Saturday, December 8, 2012

Old Jarhead’s Political SitRep for December 9, 2012


Old Jarhead’s Political SitRep for December 9, 2012
Robert A. Hall

Sen. Jim DeMint to Head Heritage Foundation
Excerpt: South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina's junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million. Sen. DeMint's departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. 

Worth Reading: Learning from the European Experience: Do Higher Tax Burdens Lead to Less Red Ink? By Daniel J. Mitchell 
Excerpt: In other words, did politicians use the additional revenue to pay down the debt, did they spend it, or did they spend all the added revenue and then borrowed even more? Well, knock me over with a feather. The next chart shows that debt is much higher today, averaging about 60 percent of GDP.

Excerpt: George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.

Quote
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. –Oscar Wilde

Excerpt: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday proposed long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as “black boxes” — in all new cars and light trucks beginning Sept. 1, 2014. But the agency is behind the curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a continuous information loop, into most new cars for years. (Quietly promoted as “safe driving” by Progressive Insurance (the folks taking God out of the USA) and you are damned if you work a night shift. –Barb)

Excerpt: POLICE are trying to find a home invader who was badly hurt when he tried to force his way past an 83-year-old black belt home owner last night.

Hey, Fat Cat Unions: Pay Your "Fair Share." By Michele Malkin
Excerpt: Message for wealth-bashing millionaire actor Ed Asner: Man up and take responsibility for lying to America's schoolchildren.

Michigan House votes to reject federal detention plan

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/michigan-house-votes-to-reject-federal-detention-plan/#Ivo6ESipIs1QfmVz.03
Too little, too late, I think. – LLW

Michigan lawmakers fast-track right-to-work legislation during chaotic day at the Capitol
Excerpt: Michigan, considered the birthplace of the American organized labor movement, was on a fast track to becoming the nation’s 24th right-to-work state late today after the state House and Senate passed bills as part of a package to pass the law.

Worth Reading: Obama Curve: Media Celebrate Meager Job Growth, 540K Dropping Out of Workforce. By John Nolte
Excerpt: Today saw the release of the November jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The news is that Hurricane Sandy did not affect hiring. 146,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7%, the lowest rate since September of 2008. Revisions brought worse news. 49,000 fewer jobs were created in September and October than originally reported.

Brain pacemaker helps treat Alzheimer’s disease. By Grant Brunner
Excerpt: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is the use of a pacemaker-like device implanted in the brain to treat the symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, or other maladies such as depression.

Former officials: CIA politicized intelligence on Benghazi. By Bill Gertz
Excerpt: The CIA removed references to al Qaeda in the talking points it drafted for United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in what critics say is part of a broad pattern of politicization of intelligence under the Obama administration. Current and former intelligence and policy officials say that the politicization in the case of Benghazi appears to have involved policies that were designed to minimize the threat posed by Islamist terrorists in general and the al Qaeda terrorist group in particular prior to the Nov. 6 presidential election. (News that everyone—everyone—knows. ~Bob. There has been no question for a long time now that the initial official reports about Benghazi were false in terms of who was attacking and why, and so far the defense put forth by the Administration is that they were using what they had been told by the CIA and others. Which is in itself false, since they had drones overhead during the attack and knew that it wasn't a spontaneous mob in action. However, the CIA reports were such that the truth of what was going on was obscured rather than clarified. Later of course there were admissions that those reports might have been less than perfect, but as you can see in the article below, CIA officials are still on defensive mode saying there was no intent to deceive anyone with the edited reports. In these times and particularly under this Administration political correctness has become the order of the day. This has always been a bad thing, but when it gets to the point where you can no longer give much credence to official reports from an intelligence agency, then we are in deep trouble. Proper leadership from the top on down is what is needed to burn away the fog of PC thinking and PC concerns, and get people back to really doing their jobs and reporting facts, minus an special editing. But can we hope for that while Mr. Obama & Co are in charge? --Del)

Self-Defense Pistol 101. By Girls Just Wanna Have Guns
Excerpt: The “keep it simple, stupid,” or KISS, principle applies to most things in life. Training with a defensive handgun is no different. To employ a handgun effectively in a defensive situation, you must be able to get it into play smoothly and deliver accurate hits before the attacker injures or kills you.

