Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Political Digest for August 23, 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.

The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans. E-Book available at Smash Words: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/59105
Please forward and post where possible. For a free PDF of Collapse, write to me at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com.

Obama not dividing the country?
Cartoon.

Movie Documentary. 2016: Obama's America
Find a theater playing it.
Exposing the Real Barack Obama. By Thomas Sowell 
Excerpt: Years, and sometimes decades, pass between my visits to movie theaters. But I drove 30 miles to see the movie “2016,” based on Dinesh D’Souza’s best-selling book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” Where I live is so politically correct that such a movie would not even be mentioned, much less shown.

Anonymous video calls for ‘rebellion’ at RNC
Excerpt: A video surfacing online might have a link to the discovery of pipes and bricks on a downtown Tampa rooftop this week in the buildup to the Republican National Convention.

Quote about Obama?
"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away." --Winston S. Churchill

"I ask Allah that the next season he’ll give us the opportunity to kill as many kafirs [non-believers] as we can, just to shred them to pieces"
Excerpt: Non-Muslims know well that only greasy Islamophobes believe that Islam is anything but a Religion of Peace. Yet somehow a steady stream of converts to the religion keep misunderstanding it as enjoining them to wage war against infidels. Yet nary a single Islamic organization in the U.S., Canada or Europe has a program to prevent converts and other young Muslims from misunderstanding Islam in this way.

Jihad At the DNC. By Robert Spencer 
Excerpt: There is no doubt whatsoever that this “TownHall Issues Conference” will not include any discussion of Islamic jihad terror plotting in the U.S., or of how Muslim groups have tried to exaggerate the problem of “Islamophobia” by faking hate crimes. It is likewise certain that the “Anti-Shariah” issue will be portrayed as an attempt by bigoted Americans to restrict Muslim religious freedom, when in reality it is solely an attempt to prevent the political and supremacist aspects of Islamic law that are at variance with constitutional freedoms from gaining a foothold here. Certain also is that the discussions of the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act will focus on how these measures are supposedly excessive and unfairly target Muslims. (Well, hopefully the Democrats won't do anything racist or Islamophobic by asking Muslim attendees for IDs or checking them for weapons. That would be terrible. ~Bob.)

Sydney sheikh killed in Syria: reports
Excerpt: A POPULAR Sydney sheikh and teacher has been killed by a rocket attack in Syria, his family in Australia has confirmed. Sheikh Mustapha Al Majzoub died on Sunday while carrying out humanitarian and charity work in conflict-torn country, the family said in a statement, which also thanked the community for its support and messages of condolences.

France: Muslim woman beaten by her uncle for not observing Ramadan
Excerpt: "Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them." -- Qur'an 4:34 Somehow this Misunderstander of Islam didn't get the memo that Ramadan is a time to "reconcile differences and seek peace." 

Excerpt: As you may have heard, earlier this year Obama picked Jeff Zients to lead the OMB. You might not have heard that Zients worked at Bain from 1988-1990. The Zients White House biography did not originally admit that fact. Now Obama has appointed another former Bain consultant, Boris Bershteyn, to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is part of the OMB. Recognizing how awkward this is for Obama’s reelection campaign, Bershteyn’s tenure at Bain has been edited out of his official White House bio. This is an obvious and glaring attempt to hide Obama’s friendly Bain takeover of the OMB.

Excerpt: But, what’s so awesome, is the tears shed by liberals. Get this — she, in the words of the newspaper, “unilaterally” dissolved “the S.C. Arts Commission and the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.”

Obama’s GM ‘Success Story’ Headed for Bankruptcy. By Arnold Ahlert 
Excerpt: On the campaign trail, Barack Obama’s signature definition of “success” is the government bailout of General Motors. “I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back,” he told an audience in Pueblo, CO last week. “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.” That pronouncement should send a shiver up the spine of every American, due to an inconvenient reality: according to Forbes Magazine, GM is likely headed for bankruptcy all over again. (Anyone who read about Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero's "green jobs" success story knew exactly where this GM experiment was headed. Zapatero's ineptitude not only gave Spain the highest unemployment rate in Europe (over 23%), it also made him one of the unemployed. If Obama is not unemployed come November, that will be a sign that most Americans have lost their last lick of common sense and are committing economic suicide. Or maybe they just got used to food stamps. Don Hank.)

