Sunday, November 25, 2012

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for November 26, 2012


Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for November 26, 2012
Robert A. Hall
Your one-stop-shop for political news and opinion. Please forward to friends who need to be informed. This SitRep (Military for “Situation Report”) is created by many readers who send me items for inclusion, which I would have likely missed or skipped. And I can only spend at most three hours a night pulling stuff, plus the healthcare or economic stuff that crosses my desk at work. As always, I—and you—owe them thanks and appreciation. I post articles because I think they are of interest and will stimulate thought and discussion. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article, or that I was able to verify the information presented, which is the responsibility of the author. I try not to post things that are false, or too far a stretch, regardless of the view point, but I don’t always succeed. As always on the Net, or in the legacy media, you must read critically and with skepticism.

Looking for a Christmas Gift? Information on my books
Most of the royalties from these books go to charity. So it's a two-fer. ~Bob

Worth Reading: Where's America's Christmas Spirit? By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: Whether President Obama knows it or not, and he surely does, the president plays an enormous role in setting the tone, the spirit, of our country. It just so happens that now we're officially into the Christmas season, but the spirit, reflected in heathenish behavior, headlining the news is in dire need of civility.

Worth Sharing: Corporal Robert D. Corriveau - Help Solve His Murder. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: The body found on the Pike had no identification but there was a tattoo on each arm. A nondescript bird in flight appeared on his left arm but on his right arm there was the Marine Corps Bulldog wearing a WWI helmet with the letters USMC. As one of the Investigators, Corporal Tom Waters, a former Marine, said “You don’t have a tattoo like that unless you have been in the Marine Corps.” There were other clues on the body that might have helped, a healed bullet wound on his upper arm and a scar from a partially amputated finger.

Egypt’s President Grants Himself More Power
Mubarak was never this kind of tyrant. YET Obama told him to step down.
Obama's excuse was a mass demonstration in Tahrir Square, suggesting that the people did not support Mubarak. Yet now the same kind of mass demo is happening in Tahrir Square against Morsi, and...has anyone heard of Obama insisting that Morsi has to step down? Why not, Barack? Come on, we need answers. Surely you don't favor Islamists (Morsi) over secular leaders (Mubarak) who respect the rights of minorities and women. Do you...? --Don Hank

Egyptians stage anti-Morsi 'rally of anger and warning' in Cairo
Excerpt: Just two days after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi worked with the Obama administration to help bring about a ceasefire between Israel defense forces and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, thousands of protestors flooded Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to voice their opposition to the new constitutional declaration issued by Morsi on Thursday. (Ok, folks. Pay attention. The last time this kind of demo happened, and right there on Tahrir Square, Obama immediately told Mubarak he had to step down. The mass demonstration was his excuse. Now here it is again, same scenario but a new face. Morsi is acting the way they claimed Mubarak was acting. Where is the administration's demand to step down? Obama is silent as the sphinx and will remain so. That's because there is one major difference between Mubarak and Morsi. Mubarak was an important stabilizing factor -- a facilitator and link between Israel and the Middle East. He was the glue that held things together, because he was a secularist and a pragmatist, was pro-west and didn't hate Jews. Morsi hates Jews, is a destabilizing factor and is not pro-West. His regime is marked by severe persecution of Christians as well. That automatically aligns Morsi with Obama. Yes, true, Obama repaid the Jews for their votes by making a half-hearted statement that they had the right to defend themselves. But this was immediately followed by a Western-brokered cease fire that will only serve to give Hamas time to regroup and was based on Western biased propaganda that it was all Israel's fault for fighting back (just as it is Assad's fault for defending his government against terrorists). Obama's intervention in the Arab Spring and in Libya (Ghadaffi was also a pro-west secularist and a stabilizing force) and his desire to oust the pro-Christian Assad in Syria shows whose side he is on. Just watch what he doesn't do in response to this repeat of the Arab Spring that he so warmly embraced when a pro-west, pro-Christian, pro-Jew leader was in the hot seat. I hope and pray that I am wrong. --Don Hank)

California Goes Bankrupt: One California city after another becomes insolvent as the state's economic crisis worsens.
Excerpt: Not that the state’s legislators have anything constructive to offer. California’s Democratic leaders are not only unwilling to rein in the costs of benefits for their patrons, the public-sector unions, but they have been erecting roadblocks to those localities that want to fix the problem on their own. Yet all the political blockades in the world cannot fix the basic problem of insolvency.( The list of CA cities going bankrupt or already bankrupt is growing so fast the commentators can't keep them straight. So far I count: Vallejo. Stockton. Mammoth Lakes. San Bernardino. Compton. Fresno. Stand by for more. They are coming in increasingly rapid succession (roughly exponential growth). If you plotted them on a curve, you could easily predict the end of California and the approximate year of its demise. Death by democracy. And CA is only the first. --Don Hank. If you have money in any CA bonds, you might do better with Czarist or Confederate War bonds. ~Bob.)

