Political Digest for April 16, 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.

I was out-of-pocket with family Saturday, thus no Sunday post. Have a business trip coming up 4/20 through 4/30, so limited posts then. ~Bob

Best older posts for new blog readers

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-older-posts-for-new-readers.html

Boehner Is Most Liked Congressional Leader, Pelosi Still Least-Liked

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/congressional_favorability_ratings

Excerpt: The current speaker of the House is the most-liked congressional leader, but he's even more disliked. However, his predecessor, who hasn't been in charge of the House for well over a year, remains the least-liked leader by far.

Trayvon Martin shooting: Americans support use of deadly force, says poll

http://www.examiner.com/law-enforcement-in-national/trayvon-martin-shooting-americans-support-use-of-deadly-force-says-poll

Excerpt: While the killing of Florida's Trayvon Martin has stoked up gun control advocates and much of the news media, an overwhelming majority of U.S. residents say they believe people have the right to use deadly physical force to protect themselves at home or in public, according to a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos released on Friday.

Secret Service Prostitution Scandal Widens

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304356604577344392936572700.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

Excerpt: The Secret Service put 11 agents on administrative leave Saturday amid allegations they brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms while preparing for a visit by President Barack Obama, a widening scandal that may also involve five military service personnel, officials said Saturday.

Secret Service hooker flap over $47 (or just 83,475 naughty lil’ pesos)

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/ho_lombia_twist_4oMCMx8CRfOyJhODIuCcfM#ixzz1s6vjEJNl

Excerpt: A Secret Service agent shamed the United States after a wild night of babes and booze that ended in an argument with a Colombian hooker over as little as $47. One of 11 elite agents assigned to ensure President Obama’s protection at a summit meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, was busted after his lady of the evening refused to leave his hotel room in the morning without her fee. That woman was one of 11 hookers hired by the agents — and the only one who hadn’t left Cartagena’s swank Hotel Caribe, where White House staffers, members of the press and dignitaries are staying during the Summit of the Americas meeting, sources said. (How to destroy your career for under fifty bucks. ~Bob.)

Al-Shabaab execute al-Amriki

http://somalilandsun.com/index.php/somalia/535-al-shabaab-execute-al-amriki

Excerpt: The al-Qaeda-allied group al-Shabaab executed US-born jihadist Omar Hammami on April 5th, according to unconfirmed Somali media reports. Hammami, known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki, said he feared for his life from other al-Shabaab leaders because of strategic and ideological differences in a statement released last month. (What goes around...~Bob.)

Islamic terrorists issue threat against Jedward ahead of Eurovision

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/islamic-terrorists-issue-threat-against-jedward-ahead-of-eurovision-3080269.html

Didn't get the "Islam is a Religion of Peace" memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: The Azeri terrorists, an Islamic group, have said they will target the participants of the Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijan as they are “European scum”. It has threatened the use of “knives and chemical weapons” at the contest. The terror group said in a statement yesterday “Blood of the European scum must be shed by the will of Allah.”

More Foreign Workers Take Stimulus Funded Jobs in US

http://nation.foxnews.com/foreign-workers/2012/04/14/cbs-news-more-foreign-workers-take-stimulus-funded-jobs-us

Excerpt: But as it turns out the companies getting all those American tax dollars are largely owned by Koreans. They bought a lot of Korean equipment and supplies. And they filled some of those sought-after jobs with Korean workers. That drew anger from local labor unions.

The Affidavit Against George Zimmerman: Weak Sauce

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Affidavit-Against-George-Zimmerman-Weak-Sauce

Excerpt: “Martin then walked back and entered the gated community,” say the authors, “and was on his way back to the townhouse where he was living when he was profiled by George Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed and was not committing a crime.” “Profiled”? Zimmerman “profiled” Martin only in the sense that anyone who reports to police a suspicious person in his neighborhood has thereby engaged in “profiling.” It is a charged word and has no rightful place in the affidavit.

