Saturday, August 4, 2012

Political Digest for August 4, 2013

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.

My brother Tom, from Massachusetts, who I haven’t seen in four years, will be in town for the weekend. So I won’t likely touch a computer until he flies home Sunday evening. Likely no post on Sunday and maybe not on Monday. Sorry. ~Bob.

Charities I support

Excerpt: The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said Friday morning. The unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3 percent.

Worth Reading: Unemployment at 8.3%
Excerpt: The BLS, apparently working hard for Obama’s re-election, decided that with unemployment rising they’d better give the MSM something else to talk about – certainly don’t want them talking about the massive number of people out of work. Better to have them talk about the number of jobs being created! So, they just made up some numbers to make it look like the number of jobs went up. (I don’t understand the statistics well enough to have an informed opinion on this, but I know that, while “figures don’t lie, liars figure.” ~Bob.)

President Obama is running out of time on the economy. By Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake
Excerpt: The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its July jobs report this morning — an assessment that didn’t exactly show considerable growth in the economy over the past month. And from a political perspective, that means one thing: President Obama is running out of time.

195,000 Fewer Americans Had Jobs in July; 150,000 Dropped Out of Labor Force
Excerpt: In June, according to BLS, there had been 142,415,000 people employed in the United States. In July, that dropped to 142,220,000--a decline of 195,000. … In July, the number of people in the civilian labor force was 155,013,000--a decline of 150,000 from June. (The White House calls the July numbers “Evidence of a recovery.” Right. ~Bob.)

Has Any Administration Policy NOT Killed Jobs Lately?
Excerpt: Congress has headed off for its long vacation-and-campaign season, fleeing Washington as the unemployment rate rises. According to the Labor Department's July jobs report, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3 percent, 12.8 million Americans are out of work, and 5.2 million have been out of work for at least a half a year. According to one survey, the country added a surprising 163,000 jobs in July, while according to a second Labor Department survey, employment fell by 195,000—raising questions about whether the more positive figure is all that reliable, given that the economy slowed significantly to a 1.5 percent annualized growth rate in the second quarter and appears to be slowing further.

Real Unemployment Rate
The "real" unemployment rate (which includes the underemployed and those who have given up looking for a job) is 14.9%. Meanwhile, the jobs report released today shows that the unemployment rate rose from 8.2% to 8.3% in July. –Dr. John Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis.

O’s mission failure The economy was Job One. By John Podhoretz
Excerpt: Things are going wrong in the American economy right now — and in a way that no one expected, least of all an incumbent president with Election Day three months away. The man who said in 2009 that “if I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition” had better believe in the audacity of hope yet again: the hope that he was wrong.

Solyndra email calls Obama 'Bank of Washington'
Excerpt: The Republican National Committee research team posted an email on Tumblr, purportedly from Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet, which refers to the Obama administration as “The Bank Of Washington." (Really The Bank of You and Me. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: Solyndra and the Perils of Green Industrial Policy. By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Excerpt: On August 31, 2009, an unidentified OMB official wrote to Terrell McSweeny, domestic policy adviser to Vice President Biden, saying “We have ended up in the situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of this week). We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews and have the approval set the date for the announcement rather than the other way around.”[12] Regardless of these concerns, the loan was approved on September 3, and Biden announced it via satellite at Solyndra’s plant on September 4. (Long, but an excellent full review of the facts here. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Culture — not race, geography, or location — is the greatest factor in economic, and military, dynamism. … Few believe that a unique micro-geography in North Korea explains why its way of life differs from the South, or that climate ensures that Tijuana is a very different place from San Diego, or that the differences between East and West Germany were due to genetic or racial variables, or that China between 1964 and 2012 underwent climate change

A Response to Recent Media: My Opinion Stands. By Nazanin Afshin-Jam
 Excerpt: I was born in Iran and my family escaped during the revolution after my father was tortured and awaited execution for voicing his beliefs. In Canada we have freedom of speech. Each and every individual has the right to voice his or her own opinion through any form of media and without interference. One does not have to be an elected member of parliament to share views or thoughts on any issue, political or otherwise.

Pakistani Religious Leaders Promote Antisemitism, Say: 'When The Jews Are Wiped Out... The Sun Of Peace Would Begin To Rise On The Entire World'
Excerpt: In another Antisemitic video that appeared on YouTube in June 2012, Pakistani cleric Pirzada Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai argued that world peace will be established only when all the Jews are wiped out from the earth.