Stimulus supports Obama MSNBC ads!
Excerpt: The Labor Department paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus funds to a public relations firm to run more than 100 commercials touting the Obama administration's "green training" job efforts on two MSNBC cable shows, records show. The commercials ran on MSNBC on shows hosted by Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann in 2009, but the contract didn't report any jobs created, according to records reviewed recently by The Washington Times. (Your tax dollars at work, reelecting The One! ~Bob.)

Dependents of the State: Is Tyranny Next? By Bill Wilson
Excerpt: Is America descending into a dependency state, where the majority uses its voting power to demand government services from taxpayers? New research from Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R-AL) reveals that this reality may already be here, with more than 107 million Americans on some form of means-tested government welfare.

The XpressWest High-Speed Rail Line from Victorville to Las Vegas: A Taxpayer Risk Analysis. By Wendell Cox and Adrian Moore
Excerpt: This Taxpayer Risk Assessment examines the financial risks to taxpayers of the proposed XpressWest high-speed rail project from Victorville to Las Vegas. There would be no need for a Taxpayer Risk Analysis without government (taxpayer) involvement. For example, if a bus company were to establish a new service between Victorville and Las Vegas, there would be no taxpayer financial exposure under normal circumstances. (Probably good for Harry Reid, though, so we’re likely on the hook. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: How Did Federal Surpluses Become Huge Deficits? (Hint: It Wasn't Because of Tax Cuts for the Rich.) By Charles Blahous
Excerpt: Discussions of federal deficits too often feature partisan blame-laying when what is needed is problem-solving analysis. To prevent a future fiscal meltdown, we must address the causes of unsustainable future deficits. On this question there is little disagreement among non-partisan scorekeepers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections show that future fiscal strains will be driven almost entirely by growth in federal entitlement spending, driven in turn by population aging and by the growth of federal health benefits per capita. Under current law, the projected problem is not one of insufficient taxes (which would grow to far exceed historical norms) or appropriated spending (which would shrink relative to the economy). Seriously addressing the long-term fiscal problem means restraining entitlement spending growth, plain and simple. (Not fixable as long as politicians get elected waving their arms and shouting, “They want to push granny off a cliff!” So instead, in 15 years, tops, we all go off a fiscal and economic cliff that may destroy the Republic. I’ll be dead, but tough on the granddaughter. ~Bob.)

CBO warns fiscal cliff would lead to deep recession. By Erik Wasson
Excerpt: In its most dire warning yet about the fiscal cliff yet, the CBO said the economy would contract by 0.5 percent in calendar year 2013 if the Bush-era tax rates expire and automatic spending cuts are implemented. Unemployment also would rise from 8.2 percent in 2012 to 9.1 percent next year, it estimates. The contraction would be very severe in the first half of 2013.

The Regulatory Cliff Is Nearly as Steep as the Fiscal One
Excerpt: Many Americans are soon going to experience a steep hike in regulation and taxes as the president's proposed multibillion dollar regulations go into effect after the November election. The economy will be riddled with several new regulations once they take effect, says Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). The Dodd-Frank financial law has over 130 unfinished mandates that are set to go into effect soon. The Fiduciary Rule, set forth by the U.S. Department of Labor, will restrict businesses from offering investment advice on a commission basis. A study shows that this will result in higher retirement account minimums. The Department of Transportation will impose the Rear-View Camera Rule, which requires all cars and trucks to be equipped with a rear-view camera and would cost taxpayers $2.7 billion. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is most responsible for the increase in regulations and taxes.

Deficit Expected to Add Another $1.1 Trillion in 2012
Excerpt: US deficit is expected to grow another $1.1 trillion in 2012, the fourth straight year the nation's debt will exceed a trillion dollars, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reports. (Obama—the Gift that Keeps on Taking. ~Bob.)

The Atlantic: Kill Boy Scouts Like Rabid Dogs

Excerpt: Remember how the far left in America has said since the rise of the Tea Party that the right is awash in “violent rhetoric”? What about the proposition to kill the Boy Scouts like one would kill a rabid dog? That is what a columnist for The Atlantic has implied. (Well, not “The Atlantic,” but the columnist. And though the Old Yeller reference is offensive, think he stretches the point. Personally, I wouldn’t discriminate against gay teens. But neither would I try to shut down the right of free association in a private organization. ~Bob.)

