Political Digest for February 19, 2012

The Old Jarhead Blog. Bringing you news and information the MSM is too busy covering American Idol, celebrity affairs and sensational missing person cases to cover. Please forward to friends who need to be informed.

Republic Threatened (My letter to the Tribune on 2/18/12)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-vp-0218voicelettersbriefs-20120218-12,0,7690697.story?page=2

Last one--scroll to the bottom of the page. ~Bob

Did Saudi Prince Buy Fox's Silence?

http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2012/02/16/did_saudi_prince_buy_foxs_silence/page/full/

Excerpt: Say -- you don't suppose the fact that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns the second-largest block of stock (7 percent) in News Corp., Fox News' parent company, not to mention a new $300 million stake in Twitter (almost 4 percent), has anything to do with Fox's silence on this Saudi black eye of a story? After all, it was Saudi dictator King Abdullah -- Alwaleed's uncle -- whom press accounts credit with ordering the tweeting journalist's hot pursuit and imprisonment. And it is Saudi Arabia's adherence to Islamic limits on free speech that is driving Kashgari's ordeal. (Freedom of the Press is reserved for those who own one. ~Bob.)

The coming end to endless talk By Wesley Pruden

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php/pruden/full_column/the_coming_end_to_endless_talk

Excerpt: Crunch time is coming in Iran, but President Obama and his men act as if they’re at the senior prom, trying to dance the minuet without anyone to dance with. The White House is trying desperately to rewrite Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s interview with David Ignatius of The Washington Post, where Panetta was said to believe that Israel is likely to bomb the Iranian nuclear-weapon works “in April, May or June before Israel enters a ’zone of immunity.’” This is girlie-man language for “before it’s too late.”

Islamist Lobbies' Washington War on Arab and Muslim Liberals

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3453/islamist-lobbies-washington-war-on-arab

Excerpt: It was just revealed two days ago that FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various Islamist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah and have also issued blatantly anti-Semitic statements. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed "offensive." The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered "offensive" but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination. Moreover, numerous FBI agents have confirmed that from now on, FBI headquarters has banned all FBI offices from inviting any counter-terrorist specialists who are considered "anti-Islam" by Muslim Brotherhood front groups.

The Rot in Gang Green by George Ochenski

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/16/the-rot-in-gang-green/

Excerpt: Since its inception, the environmental movement has continued to change and, some would say, mature. But with those changes and maturity has come a bane common to groups that grow beyond their original mission. In the case of Gang Green, the term applied to the large environmental advocacy groups in the U.S., their growth—into large, showy and expensive operations—has come with a price, and that price, as Time magazine revealed in an exposé on their Ecocentric blog, is finding the money to keep those huge organizations running. Specifically, the scandal of the week is the Sierra Club taking $25 million from natural gas corporations between 2007 and 2010 and not telling its members or anyone else about it.

Muslim Brotherhood Looks West in Bid to Revive Egyptian Economy By Charles Levinson

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204062704577220454030969184.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Excerpt: Last month, the Muslim Brotherhood received a phone call from the International Monetary Fund. Egypt was hurtling toward economic collapse, and IMF officials had decided they couldn't push ahead with a $3.2 billion loan without buy-in from the country's new political heavyweights. After 80 years as an underground movement with many members in jail, the Brotherhood found itself at a historic moment. Its decision would likely make or break a loan package believed vital by many Western officials and by Egypt's own business community.

Glenn Beck and the Death of Free Speech

http://newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff590.htm

Excerpt: Fox News has aired several interviews with Daily Caller editors and reporters on the influence of Media Matters, the Soros-funded left-wing attack machine. A series of articles in The Daily Caller sheds new light on the operations of the group, which masquerades as a non-profit but has partisan political ties to the Obama White House and the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, the interviews failed to touch on the most visible example of Media Matters working its will on the media—the sacking of Glenn Beck from Fox News.