Important: Labor Dept. Waives 60-Day Notice To Help Obama Win
Excerpt: An administration that doesn't want layoff notices required by law going out days before the November election is telling defense contractors they don't have to send them for the cuts required by sequestration. As the heads of major defense contractors Lockheed Martin, EADS North America, Pratt & Whitney and Williams-Pyro testified recently before the House Armed Services Committee, they are bound by law to give employees 60 days' notice if their jobs are going to be terminated as a result of sequestration cuts scheduled for Jan. 2. (An incredibly transparent move to favor Obama in the election. This needs to go out far and wide. --Del)

San Bernardino Files For Chapter 9 Bankruptcy
Excerpt: Officials in San Bernardino, Calif., which is facing an expected $45.8 million budget deficit this year, have formally filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, a move that city leaders approved last month.

Tax Scam: IRS Pays Out Billions in Fraudulent Refunds
Excerpt: The IRS is paying out billions of dollars in fraudulent tax refunds to identity thieves; a problem that the tax service’s inspector general told CNBC is a “growing problem” involving numbers that are increasing “exponentially.”

Opinion: Voter fraud is not a “bogeyman,” and voter ID laws are not racist
Excerpt: But the reality is that 1) voter fraud does exist; 2) it is all too easy to commit without these laws; and 3) opponents have little to stand on except empty rhetoric and race baiting.

"The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit." --Milton Friedman

Iowa governor moves out of mansion because of black mold
Racist! ~Bob.

Inhofe Exposes Another Epic Fail by Global Warming Alarmists
Excerpt: Global warming alarmist Bill McKibben took to Twitter immediately to publicize what he believed to be proof of global warming, tweeting to Senator James Inhofe (Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Senator Inhofe, God may be trying to get your attention. Check out this picture.” Not long after the picture surfaced, Oklahomans posted comments on Think Progress’ blog saying that these lights had melted due to a fire – which makes sense considering that the two front lights were melted while the two back lights remained unscathed.

DCCC apologizes to Adelson for 'Chinese prostitution' comments
Excerpt: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued an apology to casino mogul and prominent Republican donor Sheldon Adelson on Thursday, after the billionaire threatened to sue the organization over comments insinuating he profited from prostitution at his Chinese resorts.

Excerpt: This is not just Ahmedinijad; it is at the heart of Islamic theology that world peace will be established only when all the Jews are wiped from the earth. But few people in Western media are alarmed by this kind of rhetoric or care to expose this dreadful dark side of Islam's obsession with Jew-hatred. (This is chilling and should not be ignored. –Steve. Think the Presbyterians will buy this analysis? Anyone who does not think Islam is by its nature and culture a murderous, supracessionist ideology is not paying attention. If the Israelis were Muslims, there would be no Arabs left between Damascus, Amman and the Suez Canal. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)

Congress - A Group Of Baboons. By Frosty Wooldridge
http://rense.com/general94/congff.htm
Excerpt: What is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Answer: a congress! Now you understand why our country continues its descent into the abyss of a failing civilization.

My Neighbor, the Hamas Leader: Former Ohio resident Saleh Sultan — whom I exposed — is now top Hamas leadership. By Patrick Poole
Excerpt: Back in March, my friend and colleague Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News emailed me a link to an article in Tablet Magazine and asked: “Hey — isn’t that your neighbor with the head of Hamas?” Sure enough, it was. My former neighbor Salah Sultan was standing right beside Ismail Haniyeh — the Hamas “prime minister” of Gaza — as Haniyeh left a meeting with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Cairo (purple shirt):

Putin Expands Crackdown as Obama Clings to ‘Reset’: Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is headed to Siberia. By Kim Zigfeld
Excerpt: The words George W. Bush spoke at Brdo Castle in Brdo Pri Kranju, Slovenia, in June 2001 are hard to distinguish from those of Barack Obama. Both in their content and their consequences, the devastating impact of these speeches may imperil U.S. foreign policy for ages to come.

Queens Man's Corpse Too Fat To Donate To Science, So Family Sues
Excerpt: Even though there is a shortage of cadavers for medical students' anatomy classes, Cardel's corpse was rejected because it was too heavy, a lawsuit alleges. "The deceased weighed too much," attorney Eric Rothstein, who is representing Cardel’s sister, tells the Daily News, which reports that the lawsuit alleges "grave humiliation."

