Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for December 14, 2012

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for December 14, 2012

Robert A. Hall

Tied up with family Christmas stuff next few days, so expect light posts. ~Bob

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.

Advice for my Granddaughter: For When I'm Gone

http://www.amazon.com/Advice-Granddaughter-When-Im-Gone/dp/147004238X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1329662198&sr=8-2

All royalties go to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.

Dems line up behind Pelosi against changing Medicare eligibility age

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/272701-dems-line-up-behind-pelosi-against-changing-medicare-eligibility-age-

Excerpt: House Democrats are lining up behind Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) against raising Medicare’s eligibility age as part of a year-end tax-and-spending package. Pelosi rejected raising Medicare’s eligibility age in an op-ed published Tuesday in USA Today, then doubled down on that position Wednesday. (Because, see, the sooner it goes bankrupt, the better. ~Bob.)

President Obama’s pledge to close Gitmo in second term faces difficult test

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/272703-obamas-pledge-to-close-gitmo-in-second-term-faces-difficult-test

Excerpt: President Obama’s commitment to closing the Guantánamo Bay prison in his second term is being tested before Inauguration Day after the Senate passed an open-ended ban on transferring Guantánamo detainees to the United States. (See what happens when evil Republicans control the senate…oh, wait…~Bob.)

The Veterans Disability System: Problems and Solutions

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=22669&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Excerpt: Since the turn of the century, the number and complexity of disability claims has far outpaced the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) capacity to process them. More importantly, the VA has misrepresented the causes of the current claims crisis, the reliability of internal accountability measures and the efficacy of attempted solutions, say Pamela Villarreal, a senior fellow, and Kyle Buckley, a research associate, at the National Center for Policy Analysis. As of 2011, 22.2 million veterans are currently living in the United States. Of these, 38.6 percent are enrolled in the health program. Another 16.6 percent receive cash disability compensation. It takes about 197 days to complete the average disability claim. To put this in perspective, it takes an average of one day for the Social Security Administration to process Disability Insurance claims. More troubling is the fact that the VA has reported backlogs of about 1 million claims annually.

Free Asia Bibi

http://www.freeasiabibi.co.uk/home.cfm

Excerpt: Asia Bibi is the first woman in Pakistan’s history to be condemned to death under the country’s blasphemy laws. Her crime is to refuse to convert to Islam remaining true to her Christian faith. (Challenge to my Muslim friends: Here is a story of a lady who refuses to convert to Islam. Can any of you tell me a recent story of a Muslim in the Europe or America who refuses to convert to Christianity and is threatened with execution as a result? Perhaps my memory is failing me. I can't seem to recall such a story at this time. Thank you. --Don Hank)

Black Mobs Take Over Washington Metro. Police: 'There's nothing worth fighting over and getting assaulted for.' By Colin Flaherty

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/black-mobs-take-over-washington-metro/#OKyWUuvpYQuSJ2qP.99 

Excerpt: They “did not want any trouble,” they said on the video. To the black mob that confronted them, threatened them, beat them and robbed them, it was no trouble at all.

So they grabbed their iPhones, but not before the girls fought back to retrieve them. Unsuccessfully. (Flaherty is the author of White Girl Bleed a Lot, which is worth reading. ~Bob.)

U.S., NATO: Syrian forces fired short-range ballistic missiles at rebels

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrian-forces-fire-scud-missiles-at-rebels/2012/12/12/ee60e58a-448b-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html?hpid=z1

Excerpt: Government forces have fired at least a half-dozen short-range ballistic missiles at rebel groups in northern Syria over the past several days, according to U.S. officials, a potentially significant escalation of a civil war that has killed more than 40,000 people.

Syrian Rebels 'Exclusively' America-Hating Jihadists: Forces include the 'Army of Muhammad Brigade.' By John Rosenthal
http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/syrian-rebels-exclusively-america-hating-jihadists/#92giyYlGD8eX0s04.99 

Excerpt: While the Obama administration reportedly is moving toward recognizing the recently formed and supposedly “inclusive” Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, recent reports from the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo make clear that Syrian rebel forces on the ground consist almost exclusively of jihadists, including self-avowed veterans of the al-Qaida-led insurgency against American forces in Iraq.

Egypt court jails blogger Alber Saber for blasphemy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20695992

Excerpt: Alber Saber was arrested in September after neighbours accused him of posting links to a film mocking Islam that led to protests across the Muslim world. (Obama’s pals in the Democratic Arab Spring. ~Bob.)

