Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for December 1, 2012
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.
Easy Christmas Shopping that benefits charities: Information on my books
My “Fiscal Cliff” deal
How “tax the rich” works
Cartoon
Worth Reading
Excerpt: The current envelopment to jam women into ground combat units continues. A crucial element of the strategy is if women can't perform the heavy lifting required of Marines in the ground combat specialties (not surprising some testing has so proven), reality based requirements, then change the standards. That is, gender, not reality, is to drive standards development.
Worth Reading
Excerpt: The answer to this puzzle is what the two economists call the “political replacement effect.” As they explain, “Political elites will block beneficial economic and institutional change when they are afraid that these changes will destabilize the existing system and make it more likely that they will lose political power and future rents.” Rent in this case is the wealth that political elites divert from the productive parts of society to themselves via taxes, corruption, exclusive licenses, import restrictions, monopoly ownership, and the like. (Permanent economic backwardness and tyrants is one of the benefits that have come to Africans from throwing off the evils of colonialism. ~Bob.)
Important: Boehner, House GOP reject debt deal offer from White House
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/270205-gop-rejects-2t-debt-deal-offer-from-white-house
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/270205-gop-rejects-2t-debt-deal-offer-from-white-house
Excerpt: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday rejected a White House offer to avert the fiscal cliff that would include $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $400 billion in spending cuts and a permanent increase in the debt ceiling, Republican aides said. (Gee, a BIG tax hike now for the promise of a LITTLE spending cut later. How could the Speaker turn down such a great deal? Regardless of what they o about the “fiscal cliff” now, America is headed for a much larger debt-and-entitlement fiscal cliff that I no longer think can be avoided. ~Bob. “Experience keeps a dear school, but Fools will learn in no other. –Ben Franklin.”)
Cliff Jumping With Barack. By Charles Krauthammer
Excerpt: Obama is claiming an electoral mandate to raise taxes on the top 2 percent. Perhaps, but remember those incessant campaign ads promising a return to the economic nirvana of the Clinton Clinton Clinton
Second look at tax hikes on everyone?
Excerpt: You want to continue putting off reforms to Medicare and Social Security while making only token cuts to the rest of the budget? No problem. But if we can’t have fiscal responsibility on the front end, by cutting spending, then we’ll have some measure of it on the back end by squeezing a ton of new revenue from the middle class. Everyone in government understands that the rich can’t pay for all of this; if you want to keep the popping-and-wheezing Great Society machine duct-taped together for a few years longer, you’ll need to start soaking average Americans. Democrats would prefer a VAT because it can disguise future tax hikes better, but one way or another Joe Sixpack has to start meeting his obligations. The GOP can make it happen on January 1 simply by walking away.
Jim Geraghty: Let's Go Over The Cliff
Excerpt: Obama was permitted by the media to claim, or at least strongly imply, that the painful cuts Romney was talking about (and Obama, the Great Leader, was not talking about) could be averted simply by levying a small tax on the "richest 1%." It was a lie. It was further a lie the media assisted in. All those Fact Checks and not a single column noting that the central pillar of Barack Obama's Re-Election Strategy was a baldfaced lie that only the uninformed or innumerate could possibly believe.
A Possible Republican Strategy for the Fiscal Cliff. By Bruce Thompson
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/a_possible_republican_strategy_for_the_fiscal_cliff.html#ixzz2Dj7yXvVx
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/a_possible_republican_strategy_for_the_fiscal_cliff.html#ixzz2Dj7yXvVx
Excerpt: So my suggestion to them is to take a page from Obama's playbook and kick the can one more time. They should extend the status quo for one more month, to February 1, 2013. The reason behind this strategy is that President Obama is legally required to deliver a budget in January. What that would do is force him to commit his budget to paper. He would be forced to blink. The Democratic Senate has gone for years without passing a budget.
If nation goes over fiscal cliff, Obama will be sunning himself in Hawaii
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/if_nation_goes_over_fiscal_cliff_obama_will_be_sunning_himself_in_hawaii.html#ixzz2Diy2VRI1
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/if_nation_goes_over_fiscal_cliff_obama_will_be_sunning_himself_in_hawaii.html#ixzz2Diy2VRI1
Excerpt: That means that just about the time that tens of thousands are getting pink slips due to budget cuts, and millions will be seeing a smaller paycheck. the president will be showing off his impressive pecs to reporters on some pristine beach owned by a rich guy who supported him. Good to know our president cares so much about the little guy
Excerpt: President Obama made his first offer to congressional Republicans yesterday in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff”—an economic catastrophe of tax hikes just a few weeks away. The White House’s proposal? $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in new stimulus spending, and a change that would make it easier to raise the debt limit—so that all this spending could continue. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn’t contain his laughter at these suggestions.
