Sunday, November 4, 2012

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for November 5, 2012


Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for November 5, 2012
Robert A. Hall

I'm Back
Since Thursday, I've been working 15 hour days at the annual conference of the doctors' association I manage. Have had almost zero computer time and no e-mail time. Part of me hated it and part thought it was a relief. Returned to a number of political robo voice-mail calls, a pile of mail and papers and over 900 e-mails, will get through a few and post this. A doctor from Miami and one from Jacksonville, both democrat areas, told me Romney will carry Florida easily. They are Republicans. One from Cleveland, who said he wasn't for either candidate, said Romney will carry Ohio. One from Michigan said it was a funny state, could still go either way. But two lawyer-lobbyists from DC both give the edge to Obama, and say the docs only talk to well-informed, upper-middleclass folks like themselves. Everyone commented on what a gift Sandy was to Obama, taking the Benghazi cover up off peoples' minds. Who knows?

Compliment for The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
I ran into the surgeon who bought 50 copies when it came out, had me sign them and sent them to his friends. He said every one of them called him to say thanks for the terrific book.
All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans. E-Book available at Smash Words: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/59105
For a free PDF of Collapse, write to me at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com.

Worth Reading: Hiring a New Head Coach. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: Turning a losing program around does not happen overnight. A new head coach brings fresh perspective. The first task is to change attitudes - to unify the team and instill in them the belief they are winners. Attitude is the bedrock for success - on the gridiron and elsewhere.

28,000 SUPPORTERS Turn Out in the Cold to See Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania!
Pictures.

Tweet from Robert Costa ‏@robertcostaNRO 
"The rally doesn't even start for hours, but it feels like a Republican Woodstock." -- my mom, calling from Yardley, PA, a swing area. 

This Mitt fellow is becoming more likeable every day. Mary Katharine Ham
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/04/polls-this-mitt-fellow-is-becoming-more-likeable-by-the-day/
Excerpt: I know many conservatives bristle at the notion of “likeability” or personal “favorability” as an important campaign metric, dismissing it as a shallow consideration not worthy of news coverage. But, the fact is, it does matter. It is not, on its own, a qualification for office, but we are human beings and we make many decisions based on whether we like or dislike others. If you don’t think it’s a boon to be likeable, imagine Ronald Reagan’s presidency with Harry Reid’s personality.

Let Them Go Hungry. By Mark Steyn
Excerpt: The more likely dystopia is a land where the Statue still stands, yet liberty itself withers away remorselessly, often under cover of bright shiny novel "liberties" and "freedoms" — "free" health care, "free" college education with "free" contraceptives for 30-year-old students. Until eventually you reach a point where a man in an office thousands of miles away is determining how much your child can eat — and nobody finds that unusual. Didn't Oliver Twist have something to say about this? "Please, sir, I want some more.”

Food Stamp Growth 75X Greater than Job Creation. By Daniel Halper
Excerpt: With the latest jobs report, it is now the case that "Under Obama, Food Stamp Growth [Is] 75 Times Greater Than Job Creation," according to statistics compiled by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. "For Every Person Added to Jobs Rolls Since January 2009, 75 People Added To Food Stamp Rolls." Since January 2009, as the chart shows, a net of 194,000 new jobs have been created. During that same time, 14.7 million have been added to the food stamp rolls.

Excerpt: On Saturday, three Egyptian policemen were killed in the city of el-Arish in the North Sinai governorate. At least one other policeman was injured in the attack, which security officials say was likely carried out by jihadists operating in the area.

Excerpt: This is not only outrageous because it is a blatant violation of the law, it’s the attitude of the NAACP canvassers that makes this incident an affront to democracy. Kate Pavlich: According to Eve Rockford, a poll watcher trained by voter integrity group True the Vote, three NAACP members showed up to the 139 precinct location with 50 cases of bottled water and began handing bottles out to people standing in line. While wearing NAACP labeled clothing, members were “stirring the crowd” and talking to voters about flying to Ohio to promote President Barack Obama.

Sources: Key task force not convened during Benghazi consulate attack
Excerpt: CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).…. The Administration also didn't call on the only interagency, on-call, short notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide: the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST)…...In the days after the assault, counterterrorism officials expressed dismay over what they interpreted as the Obama Administration's unwillingness to acknowledge that the attack was terrorism; and their opinion that resources which could have helped were excluded.

