Friday, September 19, 2014

Lots of not-to-be-missed news and comment today

Update

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Scottish Independence
This is too funny! Before the "No" vote, of course, but he hits everyone, including himself. ~Bob

I've been including some interesting graphics with web addresses, on the theory that they want me to direct traffic to their websites. If they are too small to read, click on the picture. Please check out the websites. Site owners are welcome to correct me if they don't want the publicity and traffic. ~Bob

General News and Comment

Important: Scotland referendum: Scots reject independence in historic vote
Excerpt: The decision prevented a rupture of a 307-year union with England, bringing a huge sigh of relief to the British political establishment. Scots voted 55 percent to 45 percent against independence in a vote that saw an unprecedented turnout (​"We fight not for glory, nor for riches, nor for honour, but only and alone for Freedom, which no good man lays down but with his life." --Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland, 1320. [Various translations, as the original was in Latin to the Pope.] This will still mean more independence for Scotland within the UK. Robert the Bruce would have voted "Yes," but he wasn't running a huge liberal welfare state he had to fund, with many on the dole and everyone on the NHS. Nor did he have to create an army, currency and much else from scratch. They voted their benefits and not their hearts. Even more than the US, a large number of Scots depend on government support, disability, the dole, old age pensions, the NHS, etc. I think they were concerned that an independent Scotland couldn't fund them. There were too many ramifications to know or understand, for Scots, Britains, us and the world. If you were born in Scotland but have lived 40 years in England, which are you? Gave the English a scare--closest Scotland has come to independence since the Scots Parliament was bribed to vote for union in 1707. ~Bob. "I call upon all the people of Scotland to accept the democratic vote of the people of Scotland." --Alex Salmon, Scottish First Minister and SNP Leader.)

Robert Burns - Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation
What the "Yes" votes in Scotland are singing today. ~Bob

Your 'To Do' List to Save America. By Ann Coulter 
Excerpt: The most important words printed in The New York Times since “REAGAN EASILY BEATS CARTER” were from a front-page article last Sunday about how, after six years of Obama, the federal judiciary is now dominated by Democratic appointees. Edward Whelan, head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, responded to this by saying: “The best way for conservative voters to prevent further damage to the courts is to swing the Senate to Republican control in the elections this November.” He’s absolutely right. Turn that into a mnemonic, sew it on needlepoint pillows, include it in your wedding vows, right-wingers.

Delta Honor Guard

Excerpt: Last weekend Hillary Clinton flew down to Iowa to attend Senator Tom Harkin's 37th annual steak fry. Just as at tax time you pay five times what your government is worth, old Tom hawks steaks and charges five times their worth for the privilege of sitting with the latest "liberal darling" with an eye on the White House. So Hillary, though she says she's not running, was there. All eyes were on her as she gnawed on a steak bone and chewed a bit on her chances of winning the Presidency in 2016. 

Bogeyman Beat Down: Three UF Female Students Beat the Snot out of Sexual Predator
Excerpt: “The female victims fought, they yelled and they defended themselves and they stopped their assaults,” she said. “For that, we are all grateful.”

Excerpt: You have your own individual voter file in Catalist. Everyone does. Under that file might be a massive amount of information about you — more than probably exists in any other database in the world. Whom you work for, what car you might drive, donations you have made, assumptions based on your neighborhood, anything in a public government database about you, consumer preferences, partisan preferences, what licenses you have, what you might have said to pollsters on the phone, memberships, how you treated the young left-wing activist knocking on your door a few years ago, and on and on and on. (Still think there was voter fraud in the past election with 150% turnout in some places reported.....and not a single vote for Romney. Right. Don't forget the Black Panthers with the clubs out front, either. --Barb)

V.A. Official Acknowledges Link Between Delays and Patient Deaths
Excerpt: In a contentious hearing before Congress, a senior official from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ watchdog agency acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that delays in care had contributed to the deaths of patients at the department’s medical center in Phoenix. The disclosure by an official from the department’s inspector general’s office, coming after more than two hours of tough, sometimes confrontational exchanges with members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, was a significant development in what has become a heated dispute over the quality of care at the Phoenix hospital, where revelations of secret waiting lists and other schemes to disguise long delays in care.

