Friday, April 12, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for April 13, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for April 13, 2013
Click on the link to see the full SitRep
Robert A. Hall
Your one-stop-shop for political news and opinion--who needs newspapers or TV? Please forward to friends who need to be informed. This SitRep (Military for “Situation Report”) is created by many readers who send me items for inclusion, which I would have likely missed or skipped. And I can only spend at most three hours a night pulling stuff, plus the healthcare or economic stuff that crosses my desk at work. As always, I—and you—owe them thanks and appreciation. I post articles because I think they are of interest and will stimulate thought and discussion. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article, or that I was able to verify the information presented, which is the responsibility of the author. I try not to post things that are false, or too far a stretch, regardless of the view point, but I don’t always succeed. As always on the Net, or in the legacy media, you must read critically and with skepticism.

Best older posts for new blog readers

Worth Reading: The Left’s War on Science. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: The USSR’s politicization of biology crippled its agriculture. Its leaders rejected free market competition on the human level and in the plant and animal kingdoms. They insisted that nature had to follow Marxist dialectical materialism and locked up and murdered the scientists who disagreed. By the time the USSR fell, a land which had once exported wheat to the world had gone deep into debt to buy wheat from the United States. But bad ideology driving bad science didn’t die with Lysenko and Michurin. 

House Dem leaders balk at Obama's plan to cut Social Security
Excerpt: House Democratic leaders pushed back Thursday against President Obama's decision to include Social Security cuts as part of his 2014 budget request. Several top-ranking Democrats — including Reps. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Steny Hoyer (Md.), James Clyburn (S.C.) and Xavier Becerra (Calif.) — questioned the wisdom of altering popular seniors benefits in the context of deficit reduction. (Why reform Social Security and piss off the geezers? It won’t collapse until after we are retired, when it will be someone else’s problem, and we won’t need it—we’re in the political one percent! ~Bob.)

House GOP campaign chairman under fire from his own party
Excerpt: The House Republican campaign chief came under fire from senior members of his own party on Thursday after he split with party leaders in criticizing a Social Security change in President Obama’s budget that Republicans have long sought.

Excerpt: The mother of slain State Department employee Sean Smith has endorsed Republicans' call for a select committee to investigate last year's attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. In a letter to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Patricia Smith wrote that her son and the three other Americans killed on Sept. 11, 2012 — including Ambassador Christopher Stevens — were “abandoned” by the White House. (Funny she doesn’t get the media attention and adulation that Cindy Sheehan did protesting Bush. ~Bob.)

Iran accused in far-reaching plot to evade international oil sanctions
http://thehill.com/blogs/regwatch/administration/293469-iran-accused-in-far-reaching-plot-to-evade-oil-sanctions#ixzz2QFZ7DH7p
Excerpt: The Iranian government used a series of “small banks in out of the way places” to launder billions of dollars as part of the nation’s effort to collect oil revenue in the face of economic sanctions, the Obama administration said Thursday. (What, you mean sanctions don’t work? ~Bob.)

Media Belatedly Mentions that Gunman Who Opened Fire in a Church on Easter Left Behind a Koran
Excerpt: Let’s lay out a hypothetical scenario. An American walks into a mosque during Ramadan, opens fire while quoting Bible passages and then leaves behind a Bible. On a scale of 1 to non-stop coverage, how often do you think you would be hearing about it, how fast would religious motives be attached to it and how quickly would we learn that the bible was left behind? But the same rules don’t apply to Islam. 

Climatologists are no Einsteins, says his successor
Excerpt: The problem, said Dyson, is that the consensus is based on those computer models. Computers are great for analyzing what happened in the past, he said, but not so good at figuring out what will happen in the future. But a lot of scientists have built their careers on them. Hence the hatred for dissenters. (For any who haven’t heard of Freeman Dyson, he isn’t the guy who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner. Instead, he’s a brilliant physicist who has been awarded the Lorentz Medal, the Max Planck Medal, the Harvey Prize, and the Enrico Fermi Award, among others. He is widely considered the intellectual successor to Albert Einstein, thus the headline. --Ron P.)