Nearly 70 percent of Pakistani lawmakers don't file taxes: group

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/12/us-pakistan-tax-idUSBRE8BB14U20121212

Excerpt: Almost 70 percent of Pakistani lawmakers did not file income taxes last year, an investigative journalism group said on Wednesday, highlighting deep flaws in a taxation system that has drawn repeated criticism from Western aid donors. (Basically the Tim Geithner-Charlie Rangel model of public service. ~Bob.)

Tweet from David Burge @IowaHawk

The spending will continue until the deficits improve.

Rep. Jim Moran’s Son Guilty of Beating Up His Girlfriend in Columbia Heights

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2012/12/12/rep-jim-morans-son-guilty-of-beating-up-his-girlfriend-in-columbia-heights/

Excerpt: Moran and his girlfriend were fighting outside 14th Street bar The Getaway around 1:23 a.m. on Dec. 1, according to a police report, over Moran talking to another woman at the bar. Suddenly, Moran allegedly slammed his girlfriend's head into the bar's metal trash can cage. (Probation! For a skull fracture! –Jim Geraghty. Call me old fashioned, but when you've compromised the integrity of a woman's skull, I think you should be issued a jumpsuit and some soap on a rope. –Dan Foster.)

Tweet from Jon Gabriel‏@ExJon

Those who were most outraged at Romney's 47% comment are now calling non-union Americans "freeloaders."

Hypocrisy Caught VIDEO: Pro-Gun Control Chicago Politician Caught Trying to Bring Gun on Plane. By Regis Giles

http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/2012/12/hypocrisy-caught-video-pro-gun-control-chicago-politician-caught-trying-to-bring-gun-on-plane/

Excerpt: Oh the irony! This is a Christmas gift come early to me. A Chicago politician who is a strong gun-control advocate is busted at airport security with an “…unloaded .25 caliber Beretta handgun.” 

Feral Teens Ask Woman for Smoke, She says “Get a Job”; Then They Shoot Her.
http://clashdaily.com/2012/12/feral-teens-ask-woman-for-smoke-she-says-get-a-job-then-they-shoot-her/

Excerpt: Police say three teens charged in the fatal shooting of a western Pennsylvania woman targeted her after she told them to “get a job” when she saw them trying to bum a cigarette off her boyfriend. Beaver Falls police have charged 14-year-olds Todavia Cleckley and Marcus Velasquez and Kyle Goosby Jr., 13, with criminal homicide and other charges in Saturday’s shooting of Kayla Peterson, 22.

Chrysler reinstates 13 workers fired for drinking on job

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121210/AUTO0101/212100439/Chrysler-reinstates-13-workers-fired-drinking-job?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Excerpt: Chrysler Group LLC says it was forced to reinstate 13 workers who were fired from its Jefferson North Assembly Plant two years ago after being filmed by a local television station drinking and smoking what the network suggested was a controlled substance before and during work. (Boy, I can’t drink at work. Guess I need a union. ~Bob.)

Bob Menendez’s illegal immigrant sex offender intern arrested. By Moe Lane 

http://www.redstate.com/2012/12/12/bob-menendez-illegal-immigrant-sex-offender/

Excerpt: Sen. Robert Menendez employed as an unpaid intern in his Senate office an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender, now under arrest by immigration authorities, The Associated Press has learned. The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day, a U.S. official involved in the case told the AP. (Diversity. ~Bob.)

Let the real fat cats pay their fair share. By Victor Davis Hanson

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1212/hanson121312.php3#.UMoIjuTAfnQ

Excerpt: Who exactly were the rich who, as the president said, were not "paying their fair share"? The rapper Jay-Z (net worth: nearly $500 million)? The actor Johnny Depp (2011 income: $50 million)? Neither seems to have heard the president's earlier warning that, "at a certain point you've made enough money." Could both zillionaires simply have quit making money at $10 million -- and thereby given their poorer audiences a break on ticket prices?

Court Rules Obama HHS Mandate Doesn’t Protect Religious Liberty. By Steven Ertelt

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/12/06/court-rules-obama-hhs-mandate-doesnt-protect-religious-liberty/

Excerpt: In what a pro-life legal group describes as a “landmark ruling against the HHS Mandate,” a federal judge late yesterday ruled against the Obama administration’s assertion that the government’s supposed “safe harbor” was inadequate to protect religious organizations from suffering imminent harm. 

The Ground Zero Mosque and Media Sleight of Hand

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-ground-zero-mosque-and-media-sleight-of-hand/

Excerpt: The irony could not have been thicker: the New York Post reported Sunday that one year after the notorious Park51 “community center” opened “with great fanfare,” it was “now an empty space with no community programs.” Park51, you may recall, is the official name of what is more famously known as the Ground Zero mosque. The entire controversy over the Ground Zero mosque is an illuminating example of how the media manipulates public perceptions. 

