Political Digest September 7, 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. Nor that I disagree with them, of course.

Paris Video Shows the Future of Ground Zero
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/paris_video_shows_the_future_o.html
Excerpt: Let's cut to the chase, shall we? The mysterious Mideast patrons of the Ground Zero Mosque expect to get a lot of bang for their petrobucks -- $100 million's worth, in fact. It's our job to figure out exactly what form that bang will take. We already know that the Victory Mosque of the Nineteen Martyrs will be the greatest symbol of Islamic conquest since 705 CE -- the landmark year when the al-Aqsa Mosque was thrust over the obliterated remains of the First and Second Holy Temples of the Jews in Jerusalem. And we know, of course, that sharia will be preached there, as it is in 80% of the new mosques in America, all funded by Saudi plutocrats to spread the delightful barbarities of wahhabism. For Americans who enjoy forced child marriages, polygamy, honor killings, and other brutalities against women, Jews, gays, Christians, and infidels -- well, the future's so bright they've got to wear shades. And now comes this prophetic video from Paris, secretly filmed by a loyal Parisian to show the world what's happening to the city he loves. Here we find the final piece of the Ground Zero Mosque puzzle -- the conquest of the surrounding public streets exclusively for Muslims, with the active complicity of government.

The combat mission in Iraq is over
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD9I206400
Excerpt: Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens. (Gee, I thought our combat mission in Iraq was over. Has to be. We all heard our president say so last Tuesday night. Apparently someone forgot to tell the bad guys. –MasterGuns)

No Help On The Horizon For Dems
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/print_friendly.php?ID=po_20100901_3522
Excerpt: Simply put, Democrats find themselves heading into a midterm election that looks as grisly as any the party has faced in decades. It isn't hard to find Democratic pollsters who privately concede that the numbers they are looking at now are worse than what they saw in 1994. The race-by-race outlook confirms the dire forecasts. Cook Political Report House Editor David Wasserman points out that at this point, 32 Democratic incumbents are running even or behind their Republican challengers in one or more public or private polls. At this point in 2006, when Republicans lost control of Congress, only 11 GOP incumbents were running even or behind. Privately, some Democratic pollsters say that they are routinely seeing districts where Democratic incumbents are running only even with relatively unknown GOP challengers. In other districts where the Republican challengers are reasonably well known, the incumbents are often running 5-10 points behind, a rather extraordinary development at this point. In the Senate, while the odds still favor Democrats holding on to a narrow majority, it is not only mathematically possible for the GOP to capture a majority this year, but it has become plausible. The odds of Democrats capturing even one currently Republican-held seat appear to be getting longer. Meanwhile, Republicans are running ahead or roughly even in 11 Democratic-held seats, one more than necessary for control of the Senate to flip. It's still a tall order but not crazy to say that Republicans will win the Senate.

Colorado Student Says He Was Told to Remove U.S. Flags
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/05/colorado-student-reportedly-told-remove-flags/
Excerpt: A Colorado high school student wants an explanation from school officials after reportedly being told by security guards to remove American flags from his truck because they might make other students uncomfortable. (The school principal says that they show their patriotism by displaying the American flag in an upstairs hallway. Not as you come in the door in the lower hallway. That's like me telling you that I show my patriotism by keeping my flag folded in a drawer in my bedroom. Unfortunately for those who may be offended by our flag, I display mine on a 20 foot pole in front of my house with a Marine Corps flag right underneath it. Furthermore, at night it is illuminated by two floodlights so they can be offended 24/7. –MasterGuns.)

