Political Digest for February 28, 2010

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.

I posted this comment on Iran from a retired Marine General
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/02/marine-generals-take-on-nuclear-iran.html

It drew this response with some interesting commentary:
Unfortunately, the General is correct. Many citizens are now realizing that our civilian leadership has seriously misled us. Globalist economic policy has opened the door for this threat and is allowing it to grow into monstrous proportions.

The China / Russia / Iran connections are discussed in this article-
http://jnkish.blogspot.com/2010/02/iran-and-elephant-in-room.html

The true nature of the threat is explained in this essay-
http://jnkish.blogspot.com/2010/02/unconsidered-enemy.html

Note that the following news link dated 20 Feb 2010 indicates that Russia “has every intention of delivering the advanced S-300 air defense missile systems to the Islamic Republic”.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119043§ionid=351020104

Your thoughts and attention to this most serious topic are greatly appreciated.

The General’s new blog
http://marinepatriot.blogspot.com/
Looks to be another good source for information.

What’s the difference?
Case A: unmanned drone fires a rocket, kills a terrorist leader, several other Taliban and several women and children in the house. Cheers and praise from the media and the left. Case B: Agents poison a terrorist leader, with no collateral damage to innocents in the vicinity. Jeers and vilification from the Media and the Left. Simple difference: Case A is ordered by The One, Barack Obama, who sends tingles up the extremities of leftist commentators. Case B is ordered by those vile Jews in Israel who think they have some right not to be murdered by Hamas, the shinning ideal of leftists everywhere.

Assassination works; keep it up
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/26/assassination-works-keep-it-up/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_opinion
Excerpt: Israel is facing uncomfortable questions regarding senior Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20. Dubai police say al-Mabhouh was assassinated, but in his chosen profession, his fate really was the result of workplace-related injuries. Dubai has named 26 suspects in the case, and has evidence including credit card records, flight itineraries and closed-circuit television footage supposedly showing the accused assassins stalking their quarry. Much of the furor over the case has arisen over the apparent fraudulent use of British, Irish, French, German, Australian and other passports. The British government said it will mount a full investigation. To date, none of the suspects has been apprehended and there is no firm evidence linking any of them to Israel. There certainly is no reason to mourn al-Mabhouh, a longtime terrorist with a track record including arms smuggling, kidnapping and murder. Most recently, he was suspected of being a primary link between Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which the United States identifies as terrorist organizations. Al-Mabhouh had survived several assassination attempts, but this time his luck ran out. Fortunes of war. There is an old-fashioned view that assassination is always morally wrong, but time and international custom have frayed that consensus. Assassination was famously "outlawed" in 1976 by President Ford, a policy reiterated in 1981 by President Reagan under Executive Order 12333. This was in response to events such as CIA complicity in the coup leading to the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973. Nevertheless, there always was some question whether and how this ban applied to violent non-state actors like terrorists, and President Clinton began to relax the standard in 1998. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, targeting terrorist leaders became an integral part of American strategy. Had al-Mabhouh been a high-ranking member of al Qaeda, the White House probably would have issued a self-congratulatory press release. The open season on terrorists is not limited to Israel. Russia has ruthlessly and effectively hunted Chechen terrorist leaders at home and abroad, such as killing rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Doha, Qatar, in February 2004. In 2008, Colombia sent a team into neighboring Ecuador that took out Raul Reyes, deputy commander of the anti-government FARC guerrillas. The United States is the global leader in what is euphemistically called "targeted killing." Manned and unmanned aircraft have rained death on terrorists in (at least) Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. In his Valentine's Day interview on "Meet the Press," Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. bragged that the Obama administration is pursuing terrorists "with a vigor like it's never been seen before. We've eliminated 12 of their top 20 people. We have taken out 100 of their associates. . . We've sent them underground. They are, in fact, not able to do anything remotely like they were in the past. They are on the run." The most significant difference between what the assassins did in Dubai and U.S. targeted killings is that in the Dubai hit, only al-Mabhouh went down. When Hellfire missiles are launched, frequently some civilians are taken out along with the intended target. The numbers of noncombatants who have been killed in these strikes are difficult to estimate, but most studies place them in the hundreds.

