

Congressional Term Limits! The Great Crowe Compromise...
Not a professional video, but if it gets the word out, maybe we can change the world! – George

White House to Congress Dems: Expect no money
Excerpt: President Barack Obama has a bleak message for House and Senate Democrats this year when it comes to campaign cash: You’re on your own. Democratic congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have privately sought as much as $30 million combined from Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee — a replay of the financial help they received from Obama in 2008 and 2010. (My Precious! I’m not spreading the wealth around! Get your own Wall Street connections! ~Bob.)

A bailout for real estate speculators
Excerpt: Expanding its push to fill vacant homes, the Obama administration is giving mortgage aid to real-estate investors who bought multiple homes during the housing bubble. … That said, the change is likely to raise the hackles of those who believe that taxpayer money would be better spent on underwater homeowners who bought homes with the intention of living in them, not to game the market.

The Gaseous Policies of Barack Obama by Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: I think that such words and deeds translate into some technocratic “never waste a crisis” dream in which we adapt to mass transit, begin to pile into Smart cars and subsidized government Volts, arrange our power use around the cycles of the Sun and wind, and in general consume far less as dictated by those in the technocratic overseer class, the waiting-Escalades-on-the-tarmac bunch who by needs must consume far, far more to save us from ourselves. The financiers of Solyndra and other failed subsidized firms are somehow exempt from the sorts of invective leveled at those who produce oil, as if we like those who lose our money and end up producing nothing but despise those who make a profit, pay taxes, and get us to work in the morning.

Worth Reading: Syrian Ironies: As Assad’s murderous toll rises, so do pressures on a reluctant West. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Republicans were relieved that Obama, once president, suddenly dropped almost all the demagogic criticism that had fueled his successful campaign and embraced the Bush-Cheney policies against terrorists. But they were not relieved enough to overlook the hypocrisy — and the prior damage done by Obama and others, whose rhetoric was revealed as more partisan than reflective of any principled positions against Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventive detention, and troops in Iraq.

The State of the World: Assessing China's Strategy By George Friedman
Excerpt: Simply put, China has three core strategic interests. Paramount among them is the maintenance of domestic security. Historically, when China involves itself in global trade, as it did in the 19th and early 20th century, the coastal region prospers, while the interior of China -- which begins about 100 miles from the coast and runs about 1,000 miles to the west -- languishes. Roughly 80 percent of all Chinese citizens currently have household incomes lower than the average household income in Bolivia. Most of China's poor are located west of the richer coastal region; this disparity of wealth time and again has exposed tensions between the interests of the coast and those of the interior.

Holding Maher et al Accountable for *their* Misogyny
Excerpt: Here we go again... I've written about name-calling before, and have said how both sides need to cool it. But apparently only those on the right are held accountable by most of the left and the media.

Failure of Greek debt deal could cost $1 trillion
Excerpt: Decision day for the Greek debt crisis is drawing near, and insiders are predicting that if things go awry it could cost the world economy $1 trillion. Holders of Greek bonds have to decide by this Thursday whether they will trade in their old Greek bonds for new bonds that are worth less. (Well, if it goes bad, we can still blame it on Bush. ~Bob.)

‘The 1 Percent Criminals’: You’ll Never Guess Where Occupy Wall Street Supporters Held a Recent Conference
Excerpt: Those questioning the Occupy Wall Street protesters’ slogan that they represent the 99 percent may have just gotten more evidence to support their skepticism. Turns out, three American Occupy Wall Street-supporting professors joined Iranian counterparts at Tehran University last month for an Occupy Wall Street conference. (If OWS gets nukes, things could get ugly. ~Bob.)

Green Firms Get Fed Cash, Give Execs Bonuses, Fail
Excerpt: President Obama's Department of Energy helped finance several green energy companies that later fell into bankruptcy -- but not before the firms doled out six-figure bonuses and payouts to top executives, a Center for Public Integrity and ABC News investigation found.

The Vetting, Part I: Barack's Love Song To Alinsky
Excerpt: In 1998, a small Chicago theater company staged a play titled The Love Song of Saul Alinsky, dedicated to the life and politics of the radical community organizer whose methods Obama had practiced and taught on Chicago’s South Side. Obama was not only in the audience, but also took the stage after one performance, participating in a panel discussion that was advertised in the poster for the play. (Long, but very interesting read about Alinsky and Obama's connection to him. Note, this comes from Breitbart. Once in the link, scroll down to the article: "Saul Alinsky is Back"! –GBH)

Ray Kelly's War--- New York's elites put the antiterror cops on trial.
Excerpt: He founds a website, Revolution Muslim, which publishes instructions on "How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom" from an al Qaeda publication. The man encourages others to kill the writers of "South Park" because they depicted the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. Another man who visits the website decides to make pipebombs and plans attacks in New York City.

Book Review of The Rent is Too Damn High
Excerpt: My review is based solely on the book's merits. Of which there are none.

Excerpt: According to the common narrative, everything is now made using cheap labor in places like China and India, and when it comes to the factories and production, the United States is losing out to the rising economic powers. With continuing high unemployment and the label “Made in China” on seemingly every product, it seems intuitive that the American manufacturing base is disappearing. There’s only one problem with that narrative: it isn’t true.

Wikileaks reveals Democrat 2008 election crimes
Believable but unverified. Puts the worst (best?) spin on it. Media, of course, won’t be interested, so will probably go nowhere even if all true. ~Bob.

For GOP, it's time to focus on winning By Ari Fleischer
Excerpt: The fact of Republican life today is that the party was fundamentally transformed by the tea party movement in 2010. The party's base is driven by a reform it now, anti-spending movement, while its presidential candidates served their terms in office prior to the tea party era, and their records don't match up perfectly with the direction of the party.

It Just Ain't So by Walter Williams
Excerpt: For the most part, rising worker productivity and advances in technology are the primary causes of reduced employment and higher output in the manufacturing, agriculture and telecommunications industries. My question is whether Congress should outlaw these productivity gains in the name of job creation. It would be easy. Just get rid of those John Deere harvesting machines that do in a day what used to take a thousand men a week, outlaw the robots and automation that eliminated many manufacturing jobs and bring back manually operated PBX telephone switchboards. (Common sense from the uncommon Walter Williams. Ron P.)

No comments:

Post a Comment