Excerpt: When four South Carolina high school students showed up to school on the recent anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with American flags flying from their trucks, they were in for a big surprise — the flags were confiscated by the school’s principal.

Satire: Obama Learns of Pearl Harbor

Wisconsin Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Blames Campaign Consultant For Large Portions Of Copied Jobs Plan
Excerpt: Large portions of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke’s jobs plan for Wisconsin appear to be copied directly from the plans of three Democratic candidates who ran for governor in previous election cycles.

Obama Golf--Too Funny

Race Card News


Obamacare/Government Healthcare News

Replacing Obamacare Saves a Lot of Money: Republicans have multiple plans to offer basically the same health-care at lower cost. By James C. Capretta
Excerpt: Supporters of the Obama administration like to create the impression that there is no viable alternative to the Affordable Care Act — i.e., Obamacare. But that is demonstrably not true. Republican senators Richard Burr, Tom Coburn, and Orrin Hatch introduced a plan earlier this year that would cover just as many people with insurance as Obamacare at a fraction of the cost.

Excerp6t: If there is one thing that the Administration and Democratic candidates have in their favor going into the mid-term elections, it is that election day is November 4, and Obamacare’s second open enrollment begins on November 15. If the dates were flipped, there is little doubt that voters affected by Obamacare would wreak havoc on the politicians who imposed the Rube Goldberg contraption of exchanges on them. Despite having just tossed another $60 million out the window “to help consumers navigate their health care coverage options in the Health Insurance Marketplace,” the Administration will likely face an even more bemused and disgruntled population of Obamacare “consumers” than it did the first time around.

Important: Study: Pre-Obamacare Health Insurance Was Better Quality Than Exchange Plans
Excerpt: Individual health insurance policies were of higher quality in 2013, before Obamacare regulations hit, than the offerings on health-care exchanges this year, according to a study released Monday. The National Center for Public Policy Research examined the health insurance plans available before the health care law took effect in ten major cities and found that for 27 year-olds and 57 year-old couples, the individual market used to provide more comprehensive coverage than the exchanges. As is typically the case with Obamacare, young adults were the hardest hit. (Well, 27-year-olds voted for him. Elections have consequences. ~Bob)

Individuals Failing to Verify Legal Status Will See Insurance Cancelled
Excerpt: The New York Times reports that 115,000 people will see their health insurance cancelled on October 1. Why? Those enrollees have not proved that they are American citizens or legal immigrants actually eligible for Obamacare health coverage.

"You're Greener than Gore" News



Climategate: Hide The Decline - the video

Prof Bob Carter warns of unpreparedness for Global Cooling
Excerpt: Professor Bob Carter, writing in today’s edition of The Australian, a major Aussie daily newspaper, warns that the world is unprepared for imminent global cooling, because of the obsession of policy makers with global warming. (Warming has some winners in increased agriculture. Cooling none. Ask the Norse who built settlement in Greenland during the medieval warm period, when it was warmer than now, but died out when the world cooled again. ~Bob)

Another benefit of climate change and increased CO2 – trees continue to grow at a faster rate. By Anthony Watts
Excerpt: Study highlights forest growth trends from 1870 to the present- Global change: Trees continue to grow at a faster rate: “…scientists are putting the growth acceleration down to rising temperatures and the extended growing season. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen are other factors contributing to the faster growth.”

SHOCKER! Climate Alarmist Musical Finally Runs Out of Taxpayer Money, Quickly Closes. By Jim Lakely
Excerpt: The asinine ambitions of our know-it-all federal bureaucrats know no bounds. Really. No. Bounds. A collection of bureaucrats at the National Science Foundation (NSF) used $700,000 of taxpayer money this spring to play out their Broadway fantasies by funding what they surely thought was a sure-fire-hit play.