Do Muslims fear threat of annihilation by Jews?
Many Western intellectuals think that the Muslim attacks on Jews are due to a genuine fear of annihilation by Jews. I occasionally receive emails from European friends reminding me of this. This is something to think about. After all, it is possible that Muslims, whose population amounts to 1.57 billion worldwide at a growth rate of 1.5%/year(and who will make up 1/4 of the world population in 20 years), feel threatened with annihilation by Jews, who number 13.3 million and whose world population is growing at the rate of 0.65%/year, feel threatened by the people whose nation they constantly bombard and attack with car bombs and suicide bombs and whom their religious canon instructs them to destroy. At this rate, Muslims could go extinct any day now. They must be protected. --Don Hank

Report: Egypt Constitutional Court Seeks Morsi Impeachment
According to reports from Egypt, the Constitutional Court is seeking to impeach new Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi after Morsi seized quasi-dictatorial power, sparking protests around the country. Morsi waited for the Obama administration’s praise over the Israel-Hamas ceasefire to make the move. Local media reports a courts spokesperson stating, “the judges are prepared to exercise the right to shift the head of state after he flouted the laws and the constitution.” (Egyptians have more chutzpah than US. --Barb)

America's 10-Year Learning Curve. By Randall DeSoto 
Excerpt: Winston Churchill once quipped you can “trust the American people to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.” His observation touches on a recurring theme in United States history: major political change is often preceded by a decade long learning curve. This pattern can be seen from the Founding era up to the election of 2012.

The Misogynist President. By Maureen Coover Scott
Excerpt: Has anyone else noticed how miserably demeaning Obama really treats women? First he makes Hillary stand up to take the heat about Benghazi. Then he feeds Susan Rice full of lies and sends her out to face the media…five times one Sunday morning on the talk shows. It was very apparent that he simply used two women to cover for him, and he hid behind their skirts until the election was over.

South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham Council Are Complicit in Child-Rape. By Paul Weston
Excerpt: The Times has a three page spread today (Sep 24, 2012) about the thousands of predominately Pakistani Muslim gang rapes of white English girls in the Rotherham area. (This is how pandering to minorities turns the law on its head. Here is an object lesson in why to avoid relativism. No, all religions are NOT equal. Some condone rape, and once enough people of this religion reach a certain percentage of the population, there is no turning back. Ask a European. --Don Hank)

The growth of Sharia in Antwerp.
This is a short, but chilling 5.39 min video for CNN News on the rapid growth of Sharia in Antwerp, Belgium. Set sound to 50% and watch full screen. Note the perfect English and the total lack of fear! Note also, exactly what is said! --Stan. From Stan in the UK. Remember that Brussels is the seat of the EU government and this untenable situation is directly due to their intervention. This is why nations who want sovereignty or wish to preserve what is left of European culture MUST leave the EU (without asking permission!). Otherwise, this is what awaits them. -Don Hank

Putting Some Facts in the Tax-the-Rich Debate. By David Wessel
Excerpt: To pepper the arguments with a few facts, turn to the very latest compendium of income-tax data, conveniently published this week by the Internal Revenue Service in its Statistics of Income Bulletin, Fall 2012 issue. These aren’t estimates from economic models: They’re the full, final tally. FACT: Only about 3% of tax returns show income of more than $200,000. (To be precise, federal income tax. Of course, the states vary widely in what they make their citizens pay in income tax, and that can change the total taxes paid by people, not to mention the sales taxes, gas taxes, liquor taxes, tobacco taxes, etc, that people pay. Which affect the lower level income people a lot more than they do the wealthy. Still, the story below is very educational, and a major point is that rich people tend to pay less in percentage total income tax because a lot of their income is from capital gains and dividends, which are taxed less in order to encourage people to invest in the system, and besides, the income is now coming off invested money on which the taxes have already been paid. So as much as emotionally we want really rich people to pay more in taxes, that they derive income from investments and get taxed less thereon is still a positive thing for the society overall. Could we tax high income people more? Probably, but you really don't want to make the fiscal environment so discouraging that they move out to Monaco or some island and take their money with them. Working out what is not really unfair and is tolerable by the wealthy, and actually brings in more income would take some careful thought and reasoning. And not an emotional "let's get the rich bastards" drive. --Del)

Excerpt: Whether or not Republicans have any chance of capturing more than a tiny fraction of the Latino vote, Krauthammer (and the straw-grasping Republicans who echoed him) shouldn’t take Latinos’ conservatism, including their views on abortion, for granted.

Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy
Excerpt: Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials. (I thought the WH policy was, "Kill them all, let Allah sort them out." ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Didn't get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist terror group that has been linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Shabaab, killed 11 people in an attack today on a church at a military base in Kaduna. The Nigerian terror group has carried out 19 suicide attacks so far this year; many have targeted churches and mosques.

How Mexican Drug Cartels Operate In America
Excerpt: “We pretend that the cartels don’t have an infrastructure in the U.S.,” Fulton Armstrong, and ex-CIA officer, told The Washington Post. “But you don’t do a $20 billion a year business . . . with ad-hoc, part-time volunteers. You use an established infrastructure to support the markets. How come we’re not attacking that infrastructure?”

“Islam is like Nazism,” say increasingly popular Sweden Democrats
Excerpt: Keep an eye on the Sweden Democrats, they are gaining strength from a populace fed up with uncontrolled Muslim immigration and the resulting crime, rape and welfare overload that always accompanies it.

Now Obama Voters Will Suffer The Consequences Of Their Decisions. By Alan Bates, MD
One major tenet of parenting is to let children suffer the consequences of their actions as long as they are not endangering themselves (or anyone else). Experience is by far the best teacher.

As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias
Excerpt: Arguably the most prestigious medical journal in the world, the New England Journal of Medicine regularly features articles over which pharmaceutical companies and their employees can exert significant influence. Over a year-long period ending in August, NEJM published 73 articles on original studies of new drugs, encompassing drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 and experimental drugs, according to a review by The Washington Post. Of those articles, 60 were funded by a pharmaceutical company, 50 were co-written by drug company employees and 37 had a lead author, typically an academic, who had previously accepted outside compensation from the sponsoring drug company in the form of consultant pay, grants or speaker fees. (This 5-page article is worth reading because it focuses on the potential for abuse in today’s crony-dominated marketplace. If medical journals become just another method of advertising for the major researchers, where will doctors be able to turn for real, unbiased information? --Ron P.)

Maine TV News Anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio Quit On Air
Excerpt: The longest running news team in Bangor, Maine, resigned at the end of their Tuesday evening broadcast, to the shock of staff and viewers, later telling the Bangor Daily News that management prevented them from running a balanced newsroom. Palmer sparked a political tiff in 2006 when he was the stations' general manager, for telling his staff that they would no longer report stories on global warming. When "Bar Harbor is underwater, then we can do global warming stories," he wrote in an email obtained by The New York Times. "Until then, no more." (It seems there ARE newscasters with integrity. Does this qualify as “going Galt?” I suspect so. --Ron P.)

Exclusive: Food Stamp Recipients Outnumber Populations of 24 States Combined
Excerpt: In November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that a record 47,102,780 individuals receive food stamps. According to US. Census Bureau data, that figure exceeds the combined populations of: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. (Free stuff? What free stuff? They “earned” the right to food stamps by existing here. Just like voter fraud, this problem only exists in the mind of the beholder. Baaad Conservative! No biscuit for you. --Ron P.)

War Is the Answer. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: Since the League of Nations folded, the warring peoples of the world have added the atom bomb, the suicide bomber, the jet plane, the remotely guided missile, the rape squad, the IED, the child soldier and the stealth fighter to their arsenals. And the humanitarians have murdered a few billion trees printing out more useless treaties, conventions and condemnations; more dead trees than accounted for by every piece of human literature written until the 19th Century. There is no moral technology to prevent war. Or rather war is the moral technology, that when properly applied, ensures peace.

Excerpt: What makes the head of a crime family happier than a witch in a broom factory? Finding out that he will be keeping his job another 4 years and knowing that virtually no one can touch him. His chief enforcer is also happy as he is keeping his job, at least for another four years.

Ahmadinejad: "Zionists have reached the dead point and have no other alternative but officially recognizing and bowing to the absolute right of the Palestinian nation"
Excerpt: The leading spokesman for genocide of the Jews in the world today is thrilled with the outcome of the recent conflict. Thanks once again are due to Barack Obama.

London university to host anti-gay extremist Islamic preacher. by Scott Roberts 
Excerpt: Brunel University in Uxbridge, west London, has been criticised for allowing a cleric who supports the killing of gay people to attend a student event.

Activists slam marriage of 12-year-old in Malaysia
Excerpt: Malaysian activists on Friday slammed the wedding of a 12-year-old to her 19-year-old boyfriend, renewing their calls for the government to outlaw child marriages.

With second term assured, Obama aides eye jobs as lobbyists. By Kevin Bogardus
Excerpt: With President Obama's reelection a done deal, headhunters are expecting worn-out administration aides to look for new jobs in the influence industry.

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