Political Digest for March 26, 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.

Black Friend Defends Shooter of Florida Teen

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/03/25/us/25reuters-usa-florida-shooting-friend.html?_r=1&hp

Excerpt: George Zimmerman is not a racist and cried for days after shooting dead a black Florida teenager, a black, longtime friend of Zimmerman said on Sunday in a sympathetic portrayal of a man maligned by critics as a trigger-happy bigot.

MF’s Corzine Ordered Funds Moved to JP Morgan, Memo Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-23/mf-global-s-corzine-ordered-funds-moved-to-jpmorgan-memo-says.html

Corzine was Obama's go-to Wall Street fundraiser. ~Bob. Excerpt: Jon S. Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to a memo written by congressional investigators. Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says. (Jon Corzine, former governor of NJ, was CEO of MF Global before it folded. Under his supervision, money this company was HOLDING for its clients in the company bank account (not yet invested, see?) disappeared. Now, if you have ever had an account at a company that assists its customers in making trades (something like Ameritrade, Scottrade, Waterhouse, etc, except that MF Global traded in commodities, not stocks), you know that these companies don’t have the right to touch your cash as long as it is in their bank and has not yet been invested. Right? Taking that would be exactly like your bank manager helping himself to money from your savings account. It would be, well, like stealing. No, scratch that. It WOULD be stealing. Now, Corzine has been acting as though the untouchable client money in the company bank disappeared somewhere far away where he could not have possibly known. He's as eager to find out where it went as you are, by golly! Gee, where did it go, Jon? He can't remember. He has amnesia. He is Jon Corzine so he is above reproach. See his lawyer, etc. Here is your dilemma: If you call Jon Corzine a crook, then some people will say "innocent until proven guilty." So be careful. If you say he is NOT a crook, then you aren't paying attention. Then if you feel like calling Jon Corzine a crook, go ahead. But don't say I called him that. Far be it from me... My theory? Amnesia. You know how absent minded those former governors are. --Don Hank)

Egypt working to prevent Iran attacks on Israeli targets, sources say

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/egypt-working-to-prevent-iran-attacks-on-israeli-targets-sources-say-1.420542

Excerpt: Egyptian security forces thwarted an attempt by Iran to blow up an Israeli ship in the Suez Canal, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram reported on Saturday. The attack was being planned by two Egyptians who were recently arrested and interrogated, the prosecution in Egypt's state security court reportedly claimed. An investigation allegedly revealed that the men, Suleiman Razek Abdul-Razek and Salameh Ahmed Salameh, had received their instructions from Iranian agents. (Assessing the credibility to attach to this report is difficult. Not only are the media in the region usually mouthpieces for their governments, their standards for confirmation seem loose. Further, in this case, at least, the action of the prosecutor seem at odds with the media reports of wide-spread sympathy for Islamist causes. On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of action we should expect from the Iranians. Ron P.)

Eco-rout down under: ‘A mini-van will have more seats than the Labour party in the new parliament.’

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/24/eco-rout-down-under-a-mini-van-will-have-more-seats-than-the-labour-party-in-the-new-parliament/#more-60065

Excerpt: Now for all of you nice people from the USA who may not think state elections are that big a deal if you do not live in that state, please remember that we only have 6 states and 2 territories, not 50 like you guys. We just had an election in Queensland, one of our most economically important states, especially for mineral wealth representing about a quarter of the population. Before the election the Labour (think Democrat) held a small majority in the 89 seat Lower House (House of Representatives). (When a political party takes this kind of a licking, not even their true believers can deny that their policies have been resoundingly rejected. I wish we could get that complete a change here in lots of states. Ron P.)

North Korea Moves Rocket To Test Site, Says South Korea

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/north-korea-rocket-test_n_1377989.html

Excerpt: North Korea has moved a rocket to a northwestern site in preparation for a launch next month, South Korean officials said Sunday, as Pyongyang pushes ahead with a plan that Washington calls a cover for testing long-range missiles. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea to immediately stop its launch plans, warning in Seoul that they would deal sternly with any provocation. Obama said the move would jeopardize a deal in which the U.S. would ship food aid to the North in exchange for a nuclear freeze.

Dick Cheney Heart Transplant: Former Vice President Recovering

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/dick-cheney-heart-transplant_n_1377487.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing11%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D146364

Excerpt: Cheney was recovering Saturday night at the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., after surgery earlier in the day. More than 3,100 Americans currently are on the national waiting list for a heart transplant. Just over 2,300 heart transplants were performed last year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. And 330 people died while waiting. (2300 heart transplants yearly? Really? It’s hard to believe the procedure has become that common; many of TOJ’s readers were grown adults when the first successful transplant was done—in South Africa, of all places—in December of 1967 (I was just shy of 21 and in Vietnam). That “successful” recipient lived all of 18 days before dying of pneumonia; this article says 70% of recipients now live to the five-year mark. Ron P.)

California Takes Another Stab at Destroying Small Business

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/mikeshedlock/2012/03/25/california_takes_another_stab_at_destroying_small_business/page/full/

Excerpt: California keeps up its insane attack on businesses of all kinds, this time with a proposal to force small businesses away from money-saving self-insurance plans into the arms of more costly Obama-care plans.

Witness counters Trayvon Martin media narrative: Says 17-year-old was beating Zimmerman before shooting

http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/witness-trayvon-martin-attacked-zimmerman/

Excerpt: Maybe George Zimmerman did act in self-defense when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, whose death Feb. 26 in Sanford, Florida, has been the focus of a media and political circus that even included Barack Obama weighing in this week. An eyewitness to the incident told police Martin was beating Zimmerman before he shot him. (It will be interesting to see if this pans out and there is a witness, or it's just counter-spin. If there is, he can expect a full throated media attempt to discredit--too much invested in the story now. ~Bob.)