TWIN TIMELINE: What was happening in Benghazi and Washington
Last night I heard Newt Gingrich ask for a twin timeline to help illustrate what was happening in Benghazi and in Washington. Newt's wish is my command:

The Obama Doctrine: American Lives Are Expendable. By Karin McQuillan 
Excerpt: The Obama White House, the Clinton State Department, and Panetta's Department of Defense have guiding principles in Afghanistan that, if applied to Benghazi, explain the administration's decision to deny air support to the Americans fighting for their lives on 9/11/12. The denial of air support to our troops in battle is normal operating procedure for this commander in chief. ….. It is the Obama Doctrine on the War on Terror: do not kill Muslim civilians. 

Worth Reading. I still have the battered copy of Kipling's poems I carried in my pack in Vietnam, held together by surgical tape. ~Bob.

Having our Soldiers' Back. By Shoshana Bryen
Excerpt: Navy SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods knew the risks they took having volunteered for service in the American armed forces. They were in a war zone; they knew what the enemy could do, but it's hard to imagine they ever considered that their government didn't have their back. That the U.S. government would deny them rescue, deny them reinforcements, deny them cover. What must they have felt in those hours, knowing it was only a matter of time until they died -- not because their government didn't know, not because their comrades couldn't reach them, but because their comrades weren't sent.

Nevada’s Biggest Paper: Obama 'Unworthy Commander-in-Chief' After Benghazi. By Patrick Hobin
Excerpt: Nevada’s largest newspaper blasted President Barack Obama in a blistering editorial on Thursday about the Benghazi attacks in which four Americans died, calling him an “unworthy commander-in-chief.” Obama, who holds a small lead in Nevada, which has six electoral votes, was taken to task by the Las Vegas Review-Journal for his handling of the Benghazi, Libya attacks in an editorial headlined, “Benghazi blunder: Obama unworthy commander-in-chief.” (Ouch, a major zinger from a state newspaper. We can hope it gets read widely. --Del)

Las Vegas Review-Journal Destroys Obama
Excerpt: “To return to office a narcissistic amateur who seeks to ride this nation's economy and international esteem to oblivion, like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb to its target at the end of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," would be disastrous. Candidate Obama said if he couldn't fix the economy in four years, his would be a one-term presidency. Mitt Romney is moral, capable and responsible man. Just this once, it's time to hold Barack Obama to his word. Maybe we can all do something about that, come Tuesday.”

Obama’s secret (and illegal) regulatory bomb. By Phil Kerpen, President, American Commitment
Excerpt: In January of this year, President Obama declared the Senate to be in recess the day after it gaveled into session. Like a king dissolving parliament, he put them in recess to give himself a free hand to stack the NLRB with union cronies and to install Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new agency with nearly unlimited power to regulate consumer financial transactions with almost no oversight from Congress other than the right of the Senate to approve the appointment. …. If Obama can govern with thinly veiled contempt for the rule of law and get re-elected anyway, he may drop the pretense completely if he gets a second term.

Israel sends a message. By Benny Avni
Excerpt: The before-and-after satellite images said it all: First, the mysterious cargo was there, and then — puff — it was gone, leaving behind just large black holes in the ground. In between, Israeli planes flying in the dark of the desert night dropped just enough bombs on the Yarmouk military compound in Sudan to destroy the cargo, described in news accounts as “volatile.” The planes reportedly came and went undetected by Sudanese air defenses. (A lot of meaning can be taken from this raid on Sudan. It should give a lot of people pause. --Del)

Excerpt: If you're reading this, you've almost made it through the Obama years. God knows it hasn't been easy holding on this long. If you're like me, there were days you felt as if you'd aged ten years, just trying to bitterly cling to your leaky life raft. Maybe you're one of the 23 million Americans who are unemployed, under-employed, or who have given up looking for work. Who can blame you for despairing, when two-thirds of the jobs in the last four years have gone to new immigrants, many of them illegals? But don't worry if, like one out of six Americans, you're sinking into poverty -- after all, Obama assures us that "the private sector is doing fine."

"Conservatism Is Calling" (video)

Suicide bombers hit Somali capital, three dead: witnesses
Excerpt: Two suicide bombers attacked a restaurant in the Somali capital on Saturday, killing a security guard who stopped them entering the building, locals said. It was not clear who was behind the bombings but Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgents have conducted similar previous attacks and remain a serious security challenge even after being forced out of their strongholds.

Romney lead in FL
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2012/11/2/exclusive_poll_romne.html
Personally, I think the reason for the huge absentee ballots could be that no one wants to face the NBP at the polling places. Also, just having to get through the legal mumbo-jumbo of the amendments and trying to figure it all out in a poll booth is way too stressful. Kind of like being in a port-a-potty with a long line behind you. LOL. --Laura.

Benghazi Investigator Slams America and ‘Islamophobes.’ By Matthew Vadum
Excerpt: America is a seething hotbed of “Islamophobia,” filled with ignorant racist rubes who irrationally fear the benign Muslim religion, according to the Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi atrocities. So said former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in more polished, diplomatic language during an Oct. 23 panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The talk was on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia,” a make-believe mental illness that Islamists would love to have listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (This is the kind of crazy stuff that goes on with highly political appointees, who show by their spouting rhetoric that they really aren't exactly the right people to be in the positions they're in. If this idiot were 10% correct, we'd have by now a long list of assaults against Muslims all over the country. No such record exists, and Americans in general continue to be the tolerant people they have become in the past several decades. Even the publicly militant Muslims have never been targeted for violence, and in some areas, like Dearborn, MI, the Muslim presence is very large and major Muslim public fairs are held with no outside agitators initiating violence. The contrast with the tremendously increased aggression towards nonMuslim minorities in Iraq, Egypt, and other Muslim countries has apparently escaped this veteran diplomat. His inputs would be funny if they weren't so offensive, and having him head the investigation in Libya is a terrible choice by Mr. Obama. --Del)

An open letter to the Jewish population: Cape Coral Daily Breeze
Excerpt: Time has a way of making things and situations less important. Apparently, Israel has not only become "inconvenient" for Barack Obama but for a large group of Jews in the United States as well. There is simply no explanation for any Jew-and that's the majority of them-who would support Obama in the next election.

50,000 Feet Looking Down
Excerpt: My world view is pretty simple. I think this world is destined to go to hell in a hand basket by design. I think things are supposed to go to pot. So if Barack Obama wins, I won’t be upset. If Mitt Romney wins, I won’t be running through the streets cheering. I think, either way, it is all part of the design. The world is going down hill. Barack Obama re-elected just gets us down the slippery slope faster in my view.

A Frank Conversation about Race
Excerpt: I admit that Republicans and white conservatives like myself intend for voter ID laws to prevent certain traditional Democratic constituencies from voting. It's true: we very much want to keep dead people, illegal aliens, serial voters, fictitious people, dogs, cats, etc. from casting ballots. The only black person I (or anyone I know) would want to keep from casting a ballot would be one who already has cast a ballot, but that condition applies equally to white voters, too. --Steve.

Excerpt: Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi headlined a high-dollar fundraiser in May that was attended by U.S.-based Islamist groups and individuals linked by the U.S. government to the Hamas jihad group and to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood movement. The donors at the undisclosed May 16 event included Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, according to data provided by the nonpartisan Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Obama Can Thank Early Negative Ads for His Advantage
Excerpt: One is occurring in seven or so swing states, where voters have experienced saturation advertising—mostly negative—since mid-June. The total-immersion process in these states has made this a very different campaign from that experienced by voters in the 40-odd other states who have witnessed this election from afar, largely through national news. It should be no surprise that voters in those two distinct groups should be behaving differently. (If Cook is correct, what that will mean for the future is pre-emptive trashing of any possible opponent’s reputation and character as early and often as possible. Won’t THAT help the country get good candidates to run for high office? Ron P.)

Maryland Woman Has Kept Track of Every Tax on Her In 2012 — and You’re Not Going to Believe How Much She’s Paid So Far
Excerpt: Does Maryland resident Alice Scanlon pay more taxes than you? Maybe not. But Scanlon certainly keeps track of her taxes better than you. Much better. Down to the penny better. (OK, it is crunch time for the election and this article really helps crystallize the choice - Do I vote for the guy who wants to increase my taxes and the size of government and giveaways (Obama) or the guy who wants to cut the size of government and lower my taxes (Romney)? If you believe Obama only wants to raise taxes only for "millionaires and billionaires you are naive as there is not enough money made by all of the upper and middle class to pay for his spending. --Gary in PA.)

Parents kill teenage daughter in acid attack in Kashmir
Excerpt: Mother and father in Pakistan doused 15-year-old In acid after catching her talking to a man, police say.

Jordan: Father strangles daughter for honor reason
Excerpt: Amman, November 1 - A Jordanian man killed his 22 year old doughter by strangling her after suspecting she was having a romantic relation with a man, police source said on Thursday.

Mitt Romney Announces Support Of Former Prisoners Of War
Excerpt: Mitt Romney today announced the support of 150 former prisoners of war. 

Excerpt: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat from Illinois, hasn't been an active member of Congress since June, and recent sightings have him on two consecutive nights at a bar near his D.C. home. Yet he's going to coast to reelection next week.... Jackson is one of many scandal-plagued lawmakers likely to return to Congress; for these lawmakers it almost feels like they couldn't lose an election no matter how hard they tried. (Though it seems a crime, this is nothing new. Adam Clayton Powell, Charlie Rangel, a Louisiana Congressman named Jefferson, and many others have proven this over and over. A scandal only seems to move a politician to resign or lose an election if there was already a viable candidate—meaning one who could come close to beating him without the scandal—within view. Sometimes, not even then. Ron P.)

Obama Uses Crucifixes To Get Catholic Votes
Excerpt: A week before Election Day, the Obama campaign seeks Catholic votes with an ad that features crucifixes. Leave it to a trampler of religious liberty to jumble church, state and politics. In all the history of political advertizing, President Obama's new video, with Vice President Joe Biden brazenly appealing to Catholics ignorant of ObamaCare's attack on religious liberty, takes the prize for all-out gall. (First, separation of Church and state does not require religious people to abandon all their moral and theological background when dealing with or acting as a member of the government. The policy means that the state will not be directly allied with or controlled by any sort of official or unofficial religious denomination. In the extreme, in means a Jewish President could not offer US troops to help defend Israel, a Catholic President cannot include the Pope in foreign policy decisions, and a Buddhist President cannot forbid the use of deadly force by any US agency or military so as to avoid any possible loss of life. But it doesn't mean the Jew must be cold towards Israel, the Catholic cannot ever visit the Pope, and the Buddhist cannot personally undertake policies to lessen chances of the need for deadly force. When Joe Biden tries to wave the flag of how he's a "practicing" Catholic after having very publicly and directly supported abortion for years, he's deliberately ignoring the fact that he is clearly at odds with the official doctrine and practice of the Church. It's like claiming to be a long term committed vegetarian, when you openly recommend KFC regularly to everyone. And it's hypocritical, and scummy politics in action. And when you blithely ignore the fact that the rules which are to be imposed under Obamacare do force Catholic institutions to indirectly support birth control, etc, that's doubletalk and more hypocrisy. And a matter that has been exposed since almost instantly since it began, so continuing to repeal the lie is insulting to the intelligence of everyone. If Joe wants to believe in perfect freedom to abortion, he gets to do that, it's a free country. I just don't appreciate his making believe that he can do that and remain a "practicing" Catholic, and using that fantasy as part of his political action. Yeah, everyone on both sides has been using inaccuracies (to put it kindly) in their speeches, but this particular situation with Joe really ticks me off. --Del)

What Do I Tell My Black Child If Obama Loses? By Larry Elder
http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2012/11/01/what_do_i_tell_my_black_child_if_obama_loses
Excerpt: My father, a former Marine, World War II vet, was born to an illiterate single mother in Athens, Ga. An only child, he never met his biological father. He was a 14-year-old teenager in that Jim Crow South when the Great Depression began. Hard, hard knocks. But as I write in my new book, "Dear Father, Dear Son," my father taught my brothers and me that the only barrier to success is lack of effort.

 
Parties Wonder Which Side's Polls Reflect Reality
Excerpt: The two parties, the outside groups that are playing such a big role this year, and even some candidates themselves are so dubious about their own numbers that they are employing two pollsters for one race, using one to double-check the other. What flummoxes them even more is that their own party's pollsters are getting similar results, while the other side is offering a completely different take. Whether it is the presidential contest or battles for critical Senate and House seats, the smartest pollsters in the business have spent the past three weeks looking at exactly the same data and coming to dramatically different conclusions. (I strongly recommend reading some of the reader’s comments on this column, especially the long one from “OleEric” near the beginning of the comments. Ron P.)

Fast and Furious overshadowed by Benghazi allegations
Excerpt: As an even larger cover-up seems to be unfolding with respect to the murder of four Americans, which included former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods; Sean Smith, a U.S. Air force veteran and computer expert; along with U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, a joint staff report, titled “Fast and Furious: The Anatomy of a Failed Operation, Part II of III” prepared for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was released on Monday unveiling more troubling details about how Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed as a result of operation’s reckless tactics.

Senate Race Rankings: Sea Changes
Excerpt: In our very first Senate race rankings back in November of last year, we saw a potential Republican wave developing. Democrats held eight of the 10 seats most vulnerable to a party switch, and Republicans — who needed just four seats to claim a 51-seat majority — looked primed to win most of them. But candidates and the campaigns they run matter. (If correct, this could be really bad news regardless of the outcome of the Presidential election. Ron P.)

Is America Exceptional?
Excerpt: In my own younger days, I was on the Left, and from the utopian vantage point to which leftism invariably transports its adherents, it was the flaws in American society—the radical 1960s trinity of war, racism, and poverty—that stood out most vividly. It rarely occurred to me or my fellow leftists to ask a simple question: Compared to what is America so bad?

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