What to do if you win the Powerball
I published this article in 1999. I was going to post it before the Powerball Drawing, but it was created on a Mac and wouldn’t open for me in Word. A friend opened for me. Enjoy. ~Bob
Senate votes to prohibit Guantanamo
Excerpt: The Senate late Thursday night approved a Republican amendment that would prohibit the transfer of terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) to U.S. United States
Rep. Ros-Lehtinen to call for cutting UN, Palestinian funds over statehood vote
Excerpt: The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will call on Congress to cut funding for the Palestinian Authority and for United Nations (U.N.) agencies that recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as a state, The Hill has learned.
Worth Reading
Excerpt: Delaying implementation until 2014 helped the president win re-election, but now the bill is coming due. The administration can’t forestall Obamacare’s massive regulatory impact any longer, and the result will keep Congress and the media occupied for months and years to come. (The American people voted for it and they are going to get it. Good and hard. ~Bob.)
Tweet from @JeffreyGoldberg:
The emissary of genocidal Sudan
Jailed leader calls for end of Kurdish hunger strike
Excerpt: The jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party has called an end to a mass hunger strike in Turkey
Disgusting—please forward: Legal English Girl to be Deported
Excerpt: English immigrant Lauren Bell, currently residing in Madison , Georgia U.S. Madison
Excerpt: Syria
Bombings kill Shias in Iraq cities of Hilla and Karbala
Muslims who didn’t get the “Islam is a Religion of Peace” memo from Barack killing fellow Muslims in Allahmurder. Ho hum, another day, another pile of multicultural dead people. ~Bob. Excerpt: At least 33 people have been killed in bomb attacks on predominantly Shia Muslim areas south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad
Qatari poet gets life for 'insulting' emir
Excerpt: A Qatari poet was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for an Arab Spring-inspired verse that officials claim insulted Qatar
German Lawmakers Back Latest Round of Aid for Greece
Excerpt: Lawmakers in Germany’s lower house of Parliament easily passed the next round of financial support for Greece on Friday, despite growing doubt among members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition and opposition parties that the measures will be sufficient to resolve the Greek problem. (I hate to see this. There won’t be any bailout left for us when our times comes. ~Bob.)
Eurozone unemployment rate hits new high in October
Excerpt: The jobless rate in the recessionary euro area rose to 11.7%. Inflation fell from 2.5% to 2.2% in November. (Socialist economics chickens coming home to roost. ~Bob.)
Cancer at the Heart; With Hugo Chávez in Cuba for yet more medical treatment, will Venezuela
Excerpt: Belkis Martinez isn't taking any chances. Minutes after hearing that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was leaving for Cuba for another round of medical treatment, the 42-year-old hairstylist who lives in Antímano, a working-class neighborhood of Caracas
Interesting comments on unions from a blog reader
I'd like to see an unbiased analysis of what took Hostess down. I will be very surprised if someone does not snap up the rights to Twinkies, etc and start making them in modern, automated, non-union facilities. I recall an article in Forbes I think, about Chrysler and the PT Cruiser. Talked about how critics and consumers loved it when it came out, and then fell out of love as management cut more and more corners. But the author didn't explain whether cuts were to increase profit per vehicle, or to maintain a price point in an age of inflation (not likely, given the minimal inflation of recent years), or did they have to maintain a price to sell cars so they would have the revenues to fund pensions, etc? I don't know and it's a damned shame that the media isn't asking these questions. Worse, I don't think they even know that such questions could or should be asked. When I was a kid, Dad worked for A.O. Smith, which was the SOLE supplier of frames for Cadillac (back when cars had frames, not uni-bodies). They had that special status because Smith's had never had a strike. They never had a strike in part because the company was family owned and the boss, LB Smith, was often seen on the floor, checking things out AND lending a hand with odd jobs. Also, each year he briefed the employees on the company finances: "We took in X, we spent Y; here's what the family took as profit, here's what we reinvested, here's what we're paying in salaries." Then in the 70s radical unionism came to Milwaukee Milwaukee Britain
Excerpt: Towards the same end, I have tried to persuade wealthy conservatives to stop wasting their money trying to help elect an occasional politician, and, instead, to start buying up newspapers, magazines and TV stations. After all, by the time your kids are going off to be indoctrinated by left-wing professors, the battle has already been lost. Most 18-year-olds already regard their conservative parents as political Neanderthals, so that any further indoctrination will only be a case of gelding the lily, as it were. So long as the Left continues to control education and the mass media, they will continue to control the messages your children are absorbing.