Ripping off Dead War Vets' Beneficiaries
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ripping-off-Dead-War-Vets-by-Stephen-Lendman-100905-583.htm
Excerpt: Wall Street and other financial scammers do it from the living, Prudential and many insurers from the dead, ripping off families of killed war vets. On July 28, Bloomberg.com's David Evans discussed how it works in an article titled, "Fallen Soldiers' Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit," a polite way of explaining grand theft. From the living, it's bad enough, from the dead, it gives chutzpah new meaning, affecting countless thousands of bereaved families. Evans wrote about one, Cindy Lohman. Two weeks after her son Ryan was killed, she received a Prudential Financial, Inc. "9-inch-by-12-inch envelope," the company managing life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). A letter explained. As his beneficiary, she was entitled to $400,000 in death benefits along with something looking like a checkbook. The funds "would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use" them, the letter saying: "You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like," plus a disclaimer in easily overlooked fine print, explaining "what it called its Alliance Account," a non-FDIC insured scheme, a ripoff to defraud beneficiaries like Lohman. After leaving the funds untouched for months, she tried unsuccessfully using one of the "checks," then failed a second time. She was "shocked," saying she thought the money was FDIC insured, in a bank, to be used freely. Not so. The "checks" were drafts or IOUs. "That money - like $28 billion in 1 million death-benefit accounts managed by (130 insurers like Prudential) wasn't actually sitting in a bank." It was in Prudential's general corporate account earning income - around 4.8% for insurers, 1% or less for survivors. This summer it was 0.5%, less than half what some banks pay on jumbo CDs, and way less than insurers yield on their investments. "It's a betrayal," said Lohman. "It saddens me as an American that a company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier. Is there anything lower than that?" (Seriously disgusting....Del)

Bomb Kills Five Soldiers in Russia's Caucasus
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704095704575473240835789222.html
Didn’t get the memo. Excerpt: A suicide bomber crashed a car packed with explosives on a military base in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan early Sunday, killing five soldiers and wounding 36 others in an attack blamed on the region's Islamic insurgency.

Iran stoning woman 'to be lashed over photograph'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11190864
Excerpt: An Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery now faces being whipped for indecency, her son says. Iranian authorities sentenced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to 99 lashes after the Times newspaper published a picture purportedly of her without a headscarf. The Times later published a correction, saying the photograph was of a different Iranian woman. After an international outcry, Iranian officials temporarily halted Ms Ashtiani's stoning sentence in July. There are fears the death sentence could still be carried out by hanging.

Obama wants $50B to beef up infrastructure 'as soon as possible'
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/117299-obama-to-push-50b-infrastructure-plan
Excerpt: President Obama Monday called for an upfront investment of $50 billion to improve roads, railways and runways as part of a larger six-year strategy to update the nation’s aging infrastructure. Obama announced the strategy at the Milwaukee Laborfest in Wisconsin hosted by the AFL-CIO and Milwaukee Area Labor Council and was joined by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The president wants Congress to approve this first-year $50 billion “as soon as possible” and pay for it by scaling back oil and gas industry tax incentives, a senior administration official said. 9helps the roads two ways, because higher taxes on energy means less usage, and higher prices for consumer goods to be shipped. ~Bob)

Sen. Coburn: ObamaCare intentionally designed to fail
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=18598

UN Nuke Agency Warns Monitoring of Iran Hampered
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/un-nuke-agency-warns-monitoring-of-iran-hampered/19622717
Excerpt: The U.N. atomic agency expressed alarm Monday about Iran's decision to bar some of its inspectors, suggesting that its efforts to monitor the country's nuclear program were suffering as a result. The unusually blunt International Atomic Energy Agency warning was voiced in a restricted report on Iran made available to The Associated Press that otherwise contained few surprises. It followed Iran's recent decision to strip two experienced inspectors of the right to monitor its nuclear activities after the two reported what they said were undeclared nuclear experiments. The Islamic Republic says the reporting by the two was inaccurate, but the IAEA stands by the findings. And the 11-page IAEA document issued Monday devoted a special section to the complaint, reflecting the importance attached to it by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. Such a section was included in only one previous report, after Iran stripped the right of dozens of inspectors in 2006 and 2007 - most of them in order to show displeasure over recently passed U.N. Security Council sanctions on the Islamic Republic.