Income tax will exceed 50% in California, Hawaii, and New York City 
Excerpt: The top METRs on wages, dividends, interest, and partnership/sole proprietor income would exceed 50 percent in California, Hawaii, and New York City.” … Any civilization that taxes its people more than 50% has always fallen. Always.

A beer prescription? Beer can fight against cold-causing virus
Excerpt: There may be a new, alternative treatment for people suffering from winter colds – large amounts of beer. A study cited by Sapporo Breweries, Japanese breweries headquartered in Tokyo, found that a key ingredient in beer can help fend off symptoms of wintertime illnesses, as well as certain serious sicknesses in children, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. 

Excerpt: After arriving in New Jersey, the worker and others waited for three full days and parts of another, even as reports dominated the television of the devastation and suffering wrought by the storm, which struck land on Oct. 29. When they asked for assignments, they couldn't believe the response, according to the worker. (This was prior to election. Did not want “bad publicity.” See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. –Barb)

Duchess of Cambridge hoax call nurse found dead: Nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who was working on reception when Australian DJs made prank call, dies in suspected suicide
Excerpt: A member of staff at the private hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was treated for acute morning sickness has died in a suspected suicide two days after the hospital was duped by a hoax call from an Australian radio station, it has emerged. The woman, confirmed by the hospital to be Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse who was working on the reception of King Edward VII hospital when the prank call was made, was found unconscious at an address near the London hospital just before 9.30am on Friday. (MSM has more blood on its hands related to the houses of Spencer and Windsor. Nurse had two boys. Really funny joke. –Barb.)

Golden Spike Company: A Man Sells the Moon (PJ Media Exclusive)
Excerpt: Dr. S. Alan Stern has made an announcement fit for a Robert Heinlein novel. Described as a “game-changing announcement about the future of commercial human space travel to the Moon,” his Golden Spike Company today went public with its plans. (This interesting interview is short and informative. There really ARE people out there trying very hard to get us back into space and on the Moon. I don’t know if these are the ones who will succeed, but eventually someone will. I’m just hoping he/they speak English as their primary language, rather than Chinese, Russian, or Portuguese. Ron P.)

Dictators and Double Standards. By Michael Leeden
Excerpt: Democratic political leaders envy them, because the tyrants can just DO things; they don’t have to negotiate, wheel and deal, split the differences, or look for middle ground. They don’t have to run for reelection. They wave their scepter, and that’s that. Until the scepter doesn’t work any more…

54% Put Economic Growth Ahead of Economic Fairness
Excerpt: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters think economic growth is more important than economic fairness. Thirty-seven percent (37%) disagree and put economic fairness first.

Beneath the Presidential Platitudes: Obama's rhetorical blandness conceals an ideological boldness. By Peggy Noonan
Excerpt: Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson has put fresh emphasis on a major and underlying aspect of our fiscal disputes: It's the yoots versus the coots. The young may not be aware of it, but they'll long bear the tax burden of the entitlement arrangements the old have instituted.

73% of New Jobs Created in Last 5 Months Are in Government. By Terence P. Jeffrey
Excerpt: Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Worth Reading: Obama’s Kingdom of Fairness: Forget the deficit. It is now the role of government to soak the undeserving rich. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: We are still borrowing more than $1 trillion a year. Barack Obama has added more than $5 trillion to the national debt in his first term alone. Such massive borrowing is unsustainable. Someone somehow at some time has to pay it back.

Out Come the WMDs in Syria
Excerpt: Comment: Yesterday, 4 December, a senior US Defense official stated there was no evidence that the chemicals used to create sarin gas had been mixed. A day later, the chemicals are reportedly mixed. No intelligence service has the ability to make such a determination except from testimony from human sources -- from direct observation by the source or detected from radio intercepts.

Renewable Fuel Standard Costs Chain Restaurants $0.5 billion to $3.2 billion annually – Price Waterhouse Cooper. By Marlo Lewis
Excerpt: A new study conducted by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) for the National Council of Chain Restaurants (NCCR) estimates the impact of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) on the chain restaurant industry.

10 explanations Of How Conservatism Helps The Middle Class. By John Hawkins 
Excerpt: Conservatism is an ideology that benefits everyone, but it's particularly helpful to middle class Americans. If we want to bring more of those voters to the Right, we have to do a better job of explaining to them exactly how we're going to make their lives better. Happily, if you're talking to someone with an open mind, it's an easy case to make.