Commercial Plug: Brownies
One of my former officers at a different association is now in the Brownie business. With my need to lose weight for my health, not on my diet, but I’m happy to give you the link in case you are into brownies. ~Bob

Liberals Call for Killing of 6 year old Conservative!
Excerpt: Patriot Update recently posted a video on YouTube entitled, “6-Year-Old Gives 10 Reasons NOT to Vote for Obama!”, which has caused liberals to go on the warpath. With over 350,000 views and climbing, the venomous and hate-filled comments from the left are intolerable. Liberal around the country are accusing the parents of “brainwashing” and “exploiting” their child. (Somehow a bunch of elementary school children singing praises to Obama doesn’t count as “brainwashing or exploitation.”)

Worries grow as healthcare firms send jobs overseas
Excerpt: After years of shipping data-processing, accounting and other back-office work abroad, some healthcare companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines. (Fleeing Obamacare. Doubtless the Obama Administration feels this justifies more taxes and more healthcare regulation. ~Bob.)

U.S. Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms
Obama knows which side of the rice cake his deficit borrowing is buttered on. ~Bob.

Income Redistribution: $460 Million in Food Stamps for Ineligible Recipients
From The Patriot Post
An entirely unsurprising Government Accountability Office (GAO) study revealed that 473,000 households received food stamp benefits they were ineligible for because they were already on other government assistance. Clearly, our nation's culture of dependency is growing out of control. These households were awarded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits because several states assumed that a family eligible for one assistance program made them eligible for others, and the states just skipped basic steps like checking assets or whether recipients' income from other programs made them ineligible for SNAP. An interesting sidebar to the GAO study was this encouragement for staying on the dole: "[R]ules for reporting changes in household circumstances now differ by household income level and may leave higher income households without reporting requirements for several months." In other words, they can still get while the getting is good, and states have no incentive to check their eligibility. While the USDA is in agreement with the GAO findings, the question is how quickly the wheels of bureaucracy will turn to revamp the program and save taxpayers nearly a half-billion dollars a year. Don't hope for that change with this administration.

Senator Kerry: Climate Change as Much a Threat as a Nuclear Iran
say you live in Boston. You have a choice between a degree hotter summer and a one inch rise in the level of Boston Harbor (if the warmists are right), or a nuke attack on Bean Town. Hard choice, huh? ~Bob.

Caught On Tape: Pistol-Packing Jewelry Store Owner Fires Back At Robbery Suspects
Excerpt: Five men walked into the store wearing masks, some wore hoods. At least two of the men were armed with guns. … The owner grabbed a handgun and fired two rounds at the suspects … Branson reports the suspects literally fell over themselves trying to flee.

Illegal immigrant convicted of raping, impregnating 12-year-old girl
Excerpt: A Knox County Criminal Court jury today convicted a 24-year-old man of raping and impregnating a 12-year-old girl. Andres Francisco, described by authorities as an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, was convicted of aggravated sexual battery and rape of a child. (Must be one of those jobs Americans won’t do. ~Bob.)

Can You Hear Me Now? Democrat rents farmland to telecom, sponsors legislation favorable to that telecom
Excerpt: An Iowa Democratic House member has raked in more than $50,000 since 2002 for hosting a cell phone tower on his property, while sponsoring a number of bills designed to boost rural telecommunications. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D., Iowa) rents out a small portion of his farmland to Chat Mobility, a telecommunications company that provides cellular coverage to rural communities in southwest Iowa. … He signed the contract with the company shortly after he cosponsored the Rural Telecommunications Enhancement Act of 2001, which would have allowed the Department of Agriculture to make loan guarantees and provide subsidies to telecommunication firms that enhance cellular service in rural environments. (“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.’ –George Washington Plunkett of Tammany Hall, explaining the difference between honest and dishonest graft. The quote is from memory and it’s been 40 years, so may be a tad off. ~Bob.)

Solyndra email: ‘POTUS involvement was Rahm’s idea’
Excerpt: Chicago mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel repeatedly claimed he had no memory of the Obama administration’s controversial $535 million loan to failed solar company Solyndra, but White House emails released Thursday say it was Emanuel’s idea for the administration to tout the doomed firm.

The anti-Romney press is behaving like spoiled children--Attack of the Cookie Monsters. By Matthew Continetti
Excerpt: Let us now praise the unknown reporters! Let us acclaim those stolid scribes who, at the conclusion of Mitt Romney’s overseas trip to England, Israel, and Poland, told Politico—anonymously, of course, and presumably with a straight face—that the days of going easy on the Republican nominee were over.