Provo artist depicts Obama torching U.S. Constitution: McNaughton says he’s “offended I even had to paint” polarizing work.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53779357-90/artist-constitution-jesus-mcnaughton.html.csp

Excerpt: A recently released painting of President Barack Obama holding a burning copy of the U.S. Constitution has seemingly set the political world on fire as well. Jon McNaughton’s picture, titled "One Nation Under Socialism" shows the president with a furrowed brow and hardened face and appearing decidedly unfazed by the flames licking closely to him as the Constitution is torched.

Obama's Pipeline to Nowhere

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/03/24/obamas_pipeline_to_nowhere/page/full/

Excerpt: “The president stages a photo-op in Oklahoma to take credit for the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline that doesn't need his approval,” writes Investors Business Daily “and for oil production on private and state lands beyond his jurisdiction.” (…) “This is like a governor personally issuing a fishing license,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said according to BusinessWeek. “This portion of the pipeline is being built in spite of the president, not because of him.” (…) As long as the pipeline, like Solyndra and the Chevy Volt, doesn’t actually produce anything useful, Obama will be just fine with it. (There’s an old joke about how to define “chutzpah:” a man who murders his parents and then asks for mercy on the ground that he’s an orphan. I think our President makes an even better example with this. Ron P.)

Quote forwarded by e-mail

" To its committed members, The Democratic Party was and is still the party of heart, humanity, and justice, but to those removed a few paces it looks like Captain Hook's crew - ambulance-chasing lawyers, rapacious public policy grants persons, civil rights gamesmen, ditzy-brained movie stars, fat-assed civil servant desk squatters, recovering alcoholics, recovering wife beaters, recovering child-buggerers, and so forth and so on, a grotesque lineup of ill-mannered, self-pitying, caterwalding freeloaders banging their tin cups on the pavement demanding handouts." --Nicholas Von Hoffman, The Washington Post

Worth Reading: What if Trayvon Had Been White, and the Shooter Black? By Michael Filozof
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/what_if_trayvon_had_been_white_and_the_shooter_black.html#ixzz1qBLNnX9L

Excerpt: We know what would happen in such a case. There would be no white mobs in the street chanting "No justice, no peace!" There would be no whites holding a "million hoodie march" in New York City. ... We know this because in fact, such an event occurred in 2009 in Greece, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester. Roderick Scott, a black man, shot and killed an unarmed white teen, Christopher Cervini, whom he believed was burglarizing a neighbor's car, with a licensed .40 cal. handgun.

Global Warming As Cargo Cult Science

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/03/global-warming-as-cargo-cult-science/

Excerpt: Unfortunately, there are few examples in science where causation can be easily established, since the physical world involves myriad variables interacting in different ways. I would argue that this is why there is a “scientific method” at all. Because it is so easy to fool ourselves regarding what causes what to happen in the physical world. Laboratory experiments are powerful because, if you can control the factors you think are operating, you can isolate a specific effect and more reliably trace it to its cause. But many problems are not amenable to laboratory investigation. Global warming is one of them.

Woman died after Muslim nurse refused to help as he was praying: An elderly woman was left on the floor at a care home for up to ten minutes because a nurse was praying, an inquest heard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9162051/Woman-died-after-Muslim-nurse-refused-to-help-as-he-was-praying.html

Excerpt: Carer Zoe Shaw told the Sheffield hearing: "It took between five and ten minutes because he was praying upstairs in the office on his prayer mat. A staff member told me we had to wait for him to finish."

Dangerous and Bizarre Obama Nominee for World Bank Prez

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/03/dangerous-and-bizarre-obama-nominee-for.html?

Excerpt: However, President Obama out of the blue nominates Kim. It should be noted that Kim has zero financial background, which in itself may not be bad, since it means he is not a regime bankster. But, his credentials suggest that Obama sees some kind of global social health program along the lines of Obamacare, with the World Bank as a key player.

More fakery from “Forecast The Facts”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/23/more-fakery-from-forecast-the-facts/#more-60039
Excerpt: Now, normally I’d be happy to have a discussion about what I think we know and what I think we don’t know about all this, as well as challenge some of his assumptions (last year set records for severe events, etx…), but as had already been brought up in his fine forum and others, “Forecast the Facts” is designed only to pressure the heretics in the broadcast meteorology community for their a apostatic refusal to toe the party line on CAGW. So they try to phish answers from broadcast mets to find out what side of the fence they lean, and then they go after the cretins…pitchforks raised in holy banner…all the way to their nearest newspaper and TV station general manager. (First off, “facts” AREN’T “facts” until AFTER they happen, so they can’t be forecasted; all forecasts are speculation, not "facts.". It seems there is a mail and email campaign to find and pinpoint broadcast meteorologists who don’t toe the CAGW line. Especially see the after-article comments by “wws” at 9:49AM and 10:16AM and “John V. Wright” at 10:00AM; they’ll give a very clear idea of what is happening and why. Ron P.)

French Killings Show the Path from Crime to Prison to Jihad

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3501/french-killings-show-the-path-from-crime-to
Excerpt: Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old self-proclaimed member of al-Qaida who was killed after a 30 hour standoff with an elite police tactical unit in Toulouse France was a prime example of a homegrown terrorist. Prior to his violent ending, Merah had admitted to killing at least seven individuals including three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school, as well as three members of the French armed forces. His motive he said was vengeance in the name of Allah.