Obama's 2nd-term assault on U.S. military: Drastic slashes in defense at time of escalating world tensions
Excerpt: With Iran racing toward nuclear-weapons capability, Syria on the brink of all-out civil war and Russia rebuilding its Cold War-era bases in the Middle East, now would be the time for any president to push for increased funding for U.S. forces. Instead President Obama’s plans for military cuts, should he win a second term, make his drastic first-term defense slashes – about the only area in which he’s reduced government spending – look like child’s play. (The only "transformation" our military needs is the one that erases all Politically Correct ideology from the services. --Del)

Military Heroes Added to Obama Campaign's 'Enemies List.' By Leah Barkoukis
Excerpt: Barack Obama’s 'enemies list' just got bigger. In April, Kate wrote about one of Obama’s campaign sites naming and shaming private citizens who donated to Mitt Romney. Now, one day after Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund released a documentary-style video hammering the president for countless national security leaks and the politicization of the raid that killed OBL, the Obama campaign decided it was time to target military heroes. (Obama has predictably tried to dismiss the justified efforts of real veterans to focus attention on the despicable leaking of confidential information for political purposes. But it's a very valid criticism of his Administration, and the vets are not going to go away. Obama can keep up a smear campaign, just as Kerry did for the Swifties, but the facts of the leaks can't be made to disappear. –Del)

Worth Reading: The $6,400 Myth: Breaking down a false Obama Medicare claim.
If you hit a pay wall, Google the title. ~Bob. Excerpt: One of President Obama's regular attacks on Paul Ryan's Medicare reform is that it would force seniors to pay $6,400 a year more for health care. … None of these facts are likely to deter Democrats from their distorted claims. But the truth is that the Ryan-Romney reform isn't anywhere close to Mr. Obama's cartoon version.

Quotes from The Patriot Post
"Politics, and the fate of mankind, are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness." --French author Albert Camus (1913-1960)
"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." --National Review Founder William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)
Memo to Obama: "Show us your sealed college records and Operation Fast and Furious White House memos, and we will all show you our tax returns." --Rep. Allen West (R-FL)
"Mitt Romney is predicting that as president, he will create 12 million jobs in his first term. Well, President Obama says a Romney presidency would result in lost jobs. Yeah, his and Biden's." --comedian Jay Leno

Journo-Tools for Obama. By Michelle Malkin
Excerpt: Can we stop calling the hosts of the presidential debates "moderators"? They're left-erators. It's time for the old media godfathers to end the pretense that they're fair and neutral observers of the American political scene. And it's time for the GOP to stop perpetuating these rigged exercises in futility. (Anyone moderating a presidential debate should be required to sign a statement under oath as to who he voted for in the last election, or not be a moderator. ~Bob.)

Afghan Forces Turning Against Their U.S. Trainers
Excerpt: American troops in Afghanistan face an increased threat from "insider" attacks in which the Afghan forces they are there to help and train are turning their guns on their American partners, raising serious questions about the viability of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. The attacks, which have killed 40 U.S. and NATO troops so far this year, are also referred to as "green-on-blue attacks," because Afghan forces' uniforms are green and allied forces' uniforms are blue.

Will the West Bank Become the Next Islamic Emirate? By Khaled Abu Toameh
Excerpt: Those who think that Hamas and other Islamic groups do not have a strong presence in the West Bank are completely detached from reality. True, these groups are lacking in arms and ammunition in the West Bank, but they still enjoy broad public support among Palestinians. ((Given the rejectionist mentality of the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, not to mention Gaza, fomented by the constant demonization of Israel and Jews by their leaders (Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, etc.), it is very hard to imagine that implementing a two state solution in the near future would not bring terrorism and war into the population centers of Israel. No rational actor could afford to cede physical control to a regime that desires Islamic hegemony over economic progress and peaceful coexistence. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)

Explaining Conservative Economics in 25 Quotes. By John Hawkins
Excerpt: 1) "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." -- Benjamin Franklin. (I would add: “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” -Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850) ~Bob.)

The Dangerous Lie Of The Hijab. By Abigail R. Esman
Excerpt: Latest among them, it seems, are the editors of the International Herald Tribune, who earlier this summer ran an op-ed by Ayesah Nusrat, a self-described "Indian Muslim," defending her decision to don a hijab at the age of 23. (What the editors evidently failed to notice was that the pious young author of the piece lifted all of her ideas and a reasonable portion of her words directly from a previously-published essay by a Canadian Muslim, Naheed Mustafa, which is widely available online,).

Deadly fighting over Syria grips north Lebanon
Excerpt: Eight people have been killed and at least 75 wounded in fighting in northern Lebanon between two Muslim communities divided over Syria. Street battles between Sunnis and Alawites in the city of Tripoli continued for a second night running.