Israelis rush to join Mossad after Mahmoud al-Mabhouh killing
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7043239.ece
Excerpt: Would you be prepared to cross-dress? And kill a guest in an adjacent hotel room? If the answer to these questions is a resounding “yes”, and you can also act, enjoy luxury international travel with a twist and can carry off a convincing Irish or Australian accent, then the job could be yours. The Israeli spy agency Mossad may be the target of international reproach since it allegedly killed the Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel this month, but at home emerging details of the operation have generated Mossad mania. It has never been more popular in Israel, with stores selling out of Mossad memorabilia and its official website reporting a soaring number of visitors interested in applying to become agents. “Mossad has been restored to its glory days,” said Ilan Mizrahi, a former deputy director of the agency, which is located in the affluent beach town of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.

Missile Defense Agency
http://www.mda.mil/
Does the logo look familiar? Seems to combine Islam’s crescent moon with…

Hezbollah chief Nasrallah meets Ahmadinejad in Syria
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8539178.stm
Probably discussing peaceful outreach to non-Muslims.

Unnamed Christians Accused after Muslim Attack in Pakistan
http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/pakistan/15668/
You’ve heard of blaming the victims? How about arresting the victims? Excerpt: Armed Islamic assault following fruit stand scuffle leads to police round-up of Christians. KARACHI, Pakistan, February 26 (CDN) — In the wake of an attack this week by 150 armed Muslims on a Christian colony in this city in Sindh Province, police have filed a false First Information Report (FIR) against 40 unnamed Christians and arrested five, Christian leaders said. They said the 40 unnamed Christians in the FIR are accused without basis with beating Muslim men, abusing Muslim women and girls, ransacking Muslim homes and looting expensive items from Muslim homes. The false FIR is designed only to harass the Christian community, they said, adding that the five arrested Christians were visitors to the area – the only ones on the street available for police to summarily round up, as they were unaware of the FIR.

Liberia: Muslim mob burns down two churches, a clinic, shops, and the mayor's house
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1190519&lang=eng_news
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo.

Nigeria: Muslim mob burns down 8 churches
http://www.persecution.org/suffering/newssummpopup.php?newscode=11798&PHPSESSID=e4e70bd27e57ee7f9df66442f2fd6ac8
Didn’t get the memo.

"Even a moderate Muslim who reads the Koran must read that the Jews are the sons of apes and that the infidels must be killed"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/even-a-moderate-muslim-who-reads-the-koran-must-read-that-the-jews-are-the-sons-of-apes-and-that-the.html
Didn’t get the memo. Excerpt: Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a West Bank Hamas leader. Mosab Hassan Yousef is a convert to Christianity. In this interview he speaks about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as not being one over land, but over Islamic doctrine, which is intransigent and can never allow for the existence of an Infidel polity, much less a Jewish State, on what Muslims consider to be Islamic land. He speaks about the problem being rooted in the Qur'an.

TALIBAN killers have blown themselves up laying booby-trap bombs, we can reveal.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/2869375/20-Taliban-blown-up-by-their-own-bombs.html#ixzz0glvO0Sgn
Excerpt: Up to 20 are thought to have died planting Improvised Explosive Devices.
They were racing to plant the IEDs before the Allied offensive Operation Moshtarak. The triggers on the IEDs have become so sensitive the terrorists are accidentally detonating them as they hide them. Last night a highly-placed source said: "The Taliban know only too well how effective the IED has proved to be. "It is designed to take out our lads at even the slightest touch but this has backfired on Taliban blown up by the sophistication of their bombs. "We have evidence a significant number of Taliban have been killed in this way.

Must read: Institute of Physics on Climategate
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm
Cannot be dismissed as some rightwing kooks. Excerpt: The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.

Senators to propose abandoning cap-and-trade
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022606084.html?hpid=topnews
But the replacement is still based on the junk science of AGW. Excerpt: Three key senators are engaged in a radical behind-the-scenes overhaul of climate legislation, preparing to jettison the broad "cap-and-trade" approach that has defined the legislative debate for close to a decade. The sharp change of direction demonstrates the extent to which the cap-and-trade strategy -- allowing facilities to buy and sell pollution credits in order to meet a national limit on greenhouse gas emissions -- has become political poison. In a private meeting with several environmental leaders on Wednesday, according to participants, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), declared, "Cap-and-trade is dead."