Islamology 101. By Cliff May 
Excerpt: Google “Islamist” and you’ll get more than 24 million hits. Google “jihadist” and you’ll get millions more. Yet I bet the average American could not tell you what it is that Islamists and jihadists believe. And those at the highest levels of the U.S. government refuse to do so.

Tunisia: Muslim cleric calls Jews prophet slayers and apes, prays for Allah to annihilate them
Excerpt: There is nothing really surprising in this. It's all from the Qur'an: "Those who disbelieve in the signs of God and slay the Prophets without right, and slay such men as bid to justice -- do thou give them the good tidings of a painful chastisement..." -- Qur'an 3:19

Obama’s America? America Deserves Better Than This
Excerpt: My father will be the first to tell you that he squeaked through high school. Upon graduation, he went to work in his dad’s business, changing tires, and kept right on doing that until he left to drive trucks. All his life, he’s been a blue collar man. Even now that he has an office job, you can tell some days that he would really rather just be out, driving a truck.

New York Times: Arms Shipments ‘Secretly’ Approved By Obama Admin. Ended Up In Hands Of Islamic Militants
Excerpt: The Obama administration “secretly” approved arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, however, U.S. officials quickly became concerned as evidence suggested Qatar was handing the weapons over to Islamic militants, The New York Times reports, citing a number of United States officials and foreign diplomats.

Do You Believe in Magic? By Bernard Goldberg
Excerpt: “Why don’t we let the Democrats pass whatever they want? If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise them, let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes, let the president sign it and then make them own the tax increase. And when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes.” It’s a great idea, except for one little thing. He’s wrong. (Personally, I like the idea. The media will see the GOP takes the hit no matter what they do otherwise. ~Bob.)

Worthy Reading: The Blue-State Suicide Pact. By Joel Kotkin
Excerpt: With their enthusiastic backing of President Obama and the Democratic Party on Election Day, the bluest parts of America may have embraced a program utterly at odds with their economic self-interest. The almost uniform support of blue states’ congressional representatives for the administration’s campaign for tax “fairness” represents a kind of bizarre economic suicide pact. Any move to raise taxes on the rich — defined as households making over $250,000 annually — strikes directly at the economies of these states, which depend heavily on the earnings of high-income professionals, entrepreneurs and technical workers.

Special-ops vets demand Benghazi answers: 'The truth has got to come out as to why we let these people die'
Excerpt: With almost three months elapsed since the September terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, a group of special operations veterans is tired of the delay in answers from the Obama administration and is demanding action. (Still waiting for an impartial head investigator to be appointed to really get into the timeline at Benghazi and who knew what when, and who it was who was telling every possible source of aid to "stand down". The families of the murdered men deserve answers to those questions, and the public has a right to know who it was in power who refused to use their power to aid our people in mortal peril. --Del)

Excerpt: It seems that every day now brings another business owner in the news talking about cutting workers’ hours or making other cost-cutting moves in anticipation of Obamacare’s impact in 2013. Here are just a few of the business owners’ comments on the health care law:

Egypt army erects barriers at Cairo presidential palace
Excerpt: The Egyptian army has set up barricades outside the presidential palace, after ordering protesters to leave the area. It follows violent overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi that left five people dead and 644 injured.

The Streetcar Fantasy
Excerpt: There are many myths surrounding the benefits a city can expect from streetcar lines. In reality, streetcars are an outdated mode of transportation that is unlikely to bring in any economic development, says Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute. Streetcars only travel about 8 miles per hour. Furthermore, they have fewer seats than buses, which leaves many riders standing. As far as safety concerns, streetcars weigh over 60,000 pounds and gaps in the street create dangerous conditions for cyclists. Additionally, streetcars are limited in transportation destinations, which require massive investment to expand streetcar lines. However, it costs around $30 million per mile of rail line.

FHA, the next housing bailout: Update and evaluation. By | American Enterprise Institute
Excerpt: It was no surprise to this observer when the recently released 2012 fiscal year actuarial review of the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA’s) main single family mortgage insurance fund concluded that it was insolvent. The so-called economic value of the fund, which measures the difference between expected insurance program revenues and expected costs associated with defaults on the underlying mortgages, was reported to be a negative $13.48 billion. 