Biden: Gun Owners ‘Just Like the Feel...Like Driving a Ferrari’
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/biden-gun-owners/2013/04/11/id/499041?s=al&promo_code=131E8-1
Excerpt: “There is a whole new sort of group of individuals now that never hunt at all,” Biden said in an interview taped Wednesday and aired Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “But they own guns for one of two reasons — self-protection, or they just like the feel of that AR-15 at the range. ... They like the way it feels. It's like driving a Ferrari, you know. (As usual, Joe Biden, the stupidest vice-president in American history, doesn't know what he's talking about. That doesn't stop him, though. Or even slow him down. I used to believe it would be painful going through life as stupid as this guy is, but I guess not. You can be so stupid that you don't even know you're stupid, I guess. Biden fits that category. - LLW. Liberals just "like the feel" of spending other peoples money. ~Bob.)

Biden's Brilliance: Shooting An AR-15 "Can Kill Your Kid in the Bedroom"
Excerpt: P.S. Democrats, maybe you have the wrong guy advocating for gun control. Just saying…
Excerpt: Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has failed to make this a priority — in 2010, out of more than 15,700 fugitives and felons who tried to illegally purchase a firearm, the Obama Justice Department prosecuted only 44.

Obama sending weapons to Somalia while disarming Americans, say critics
Excerpt: On the same day President Barack Obama kicked off his week of gun control campaigning in Connecticut, in hopes of passing new gun laws affecting American citizens, Obama on Monday approved the providing of arms to Somalia in order for the African nation's government to more effectively fight Al-Shabaab terrorist, according to reports.

Is there an “Obama Doctrine”? The bottom line is managing U.S. decline. By D. Lamont Colucci
Excerpt: Years from now, historians may well write that the decline or upswing in the American empire of liberty occurred during the Obama presidency. They will either write that the Obama administration’s self-fulfilling prophecy and rhetoric of decline was overcome by the overwhelming greatness of the United States or that the ultimate downfall was caused by the conditions created by this White House. (I fear future “historians” will be too busy hunting cats for food, fighting off marauding gangs of thugs and trying to keep warm on a cooling planet to write anything. ~Bob.)

Sickening: Audit: U.S. funds may have paid for contracts with terrorists in Afghanistan. By Adam Kredo 
Excerpt: The U.S. government may have awarded taxpayer-funded contracts to terrorists and those who support the insurgency in Afghanistan, according to an audit issued Thursday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The audit found several weaknesses in DoD’s process to ensure U.S. contracting dollars are not being provided to persons and entities supporting the insurgency, according to SIGAR. (We never learn. Bureaucrats and bean counters. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: When Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when England had an unemployment rate of about 13% and managed to reduce it to 5.8%, passed away, a large number of Brits celebrated the occasion by singing “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.” They despised her not only because she rescued her nation from sinking into the abyss of European socialism, but that she did it in part by facing down the powerful coalminer’s union. And, sadly, if you saw her movie bio, “The Iron Lady,” just about the only thing you would have known about this glorious leader is that she eventually became a dotty old woman hearing voices. Here in America, millions of left-wing cretins greeted Ronald Reagan’s death in similar fashion. (I was once at a B&B in Scotland. One of the other guests was an English coal miner on vacation. He told me, “We miners do better when labor is in power, but the country does better when the Tories are in.” True story. ~Bob.)

Mother Jones releases audio of McConnell staffers having a meeting
Excerpt: Mother Jones released leaked audio Tuesday from a campaign meeting of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) revealing political campaigns actively research and discuss ways to attack their opponents.(Where's the outrage at the liberal illegal bugging or is it just outrageous for Republicans? --JB)

Maryland Governor Taxes Rain
Put liberals in charge of everything and they will eventually, and inevitably, come up with stuff like this. Like one of the comments said, "When a communist country is too far away, visit Maryland.” I guess they will be taxing the air we breathe next. –LLW. Milton Friedman said that if you put the government in charge of the Sahara Dessert, in five years you’d have a shortage of sand. ~Bob.

School Shooting: Martin Luther King Jr. High School coach shoots attackers
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/man-shot-near-martin-luther-king-jr-high-school-in-detroit
Excerpt: Police sources tell 7 Action News that a women's basketball coach from Martin Luther King, Jr. Senior High School shot two men who attacked him as he was walking two basketball players to their cars in the school parking lot. (Couple of months old, but I just saw. Funny the media didn’t make much of this school shooting. ~Bob.)

Unfounded optimism: The danger of FHA's mispriced unemployment risk. By Joseph Gyourko
Excerpt: News from the housing market is finally positive: house prices are rising and the share of seriously delinquent loans is down. One major exception? Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-guaranteed mortgages. FHA’s share of seriously delinquent loans has risen by 6 percent since 2011, while its main insurance fund is valued at negative $13.5 billion, meaning it is economically insolvent.