Court Rules Software Not Protected By Fed Crime Laws

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/14/court-software-not-protected-by-federal-criminal-laws-overturns-conviction-of-goldman-sachs-engineer/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D152155

Excerpt: At 5:20pm on his last day, just before his going-away party, Aleynikov uploaded 500,000 lines of encrypted source code from the Wall Street firm’s proprietary HFT system to a server located in Germany. Following the clandestine upload, Aleynikov deleted the encryption program, wiped his command history, and headed to the party. (…) But after his conviction at trial and imprisonment during the appeals process (his dual US-Russian citizenship presented a flight risk), Aleynikov is now a free man. The reasons why touch the entire software industry. (This court, as all our courts should be, is a court of LAW, not a court of justice. I know the ruling is right, but I still don’t like the result. Maybe Congress should write laws that are clear enough to actually say what Congress means. Then, hairs won’t have to be split and “law” will more closely resemble “justice.” Ron P.)

Tweet from David Burge‏ @iowahawkblog

Apparently, I'm supposed to be more angry about what Mitt Romney does with his money than what Barack Obama does with mine.

US drones kill 21 AQAP fighters in separate strikes in southern Yemen

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/04/us_drones_kill_21_aq.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LongWarJournalSiteWide+%28The+Long+War+Journal+%28Site-Wide%29%29

Excerpt: Unmanned US strike aircraft killed 21 al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in two separate strikes in southern Yemen over the past several days. One of the strikes took place in an area where Yemeni troops have been battling the terror group for nearly a week. The Predators or the more heavily armed Reapers killed seven AQAP fighters as they traveled in a vehicle in the province of Baydah, according to The Associated Press.

How the Media Whitewashes Muslim Persecution of Christians by Raymond Ibrahim

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3002/media-whitewash-muslim-persecution-christians

Excerpt: While the MSM may report the most frugal facts concerning Christian persecution, they utilize their entire arsenal of semantic games, catch phrases, and convenient omissions that uphold the traditional narrative—that Muslim violence is anything but a byproduct of the Islamic indoctrination of intolerance. When it comes to Muslim persecution of Christians, the mainstream media (MSM) has a long paper trail of obfuscating. While they may eventually state the bare-bone facts—if they ever report on the story in the first place, which is rare—they do so after creating and sustaining an aura of moral relativism that minimizes the Muslim role. (The whitewashing by the mainstream media of what could understatedly be described as ethnic cleansing is part of the same mindset that produces biased and often false reporting of events between Israel and its irredeemably hostile neighbors. Physical attack, expropriation of property, death or expulsion is endemic for Christians in almost every Muslim country. About half the Christians of Iraq have fled. Once a majority in Bethlehem, the remaining Christians are under assault from Muslim gangs of the Fatah and Hamas, and are now a minority. The nature of this reportage, as Raymond Ibrahim explains specifically about the plight of the 8 million Egyptian Coptic Christians and Christmas of northern Nigeria, is essentially to blame the victims for opposing their victimization. This is the same journalistic malpractice that reports "Israel bombs Gaza" and only 2 paragraphs into the article mentions that this was a response to Hamas' firing 20-odd rockets into Israeli towns. Islamist and Islamic supercessionism is not a generalization that the mainstream media can allow itself to make. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)

Obama's misleading Reagan reference

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/13/obamas-misleading-reagan-reference/#ixzz1s2RSUUTh

Excerpt: Of course, Obama doesn’t tell you that Reagan had a completely different tax-reform vision. And reality. Rather than raising the capital-gains tax on successful investors or punishing wealthy people — which are Obama’s priorities — Reagan wanted full-bore pro-growth tax reform that would slash rates for everyone, simplify the tax system with only two brackets, and eliminate tax shelters that allowed people to avoid paying any taxes at all….”

For This Old Socialist, Maxine Waters, Socialism Starts at Home

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/04/09/for_this_old_socialist_maxine_waters_socialism_starts_at_home

Excerpt: If you thought nation’s financial services were battered under Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, wait until you see who’s batting cleanup for the Democrats in the House. Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the Capital Markets and Government

FBI tries to stem rising death rate of police officers

http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2012/04/fbi-tries-to-stem-rising-death-rate-of-police-officers/

Excerpt: The 2011 deaths were the first time that more officers were killed by suspects than car accidents, according to data compiled by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The number was the highest in nearly two decades, excluding those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.”