Reforming Medicare: It can be done — by learning from the free market. By John C. Goodman
Excerpt: Is there any chance that Medicare can make the right decisions on all these transactions? In a word: No. What does it mean when Medicare makes the wrong decisions? It often means that doctors face perverse incentives to provide care that is more costly, more risky, and less appropriate than the care they should be providing.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leader Promises "Savage Round" of Fighting. By John Rossomando
Excerpt: A leader of the third-largest Palestinian faction told the Egyptian newspaper El-Balad Thursday that the truce with Israel will be brief and that Palestinians are braced for a "more savage and bloody round" of fighting with Israel. "We are preparing for a new, more savage round," Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a leading Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure told the newspaper. "We are in a short truce (hudna), the Israeli enemy is preparing for further rounds of war in Gaza
Quote
If it can't be expressed in figures, it's not science it's opinion. –Lazarus Long (A character of Robert A. Heinlein.)
Cliff Diving. By Erick Erickson
Excerpt: The fiscal cliff is the byproduct of multiple congressional compromises to kick several different cans down the road. Now they’ve all landed in the same spot. Both sides are trying to kick multiple cans at one time and are kicking each other instead. What’s really going on in Washington
Worth reading: You Think Obama Stole the Election? Then Read This
Excerpt: If we are going to move beyond this we have to face the facts. We were out hustled. They turned out their base and we couldn’t be bothered to turn out ours, much less do what it takes to win uncommitted voters. We lost. They won. And the nation will suffer because of it. What did not happen was any “stealing” of the election.
Interesting article on the whole subject of POWs there, and what the author saw in researching the whole subject. I tend to think he's right. –Del
UK doctor testifies that under socialized medicine, sick babies are sent home to die
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/30/uk-doctor-testifies-that-under-socialized-medicine-sick-babies-are-sent-home-to-die/#ixzz2Dj5K1PsZ
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/30/uk-doctor-testifies-that-under-socialized-medicine-sick-babies-are-sent-home-to-die/#ixzz2Dj5K1PsZ
Excerpt: A British physician’s disturbing testimony is shedding light on the increasingly common practice of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals sending sick or severely disabled newborn babies home or to hospices to die of starvation or dehydration. (The Brave New World of Obamacare, coming to us. ~Bob.)
Syrian Rebels May Soon Take Country’s North: Bashar Assad's forces suffer strategic losses, and are facing a dearth of manpower. By Jonathon Spyer
Excerpt: The rebellion now controls a swath of territory in the country’s north. The regime still has isolated strongholds in Aleppo and Idleb Provinces Syria Syria
Worth Reading
Excerpt: Identity politics, you see, is a self-fulfilling prophecy: fearing some monolithic conspiracy against them, demagogues urge all sorts of groups to merge and fight the power. The alleged oppressors, tired of being slandered, gravitate toward political candidates who eschew the opinions of the identicrats. The identicrats see this as further evidence of the conspiracy against them. The full circle of idiocy is complete.
Conservative Victories of 2012. By Tim Phillips
Excerpt: Yet out in the states we saw a year of broad-based victories for economic freedom that demonstrate anew that all is not lost. In fact, we are winning with the American people in many respects.
How to get a better deal on a Medigap policy. By Kimberly Lankford
In case you need. ~Bob.
School Orders Child to Remove God From Poem. By Todd Starnes
Excerpt: A North Carolina
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/29/north-korea-readies-rocket-launch-that-would-alarm-china/#ixzz2DhAPV1MW
Excerpt: Satellite photos indicate North Korea has moved two sections of a long-range rocket in preparation for a launch that would alarm both its adversaries and lone ally China North Korea
Bard on the run: Iranian-born scholar still at risk in Holland
Excerpt: Among his many talents, Afshin Ellian has a knack for making people want to kill him. … And he has drawn death threats from Muslim militants for zingers like this: “Radical Islamists are so determined to prove Islam is the religion of peace that they are willing to kill for it.”
