Political Digest for August 12, 2011

Spreading gloom about government; most dissatisfied with political system

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-spreading-gloom-about-government-most-dissatisfied-with-political-system/2011/08/10/gIQAXsUB7I_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

Excerpt: Nearly three-quarters of Americans polled said they have little or no confidence in Washington to repair the economy. Confidence is down 21 percentage points from October 2010 and is less than half its 2002 levels. Roughly four in 10 have no confidence at all in the federal government when it comes to dealing with the economy, the poll indicates. (The other 25% think the government will get help from the tooth fairy to make things right. ~Bob.)

Democrats doubt Barack Obama's reelection chances

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8692054/Democrats-doubt-Barack-Obamas-reelection-chances.html

Excerpt: Finding it hard to defend his often listless and repetitive performances, Democratic strategists and commentators are privately agreeing with Republicans and comparing Mr Obama to Jimmy Carter, another Democrat who remains the post-war benchmark for a failed president. … On his nightly television show, liberal host Bill Maher dismissed Mr Obama as a Republican, and asked his panel if Mrs Clinton would have made a better president. "Yes," replied astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, an African American astrophysicist and broadcaster, adding that the Secretary of State would have been "a more effective negotiator in the halls of Congress". (You know where the country has gone when a leftist dismisses the most liberal/statist president in history as “a Republican.” ~Bob.)

Fed Up: A Texas Bank Is Calling It Quits .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904480904576498442951766826.html?KEYWORDS=Texas+Bank+closing

The more companies they can drive out, the easier for the government to control the economy. ~Bob. Excerpt: Main Street Bank lends most of its money to small businesses and is earning decent profits. But the Kingwood, Texas, bank is about to get out of the banking business. In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation's financial institutions,

Main Street

's chairman, Thomas Depping, is expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a nearby bank.

In Spite of All That Cash, Unions Came Up Short

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/274204/spite-all-cash-unions-came-short-christian-schneider

Encouraging. ~Bob. Excerpt: For months, unions have told us that after their state-senate recall efforts in Wisconsin, lawmakers would learn not to scale back their collective-bargaining “rights.” The recalls would warn any state thinking about passing a law like Governor Walker’s to think again. Yet after Tuesday night’s recall elections, only one lesson is perfectly clear: It’s probably not a good idea to cheat on your wife. In what might have been the most costly abstinence program in history, national unions dumped tens of millions of dollars in Wisconsin — yet their only notable accomplishment was to recall Republican state senator Randy Hopper, whose priapic misadventures sunk his campaign from the start. Polling leading up to the recall election showed voters were just fine with Hopper’s vote to scale back public-sector collective bargaining; they just weren’t so fine with his alleged affair with a then-25-year-old capitol staffer. … It wasn’t surprising that Democrats won two of the six elections. What is surprising is the way Republicans won their four. Recent polls had many of the races within the margin of error — yet in the seats they retained, Republicans won comfortably. Rob Cowles in the Green Bay area destroyed his opponent, Democrat Nancy Nusbaum, by 20 points. Republican Sheila Harsdorf, once thought to be in danger, beat a teachers’ union official by a 58–42 margin. Luther Olsen and Alberta Darling, pinpointed as possible Dem pickups, won with 52 and 54 percent of the vote. Darling did so in a district that saw the greatest number of total votes cast, at nearly 74,000. In fact, almost 350,000 people voted in Tuesday’s recall elections — and Republicans won 53 percent of the total vote. After blowtorching the state with negative ads and benefiting from a favorable timetable, the unions could still only get 47 percent of Wisconsinites to support their effort. This should make the unions think long and hard about whether they want to embark on a mission to recall Gov. Scott Walker next year. Doing so successfully would easily cost them five times as much as they just spent — and even with their recent deluge of cash, most of the public still didn’t support them at the polls.

Dent ceiling question going around the net

If you can answer this correctly, you can answer the question on what action to take on raising the Federal debt ceiling. You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup and you have sewage up to your ceilings. What do you do……raise the ceilings, or pump out the crap?