Solar: Fake Energy Provided by Fake President

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/04/14/voters_investors_say_no_to_obama_solar_schemes/page/full/

Excerpt: It’s important to note that the poor performance of the solar industry came at a time when government financial support has been at an all-time high world-wide. It only goes to show that politics and public policy are poor substitutes for free market economics. Expect the solar industry to continue to crash and burn as government money continues to dry up along with public support. (Below you’ll find an article from the European Energy Review entitled “The Fate of the EU Carbon Market…” that says pretty much the same thing, but only if you read it between the lines (European greens are very reluctant to admit alternative energy sources are alternative because they are uneconomic). Unfortunately, economic realities mean little to true believers who are determined to find a way to “make things right.” If our would-be green administration can’t make alternative energy economically viable, how can they change the equation? Only by making other energy sources more expensive. Guess what? EPA and a host of other agencies are now looking at how to “best ensure the continued viability of the unconventional natural gas market.” Why would anyone think that means they hope to impose costly regulations and restrictions on fracking on private and state lands where they currently have little authority to interfere? The very same fracking that is currently driving the supply of gas up—and therefore, the price down. Depend on it. Ron P.)

The fate of the EU carbon market hangs in the balance

http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id_mailing=267&toegang=eda80a3d5b344bc40f3bc04f65b7a357&id=3642

Excerpt: Even the scheme's supporters, however, agree that at this moment the ETS is not functioning well at all. The CO2-prices which form the heart of the system are much too low to drive investment in low-carbon technologies. If nothing is done, the ETS might well collapse altogether - and with it Europe's flagship climate policy instrument. (Oh, horrors! The corrupt and manipulated “carbon market” in Europe may go down the chute, upsetting the green plans of EU Climate and Energy Ministers. I wonder if they’ve even noticed the Chicago carbon exchange went out of business a while back? The excerpt is from the editor’s teaser that accompanied this in-depth article. Ron P.)

Fix income inequality with $10 million loans for everyone! By Sheila Bair

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fix-income-inequality-with-10-million-loans-for-everyone/2012/04/13/gIQATUQAFT_story.html

Excerpt: Are you concerned about growing income inequality in America? Are you resentful of all that wealth concentrated in the 1 percent? I’ve got the perfect solution, a modest proposal that involves just a small adjustment in the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policy. Best of all, it will mean that none of us have to work for a living anymore.

Islamic Extremists Beat, Mock Christians in India

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/india/article_1503416.html

Excerpt: Islamic extremists in India attacked a Christian prayer meeting in West Bengal state, beating a 65-year-old widow and other women less than a month after they helped drive a young woman out of her home and village for her faith.

Mainstream American Muslim Group Warns Muslims Against Working in Law Enforcement, Becoming "Pleased with a Legal System That Does Not Come from Allah"

http://www.translatingjihad.com/2012/04/mainstream-american-muslim-group-warns.html

Excerpt: The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) cautioned American Muslims in a 22-page Arabic-language paper in 2008 against working in law enforcement in countries which do not rule by Allah's dictates. One of their main concerns was that such work might cause Muslims to gain love and respect for secular laws:

Turkish Pianist Faces Prison for Tweets

http://www.mobiledia.com/news/137707.html

Excerpt: Turkish pianist is facing prison time for anti-Muslim tweets, raising questions over the state of religious and Internet freedoms in less than secular countries. Fazil Say, a virtuoso pianist and composer, faces an investigation over tweeting remarks considered offensive to Muslims, Christians and Jews. Say used Twitter to question whether Islamic heaven is like a brothel or a pub, citing Qu'ranic verses that describe rivers of drinks and beautiful women for those admitted to paradise.

Suspects in triple-murder robbery were fresh from prison

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/13/11188105-suspects-in-triple-murder-robbery-were-fresh-from-prison?lite

Excerpt: Two suspects in a triple murder-robbery at a convenience store in rural North Carolina were released from prison — one after serving nine years — just a matter of weeks before they were arrested in connection with the April 1 slayings. (No word if Obama thinks any of the perps could have looked like his son. ~Bob.)

Judge: Gov't cannot require union posters at work

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20120413/APW/1204130977?p=2&tc=pg

Excerpt: A federal judge ruled Friday that the National Labor Relations Board cannot require millions of private employers to put up posters informing workers of their right to form a union. U.S. District Judge David Norton in South Carolina said the labor board exceeded congressional authority when it approved the poster requirement last year.