UN approves radiation advice

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_UN_approves_radiation_advice_1012121.html

Excerpt: An independent body of international experts, UNSCEAR has met regularly since 1955 and helped establish radiation as the best understood carcinogen in the world through its studies of atomic bomb survivors and the effects of the Chernobyl accident. (…)  Presenting to the UN General Assembly, UNSCEAR's chair Wolfgang Weiss said that preliminary findings were that no radiation health effects had been observed in Japan among the public, workers or children in the area of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Now that it’s being “approved” by the UN, I wonder if our MSM will report that no one has been harmed by radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor problems? Nah. It won’t fit the narrative. Bad UN! No biscuit for you! Also worth notice are the colored-box side-bars within the article that briefly explain the “advice.” Ron P.)

Obama to Troops: Don’t Criticize The Taliban

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/12/12/Obama-To-Troops-Don-t-Criticize-The-Taliban

The Obama Administration has ordered changes in a new military handbook to now forbid U.S soldiers from criticizing the Taliban. In addition, our men in uniform are forbidden to disparage pedophilia. Even further, our soldiers are instructed not to speak of women’s rights. (Is killing them still okay? ~Bob.)

Plans for the Big Bang

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2012/11/plans-for-big-bang.html

Excerpt: Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press. The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran’s atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. (My apologies; this was posted on 27 November, and I missed it until now. For any remaining readers who doubt that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.... Note that this is addition to their rush to make rockets capable of orbit, guidance systems capable of re-entry, the effort to buy or build detonators that would reliably explode at an altitude of 600 meters, the THOUSANDS of centrifuges working round the clock to purify uranium, and the sudden and unexpected removal of ALL the fuel rods from their one functional nuclear reactor (with a possible yield of 150 to 450 kilograms of plutonium—enough for up to 70 warheads). This is beyond any possibility of coincidence or misunderstanding. They ARE going for it. And as usual, we are doing nothing about it. Ron P.)

Chaffetz: State Dept Hiding Benghazi Survivors
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/12/12/Chaffetz-Benghazi-State-Dept

Excerpt: Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R- UT) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he has been “thwarted” by the State Department from seeing any Americans who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. … “This is so patently different than any other experience I’ve had. … My challenge is to the media. You try and figure it out. They won’t let Congress know. (Think they’ll be forced into Witness Protection? Or more bumps in the road…? What free press? Hahahaha. –Barb)

North Korean Missile Defiance Requires Stern Response. By Bruce Klingner  

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/12/north-korean-missile-defiance-requires-stern-response/

Excerpt: North Korea again defied the international community today by launching a Unha-3 rocket, which is the same vehicle as its Taepo Dong-2 ICBM. Despite North Korean claims that the launch was of a civilian satellite, it is a clear violation of UN Security Council Resolutions…..The United States and its allies have not yet issued formal assessments of the latest missile flight. However, the North American Aerospace Defense Command stated, “Initial indications are that the missile deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit.”

Report: 35 union employees at Transportation Dept. made $4.8 million in 2012
http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/12/report-35-union-employees-at-transportation-dept-made-4-8-million-in-2012/#ixzz2EtwfDW2C

Excerpt: A new Americans for Limited Government report has flagged thirty-five union workers at the U.S. Department of Transportation who earned $4.8 million in taxpayer-funded salary in 2012, with an average salary of $138,175. Thirty-two of the thirty-five union workers make at least $100,000 per year from the Department, ALG reported. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has twenty-one members at the Transportation Department, with eight of them making more than $170,000 per year.

The $822,000-per-Year Bureaucrat and the Death of California. By Daniel J. Mitchell

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2012/12/12/the-822000peryear-bureaucrat-and-the-death-of-california-n1464829

Excerpt: Over the years, I’ve shared some outrageous examples of overpaid bureaucrats.( These examples of bureaucrats pulling down really big bucks sure gets my attention. Mainly in envy! I really want one of these jobs, damn it. –Del. You don’t qualify, del—need to be more of a sociopath than you are. ~Bob.)

           

Union Thugs Draw First Blood At ‘Right To Work’ Law Protest
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/12/union-thugs-draw-blood-at-right-to-work-law-protest/
Excerpt: Well, The Democrat wanted blood and he got it. Fox News Contributor Steven Crowder was sucker punched by a Union thug, that has been identified as Tony Camargo, outside an Americans For Prosperity Tent, where a gathering of literally thousands of Union Workers had come to protest the RTW legislation.