White House Photo of Ceremony for U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan Sparks Controversy

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/11/white-house-photo-ceremony-for-us-troops-killed-in-afghanistan-sparks/

Excerpt: A White House photographer was allowed to take and widely distribute a photo from the ceremony Tuesday for the return of the remains of 30 American troops killed in a weekend helicopter crash in Afghanistan despite the Pentagon's claim that any public depiction of the scene would violate the wishes of bereaved families. News media coverage of the ceremony had been banned by the Pentagon over the objections of several news organizations. Pentagon officials had said that because 19 of 30 of the American families of the dead had objected to media coverage of the remains coming off a plane at Dover Air Force Base, no images could be taken. In addition, the Pentagon rejected media requests to take photos that showed officials at the ceremony but did not depict caskets.

Worth Reading: The Best Looking Horse In The Glue Factoryhttp://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=19783

Excerpt: As usual the MSM did its usual superficial dog and pony show for the American public on Saturday and Sunday. The overall tone on every show (not journalism) was to calm the audience. Every station had a ”downgrade special” to explain why you shouldn’t panic over the downgrade of the United States. As we can see, it didn’t work. Worldwide markets went berserk. The reactions of the various players in this saga have been very enlightening to say the least. As I watched, listened and read the views of hundreds of people over the last few days, I recalled a statement by David Walker in the documentary I.O.U.S.A. This documentary was made in late 2007 before the financial crisis hit. The documentary follows Walker, the former head of the GAO, and Bob Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, on their Fiscal Wake Up tour. In the film, Walker tells the audience: “We suffer from a fiscal cancer. If we don’t treat it there will be catastrophic consequences.” He argued the greatest threat to America was not a terrorist squatting in a cave in Afghanistan, but the US debt mountain. … The politicians and bankers who control the developed world have made the choice to print money and create more debt as their solution to an un-payable debt problem. Europe, Japan, the U.S., and virtually every country in the world want to devalue their way out of a debt problem created over the last forty years. It has become a race to the bottom, with no winners. Every country can’t devalue their currency simultaneously without blowing up the entire worldwide monetary system.

Three Simple Ways

Medicare Can Save Money

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=20971&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Excerpt: The most significant reason for our out-of-control deficit spending is health care. And the biggest federal health care program is Medicare. That's why almost everybody agrees that Medicare must be reformed. A good place to start is recognizing that what Medicare is trying to do is impossible, says John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Each price Medicare pays is tied to a patient with a condition. And with the 7,500 things doctors could possibly do to treat a given condition, Medicare has to be just as diligent in not paying for inappropriate care as it is in paying for procedures that should be done. So, in fact, Medicare isn't just setting prices. It is regulating whole transactions. What happens when Medicare gets it wrong? One result is that doctors face perverse incentives to provide care that is costlier and less appropriate than the care they should be providing. Another result is that the skill set of our nation's doctors becomes misallocated, as medical students and practicing doctors respond to the fact that Medicare is overpaying for some skills and underpaying for others. A more sensible approach is to begin the process of allowing medical fees to be determined the way prices are determined everywhere else in our economy -- in the marketplace. Here are three ways to start: First, Medicare should allow enrollees to obtain care at almost all walk-in, free-standing emergency-care clinics that post prices and usually deliver high-quality care. Since these fees are well below what Medicare would have paid at a physician's office or hospital emergency room, this reform would lower Medicare's overall costs. Second, Medicare should allow enrollees to take advantage of commercial telephone and e-mail services. Again, it is important to pay the market price, not Medicare's price, although Medicare patients should probably pay a good portion of the cost of each phone call out of pocket. Finally, Medicare should encourage physicians to repackage and reprice their services in ways that are good for the doctor, good for the patient and good for Medicare. For example, Medicare should encourage concierge doctor arrangements.

The EPA's New Air Quality Regulations: All Pain, No Gain (Part One)

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=20972&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Excerpt: Over the past two years the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed or finalized a number of air quality regulations that could seriously retard the economic recovery. Economists estimate that two of the new rules -- the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards -- will cost millions of jobs and raise energy prices with little or no public health benefit, say H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow, and Kenney Meier, an intern, with the National Center for Policy Analysis. The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule goes into effect on January 1, 2012, and will require 27 states to significantly reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 2014. The rule could cost up to $120 billion by 2015 and reduce the nation's power supply by more than 55 gigawatts (almost 4 percent), according to the Brattle Group. By 2015, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards requires existing coal- and oil-fired power plants to reduce emissions to the average level of emissions of the least polluting 12 percent of plants currently operating. The standard could cost an estimated $100 billion by 2017, according to researchers at Credit Suisse. Higher fuel prices and plant closures due to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards could result in a net loss of 1.4 million jobs by 2020. The average household electricity bill could increase by 11.5 percent; some businesses could see as much as a 35 percent increase in electricity prices. These regulations are arguably unnecessary since the air is so clean that there is little benefit to additional pollution reduction. According to EPA data: Between 1980 and 2008, emissions of nitrogen dioxide emissions fell 40 percent. Emissions of sulfur dioxide fell by 56 percent. Lead emissions fell 96 percent. These decreases came despite a 22 percent increase in population and a 19 percent increase in energy consumption since 1990. The economy is still struggling and many people remain unemployed. The loss of more than 1 million jobs and soaring energy costs over the next decade will stifle economic recovery. Current clean air standards and technological improvements are already improving air quality, say Burnett and Meier.

The Devastating Threat to Our Security

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/11/morning-bell-the-devastating-threat-to-our-security/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Excerpt: It sounds like something out of a movie. A nuclear weapon detonates at high altitude, generating a burst of electromagnetic energy that devastates the United States--destroying electronics, collapsing communications, halting transportation, and shutting down all electrical power. Unfortunately, the threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike is all too real, and it's time America's leaders wake up to the reality. But a nuclear weapon isn't the only way an EMP can be generated. Even unusually powerful solar activity could produce catastrophic destruction in the United States. No matter how it's generated, the chaotic effects are the same. First, the electromagnetic shock can disrupt electrical devices. The second effect is similar to lightning—a power surge that would burn circuits and immobilize electronic components and systems. The third is a pulse effect that flows through electricity trans­mission lines, damaging distribution centers and fusing power lines. Any of these can cause irreversible damage to an electronic system. And the United States would effectively be sent back to the 19th century, to a world without cars, cell phones, computers, or any other electronics.

America as Less Than No. 1

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576498840323097396.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

Excerpt: So this is a taste of what it will be like when the American superpower starts shrinking. Enjoying it yet? After the humiliation of the United States losing its AAA credit rating; after watching the American stock market descend into chaos; after living for two years in a $15 trillion economy unable to grow beyond 2%, with unemployment rates rarely experienced in the U.S., Americans have their first whiff of inhabiting an empire in decline.

Call Off the ‘SEALs-ploitation’

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/call_off_the_seals_ploitation_zVWRo9uhloUjLKlalgzTqJ#ixzz1UikyFc4m

Coming son to the Big Screen—Hollywood SEALs save an inept president from the quagmire he created. ~Bob. American fighting men and women aren’t campaign props to be deployed as a rapid-reaction force when the polls start tanking. But even as weeping families bury their dead heroes, White House political hacks are trying to steal their glory for the sake of a few more votes. President Obama came into office unfamiliar with the culture of the military he found himself commanding -- but over time it’s become clear that his appreciation for the troops has grown as they have performed every task he has asked of them. This week, he went to Dover Air Force Base to personally greet the honored dead from SEAL Team 6 and other units killed in last weekend’s helicopter tragedy. Yet his campaign operatives are another story: They’re set on using the SEALs and other warriors who hunted down bin Laden in a clumsy attempt to gin up support in the closing weeks before next year’s election. As Maureen Dowd disclosed Saturday, the president’s “aides have made sure there are proxies to exuberantly brag” about SEAL Team 6’s already legendary bin Laden raid. Now, “the White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of Bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual.” The movie is to open on Oct. 12, 2012 -- just weeks before the election. And the filmmakers’ politics are no secret: They made the faux-pro-troop flick “The Hurt Locker; Bigelow is a Democratic donor -- and Boal, even more tellingly, wrote for Rolling Stone.

Where are the veterans' voices?

http://townhall.com/columnists/davidfrench/2011/07/27/where_are_the_veterans_voices

Excerpt: After almost one full decade of continuous war, the gap between America’s veterans and our cultural elites is wider than ever. With ROTC (until recently) removed from our top-tier campuses, lingering anti-military biases that date from the Vietnam war, and an understandable reticence to risk promising futures on foreign battlefields, our culture-makers have shunned military service – at great cost to our country. Take a look at the editorial pages of five of America’s largest-circulation and most influential publications, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. How many columnist-veterans do you see? How many veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan? By my count, I don’t see a single veteran of our current wars.

Justice Department Settles Allegations of Immigration-Related Employment Discrimination Against Summit Steel Fabricators in Houston

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/August/11-crt-1034.html

Excerpt: The Justice Department today reached a settlement agreement with Summit Steel Fabricators Inc. in Houston resolving allegations that the company engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against non-citizens in the employment eligibility verification process. According to the department’s findings, the company had a policy of requiring newly hired workers who are not U.S. citizens to present specific documentation, such as a permanent resident card or resident alien card, even if they had already presented other documents sufficient to establish their employment eligibility under federal law. U.S. citizens, by contrast, were not required to present any specific documents. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Summit Steel will alter its practices to ensure that citizens and non-citizens are treated equally in the employment eligibility verification process, and pay a civil penalty of $15,400. (Memo to the 15M unemployed American from the Obama Administration. You are no more deserving of an American job than a non-American. ~Bob.)

Global Economic Collapse Simply Explained

http://www.fedupusa.org/2011/08/global-economic-collapse-simply-explained/

Excerpt: Well, this pretty much covers it. I have a few small nits I could pick with it, but if you want a video that will explain everything that is happening worldwide with the economic situation to even your most uneducated of friends or family, this would be the one. (This is easy to understand—share it widely with the economics-challenged. ~Bob.)

Overseas crises loom for Obama

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61057.html

Excerpt: Freed at last from the debt ceiling negotiations, President Barack Obama is vowing an unrelenting focus on jobs. But the world may not cooperate. A series of foreign crises are intensifying, and a diplomatic confrontation looms that could have profound consequences across the Middle East. The initial, hopeful fervor of the Arab Spring democracy movement has given way to a grim summer. (Wow—who could have seen that coming? Other than you and I, I mean. ~Bob.)

Security Weekly: Situational Awareness - How Everyday Citizens Can Help Make a Nation Safe

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110810-situational-awareness-how-everyday-citizens-help-make-nation-safe?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110811&utm_term=sweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=e02b21d2bdf24fb08a003fc920a9978b

Excerpt: Last week’s Security Weekly discussed the important role that grassroots defenders practicing situational awareness play in defending against terrorist attacks by individuals and small cells, what we refer to as grassroots militants. Anyone who reads STRATFOR’s security and terrorism material for any length of time will notice that we frequently mention the importance of situational awareness. The reason we do so, quite simply, is that it works. Situational awareness is effective in allowing people to see potential threats before — and as — they develop. This allows potential victims to take proactive measures to avoid a perceived threat, and it enables them or other observers to alert authorities. While threats can emanate from a number of very different sources, it is important to recognize that terrorist attacks — and other criminal acts, for that matter — do not materialize out of thin air. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Terrorists and other criminals follow a process when planning their actions, and this process has several distinct steps. The process has traditionally been referred to as the “terrorist attack cycle,” but if you look at the issue thoughtfully, it becomes apparent that the same steps apply to nearly all crimes. Of course, the steps in a complex crime like a kidnapping or car bombing are far more involved than the steps in a simple crime such as purse-snatching or shoplifting, where the steps can be completed quite rapidly. Nevertheless, the same general steps are usually followed.

Borrowing from Communists to pay Jihadis?: It’s hard to imagine how we could do worse

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0811/may081111.php3

Excerpt: The debt crisis, chronic high unemployment, the tumbling stock market, the credit downgrade — these are, fairly obviously, symptoms of an economy in distress. We might disagree about the best policy responses. But perhaps we can agree on the worst: borrow massive amounts of money from the communists who want to diminish us and transfer that wealth to the Jihadis who want to destroy us. Surprise: That long has been U.S. government policy and, so far at least, it remains in place. This reality was driven home last week when China’s rulers, who sit on at least $1.16 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities, scolded “debt-ridden Uncle Sam,” instructing Washington that “the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.” At about the same time, it was announced that Rostam Ghasemi will be the next president of OPEC, the cartel that controls much of the world’s oil and manipulates its price on global markets. Unsavory characters have run OPEC in the past but this smashes all records: Ghasemi is a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps — the Brown Shirts of a regime that has been murdering Americans for more than a quarter century and which is openly dedicated to the proposition that a “world without America is…achievable.”

London Riots: 'The Police Did Nothing'

http://xroadcop.blogspot.com/2011/08/london-riots-police-did-nothing.html

Excerpt: The article below talks about London, England. BUT, ladies and gentlemen, look for the same thing to happen here. Police administrators are appointed by politicians, and the Administrators are themselves politicians. The follow Politicians Rule #1: Never piss off any person or group who can affect your career. Police Administrators are big on IMAGE. They want to project an image that every officer is a kind-hearted public servant. Having to subdue some miscreant who has ascended the permissiveness ladder negates that image. Should the miscreant get his/her ass kicked as the outcome of the struggle, there are always cries by his/her friends and family of "Police brutality" and "excessive force". Look for your Police Administrator TO INITIALLY SIDE WITH THE MISCREANT. You-the police officer--will be reviewed by your city, state, and Federal prosecutors to determine if you did use "Excessive force". Next up, some parasitic lawyer will file a suit against you for using "Excessive force". This can go on from a year to 5 years. In that time, you can not sell anything you own, because it might become part of the settlement or award to the miscreant. So, you can see--There is no motivation for police officers to protect anyone outside of themselves. Why risk getting disabled and/or killed for ungrateful superiors and public?

Government Motors Spends Your Money

http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011/08/10/government-motors-spends-your-money/

Excerpt: Yes, General Motors. A great example of Obama’s efforts to revitalize our economy. He bravely handed a failing industry billions of dollars of other people’s money and then planted political friends in high positions while paying off the unions with shares of the company. As recently as May of this year, people like Jen Psaki, White House Deputy Communications Director, and Vice President Joe Biden, can be found praising the auto bailouts as the crown jewel of this administrations efforts. In fact, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the Obama administration plans to use the auto bailouts as a way to win over voters in swing states. This is helped of course by how so many GM jobs keep ending up in swing states. Unfortunately, the reality of our “investment” isn’t as pretty as they’d have people believe. Instead, it’s becoming clear that we will be lucky if we at least break even. (Show me a rich liberal who drives a Volt. ~Bob.)

In online forums, Islamic militants urge rioters in Britain to topple government

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-online-forums-islamic-militants-urge-rioters-in-britain-to-topple-government/2011/08/10/gIQAmpbc6I_story.html

Excerpt: Militant online forums are abuzz with calls to Muslims in Britain to launch Internet campaigns in support of the British rioters and to urge them to topple the government. Dozens of contributors on Wednesday suggested Muslims in Britain should flood social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, with slogans and writings inciting the British youth to continue rioting. One contributor says the rioters should adopt slogans similar to those used by Arab protesters during the uprisings in the Middle East this year.