Religion of Peace News

Exactly: Drag the Miserable SOB Before a Firing Squad. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: Brendan Tevlin was murdered by Ali Muhammad Brown - June 25th of this year in New Jersey. (I always offer to bring my own rifle and ammo, but they never take me up on it. ~Bob)

Worth Reading: The Jihadi Logic: Lure the U.S. into the fight that Obama will quit, as in Iraq, Libya, and (soon) Afghanistan. By Charles Krauthammer
Excerpt: The second theory is that they were fully aware of the inevitable consequence of their broadcast beheadings — and they intended the outcome. It was an easily sprung trap to provoke America into entering the Mesopotamian war. Why? Because they’re sure we will lose. 

They will regret this: House approves Obama’s Iraq-Syria military strategy amid skepticism
Excerpt: The vote placed Congress one step closer to authorizing the third significant U.S. military operation in Iraq in the past quarter century, and it put lawmakers on record approving U.S. engagement in the years-long Syrian civil war. It delivered Obama much-needed domestic political support as he seeks an international coalition to combat the growing threat of Islamist terrorism in the Middle East. But the tally — 273 to 156 — also revealed widespread misgivings in both parties about the plan’s chances of success, even among lawmakers who voted in favor of it.

James Clapper: We underestimated the Islamic State’s ‘will to fight.’ By David Ignatius
Excerpt: The United States has made the same mistake in evaluating fighters from the Islamic State that it did in Vietnam — underestimating the enemy’s will, according to James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.

No surprise: Rift widens between Obama, U.S. military over strategy to fight Islamic State. By Craig Whitlock
Excerpt: Flashes of disagreement over how to fight the Islamic State are mounting between President Obama and U.S. military leaders, the latest sign of strain in what often has been an awkward and uneasy relationship. Even as the administration has received congressional backing for its strategy, with the Senate voting Thursday to approve a plan to arm and train Syrian rebels, a series of military leaders have criticized the president’s approach against the Islamic State militant group. (Sure, they may be well trained and combat experienced generals, but how many of these "leaders" ever won a Nobel Peace Prize immediately on taking office? Published an autobiography, never mind two, at a young age? Got in 200 rounds of golf in under six years? Organized a community? And they think they know it all! ~Bob)

Saving Private Kerry. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Secretary of State John Kerry didn’t appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to lay out an offensive strategy for defeating ISIS. Instead his real mission was a defensive strategy to protect Obama from critics on the right and the left.

France launches first airstrike against ISIS in Iraq, Hollande's office says
Excerpt: Joining U.S. forces acting in Iraqi skies, France conducted its first airstrike Friday against the militant Islamic State group, destroying a logistics depot that it controlled, the French presidency said. Rafale fighter jets involved in the mission struck the depot in northeastern Iraq on Friday morning, and the target was "entirely destroyed," President Francois Hollande's office said in a statement.

VERY Graphic: In the name of Allah!
From the email: This is VERY VERY VERY graphic. Warning !!! Don’t look if you have a weak heart! The new Nazis in the name of Allah !!


Good Morning, Vietnam! Obama Plans to Tightly Control Strikes on Syria
Excerpt: The U.S. military campaign against Islamist militants in Syria is being designed to allow President Barack Obama to exert a high degree of personal control, going so far as to require that the military obtain presidential sign-off for strikes in Syrian territory, officials said.
The requirements for strikes in Syria against the extremist group Islamic State will be far more stringent than those targeting it in Iraq, at least at first. U.S. officials say it’s an attempt to limit the threat the U.S. could be dragged more deeply into the Syrian civil war. (BO channels LBJ; "Interference from Washington seriously hampered the campaign. President Johnson allegedly basted that 'they can't bomb an outhouse without my approval.' Washington's timidity was an outgrowth of the advice of well-intentioned but naive officials, and its effect on a President so politically oriented that he tried to please everybody rather than bite the bullet and make the hard decisions..." From American Generalship by Edgar Puryear. [Thanks to Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt] ~Bob)

Senators cleverly avoid real vote on war. By Greg Sargent 
Excerpt: Today, the Senate is expected to authorize the funding and arming of the Syrian rebels, and then leave town without holding any vote on the broader American escalation — a striking abdication of Congressional responsibility.

Would someone please stand up and yell at the top of their lungs arming these rebels is arming the killers of Christians in Syria!!!! (I have been. But my lungs are not that great. ~Bob)

Where have all the allies gone? By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0914/hanson091814.php3
Excerpt: The so-called Islamic State has left destruction everywhere that it has gained ground. But as in the case of the tribal Scythians, Vandals, Huns or Mongols of the past, sowing chaos in its wake does not mean that the Islamic State won't continue to seek new targets for its devastation. If unchecked, the Islamic State will turn what is left of the nations of the Middle East into a huge Mogadishu-like tribal wasteland, from the Syrian Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. And they will happily call the resulting mess a caliphate.

Video: Andrew Klavan: Is ISIS Islamic?

Kerry is Wrong, Selling Girls as Sex Slaves is Islam. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Kerry has never read the Koran, but he knows that Islam couldn’t possibly be that mean. ... 1. Mohammed practiced slavery. 2. The Islamic campaigns were carried out for loot. Including the human kind. Many of Mohammed’s first Muslims were out for slaves. Including female slaves. 3. Mohammed enslaved and raped women These are all facts that are not seriously in dispute. The apologists for Islam may quibble over the rape part. That’s about it.





Excerpt: The northern Syrian city of Kobane, or Ayn al Arab, is under heavy siege by Islamic State militants for the third consecutive day. The Islamic State is reported to have taken control of 21 villages outside of Kobane.

It began with the red line. By Jennifer Rubin 
Excerpt: When you want to understand how we got from “ending” wars to debating whether we can avoid “boots on the ground” in a new one, you will find no more significant event than President Obama’s decision not to bomb Syria after Bashar al-Assad repeatedly used chemical weapons. That decision — and our foot-dragging in sending meaningful lethal aid to the Free Syrian Army — allowed Assad to escape any real consequences for his actions, to solidify his position, to demoralize the FSA and to give the Islamic State another year to grow and take root in Syria.

Australia raids foil reported ISIS beheading plots
Excerpt: Australian counterterrorism forces detained 15 people Thursday in a series of suburban raids after receiving intelligence that the Islamic State militant group was planning public beheadings in two Australian cities to demonstrate its reach. (I think they should go ahead with the beheadings...of the 15 ISIS terrorists. ~Bob. Listening to "Coast to Coast" the other night, when the guest host wanted folks to call in with any conspiracies they might have seen. A vet phoned in to say he had been trained by the Israelis to spot insurgents and had, before 9/11, actually seen Mohamed Atta sitting on a beach in S FL surrounded by a group of men and "you could feel the power emanating from him." He said similarly, he recently saw several men walking in S FL (I think Miami Beach area) with "similar-colored head sets and back packs" and that they were spaced even distances on the blocks and moving toward 2 rental trucks. He phoned local police, who commented they had noted "the trucks should not be parked there" and had asked them to move. Staging? Who knows? The host tended to question aggressively and belittle those who called in, saying it was to "increase comments." I thought the vet was serious and possibly onto something and the guest host full of himself. --Barb)

O my God Deliver me from enemies that rise against me & from workers of iniquity & save me from bloody men. Psalms 59:1-2


Worth Reading: 10 Questions for Secretary of State John Kerry. By Steve Deace
Excerpt: During a roundtable with the media this week, Secretary of State (say that without shuddering) John Kerry said the following: “(The U.S.) has to start major efforts to delegitimize ISIS’s claim to some religious foundation for what its doing and begin to put real Islam out there and draw lines throughout the region. ... Instead of perpetuating this post-9/11, politically-correct charade that Islam is “a peaceful religion hijacked by a few extremists,” it’s good to see our chief diplomat has decided to pursue a conversation about “real Islam.” Since I’m almost not-at-all positive Secretary Kerry actually thoroughly vetted and researched this subject matter before spouting off about it, I have a few questions for our newest theologian.