Obama Makes Picks for Debt Commission
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704625004575089233231966378.html
Excerpt: Mr. Stern's appointment to the panel triggered quick criticism from a conservative group. Katie Packer, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute, said in a statement that putting Stern on the panel "doesn't pass the laugh test."
"It appears we have moved from the state of the surreal to the land of outright insanity if our leaders are now taking advice from Big Labor bosses who have run their own programs into the ground," Ms. Packer said.

The Decline of New York -- It's enough to make Groucho Marx cry.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704625004575089493357533542.html?mod=djemITP_h
Move over, New Jersey, you're getting a run for your tax money as the nation's most dysfunctional state from the once great mecca of commerce and finance known as New York. Politics in the Empire State has become a carnival of spendthrifts, sexual miscreants and the all-purpose ethically challenged. In the latest sign that the Apocalypse is upon Albany, New York Governor David Paterson announced yesterday that he won't seek election to a full term in November only two weeks after he had announced that he would. Mr. Paterson, a Democrat who became governor in March 2008 after Eliot Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal, has spent the past two years lurching from one fiasco to the next. He's currently being investigated for awarding a lucrative casino contract to a political backer. And this week he was accused of contacting a woman who was seeking a protective order against one of his aides. State police are reported to have pressured the woman to drop her complaint.

Our own Greek tragedy
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/26/our-own-greek-tragedy/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_opinion
Excerpt: While President Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care "summit," thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split screen - because they're part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter 20 (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter 17 or 18. What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe. So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around? By the way, you don't have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian "public service" of California has been metaphorically face-down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book "America Alone," I put the Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent. In other words, head for the hills, Armageddon, outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn't going to have a 2040 - not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.

Senate Banking panel to unveil regulatory plan to take over failing firms
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/83975-senate-banking-panel-to-unveil-regulatory-plan-to-take-over-failing-firms
Somewhere, Stalin is laughing. In five years, they’ll be shooting the Kulaks (that would be anyone wanting to hang on to private property). Excerpt: Senate Banking Committee lawmakers are planning to unveil legislation that creates a regulatory system with high hurdles for the government to take over a failing financial firm, sources familiar with the plan said on Friday. Lawmakers on the panel are trying to create a system to wind down large firms that are failing and threaten the broader financial system so that future administrations do not need to turn to taxpayers for bailout funds.

Obama May Prohibit Home-Loan Foreclosures Without HAMP Review
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahuuwBS8KYq8#
Another step towards Central Planning and complete control of the economy by the State. The peasants love it, step by step until they find out too late it impoverishes everybody except the elite leaders. Excerpt: The Obama administration may expand efforts to ease the housing crisis by banning all foreclosures on home loans unless they have been screened and rejected by the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program. The proposal, reviewed by lenders last week on a White House conference call, “prohibits referral to foreclosure until borrower is evaluated and found ineligible for HAMP or reasonable contact efforts have failed,” according to a Treasury Department document outlining the plan. “It is one of the many ideas under consideration in the administration’s ongoing housing stabilization efforts,” Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said in an e-mail. “This proposal has not been approved and there are no immediate planned announcements on the issue.”

Stopping Obamacare in the House
http://townhall.com/columnists/HughHewitt/2010/02/26/stopping_obamacare_in_the_house
Excerpt: It seems very likely that if Obamacare is going to be stopped, it will have to happen in the House. And that means turning some of supporters the deeply unpopular bill into opponents with at least enough spine to tell Nancy Pelosi and the president "No." Thus the two lists below. The first list is of all the so-called "Blue Dogs," the alleged "moderate Democrats" in the House. Many refused to vote for Obamacare the first time around, and they need to be bucked up and made to understand that their hopes of re-election depend upon continuing to stand against the government takeover of American health care and the massive cuts to Medicare on which the takeover is premised. The second list are the Democrats who voted for the bill in the fall but who hail from swing districts. These are the House members identified by the National Republican Congressional Committee's ReverseTheVote.org effort. The last thing they want are phone calls and e-mails from voters pledging to throw time and money at their opponents if Obamacare passes. The Congressional switchboard works for them all --202-225-3121, but direct calls to their offices and especially their district offices are even more effective. E-mails work as well, but many of their number won't accept e-mails unless a district zip code is used, which means a little work for the dedicated anti-Obamacare activist. (Just use the zip code of their district office address if you want to communicate despite their filter.)