Christian man and Muslim girlfriend shot in Zamboanga City
Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: The relationship between a Muslim woman and a Christian man is considered ‘haram’ or forbidden among many Muslims in the southern Philippines
Excerpt: They wanted her property for a mosque, and ultimately their piety could not be restrained.
Excerpt: Iran will go on refining uranium "with intensity" and the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating will rise substantially in the current year, the country's nuclear energy chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday. (2015 weather forecast for Tel Aviv, Washington DC and New York City
In Cambodia , a Shooting Range
Excerpt: Just after a Honda pickup truck screeched to a halt beyond the decommissioned Soviet-era Antonov aircraft, four resolute-looking Chinese men with a military escort climbed out, slammed the doors shut and neatly arranged a series of firearms they had been carrying on a nearby table.
Comment from a blog reader
Now in CA they've passed a bill requiring all new history books to make sure they have sections highlighting the contributions of LGBT groups to our history. Sure, we missed out on all the crossdressers who served in the Revolution, the Lesbians who served in the Civil War, the Transgenders in WW2, and the Gays in taming the wilderness. (Of course we know now that Gays for sure were always in the population, and must have fought in all our wars, but how in hell do you confirm that for the history books?) This is just PC carried all the way out to ridiculous and noncontributory. Now people will start making up stuff just so they can put it in the books and get them bought in CA. The state is steadily edging towards bankruptcy and they are worrying about recognizing every alternate lifestyle in history books? Where do the CA voters find these yahoos to put in office? They'd be as well off having the state run by a random selection from Freshman college students. Maybe better. –Del
Excerpt: For a country in which the consumer is responsible for 70% of GDP, one wonders: without savings and without wages where will this “recovery” we hear so much propaganda about and which every investment bank this week went all in on (just like they did in the end of 2010 only to admit their error 4 months later) come from? Because every now and then it helps to step back from the trees and observe the forest. Behold: the forest.
You Are All Underachieving Disappointments: U.K.
Excerpt: That email, sent from retired British nuclear submarine captain Nick Crews to his three children earlier this year, has taken the UK by storm, and now it’s finally made its way across the pond and is going viral in the U.S.
‘I Can’t Even Talk About It Anymore!’: CNBC Anchor Santelli Gets So Upset Over Fiscal Cliff He Storms Off Set
Excerpt: CNBC’s Rick Santelli, the man commonly credited with starting the Tea Party, and Steve Liesman on Friday got into a heated exchange while discussing the so-called “fiscal cliff,” specifically on the topic of “fairness” and higher taxes for the wealthy.
The One Pollster Republicans Should Listen To
Excerpt: …when the exit polls asked voters which was the most important candidate quality, 29 percent chose “vision for the future,” 27 percent picked “shares my values,” 21 percent selected “cares about people like me,” and 18 percent chose “strong leader.” Romney bested Obama when it came to three of the four qualities. “Vision” voters opted for Romney, 54 percent to 45 percent; “shared value” voters chose Romney, 55 percent to 42 percent; while “strong leadership” voters favored Romney, 61 percent to 38 percent. Only the “cares about people like me” voters picked Obama over Romney, by 81 percent to 18 percent. Leadership, vision, and values lost out to empathy. (What this boils down to is that identity politics is what re-elected Obama. It is also what will kill the nation. If we can’t see beyond the mirror, we are no longer a nation, just a collection of ever smaller competing interest groups. Divided, we fall. Ron P.)
Washington Post Shocked To Discover Obama's Approach Not Balanced
Excerpt: Now that he's won, the Post is alarmed to discover he is pushing for tax increases while offering no cuts to entitlements whatsoever. Just how out of balance is the President's balanced approach? Enough that the Washington Post has written not one but two editorials demanding that entitlement reform be included the mix.
Gambling With the Nation's Future
Excerpt: Good news, America: Those who believe that our nation has "barbarians at the gates" are dead wrong. The bad news: The barbarians are already well inside the gates, running the federal government.
Five Percent. By Rich Galen
Excerpt: Let's say my family taxable income for 2013 will be a little over $250,000 -- just over the magic number making us, by specific declaration of the President of these United States, wealthy. Whoo. Hoo. According to Forbes.com I could reasonable be expected to pay: "$73,696 in federal, state, local and FICA taxes." That is an effect tax rate of a little over 29 percent. … If a five percent reduction in my spendable income will not pose a particular hardship on me, why can't a five percent cut in spending not pose a particular hardship on the Federal government?
