Saturday, January 21, 2012

Political Digest for January 21, 2012

Charities I support

OWS vs. Marines

Gingrich says coverage of ex-wife’s allegation is appalling
Excerpt: Newt Gingrich on Thursday denied his ex-wife’s contention that he asked her for an “open marriage” and, in the process, laid into the media for focusing on the issue. (Lots of people have “open marriages.” But they often don’t tell the spouse first. ~Bob.)

Newt's Night
Excerpt: After the first South Carolina debate, everyone was astonished that Newt Gingrich managed to get a standing ovation. Last night, he got two in the opening minutes. It has become a formula: 1) Watch a debate moderator ask Gingrich a hostile question; 2) Watch Gingrich filet the moderator and uncork an epic answer; 3) Watch the crowd go wild. (Every time I start to like Newt, he does something I hate. Every time I turn away from him, he does something I like. ~Bob.)

Gingrich blasts ABC for airing interview with ex-wife as ABC starts drip strategy
Excerpt: It is, however, supremely unfair of Marianne to dump this on the race now — not to Newt, but to voters who sincerely backed Gingrich. If Newt so lacked the “moral character” for the Presidency, why did it take Marianne eight months to tell us? Her relative silence in 2011 gave voters the impression that she had nothing to add to the debate over who should represent the GOP in the presidential race. It’s also unfair to her former stepdaughters who have been working tirelessly for their father for the last several weeks to help broaden Newt’s appeal, and for Newt’s grandchildren who have to hear about this now. It’s also a large dollop of hypocrisy from the national news media who ignored reports of an ongoing affair involving John Edwards during the 2008 presidential campaign itself, complete with love child, until the National Enquirer ended up scooping everyone else. Suddenly a 12-year-old affair is prime-time news? It’s hard to come to any other conclusion that the party affiliation makes a big difference.

Worth Reading: An Ignored 'Disparity': Part IV by Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: One of the historic advantages of Western Europe was that it was conquered by the Romans in ancient times -- a traumatic experience in itself, but one which left Western European languages with written versions, using letters created by the Romans. Eastern European languages developed written versions centuries later. Literate people obviously have many advantages over people who are illiterate. Even after Eastern European languages became literate, it was a long time before they had such accumulations of valuable written knowledge as Western European languages had, due to Western European languages' centuries earlier head start.

Excerpt: As he did with his probably illegal “recess” appointments, President Obama picked a politically advantageous time to cancel the Keystone pipeline project — while the media is obsessed with the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich’s second wife, and Mitt Romney’s investments. Yet it is hard to remember a presidential decision that had as many negatives as this one:

Treasury dips into pension funds to avoid debt
Excerpt: The Treasury on Tuesday started dipping into federal pension funds in order to give the Obama administration more credit to pay government bills. "I will be unable to invest fully" the federal employees retirement system fund beginning Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress. (Missed this on Tuesday. We are now like a family using one credit card to pay another. ~Bob.)

Exclusive: Senior al Qaeda figure killed in drone strike
Well, piss on him. Oh, wait, killing good, peeing non-PC. Sorry. ~Bob. Excerpt: A militant who acted as a senior operations organizer for al Qaeda was targeted and killed in one of two U.S. drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a U.S. official said. U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team.

Libya's Muammar Gaddafi had chemical weapon cache
Excerpt: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said inspectors visited Libya this week. Among the chemical munitions they found were stocks of sulphur mustard agent, which can cause severe blistering.

Cuban hunger striker Wilmar Villar dies in jail
Excerpt: A jailed Cuban political dissident has died, 50 days after beginning a hunger strike, a human rights group says. Wilmar Villar was protesting against a four-year prison sentence for taking part in a demonstration. The Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission said the 31-year-old had died in hospital after being critically ill for several days. (Murdered by Michael Moore’s Main Man. ~Bob.)

Somalia's al-Shabab hit by major Amisom offensive
Excerpt: Pro-government forces have launched a major offensive from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to seize territory from al-Shabab Islamist militants.
Some 1,000 soldiers backed up by 20 tanks captured three al-Shabab bases, a senior security official said.

Overregulation Reduces Choice in Health Insurance
Excerpt: Many Americans complain that there is too little competition between health plans. To some degree, this is true. However, promises that the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) implementation will increase competition between plans are misleading. On the contrary, concentration among health plans has largely occurred subsequent to government action. A comparison of premiums in the small-group market in 2008 (before the ACA) and 2010 (after the ACA) demonstrates this point, says John R. Graham, director of health studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Of the 37 states that had available data, 36 experienced an increase in the average premium paid after the passage of the ACA (the lone exception was Utah). The median percent increase in premiums amongst the states was 20 percent. The state with the highest percent change was Washington, which experienced a 68 percent increase in the average premium paid.

How Competition Improves Quality: The Case of Medicare Advantage
Excerpt: Since 2005, seniors have had the option to receive their Medicare benefits through a private plan of their choice offered under Medicare Advantage (MA). Since that time, studies have increasingly shown that MA plans offer superior services to their participants with better health outcomes, says Kathryn Nix, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Since its inception with a population of 5.3 million participants, MA plans have doubled in size and continue to grow. In 2010, close to 25 percent of the Medicare population was enrolled in an MA plan.

Joe Biden Tells San Francisco Crowd That Giants Are Headed To The Super Bowl
Excerpt: Speaking to a crowd in San Francisco during a fundraiser speech, Biden confused the 49ers and New York Giants in a most untimely fashion. "The Giants [are] on their way to the Super Bowl," Biden said. This, of course, promptly drew a chorus of boos from the crowd.

In Defence of Capitalism - the Most Virtuous Economic System Yet Devised - by Daniel Hannan, Telegraph UK
Excerpt: There’s nothing selfish about capitalism. Like every economic model, it is a matrix within which individual actors can behave morally or immorally. But here’s the thing: no one has yet come up with a system that rewards decent behaviour to the same extent. In an open market based on property rights and free contract, you become wealthy by offering an honest service to others.

The Mutant Present - by Mark Steyn, Steyn Online
http://www.steynonline.com/4782/the-mutant-present
Excerpt: But what would a visitor from Eisenhower's America make of our time? He might eventually get around to marveling at the iPod and Twitter, but I would bet his initial reaction would be complete amazement at the people. Instead of the sober suits and hats of a
1950 Main Street
, men and women crowd the sidewalks in brightly colored leisurewear that, to his mid-century eyes, gives them the air of overgrown children, especially when slurping sugary drinks through straws from containers not dissimilar to baby bottles. He would observe that a remarkable number of these people are extremely large, waddling along like supersized moppets. [Waddle waddle, slurp slurp, gobble gobble, burp burp. Mr. Steyn you genius honey, you have nailed it once again. I AM a visitor from an earlier era in our nation's history because I spent 30 years in the United Kingdom where people jess can't afford to EAT SO MUCH. I got to LA six years ago, and I've been trying to tell people in the UK about the actual monsters and mutants here, but you do it all so much better. Coming soon to losangelescitycollege.blogspot.com ......our Bubble-Butt Gallery -- they deserve it. As I write this in our local LA Public Library, the guy next to me is talking to himself and huffing and puffing. I don't even look at him. I'm not scared of him. There are so many of them. There are so many attention seekers here, I don't respond any more when someone says, "Excuse me." What about excusing me so that I can have the inside of my own head to myself? Now he's dancing and singing... --Kate]

Public Pension ‘Air Time’ Is an Absurdly Generous Perk
Excerpt: USA Today reports that “government workers in 21 states are using an obscure perk to retire early or to boost their annual pensions by thousands of dollars, which can cost taxpayers millions more in payments to retirement funds.” This perk, known as “air time,” allows public employees to purchase extra years of service that are credited toward their pension benefits, which are a function of the employee’s final salary and his number of years of employment. For instance, USA Today points to a $56,000-a-year analyst for the Michigan State Police who paid $30,265 to buy five years of work credit, which means that when he retires after 27 years of service his pension will be calculated as if he had worked for 32 years. This will add around $6,825 to the worker’s annual pension, boosting lifetime benefits by around $170,000.

Valerie Jarrett's perfect record . . . for giving bad advice
Excerpt: If for nothing else, Jodi Kantor's The Obamas will be remembered for an anecdote from 2010. After he spent hours disputing an allegation in the French media that Michelle Obama thought life in the White House was "hell," press secretary Robert Gibbs encountered senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She told him the first lady was unhappy with his work. Gibbs exploded in a rage, informing Jarrett that she didn't "know what the f- you're talking about" and that if Mrs. Obama was displeased, well, "f- her too."

Obama's Magic Kingdom of Joblessness
Excerpt: Yesterday in Walt Disney World, the land "where dreams come true," President Barack Obama appeared before Cinderella's Castle to announce his latest plan to boost jobs in America--an effort to increase tourism to the United States. His announcement came one day after he flat out said "NO" to another plan that would have directly created at least 20,000 truly shovel-ready jobs--and 179,000 American jobs by 2035--while bringing more than 700,000 barrels of oil to the United States each day. That plan was the Keystone XL pipeline.