Afghan General Sounds Alarm: Defense Minister Says New U.S. Proposal to Cut Local Troop, Police Forces Risks Endangering Nation

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204059804577229081438477796.html?mod=djemITP_h

Excerpt: An American proposal to cut the size of Afghan security forces by more than one-third after 2014 could lead to a catastrophe, Afghanistan's defense minister told The Wall Street Journal, underlining his government's growing fears of being abandoned after most foreign troops withdraw. The minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, expressed his concerns after the U.S., which along with its allies funds Afghanistan's military and police forces, circulated a new proposal to cut troops to 230,000 after 2014, from 352,000 this year. (Tell it to our abandoned allies in South Vietnam. ~Bob.)

Dishonorable Dishonesty at the Top

http://townhall.com/columnists/peterferrara/2012/02/18/dishonorable_dishonesty_at_the_top/page/full/

Excerpt: The problem is not only that it takes no more than 51 votes to pass a budget resolution under Senate rules. Indeed, it only takes a simple majority of the Senators present. The problem is that Jack Lew has served twice before as Director of OMB, so there is no doubt that he knows this.

O’s astounding cynicism

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/astounding_cynicism_UlWumWJmMgcfkZ5Qj2BecM#ixzz1mjf57eBc

Excerpt: ‘My rival in this race,” candidate Barack Obama announced early in 2007, “is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.” It’s now clear that what he meant by this was other people’s cynicism — not his.

What the Mormons Know About Welfare

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204792404577227173888056682.html?mod=djemITP_h

Excerpt: Ever since Mitt Romney said he was "not concerned about the very poor" but would fix America's social safety net "if it needs repair," conservatives and liberals have been frantically making suggestions. Gov. Romney says he would consider options like restructuring Medicaid. But if he wants to see a welfare system that lets almost no one fall through the cracks while at the same time ensuring that its beneficiaries don't become lifelong dependents, he could look to his own church.

Ted Poe: "We Cannot Afford The Great Ruler And Especially His Administration"

http://www.ktrh.com/pages/michaelberry.html?article=9763183

Video of Congressman.

FBI, Muslims report progress over training materials

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/fbi-muslims-report-progress-over-training-materials/2012/02/16/gIQA7R7KIR_story.html

Excerpt: FBI officials say they are willing to consider a proposal from a coalition of Muslim and interfaith groups to establish a committee of experts to review materials used in FBI anti-terrorism training. (Should have thought of this in WWII--I'm sure the Nazis would have been willing to review our training materials. ~Bob.)

Colorado student who wouldn't sing song praising Allah quits school after death threats

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/colorado-student-who-wouldnt-sing-song-praising-allah-quits-school-after-death-threats.html

Excerpt: Waiting for the "moderate" Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. to denounce this murderous thuggery.

Trying to ‘Stop the Bleeding’ from Environmental Overreach

http://pjmedia.com/blog/trying-to-stop-the-bleeding-from-environmental-overreach/

Excerpt: “Central California Republicans — and farmers across the state — won a small victory last night in a House committee in a battle that has seen scores of communities devastated by environmental regulatory overreach. The Delta smelt is a tiny fish that lives is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley River Delta. In response to the fish’s threatened status, influenced by its sensitivity to environmental conditions and the large-scale pumping operations necessary to send water south, a 2007 court order citing the Endangered Species Act severely cut back water deliveries through the agricultural Central Valley.

White House economic report hides sharp drop in number of working Americans By Neil Munro

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/17/white-house-economic-report-hides-sharp-drop-in-number-of-working-americans/#ixzz1mkmrSUeI

Excerpt: White House officials are trying to downplay the growing political damage caused by a shrinking federal statistic: the percentage of working-age Americans who actually have jobs. The increasingly visible statistic shows that roughly 11 million working-age Americans are being excluded from the nation’s formal tally of 13.75 million.

Why Is Global Shipping Slowing Down So Dramatically?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/why-is-global-shipping-slowing-down-so-dramatically

Excerpt: If the global economy is not heading for a recession, then why is global shipping slowing down so dramatically? Many economists believe that measures of global shipping such as the Baltic Dry Index are leading economic indicators. In other words, they change before the overall economic picture changes.

Germany drawing up plans for Greece to leave the euro

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9091021/Germany-drawing-up-plans-for-Greece-to-leave-the-euro.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Excerpt: But the severe austerity measures being demanded have caused such fury in Greece, and the cuts required are so deep, that Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, does not believe that any government would be able to implement them. His pessimism has been tipped into despair with a secret European Commission, Central and IMF report that even if Greece made good on its promises, it would not be enough to reach the target of bringing total debt to 120 per cent of GDP by 2020.

Egypt sets date for trial of foreign democracy activists

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02/18/egypt-sets-date-for-trial-foreign-democracy-activists/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fworld+%28Internal+-+World+Latest+-+Text%29

Excerpt: Egyptian judicial authorities announced on Saturday that 43 civil society workers, including at least 16 Americans, will face trial on Feb. 26 over illegal foreign funding for nongovernmental organizations, diminishing hopes that Washington and Cairo might reach a diplomatic, rather than a legal, resolution to the worsening flap. Egypt's prosecution of the NGO employees on charges of illegally distributing foreign funds and running unregistered organizations threatens to rupture a strategic relationship that has formed a bulwark of Middle East security for more than a generation.

Mexico's Immigration Law: by J. Michael Waller

http://mexicoslaw.com/

Excerpt: Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill. That's too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.

Obama's campaign travel raises money and criticism

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-travel-20120218,0,6175436.story

Excerpt: But as his motorcade shut down several blocks of traffic in one posh Orange County neighborhood, a bystander expressed the resentment that inevitably trails a president on such a purely political mission: "That's our money at work," the woman shouted at the president's 17-vehicle procession. And, indeed, Obama's fundraising success — $29 million in January, the campaign announced Friday — relies heavily on the panoply of presidential perquisites, armored limousines, helicopters, Air Force One.

Belgian politician risks Muslim backlash after using teenage daughter dressed in burka and bikini for campaign against Islam

http://www.faithfreedom.org/articles/political-islam/belgian-politician-risks-muslim-backlash-after-using-teenage-daughter-dressed-in-burka-and-bikini-for-campaign-against-islam/

Excerpt: A Belgian politician has risked causing uproar among Muslims after starting a ‘Women Against Islamization’ campaign featuring his 19-year-old daughter wearing a burka and a bikini. ... The poster shows the words ‘Freedom or Islam?’ written on a red bar across Ms Dewinter’s breasts. (Criticizing other religions gets you criticized, but criticizing Islam could get her killed. See Theo van Gogh. ~Bob.)

Upside Down Land

http://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-know-you-live-in-upside-down-land.html

Excerpt: You know you live in Upside-down Land if... A Muslim officer crying "Allah Akbar" while shooting up an army base is considered to have committed "Workplace Violence" while an American citizen boasting a Ron Paul bumper sticker is classified as a "Domestic Terrorist".

Pediatrician on Early Learning and the media

http://www.wimp.com/mediachildren/

Of interest to parents, grandparents and teachers. ~Bob.

Despite Safety Worries, Work on Deadly Flu to Be Released

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/health/details-of-bird-flu-research-will-be-released.html?_r=1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Excerpt: The full details of recent experiments that made a deadly flu virus more contagious will be published, probably within a few months, despite recommendations by the United States that some information be kept secret for fear that terrorists could use it to start epidemics. (…) The recommendation to publish the work in full came from a meeting of 22 experts in flu and public health from various countries who met on Thursday and Friday in Geneva at the organization’s headquarters to discuss “urgent issues” raised by the research. Most of the group felt that any theoretical risk of the virus’s being used by terrorists was far outweighed by the “real and present danger” of similar flu viruses in the wild, and by the need to study them and freely share information that could help identify the exact changes that might signal that a virus is developing the ability to cause a pandemic, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who represented the United States at the meeting.

NightWatch: Iranians Mistakenly Set Off Bombs Meant for Israelis

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/nightwatch/2012/02/18/nightwatch_iranians_mistakenly_set_off_bombs_meant_for_israelis/page/full/

Excerpt: In the context of bombings and attempted bombings in India, Georgia and the Netherlands, the police statement implies that the Thai judge that Israelis were the intended targets and that the Bangkok bombs were part of the apparent Iranian retaliation operation. If so, the Iranians just showed their reach is nearly global, though their planning, training and effectiveness are not so good. Still the would-be bombers reached distant destinations and had sufficient local support to build bombs and move to targets. (An interesting analysis of recent/current events in many areas of concern. Ron P.)