Excerpt: Economist Woody Brock says that a nation’s GDP growth is based mainly on whether or not it follows the rule of law. (Time to apply that important principle: Separation of business and State. No more government covering for crooked business, no more government forcing banks to lend to people who can't pay, no more catch and release so that business can have cheap labor, no more lawlessness in banking, no more bailouts for any reason, no more crooked shenanigans between business and government. And throw the book at those who won't comply. --Don Hank)

True, that: Obama’s Disappearance On Darfur. By Stephen Brown
Excerpt: Oh, what a difference winning an election can make! As a Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama described Darfur, a rebellious region in Sudan, as one of his top priorities, gaining support from voters by doing so. But in contrast, in the 2012 electoral contest, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur has so far barely rated a mention.

Mitt Romney's Excellent Trip Sets Him Apart From Obama
Excerpt: The Warsaw leg was a triumph. Romney's speech warmly embraced Poland's post-communist experiment as a stirring example of a nation committed to limited government at home and a close alliance with America abroad, even unto such godforsaken war zones as Afghanistan and Iraq, at great cost to itself and with little thanks.

ICE Agent Faces Suspension For Arresting Illegal Alien
Excerpt: A veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is facing suspension after he refused to release an illegal immigrant who was not considered a priority target under the Obama Administration’s new immigration enforcement policies, according to documents provided exclusively to Fox News. (We can’t have agents enforcing the law they’ve sworn to enforce. It might suppress the vote. ~Bob.)

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, two years ago today: ‘Welcome to the Recovery.’ By Conn Carroll
Excerpt: Two years ago today, under the header, “Welcome to the Recovery,” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote in The New York Times: While the economy has a long way to go before reaching its full potential, last week’s data on economic growth show that large parts of the private sector continue to strengthen.

Spain arrests 3 al Qaeda suspects
Excerpt: Spanish authorities arrested three men suspected of plotting terrorist attacks this week. Spain's Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz held a press conference to confirm the arrests. "There is a clear indication that those arrested could have been planning an attack in Spain or in Europe," Diaz said, according to published accounts of the conference.

Thank You, Obama: Terrorist Who Killed US Soldiers Freed Because Obama Would Not Bring to Gitmo
Excerpt: Judicial Watch reports that Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq, who tortured and killed 5 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and was detained by U.S. forces in early 2007, will be freed by an Iraqi court--the inevitable, and predictable, result of an Obama administration decision to hand him over to Iraqi authorities rather than bring him to Guantanamo Bay.

Tony Soprano, Green Hero? By Walter Russell Mead
Excerpt: Another green subsidy, another green scandal. The Wall Street Journal reports that a government program meant to aid businesses that turn cooking oils into fuel may be guilty of serious fraud. The federal government now alleges that two of these businesses have been abusing the system, casting a pall over the entire program:

Palestinian women's killings spark outcry over lax laws
Excerpt: Rights activists march in Bethlehem to demand tougher punishment for the killing of women by relatives. So-called honor killings claimed the lives of 29 women in the West Bank from 2007 to 2010, critics say.

Excerpt: The Tennessee Democratic Party disavowed its own U.S. Senate nominee Friday, announcing that he is “associated with a known hate group” — in this case, a conservative advocacy organization. Mark Clayton won Tuesday’s Democratic primary with 30 percent of the vote in a field of seven candidates. (What fun. With liberals Hate Group” means anyone who doesn’t agree with any of their fundamental beliefs. The only reason they haven’t called the Catholic Church a hate group is they hope to get some Catholic votes. This should not be taken as an endorsement of the group they say he “associates” with—I know nothing about them. ~Bob.)

Opinion: How Obama Has Failed Small and Minority Business: Has President Barack Obama done enough for small and minority business growth? By Raynard Jackson
excerpt: The Obama administration has been a total failure when it comes to small and minority business. How did I come to this conclusion? There are two easy ways to determine what is important to a person or an elected official: to listen to what they talk about the most and to open their checkbooks to see who they write checks to.

Auditing Shooting Rampage Statistics
Excerpt: The average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 14.3 The average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by a civilian is 2.3.

RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. Surviving an Active Shooter Event
Excerpt: This is a video the city of Houston put together on what to do should you (a citizen) run across an active shooter, such as the guy in the movie theater. They were just finishing it when the Colorado shootings occurred. If you haven’t seen it……it is well worth the watch and worth sharing with your family and friends as well.

Exclusive: How Plastic Bag Bans Hurt The Economy And Environment

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