Found On A Seabee Message Board
Pee on a Crucifix, you're an "Artist." Pee on The American Flag, you're a "Constitutionalist." Pee on a Police Car, you're a "Freedom Lovin' 99 percenter." Pee on a Taliban piece of shit that just tried to kill you and your fellow Marines, you're a "Villain." Sure is a F***ed-up administration we have running this great country!!!!!

Administration doesn't want incentive for more bone marrow for deathly ill By Carol J. Williams
Excerpt: The Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling that most bone marrow donors can be compensated for providing life-saving marrow cells harvested from their bloodstreams.

Around the world, anti-Semitism is now mainstream By Caroline B. Glick
Excerpt: Anti-Semitism may not yet be a litmus test for social acceptability in the US, but it has certainly become acceptable. Proof of this dismal state of affairs came this week with the publication of a supportive profile of University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer in the Atlantic Monthly written by the magazine's in-house foreign policy guru Robert Kaplan.

‘Occupy’ Darling Bolts to Oust Scott Brown
Excerpt: She allied herself with the 99 percent against the one percent by claiming to serve as an inspiration for Occupy Wall Street. “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,” she said of OWS. “I support what they do.” (I wish I had the cash to have my own SuperPAC. I’d blanket the airwaves with that quote and a photo of her OWS intellectual mentee crapping on a cop car. Republicans who are dissatisfied with Brown not being as conservative as DeMint or Coburn better get used to the idea of another very hard-left ideologue in the Senate, if Warren wins. ~Bob.)

A Question of Priorities By Jonah Goldberg
Excerpt: For three years, the Obama administration and its cheerleaders have tried to claim that they stand for the same can-do spirit. Administration officials have a rare form of Keynesian Tourette's syndrome whereby they blurt out phrases like "Infrastructure!" ... "Spending multiplier!" ... "Shovel ready!" ... "Nation-building at home!" ... "Investment!" almost as often as they draw breath. Just last week, Obama's own handpicked jobs council -- perhaps looking at the fully employed and booming oil state of North Dakota -- advised that the U.S. must embrace an "all-in approach" to the energy sector, including the pursuit of "policies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects."

Sadly True: The GOP Suicide March By Charles Krauthammer
Excerpt: It's all rather uncomplicated, capturing nicely the Manichaean core of the Occupy movement -- blame the rich, then soak them. But the real beauty of this strategy is its adaptability. While its first target was the do-nothing protect-the-rich Congress, it is perfectly tailored to fit the liabilities of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney -- plutocrat, capitalist, 1 percenter.

Lower Than Low
Excerpt: One of the more unfortunate trends in recent years has been that Washington and the political world have increasingly looked at politics and policy on a single lateral partisan or ideological plane, without considering other possibly important dimensions. Too many view everything on a left-right ideological axis or on a Democratic-Republican plane, viewing every issue or development as a zero-sum game. If we can make the other side look bad on this issue or subject, we will look better, they reason. Political operatives and reporters, cable political shows, and Internet blogs tend to feed this tendency. (In the Marines, we were taught to focus on accomplishing the objective. When it becomes more important to stick a thumb in the other side’s collective eye than to accomplish the necessary national objective of preserving life, liberty, and the Constitution, then clearly we have a political failure. Ron P.)

Egypt’s Military Ruler Told Carter Video of Soldiers Stomping on Woman Was Fake
Excerpt: During a conversation with former President Jimmy Carter last week, Egypt’s current head of state, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, claimed that widely circulated video images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking a female protester on the pavement of
Tahrir Square
last month were entirely fake. (Carter is willfully ignorant enough to believe them. I suppose it was really soldiers stomping a Jew, which Carter and the NYT would approve of, and some Zionist photo-shopped in the Arab woman in the blue bra. ~Bob.)

Déjà Jew
Excerpt: In an interview conducted in November, a Parisian mother related how the fear of being physically attacked by Muslim extremist thugs means that it is “not rare at all today” for French Jewish students to attempt to pass themselves off as Muslim - with some even going as far as to fast on Ramadan. One case in point was a Jewish girl of North African descent who for years was successful in this deception, until finally she was “exposed” when Muslim girls caught her eating matzah in the bathroom during Pesah. After her classmates beat her viciously, they invited their male Muslim friends to their school to participate in a gang rape.