An alternate perspective on health inequality. By Sita Nataraj Slavov, Benjamin Ho 
Excerpt: While much attention has focused on health disparities between socio-economic groups, most health inequality actually occurs within socio-economic groups. We examine trends in overall health inequality – measured by realized length-of-life inequality – through the lens of social justice, similar to traditional analysis of income inequality. We find that throughout most of the length-of-life distribution, inequality has declined dramatically over the past century. 

The Underworked Public Employee
Excerpt: Overstaffing is a serious problem in government, and the best evidence is a simple empirical fact: Government employees don't work as much as private employees. If public-sector employees just worked as many hours as their private counterparts, governments at all levels could save more than $100 billion in annual labor costs, say Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Jason Richwine, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Why Conservatives Hate War. Conflict erodes a nation’s cultural continuity as well as its finances. By William S. Lind
Excerpt: One of the odder aspects of present-day politics is the assumption that if you are antiwar you are on the left, and if you are conservative you are “pro-war.” Like labelling conservative states red and liberal states blue, this is an inversion of historical practice.

Telling the truth is racist and Islamophobic. ~Bob.

Video: Doomsday for Iran? US Tests EMP Bomb: Boeing has successfully tested an EMP missile that could be doomsday for Iran; media have largely ignored the development. By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Excerpt: The test was codenamed CHAMP -- Counter-Electronics High Power Advanced Missile Project and was the first time a real EMP missile has been tested with positive real world results. One of the most startling developments in the research and test is that the missile system does not use any explosives, thereby limiting damage to its intended goal of directing microwave energy that can cause instant blackouts. Keith Coleman, who serves as Boeing’s CHAMP program manager in their Phantom Works division, stated that video camera showed “images of numerous desktop computers running, and then suddenly all of them go out quickly followed by the camera going to black,” VR-Zone reported. 

Flanking Maneuvers. By Steven Hayward 
Excerpt: I’ve been meaning to bring up the following New York Times graphic since it was published last month, as it shows that Republicans are at their highest level of control of state governments in 60 years. Not bad for a party supposedly in deep trouble and on death’s door. 

Excerpt: Democrats thought they could hammer "the rich" by convincing voters to pass Proposition 30 to create the highest state income tax in the nation. But it now appears that high income earners have already "voted with their feet" by moving themselves and their businesses out of state, resulting in over $1 billion shortfall in corporate and income taxes last month and the beginning of a new financial crisis.

Excerpt: A Kuwaiti who was a prominent member of al Qaeda's religious committee is thought to have been killed in a recent US drone strike in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Classic literature to be dropped from high schools in favor of ‘informational texts.’ By Eric Owens
Excerpt: If you really want to hear about it, new educational standards now approved in 46 out of 50 states mandate that nonfiction books constitute at least 70 per cent of the texts high-school students read….However, there’s also “Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy and Transportation Management,” a publication of the General Services Administration. A host of big shots in politics and education have thrown their support behind the new educational standards, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. (The elimination of conscience and input of propaganda/brain washing. So much for teaching how to think, teaching man against nature, man against society, man against himself…. Who cares? Do whatever. No consequences, they think. A culture of sociopaths, a la Hitler youth. –Barb)

Hillary Clinton Wants More Taxpayer Money For Propaganda?
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/12/hillary-clinton-wants-more-taxpayer-money-for-propaganda/
Excerpt: Secretary Hillary Clinton told the House Committee on Foreign affairs last week that it needs more money in order to spread its message through alternative media. Does this mean that Clinton is advocating for more money for propaganda? Ben Swann answers.( Is she advocating a state controlled media? --Jer)

Half of those on Liverpool Care Pathway never told: Almost half of dying patients placed on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway are never told that life-saving treatment has been withdrawn, a national audit has found.
Excerpt: The study suggests that in total, around 57,000 patients a year are dying in NHS hospitals without being told that efforts to keep them alive have been stopped. It also reveals that thousands of dying patients have been left to suffer in pain, with no attempt to keep them comfortable while drugs were administered. (Progressive healthcare. ~Bob. If you are going to kill me---please have the common courtesy to inform me! –Tom C.)


 



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