Paul Ryan: Hiding Spending Doesn't Reduce Spending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMZ1WdINs
Putting the fiscal facts on the record.

What Should Be A Career Ending Health Care Lie For Harry Reid
http://rightwingnews.com/2010/02/what-should-be-a-career-ending-health-care-lie-for-harry-reid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rightwingnews%2FhGmL+%28Right+Wing+News%29

Ethics report: Trip planners coordinated with Rangel's office
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/84007-ethics-report-shows-rangels-office-knew-trip-was-sponsored-by-corporations
Excerpt: When questioned by the ethics panel’s investigative subcommittee about the matter, Rangel said he was unaware of the corporate sponsorship of the Caribbean conferences and stated that he “did not know what HSBC was,” according to a report issued by the ethics committee’s investigative subcommittee that reviewed the matter. The ethics committee on Thursday admonished Rangel, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, for improperly accepting reimbursement for two trips to the Caribbean and ordered him to repay the costs. In doing so, however, the panel found that two of his staffers, including his former chief of staff who was later fired – knew that corporate sponsors were underwriting the trip in violation of new House rules put in place after Democrats won the majority in 2006.

Charlie Rangel ruling puts Nancy Pelosi in a jam
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33564.html
Excerpt: The House ethics committee's decision to admonish New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel over improper corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean leaves Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the ethics committee itself facing difficult questions. When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was admonished by the ethics committee in October 2004, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders went on the offensive against him. “Mr. DeLay has proven himself to be ethically unfit to lead the party,” Pelosi said at a news conference the following day. “The burden falls upon his fellow House Republicans. Republicans must answer: Do they want an ethically unfit person to be their majority leader or do they want to remove the ethical cloud that hangs over the Capitol?” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — now the House majority leader — said DeLay "certainly ought to step aside as leader at this point in time because I think his credibility has been undermined by these findings." Six years later, the shoe is on the other foot: Republicans have previously called for Rangel to lose his chairmanship over his ethical troubles, and some of them — including Indiana Rep. Mike Pence — renewed that call Thursday night. How will Pelosi and Hoyer respond? (No big deal. When Nancy said she was going to “Drain the Swamp,” she meant of corrupt white Republicans, not corrupt black Democrats with the power of the Black Caucus behind them, who can scream racism. The Democrats always cave if a black leader might play the race card—witness corrupt Sen. Roland Burris, D-Blagojevich, whom they vowed not to seat. The race card is increasingly a get-out-of-jail-free card for corrupt black politicians. The media is as cowardly.)

Vietnam's hill tribe children 'stolen' for adoption
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/310711,vietnams-hill-tribe-children-stolen-for-adoption--feature.html
Thanks due to the Jane Fonda/John Kerry crowd and the Democrat Congress of 1975 for this slice of paradise.

Fluck and Flok flunk forgery fling
http://articles.mcall.com/2010-01-21/news/all-4check.7153490jan21_1_hellertown-men-identity-theft-stealing
Excerpt: Richard A. Fluck, who is the son of borough Mayor Richard T. Fluck, and Bryan Flok were arrested Sunday after a Hellertown police investigation into the June 2009 theft.
Fluck, 47, of 830 Detweiler Ave. took the check from the post office and Flok, 47, of 1052 Detweiler Ave. co-signed it and cashed it, police said. The post office reported the incident Aug. 24. Fluck and Flok were arraigned Sunday by District Judge Adrianne Masut of Wind Gap -- Fluck on charges of theft, forgery, tampering with records and identity theft, and Flok on charges of receiving stolen property, tampering with records and identity theft.