Disturbing Details Emerge in 'Honor Killing' Case

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/justice/disturbing-details-emerge-in-honor-killing-case-08062011

Excerpt: Laing said, "Your daughter is about close to dying...she's in critical condition." Sayim said, "Oh.. okay.. tell her thank you Amal.. thank you, that's what she needs." "You are a sick individual," said Laing.

White House Cleanses Israel from Website

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/white-house-cleanses-israel-website_588127.html

Sharia: a law unto itself?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8686504/Sharia-a-law-unto-itself.html

Excerpt: After being beaten repeatedly by her husband – who had also threatened to kill her – Jameela turned to her local Sharia council in a desperate bid for a way out of her marriage. Today she discovers the verdict. Playing nervously with her hands, the young mother-of-three listens as the panel of judges discuss whether they should grant her a divorce. The council meets once a month at the Birmingham Central Mosque. Many of the cases relate to divorce and involve the husbands and wives entering the room separately to make their appeals. In an airless room in the bowels of the mosque, Jameela is asked to explain why she wants a divorce. She replies that her husband spends most of his time with his second wife – Islamic law allows men to have up to four wives – but complains he is abusive whenever he returns to her home. Across the desk, Dr Mohammed Naseem, chair of the mosque’s Sharia council, sits alongside Talha Bokhari, a white-robed imam, and Amra Bone, the only woman sitting on an Islamic court in this country. While a husband is not required to go through official channels to gain a divorce – being able to achieve this merely by uttering the word “talaq” – Islamic law requires that the wife must persuade the judges to grant her a dissolution. … Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester who was born in Pakistan, was accused of scaremongering after he said, in this newspaper three years ago, that parts of the country were being turned into “no-go” areas for non-Muslims. “To understand the impact of Sharia law you have to look at other countries,” he says. “At its heart it has basic inequalities between Muslims and non-Muslims, and between men and women.”

What if the President Liked Businesspeople?

http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2011/08/11/what_if_the_president_liked_businesspeople

Excerpt: The U.S. stock market has nose-dived. Congress just approved the highest debt ceiling in American history, allowing the government to carry over $16 trillion in national debt -- prompting the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade America's multitrillion-dollar debt for the first time in 70 years. Unemployment is still over 9 percent. Private-sector businesses may have more than $1 trillion in cash, but they will be scared into not hiring or buying as long as they fear a new tax, a new regulation, a new entitlement obligation, a new plant shutdown -- or a new harangue. The Gross Domestic Product is almost static. Every classical Keynesian remedy -- massive government borrowing and spending ("stimulus"), near-zero interest rates, public works, expanded federal entitlements -- has been tried, failed, and is turning a modest recovery into another recession. Neither the example of the socialist European Union nor that of big-spending blue-state America suggests that massive government spending and entitlements lead to collective prosperity.

Sons of Anarchy

http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2011/08/11/sons_of_anarchy

Excerpt: Some have compared the riots in the UK to the London Blitz. It's a flawed comparison. The strategic bombing of London in 1940 came from an external enemy, Nazi Germany. Enemies from within are carrying out the free-for-all that began in Tottenham, England on Saturday -- quickly spreading to London and other parts of the UK -- following the shooting death of suspected gang member Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police. Theresa May, the British home secretary, rejected calls for water cannons and more forceful methods to help overwhelmed police quell the chaos. Interviewed on Sky News May said, "The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities." If that sounds completely feckless, that's because it is. Businesses have been wiped out. Untold numbers of jobs have been lost. Did the community "consent" to that? If even a few shop owners had been armed, perhaps these products of the British welfare, entitlement and envy state might have thought twice about their thuggish behavior. Unfortunately, gun laws in Britain are strict, owners must be licensed and self-defense can be difficult to prove. Northern Ireland, while also part of the UK, has more liberal gun ownership laws and the bar to prove self-defense is much lower, perhaps because of the history of violence in the country before the peace agreement. There has been no rioting in Ireland, Scotland or Wales. … The problem in Britain, and increasingly in America, is moral and spiritual, not economic and political. British history and values are no longer being adequately taught in the UK for fear a sense of super-nationalism might be conveyed. This at a time when no nation is to be considered superior to any other, a view expressed by President Obama.

Just in Time, Another Obama Nine-Day Vacation

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2011/08/11/just_in_time,_another_obama_nine-day_vacation

Excerpt: The last time the market was this spooked was when Mr. Obama decided to start a war with Libya. While on vacation. … So, now comes word that after two of the worst weeks of stock market performance in the century, including a downgrade of America’s sterling credit, Obama is off to Martha’s Vineyard for nine days with the family, playing golf and doing whatever else you do on the seashore. On vacation.

The Growing Bipartisan Consensus on Obama

http://townhall.com/columnists/emmetttyrrell/2011/08/11/the_growing_bipartisan_consensus_on_obama

Excerpt: Who on Aug. 18, 2010 -- almost one year ago -- said, "I now think it is clear even to official Washington that President Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed"? Yes, it was I. And I threw the entire weight of The American Spectator behind that asseveration, putting both Jimmy and Barry on the cover. Now, of course, others are stepping forward and drawing the awkward comparison. On the left, there is Maureen Dowd in The New York Times quoting an anonymous Democratic senator who laments that "we are watching him turn into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes." Apparently, the left-wing fussbudget Eric Alterman made the same comparison in U.S. News and World Report. Yet I went further, making the point that between Barry and Jimmy, Barry is worse. Consider the prophet's performance on TV during this financial crisis. He is actually calling for more spending, and the markets continue to tumble. His fabled cool is exposed. It is obliviousness.

Americans Should Learn from London

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelyoussef/2011/08/11/americans_should_learn_from_london

Excerpt: Let America take a long, hard look at what is happening in London...then take a deep breath and learn a powerful lesson. When anarchists and hooligans were trying to riot in Athens, Greece, most people rolled their eyes and said, "Oh, well, it is Greece." Wrong reaction! Be that as it may, now it is happening in a city and a country that is the closest to the U.S. in terms of history, culture, and alignment. As we watch London burn, again, leftist politicians are blaming the conservative government's economic policies-adopted by their coalition government a little over a year ago. This is not unlike the leftists in America who came out in force last weekend to blame the "Tea Party" for the downgrade by the S& P.

Holocaust Survivor Gets Cursed Out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=MF_tL8m9e-c

Scott pays $400 a year for health coverage

http://htpolitics.com/2011/08/10/scott-pays-400-a-year-for-health-coverage/

Excerpt: Gov. Rick Scott, a critic of the federal health care overhaul, is paying less than $400 a year for health insurance for himself and his wife. While Scott is accepting no salary for his job as governor, the multimillionaire and former hospital chain executive chose to enroll in the taxpayer-subsidized health insurance plan offered by the state of Florida. Scott is among nearly 32,000 people in state government who pay relatively low health insurance premiums. It’s a perk that is available to high-ranking state officials, including those in top management at all state agencies. Nearly all 160 state legislators are also enrolled in the program that costs just $8.34 a month for individual coverage and $30 a month for family coverage.

Van Jones Group Uses Kids Video to Push Universal Health Care, Higher Taxes

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/van-jones-group-uses-kids-video-to-push-universal-health-care-higher-taxes/

Excerpt: Because there‘s nothing more convincing than using kids who don’t understand government and economics, Van Jones’s Rebuild the Dream group is employing tiny tots to push a progressive liberal agenda in a new video.

Ray Stevens' 3+ minute video on the Obama Budget Plan http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=J6TcpfBHlbs

The Sun Never Sets On The British Welfare System

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45446

Excerpt: Those of you following the barbaric rioting in Britain will not have failed to notice that a sizable proportion of the thugs are white, something not often seen in this country. Not only that, but in a triumph of feminism, a lot of them are girls. Even the "disabled" (according to the British benefits system) seem to have miraculously overcome their infirmities to dash out and steal a few TVs. Congratulations, Britain! You've barbarized your citizenry, without regard to race, gender or physical handicap! With a welfare system far more advanced than the United States, the British have achieved the remarkable result of turning entire communities of ancestral British people into tattooed, drunken brutes.

Hizballah, Damascus Under Siege

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3095/hizballah-damascus-under-siege

Tell me again why we are bombing Libya? ~Bob. Excerpt: Syrians have peacefully demonstrated for change in their country for nearly five months, only to be met with a murderous wave of terror from their own government. Government forces have killed more than 2,000 demonstrators, human rights activists say. Tens of thousands more Syrians have become refugees, fleeing from President Bashar Assad's rampaging security forces. In deference to Turkey, which wants Assad to remain in power while instituting "reforms," the Obama administration has stopped short of calling for the dictator's ouster. On Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced additional sanctions against Syria, and the White House said Syria would be "better off" without Assad. The Syrian military responded with more military assaults, killing 35 people.

Marine General: We Killed Insurgents Responsible for SEAL Chopper Crash

http://conservativebyte.com/2011/08/marine-general-we-killed-insurgents-responsible-for-seal-chopper-crash/

In a separate statement Wednesday, the military said the Monday strike killed Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade at the helicopter. The military said intelligence gained on the ground provided a high degree of confidence that the insurgent who fired the grenade was the person killed. It did not provide further details.

Pork barrel ethanol subsidies have doubled corn prices

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/08/manhattan-moment-pork-barrel-ethanol-subsidies-have-doubled-corn-prices

Excerpt: Last month, with Washington mired in the debt ceiling battle and facing a potential default, public disapproval of Congress reached a record 82 percent.

That figure might have been a little lower had Congress succeeded in solving another long-festering issue: putting an end to the massive subsidies being given to the corn ethanol scam. Alas, it was not to be. In early July, it appeared that a bipartisan group of senators had come up with a plan to end the 45-cents-per-gallon subsidy almost immediately rather than wait for it to expire, as planned, on Dec. 31. But that deal never passed both houses of Congress. The result: $6 billion in annual subsidies are still being given to an industry that is helping drive up food prices during the worst recession in modern history. So the ethanol industry will continue getting subsidies while gobbling up gargantuan quantities of corn, which, in turn, is increasing the cost of food at the grocery store at the very same time that huge numbers of Americans are unemployed and/or collecting food stamps.

Two plead guilty in Memphis to embezzling $900,000 from disabled veterans

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/10/two-plead-guilty-memphis-embezzling-900000-disable/

Excerpt: Two former government employees have pleaded guilty in federal court in Memphis to conspiring to embezzle nearly $900,000 from veterans beneficiary accounts under their supervision. Jack Perry, 75, and Robert Tabbutt, 67, admitted diverting funds from 10 different accounts and using the money to pay personal expenses and to gamble at Tunica casinos. (At first, it made me sick. I quickly got past that and became very angry. My hope is that these two pieces of human waste will die in a lonely prison cell. MasterGuns)

Tea Party faithful wonder if Rick Perry walks the walk

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/10/us-usa-campaign-perry-idUSTRE7775S720110810

I think Pawlenty’s credentials are better than Perry’s, but TPaw doesn’t seem to be catching on. Certainly both better than Romney. ~Bob. Excerpt: Rick Perry has been widely touted as a Republican presidential candidate who could appeal Tea Party voters, but some in the anti-tax movement wonder if his record as Texas governor stacks up to his rhetoric. After all, they say, there are reasons to think he's a spendthrift. He once campaigned for Democrat Al Gore, reviled by the Tea Party for being Bill Clinton's vice president and for his campaigning on climate change, and he even spoke kindly about Hillary Clinton's healthcare reform efforts. Then there is the issue that he was once a Democrat. So as Perry plans the 2012 White House bid many observers expect he may announce as early as this week, some Tea Party faithful wonder what to make of him.