Excerpt: Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) claimed that Pakistani Navy officers were involved in the failed attempt to hijack a Pakistani warship and launch missiles at US Navy vessels in the Indian Ocean. AQIS' spokesman, Usama Mahmoud, made the claim today in a statement released on his Twitter account. Mahmoud's statement was obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group.

U.N. to dump flood of Muslim refugees on U.S. 'Several thousand in the pipeline, and that number will go up.' By Leo Hohmann
Excerpt: Displaced Syrians will likely make up the next big wave of Muslim refugees coming to America. Since the early 1990s, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees has selected 200,000 to 250,000 refugees from Islamic countries to be resettled in the United States. Most of them have come from Somalia and Iraq. Syria could soon be added to the mix in the midst of that country’s brutal civil war. The Obama administration has been greasing the skids for the Syrian refugees for months, WND has learned, and the refugees will soon be dumped on American cities throughout the U.S.

Eight dead following attack on Ebola team in Guinea
Excerpt: The bodies of eight people, including several health workers and three journalists, have been found days after they were attacked while distributing information about Ebola in a Guinean village near the city of Nzerekoreaccording to Reuters. "The eight bodies were found in the village latrine," Albert Damantang Camara, a spokesman for Guinea's government, told Reuters on Thursday. "Three of them had their throats slit." (The story doesn't mention it, of course, but Guinea is a predominantly Islamic country, with Muslims representing 85 percent of the population. ~Bob)



MUSLIM HUMOR: Lebanese man threatens to behead three terrified little Syrian refugee children
Excerpt: The video shows the three children sobbing as a man standing behind a camera waves a knife and asks: “Whom do we behead first?” “Put your hand here or else I will sever your head,” he tells one of the terrified boys, who are crying throughout the video.

Boko Haram: Nigeria teacher training college attacked
Excerpt: Gunmen have attacked a teacher training college in the Nigerian city of Kano, with officials saying at least 15 people have been killed. The attackers exchanged fire with police outside the college before running inside. Another 34 people were injured.

Law enforcement bulletin warned of ISIS urging jihad attacks on US soil
Excerpt: There will be “a continued call - by Western fighters in Syria and terrorist organizations - for lone offender attacks against U.S. military facilities and personnel,” warned a July law enforcement intelligence bulletin from the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange, a state-run agency that gathers, assesses and shares threat information and works with the Department of Homeland Security. “These threats will most likely increase should the U.S. or its allies attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in Syria or Iraq.” In one example cited in the bulletin, a British jihadist encouraged radicals still living in the West to use Facebook and LinkedIn to find and target soldiers. "You could literally search for soldiers, find their town, photos of them, look for address in Yellowbook or something," the tweet read. "Then show up and slaughter them.” (Just think how many Christians they can find by registering on the Christian dating sites....A good reason to be antisocial. --Barb. Just hang around churches Sunday morning and follow them home. ~Bob)

Iranian Leverage over Turkey?
Excerpt: The Turkish daily Taraf published a blockbuster article Tuesday alleging that Iran has been blackmailing Turkey. Turkey has been pressuring Iran, one of its major sources of oil and natural gas, to lower its export prices for natural gas. According to Taraf, Iran is now using potentially damaging documents that allege Turkish corruption and financial crimes to blackmail Turkey’s leadership to drop its demands. 

Excerpt: All that said, however, Maajid Nawaz in this Facebook post (thanks to PK) calls for exactly what is needed, and what I have been saying is needed for many years now: a rejection of Qur’anic literalism, and a reinterpretation of its problematic passages so as to remove their capacity to incite believers to hatred and violence. 

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