'Muslim Brotherhood site rife with anti-Semitism'
The Arabic website of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is rife with anti- Semitic and anti-Israel content, according to a recent report by a US-based media monitoring group. The report found that the Islamist group’s website, Ikhwanonline.com, regularly features articles denying the Holocaust and warning Muslims against the covetous and exploitative nature of the “Jewish character.” Other articles extol jihad and martyrdom, condemn Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel and denounce negotiations as means for regaining lands lost by Islam. (Who is surprised? And who in the leftist media—where anti-Semitism is chic and Muslims are more PC than even Gays, Hispanics and blacks, will care? ~Bob.)

HIV created by West to enfeeble third world, claims Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Excerpt: The radical Iranian leader added to his reputation for outlandish statements with the clam that African states were being false told that immoral behaviour was the source of epidemics. (Where would he get such a nutty idea? Oh, yeah, from Obama’s 20-year spiritual advisor, Rev. Wright, who said, “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.” [http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/03/21/rev-wright-and-pepfar-aids-complicity]
And, “In 2005, a survey by the Rand Corporation found that half, that's right, one in every two black Americans think AIDS is man-made, more than half believe the government has a cure they are withholding from the poor, and a quarter believe it was created in a government laboratory.” ~Bob.)

Netanyahu: Iran has decided to become a nuclear state. Action needed before it is too late.
Excerpt: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Thursday night, Jan. 19 that Iran had decided to become a nuclear state. He urged action before it was too late to stop Iran completing the construction of a nuclear weapon. His statement at the end of a visit to Holland gave Gen Martin Dempsey, on his first visit to Israel as Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the message he will be asked to take back to President Barack Obama. It also contradicted Defense Minister Ehud Barak's statement that Tehran had not yet decided to go nuclear.

Supreme Court sends maps back in Texas redistricting case
Excerpt: The Supreme Court on Friday ordered a Texas court to take a renewed look at the redistricting maps drawn by the state legislature, saying the court had gone too far in enacting its own plan. (Two months to the Texas primary, and the candidates don’t know what district they are running in. The Republic is seizing up. ~Bob.)

Obama By The Numbers
Depressing. ~Bob.

12 Places To Go If The World Goes To Hell
Huh. Me, my oxygen tanks and my M-1 are going down with the ship. Too old and sick to run. ~Bob.

Excerpt: It is profoundly disconcerting to read media reports of the unseemly competition between the US and Western governments to curry favor with the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of its electoral victory in Egypt. There are chilling parallels to such behavior with the disastrous European policy of appeasing the Nazis which paved the way for World War ll. What those attempting to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood fail to comprehend is that this organization represents one of the most fanatical and dangerous of the radical Islamist groups in the region, with a dark record of violence and terrorism imbedded in its DNA.

Breaking: Obama DOJ Official Taking The 5th – Indicates Holder Is Lying
Excerpt: A just breaking development has a high ranking member the Barack Obama Department of Justice indicating they will refuse to disclose any information before Congressman Darrell Issa’s committee next month by utilizing 5th Amendment protection. From the initial report: The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico. Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection. (Government official refusing to testify to Congressional committee? Very bad. ~Bob.)

N.C. legislators must act now to stop restaurant homicide
Excerpt: Sadly, last weekend gave us the sort of retort we have dreaded all along: Danielle Watson. Danielle was a manager at the Flying Biscuit Café in Charlotte. On January 13, she was closing the restaurant along with recently-hired cook Mark Cox. What she apparently didn’t know about Cox was that he was a felon, released just two months ago after doing time for armed robbery.

Gaza offers a real-world example of the brutal Muslim Brotherhood in government.
Excerpt: Mahmoud Abu Rahma, international director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip, was attacked outside his home in Tel el-Hawa in southern Gaza on January 13 by thugs almost certainly sent by the Hamas authorities. As they stabbed him, the attackers taunted Abu Rahma, calling him an “atheist” and a “collaborator.” In the Gaza Strip, “collaboration” is a crime punishable by death according to the law code used by Hamas.

Important: Regulatory Czar wants to use copyright protection mechanisms to shut down rumors and conspiracy theories
Excerpt: As Congress considers vastly expanding the power of copyright holders to shut down fair use of their intellectual property, this is a good time to remember the other activities that Obama’s “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein wants to shut down using the tools of copyright protection. For a couple of years now, Sunstein has been advocating that the “notice and take down” model from copyright law should be used against rumors and conspiracy theories, “to achieve the optimal chilling effect.” What kinds of conspiracy theories does Sunstein want to suppress by law? Here’s one:“… that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud.” [From page 4 of Sunstein's 2008 "Conspiracy Theories" paper.] (…) Whenever free speech is attacked, the real purpose is to cover up the truth. Not that Sunstein himself knows the truth about anything. He just knows what he wants to suppress, which is exactly why government must never have this power. (This may be the most chilling thing I’ve read in a long time. Think carefully about this before being in a hurry to meddle with the First Amendment. Ron P.)

Availability of affordable energy no obstacle to long-term growth
Excerpt: Whereas most projections emphasize the enormous growth in energy demand expected in the coming decades, Rühl focuses on the advances that are continually being made in energy technologies and applications. And he comes to a surprising finding: the energy intensity of our economy (the amount of energy needed to produce one unit of GDP) is constantly being driven lower and lower (that is, it is getting better and better). (…) Why is this happening? That is a second important point Rühl makes: it is the result, he says, of market-driven innovations that are spreading across the world thanks to globalization. (The excerpt is from the editor’s comments in the email accompanying the summary, not from me (I ain’t that smart). It’s interesting, though, that a publication based in France, openly supportive of “green technology,” and regularly reporting on the foibles of the EU attempt to “control” energy use, clearly favors an open market solution to all the world’s energy problems. Ron P.)

Excerpt: Utah officials decided Friday to allow the developers of Utah’s first nuclear power plant to use water from the Green River to operate the proposed facility.
State Engineer Kent Jones said the water right change approval for the proposed Blue Castle power plant came after two years of study.

Fake military medals could lead to fed probe
Excerpt: A Utah congressman has turned over to federal prosecutors a binder full of evidence that he was duped into presenting medals to a Korean War veteran that the Pentagon says he didn’t earn, which may lead to a criminal probe.

Battle for Control of Asia's Seas Goes Underwater
Excerpt: But America's submarine dominance in the Pacific is facing its biggest challenge since the Cold War. Nearly every Asian country with a coastline is fortifying its submarine fleet amid territorial disputes stirred up by an increasingly assertive China and the promise of bountiful natural resources.

New Jersey's Conservative Renaissance
Excerpt: It was quite a sight. The Republican Governor of New Jersey strode into the cavernous legislative chamber in the Trenton statehouse, filled mostly with Democrats, and proceeded to receive one round of applause after another.

Ohio Fire Illuminates CAIR's Inconsistency
Can a hate peddler be the victim of a hate crime? The people at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seem to think so. It is not clear whether they agree that Salah Soltan, a former leader in the Columbus, Ohio Muslim community who is hailed by some Islamists as an influential scholar, is a hate monger. He has issued fatwas sanctioning the murder of Zionists, and who has said the 9/11 attacks were "planned within the U.S., in order to enable the U.S. to control and terrorize the entire world." Soltan's home in Hilliard was nearly destroyed early Monday morning in a fire described as arson by local investigators. … During the Jewish holiday of Passover in 2010, Soltan appeared on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television station in Gaza where he invoked the blood libel against Jews. Zionists killed a French doctor and his nurse, Soltan claimed, "Then they kneaded the matzos with the blood of Dr. Toma and his nurse. They do this every year."

In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year
Excerpt: Tonight's stunning financial piece de resistance comes from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. In what is sure to inspire some serious ire among all those who once believed Ronald Reagan that it was the USSR that was the "Evil Empire", Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year." And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks.

Labor union quits alliance with greens over Keystone pipeline
Excerpt: The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) left the BlueGreen Alliance Friday, citing a disagreement with the group’s members over the Keystone XL pipeline. LIUNA, a vocal Keystone supporter, took aim at other unions for opposing the project. “We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said in a statement. (Romney should say, “Keystone should have their application ready, as I’ll approve it on day one.” ~Bob.)

Obama Claims Success in Bringing Int’l Community Together to Isolate Iran
Excerpt:  …[T]wo months after the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time publicly stated that Iran was developing the technologies used to develop nuclear weapons – lending further credence to strong suspicions held by the U.S. and others for almost a decade – Russia, China and others remain loathe to cooperate with calls for tougher sanctions, and particularly those targeting Iran’s oil exports.  (…)  In Moscow’s view, Lavrov told a press conference Wednesday, “all conceivable sanctions already have been applied” against Iran. China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, said Wednesday its purchases constitute “normal” and “justified” trade activity.”  (Long ago, I read a passage in a novel (whose name now escapes me) that went something like this: “Senator, that’s bullshit.”  The Senator glowered as his aide piped up: “Sir, here it is considered polite to say something like ‘the facts seem to say otherwise.’”  After a short pause, the witness continued:  “Senator, the facts are screaming 'BULLSHIT!'”  Ron P.)

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