Michael 'Flathead' Blanchard Obituary Could Be Best Ever

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/michael-flathead-blanchard_n_1424248.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl11%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D151998

Excerpt: Weary of reading obituaries noting someone’s courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died. So many of his childhood friends that weren’t killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell. (I wish I’d known this guy. Ron P.)

Brotherhood Too Tame for Egyptian Presidential Contender

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3535/brotherhood-too-tame-for-egyptian-presidential

Excerpt: It's the dawn of a new age in Egypt for Salafist presidential contender Hazem Salah Abu Ismail. The confidence exuded by the popular 50-year old lawyer-turned- preacher says as much. He has praised al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden as a "martyr," called on the United States to release convicted terrorist mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "Blind Sheikh"), and has said the 9/11 terror attacks were "fabricated from the outset." Israel, he says, is a "false state" and Egypt should nullify the peace treaty with it. His political platform closely mirrors the strict Salafi reading of Islamic law, which denies the very existence of personal freedoms and attempts to set society back to the way it was during the time of the early Caliphs.

Clinton Dangerously Inconsistent on Palestinian Funding

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3531/clinton-dangerously-inconsistent-on-palestinian

Excerpt: In a highly controversial move, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has approved a $147 million economic support package to the Palestinian people despite a hold on these funds by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The move contradicts previous statements from Clinton that she would never send aid to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Taliban hits Afghan capital, other cities in rare coordinated attack

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/bomb-attack-on-afghan-police-convoy-kills-4-in-east-including-city-police-commander/2012/04/15/gIQA5vikIT_story.html

Excerpt: Insurgents attacked cities across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, including at least two prominent targets in Kabul, a rare coordinated attack spanning some of the country's most important urban centers.

White House Opens Door to Big Donors, and Lobbyists Slip In

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/us/politics/white-house-doors-open-for-big-donors.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all?src=tp

Excerpt: Many of the president’s biggest donors, while not lobbyists, took lobbyists with them to the White House, while others performed essentially the same function on their visits. More broadly, the review showed that those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others. (Only the clinically naive are surprised. ~Bob.)

Former Dem. Congressman Kennedy Alleges ‘Quid Pro Quo’ for Access to White House

http://redalertpolitics.com/2012/04/15/former-dem-congressman-kennedy-alleges-quid-pro-quo-for-access-to-white-house/

Excerpt: Patrick J. Kennedy, the former representative from Rhode Island, who donated $35,800 to an Obama re-election fund last fall while seeking administration support for a nonprofit venture, said contributions were simply a part of “how this business works.” “If you want to call it ‘quid pro quo,’ fine,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to make sure I do my part.”

Obama adviser David Axelrod makes case for Mitt Romney for President

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFUYhN3ikxI&feature=youtu.be

White House Defines 38 Straight Months Of Unemployment Above 8% As A "Success"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t-z_BzsqKcA

Fox News Poll: Romney Edges Obama as Approval of President Drops
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/12/fox-news-poll-romney-edges-obama-as-approval-president-drops/#ixzz1s88FvD1y

Excerpt: Republican Mitt Romney holds a slim edge over President Obama in a head-to-head matchup, a Fox News poll released Thursday shows. In addition, the poll finds the president’s job rating has dropped to its lowest point of the year. In a presidential matchup, Romney tops Obama by 46-44 percent if the election were today.

Mexican Mafia member ordered gangs to target blacks, police say

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/escondido/exclusive-mexican-mafia-member-ordered-gangs-to-target-blacks-police/article_b8e44164-eec6-5b5c-ad33-7581093eac04.html#ixzz1s8Q8bC2N

Excerpt: A local leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang ordered Escondido's rival Latino street gangs to stop fighting among themselves and target black people instead, leading to a surge in such attacks, say gang members and authorities. According to court testimony last week by Erik Witholt, an Escondido Police Department gang detective, the order focused on "getting blacks out of Escondido."

‘Sterling’ bounty offered for Obama, Bush

http://tribune.com.pk/story/364863/sterling-bounty-offered-for-obama-bush/

Excerpt: In an expression of solidarity with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, British parliamentarian of Kashmiri origin Lord Nazir Ahmed has announced a reward for the captor of US President Barack Obama and his predecessor George W Bush.