Regulatory Protectionism: A Hidden Threat to Free Trade. By K. William Watson and Sallie James
Excerpt: Despite the impressive success of trade liberalization, domestic industries continue to find ways to use the power of government to protect themselves from foreign competition. The practice of using domestic environmental or consumer safety regulation as a way to disguise protectionist policy has become a serious and growing problem in the United States. This regulatory protectionism harms the U.S. economy and violates our trade obligations.

Peak Oil Cult Is Proved Spectacularly Wrong. By Robert Bryce
Excerpt: Why has the U.S. oil and gas sector recovered? How is it that last year, U.S. oil production rose by 790,000 barrels per day, the biggest annual increase since U.S. oil production began in 1859? How could Raymond, the leader of one of the world's most sophisticated companies, be so wrong? The answer: innovation.

Health-Care Costs: A State-by-State Comparison
If you hit a pay wall, Google the title. ~Bob. Excerpt: Health-care spending in the U.S. averaged $6,815 per person in 2009. But that figure varies significantly across the country, for reasons that go beyond the relative healthiness, or unhealthiness, of residents in each state. The states that spend the most on health care for each resident are mostly in the Northeast.

Explosive device addressed to Sheriff Joe Arpaio found and defused in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Excerpt: Authorities in Arizona say they have investigative leads to pursue in connection with the mailing of an explosive device to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. (If it had been addressed to a liberal politician, would be the featured news in every media outlet. ~Bob.)

Pentagon Says Nuclear Missile Is in Reach for North Korea. By Thom ShankerDavid E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt
Excerpt: A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” that North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile. (If we lose San Francisco, a lot of liberals will suddenly become rabid, right-wing war hawks. If they take out LA too, California becomes a Red State. ~Bob.)

The Chicago Way: Democratic bosses pick Beavers replacement despite state fine
Excerpt: Democratic ward and township bosses today chose Stanley Moore to succeed convicted former Cook County Commissioner William Beavers despite Moore's $3,000 fine for allegedly campaigning while on the taxpayer dime at his state job. … Beavers was convicted last month on federal charges related to his campaign fund and income tax returns. (“Despite”? Or “Because”? ~Bob.)

Report on 3 in China Who Died From Bird Flu Points to Severity of Strain
Excerpt: A report on three of the first patients in China to contract a new strain of bird flu paints a grim portrait of severe pneumoniaseptic shock and other complications that damaged the brain, kidney and other organs. All three died.

Color of Crime!!!
Excerpt: Blacks are statistically 50 times more likely to attack whites than vice versa. (I do not know if these statistics are true. I understand FBI statistics say that 53% of the murders in America are committed by blacks, who make up just 13% of the population, but I believe a large majority of black murder victims are black. Certainly the daily reports of murder and mayhem in Chicago would suggest that blacks are more often the victims of violent blacks. So blacks may be more likely to attack whites than vice versa, but even more likely to attack other blacks. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: In her first television ad, Elizabeth Colbert Busch says she won’t take any special-interest pledges. She’ll take their money, though. As of March 2013, Colbert Busch has taken $26,000 from unions:

Worth Reading: … the Media's Complete Embargo on the Gosnell Story
Excerpt: This story exposes faultlines between Democrats, who are by political necessity abortion absolutists, and Independents, who may lean somewhat pro-choice but sure the hell aren't on board for infanticide. But to report this story at all would put the Democrats in the difficult position of angering its an element of its hardcore single-issue leftist coalition, or alienating independents. (Can You Imagine the Coverage If It Were Dogs? –Erick Erickson of Red States.)

'House of horrors' alleged at abortion clinic
Older story, but good update if you aren’t up to speed on this. And if you rely on the knee=pad media, you aren’t. ~Bob. Excerpt: A doctor whose abortion clinic was a filthy, foul-smelling "house of horrors" that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them. Hundreds of other babies likely died in the squalid clinic that Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran from 1979 to 2010, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said at a news conference. (Why Is One of the Most Horrific Crimes in Recent Memory Getting Almost No Press Coverage? If you need to get up to speed on the Kermit Gosnell story, (this story is) a good place to start. -- Jim Geraghty)

I humbly suggest: Whether you support abortion rights or oppose them, read the Kermit Gosnell coverage with clear eyes. It is wrenching. (He’s the editorial-page editor of the New York Daily News.)

Husband of RI lawmaker arrested a second time
Excerpt: The husband of a Rhode Island lawmaker is facing a new charge of fraudulently using a credit card and has been ordered held at the Adult Correctional Institutions. (He probably figured if she could spend money she didn’t have, why couldn’t he? ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Since I was sitting down last night to finish off my taxes, I decided to just go ahead and prepare a new family budget. And this time, instead of using the same old boring budget parameters I've always used I decided to model my personal budget on the federal budget that President Obama sent to Congress yesterday. I figure the President has a dozen Harvard MBA's and half a dozen economists on his staff so he must know what he's doing. So, in keeping with Obama's financial principles, I prepared my personal budget. Now, the President's Chief Economic Advisor has said projected taxes and fees will bring in $2.5 trillion dollars for the federal government. However, our President sees the need to fund $3.77 trillion dollars in programs in order to keep everybody happy. I make about $30,000 a year...and I'm not happy. So, to make me happy, I plan to take a few vacations this year. I think I'll spend a couple of weeks in Hawaii, bask in the sun down in the Bahamas for two weeks, and when snow season is upon us, I'm planning a trip to Vail for a little skiing and swooshing and hot toddies. I'm also going to play more golf.

Christian Indifference to Christian Suffering. By Michael Finch 
Excerpt: Christians are being persecuted all over the world. Churches are being burned and destroyed, girls are being raped and ancient Christian communities reaching back 2,000 years are being obliterated. And the world yawns. Most shockingly, many Christians in the West, worse than yawning, look away and in some cases embrace the perpetrators and blame our allies.

Iraq, Afghanistan and the Fall of the Middle East. By David Walsh 
Excerpt: Two countries that serve as a fulcrum for such a conflict are Iraq and Afghanistan. Both are now key to the great power struggle for the Middle East between the United States and Iran. Both hold important geopolitical positions in the region. 

Hanoi Jane to Critics of Her Reagan Role: ‘Get a Life.’ By Mark Tapson 
Excerpt: “The moviemakers are free to choose,” Reyes says “but it seems like it was their way of giving people like me the middle finger.” Exactly right, Mr. Reyes. Fonda’s classy reply to THR regarding Reyes’ Facebook page was, “Get a life. If he creates hoopla, it will cause more people to see the movie.” (Thanks, Jane, but I’ve got a life. Your NVA friends missed. ~Bob.)

Gun Bill Passes Senate Cloture, Despite the Fact that No Senator Has Actually Seen It
The gun bill passed cloture in the Senate with 68 votes today. How does this happen, in what we are told is the world’s greatest deliberative body, when senators have not even seen the text of the legislation? (Before you criticize someone as a RINO, look at the district. When I was a state senator, I represented a 4-1 democrat district, which before me was last won by a Republican in 1938—in a disputed close election. If I had been seen as an uncompromising Republican, always voting the party line, I’d have been replaced by an uncompromising Democrat who always voted the party line and thus always cruised to reelection [that I think is how the seat is held today]. In many cases, given the make up of the state or the district, you aren’t going to replace that “RINO” with a more conservative Republican. If you get a conservative in the primary, you get a liberal in the general election, to the benefit of Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi and the detriment of conservative causes. The RINOs vote Republican to organize, so if the GOP with RINOs has a majority, conservatives are in control of most committees. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Welcome to the new normal: Large-scale black mob violence is busting out in Philadelphia, Chicago, Utica, Jacksonville, St. Louis, Wilmington (Delaware), Greenville (South Carolina), Grand Rapids, Peoria, Springfield (Ohio), Newark, Boston and Brooklyn. All in the last three weeks.

Bye, Bye Sheriffs: Colorado Redefines the Police State
http://politichicks.tv/column/bye-bye-sheriffs-colorado-redefines-the-police-state/
Excerpt: The states and the feds are almost powerless against the Constitutional sheriff…and they know it. That’s why they are now on the attack.
A new bill coming from Colorado, SB 13-013, passed on a nearly-party-line vote in the Democrat-controlled House and was signed into law recently by Governor John Hickenlooper. (One more attack on the US Constitution and those that would honor their oath to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic. --MM) 

Review of Robert Spencer's new book, Not Peace But A Sword
Excerpt: Not Peace but a Sword- The Great Chasm between Christianity and Islam  is the new book published by Catholic Answers written by Robert Spencer. As the title suggests this is not a soft look at Islam, but it is also not a diatribe against Muslims and a recitation of acts of evil committed by individuals or groups of Muslims. There is a very common idea that Muslims, Jews, and Christians being “People of the book” have many foundational ideas in common. There is certainly some truth to this, but when it comes to Islam there is much thought to be in common that actually isn’t. 

Two Christians Killed In Latest Violence Over Meat Slaughter In Tanzania
Excerpt: Two Christians have been killed and scores arrested as violence again erupted in Tanzania over the slaughter of animals; Muslims are denying Christians the right to sell their meat because it is not halal.

Sharia in the UK: Armed Muslims terrorize Tommy Robinson's family at his home, police arrest...Robinson
Excerpt: The British are enforcing Islamic law. If you read this account without knowing it was the UK, you would be inclned to think that this was Cairo or Islamabad. This is sharia harassment of infidels who refuse to submit. 

Islamists storm Tunisian school after it bars veiled student
Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: Murad Ben Hamouda of the teachers' union at Manzel Bouzelfa secondary school said Salafistsstormed into the compound, smashed a few cars and "tried to kill the director for refusing the entry of a schoolgirl dressed in niqab into the classroom".

Worth Reading: Must we continue to be enablers of our own destruction? By Caroline B. Glick
Excerpt: Among other things, Morsi said, "We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews." He said that Egyptian children "must feed on hatred; hatred must continue. The hatred must go on for G0D and as a form of worshiping him." In another speech, he called Jews "bloodsuckers," and "the descendants of apes and pigs." Two weeks after the Times ran the story, the Obama administration sent four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt as part of the implementation of a military aid package announced in December 2012 entailing the provision of twenty F-16s and 200 M1-A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt.

Wanted: A Few Bad Men: How the US Immigration and Naturalization Service Actively Promotes Criminality While Discouraging Honest Applicants. By Don Hank
Older piece, but timely. ~Bob. Excerpt: Americans who want open borders are probably under the assumption that legal immigrants are treated fairly. They may even think these people who fill out the papers per immigration law are receiving privileges the undocumented don’t enjoy.

Ken Wahl talks animals, how he met his wife, and his possible run for Congress
http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/12/ken-wahl-talks-animals-and-his-possible-run-for-congress/#ixzz2QGNi7BWF
Excerpt: The thing that gets Wahl going most is when he starts to talk about animals, and in particular, his work connecting therapy animals to military veterans. After Wahl’s accident, he recounts, he was working to recover, and he was also struggling with clinical depression…. The cat was so helpful to him in dealing with his ailments, that when he learned about the high suicide rate of veterans, he wanted to do something to provide veterans with that same comfort.

A Sad Reminder of Why We Need Legal Reform
Excerpt: Paula Henry’s story is an important reminder of how lawsuit abuse creates not only economic burdens but emotional ones as well. In 1995, Henry lost her husband to murder. Thankfully, her husband’s killer is now behind bars, serving a 31 year sentence. Unfortunately, this convict has found another way to hurt Henry – he’s suing her from jail, claiming she caused him “emotional distress” and violated his privacy rights. Even though this lawsuit is entirely outrageous, it still impacts Henry. She’ll have to pay attorney’s fees, and the suit is a painful reminder of a terrible event. (I think they should put a rope around his neck and cause him respiratory distress. Maybe his lawyer, too. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: A recent LA Times article reported that dozens of recently graduated law students across the country have decided to file or join class action lawsuits against their law schools, alleging the schools lured them in with misleading reports of their graduates’ success. Since it was published on April 1st, I thought that it might be a joke, but I am sorry to say it was not. (The litigation revolution is eating its young. ~Bob.)

Photo: Empty 'Reserved Media Seating' at Abortion Doc Gosnell's Murder Trial. By John Nolte
Excerpt: The picture above, for what it’s worth, is of the reserved media seats at the Gosnell trial. It was taken by JD Mullane, a news writer and columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times, The Intel and the Burlington County (NJ) Times. He says: "Sat through a full day of testimony at the Kermitt Gosnell trial today. It is beyond the most morbid Hollywood horror. It will change you." I was surprised by the picture and asked “really?” He responded “Local press was there, Inky, PhillyMag, NBC10 blogger. Court staff told me nobody else has shown up.”

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