Excerpt: It is sadly apparent to those who travel this great country -- when they see along the highways aging bikers with long grey ponytails or on the beaches men who are long past the age when they should be seen in Speedos or at political rallies, where they quake in fear over competing claims about retirement benefits -- that the elderly are not only an eyesore but a growing threat to our society because of their cost, the speed at which they drive, and because, absent real work to do or support from their impoverished government, they could easily turn to crime or worse, turn to us, their relatives, and seek to move into our basements or family rooms.

Worth Reading: You’ll Probably Be Alive When the Debt Hits the Fan. By Michael Minkoff
Excerpt: Obama’s plan for fixing our debt problem? If you can call it a plan, it involves spending more than has ever been spent before. Because more debt is always the short-term solution to debt. Just like more crack is always the short-term solution for withdrawal. On the other hand, Romney and Ryan have a fantastic plan for the economy. They have a plan to balance the budget by 2040. 
Tax Records vs College Records
Excerpt: Frankly, what I would really like to see are Obama's college records. I cannot; Obama spent over $2 million dollars in legal fees to make sure those records remain sealed. I find that puzzling. At every job I ever worked I had to submit my education records for review before I was hired. (If Romney’s tax records showed anything illegal, the White House would have already leaked them. ~Bob.)

Talk v. action: Why Obama Still Won't Go to Israel. By Jonathan Tobin
Excerpt: The only possible answer is the one we always are forced to return to when discussing the problematic relationship between the Obama administration and Israel: the president's equivocal feelings about the Jewish state. As veteran diplomat Aaron David Miller memorably put it a few weeks ago, Barack Obama is the first president in a generation "not in love with the idea of Israel." That's compounded by his open and very public dislike of Benjamin Netanyahu. (I think there’s another answer. Any warmth toward Israel would alienate the non-Jewish progressive base, which is anti-Semitic. ~Bob.)

Obama to upstage GOP convention by unleashing garrulous idiot on Tampa
Excerpt: No word yet on what they have planned but, Joe being Joe, expect a press conference aimed at Cuban-Americans with Biden speaking in a fakey Latino accent. And maybe wearing a sombrero, like all the real Cubans wear.

Excerpt: Feminist activist Gloria Steinem and several chapters of the National Organization for Women (NOW) have condemned the Democratic National Committee for “discrimination against mothers with young children” during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. (What fun. Feminist activists see women as a “victim” group, just as black, Hispanic, Muslim, disabled and gay activists see those groups. And for victim group activist, nothing you do is ever enough. ~Bob.)

47% Fear Health Care Law More Than Ryan’s Medicare Reform Plan
Excerpt: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that when it comes to the future of Medicare, 47% of Likely U.S. Voters are scared more of the health care law than of Ryan’s proposal. Forty-one percent (41%) are more scared of what Ryan has proposed. (I’m scared that Ryan’s proposal isn’t enough to save the country from what Obama and the Democrats have done to our fiscal situation. ~Bob.)

Author of ‘Hit the Road’ Newsweek Cover Story Skewers His Critics
Excerpt: Being a conservative in any predominately liberal environment is difficult. Being a conservative at Newsweek is likely prohibitively difficult. And being the conservative whose message lands on Newsweek’s cover seemed, until this week, to be nigh impossible. Enter Niall Ferguson, the rogue columnist responsible for the recent Newsweek cover story calling for President Obama to be voted out of office.

A church very few people know about
When the question comes up about "Separation of Church and State" the information delivered in this video will really surprise almost everyone. It makes it clear how the Founders were a group of almost all very religious Christians, and how they did not mean the "Separation" to mean any sort of antipathy. All they meant was that the powers of the government would in no way be directly controlled by any particular religious faith. But they did believe that having religious faith was a normal and in fact fundamental aspect of American society. People may argue that the great majority of the population is no longer all activist Christians, and so things have changed since the days of the Founders. In that they are correct. However, the concept of Church and State not being at odds with each other, but coexisting peacefully within their own sphere of action, remains valid. And the nation will function and continue to prosper if Church and State remain allies rather than competitors. Those who wish to somehow separate religion entirely from any remote contact with the State are working, whether they know it or not, to damage the nation. Activate the link, and you can look forward to learning some fascinating and important things of our history. –Del

Worth Reading: Of Thee I Sigh: Baby Boomers Bust. By P. J. O'Rourke
Excerpt: My sad generation of baby boomers can be blamed. We were born into an America where material needs were fulfilled to a degree unprecedented in history. We were a demographic benison, cherished and taught to be self-cherishing. We were cosseted by a lush economy and spoiled by a society grown permissive in its fatigue with the strictures of depression and war.

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