Solar firm that got $26M in Miss. loans is closing
Excerpt: Mississippi taxpayers may have only an empty Senatobia building and some solar panel equipment to show for nearly $26 million in loans provided to Twin Creeks Technologies. The California-based solar technology firm is liquidating, and a company that bought Twin Creeks' assets does not intend to take over its agreement with Mississippi.
Bing Said City Workers Feel ‘Entitled,’ Says His Job Second Only To Obama’s
Excerpt: “We are in an environment, I think, of entitlement, we’ve got a lot of people who are city workers, who for years and years, 20, 30 years, think they are entitled to a job and all that comes with it,” Bing said. (I wonder how that happened? ~Bob.)
Exclusive: The Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He'd Win
Excerpt: It’s no secret that the Romney campaign believed it was headed for victory on Election Day. A handful of outlets have reported that Team Romney’s internal polling showed North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia moving safely into his column and that it put him ahead in a few other swing states. When combined with Ohio, where the internal polling had him close, Romney was on track to secure all the electoral votes he needed to win the White House. (I have no faith in polls, but especially in internal polls. The guy you are paying wants to give you good news. ~Bob.)
Worth Reading: The Obamacare-Medicare Noose And Grandma’s Neck. By Mark Horne
http://godfatherpolitics.com/8324/the-obamacare-medicare-noose-and-grandmas-neck/#ixzz2DjnO6bDp
http://godfatherpolitics.com/8324/the-obamacare-medicare-noose-and-grandmas-neck/#ixzz2DjnO6bDp
Excerpt: Raising the age of Medicare eligibility seems like a no-brainer. And if we raise the age to a hundred it might work. We are headed toward a “fiscal cliff” that is really a minor first fall in the approaching rapids hurling toward the Niagara of Economic Deluge. So increasing the age for Medicare from 65 to 67 seems like a small step. But thanks to Obamacare, it may be no step at all. Between Obamacare and Medicare we are in a noose that tightens no matter what you do. (Meanwhile the unions, AARP and the Democrat base are screaming, “Don’t touch entitlements!” Reality and math are going to touch entitlements and everyone, hard! ~Bob.)
The Chicago Way: Obama gives 83% of export loan guarantees to Boeing. By Timothy P. Carney
Excerpt: The Obama administration last year dedicated more than 80 percent of export loan guarantees to subsidizing a single company – Boeing. The Export-Import Bank is a federal agency on which Obama has leaned heavily in his “Export Initiative,” and his “new economic patriotism.” Known as “Boeing’s Bank,” Ex-Im is a perfect example of why Obama’s “economic patriotism” is just corporate welfare dressed in populist rhetoric. (and Boeing is based in…Chicago! ~Bob.)
The middle class: Are they really falling behind? By Matt K. Lewis
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/30/the-middle-class-are-they-really-falling-behind/#ixzz2Dju37Ps3
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/30/the-middle-class-are-they-really-falling-behind/#ixzz2Dju37Ps3
Excerpt: But are middle class Americans really worse off than they were in the past?
Ads by Google This spring, Richard V. Burkhauser, a professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University, along with Jef Larrimore, and Kosali I. Simon, authored an important paper that pokes holes in the premise.
Tweet from Jason B. Whitman @JasonBWhitman
Heh, just saw a bumper sticker that said "Electric Cars Burn Coal."
Tweet from Ken Gardner @kesgardner
Today's national debt: $16,323,083,449,604.98. Your share as a citizen: $51,842.36. Your share as a taxpayer: $142,007.
Government Tells Pennsylvania Restaurant They Must Offer 10% Sunday Church Bulletin Discount To Everybody Or Discontinue It
http://www.ktrh.com/pages/michaelberry.html?article=10607950
Excerpt: Do you recall the furor surrounding Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen, a Pennsylvania-based restaurant, this past summer? The establishment has been offering a 10 percent discount for individuals who bring in a church bulletin on Sundays. Citing this action as discriminatory, John Wolff, a local atheist, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC).
http://www.ktrh.com/pages/michaelberry.html?article=10607950
Excerpt: Do you recall the furor surrounding Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen, a Pennsylvania-based restaurant, this past summer? The establishment has been offering a 10 percent discount for individuals who bring in a church bulletin on Sundays. Citing this action as discriminatory, John Wolff, a local atheist, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC).
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment