Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for January 12, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for January 12, 2013

Robert A. Hall

Blogspot is no longer letting me post pictures on my blog. I click on it, but it doesn’t come up. No idea why. ~Bob.

Reminder: Obama: “I Will NOT Take Your Guns Away.”

http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/flashback-obama-i-will-not-take-your-guns-away

Excerpt: "When you all go home and you're talking to your buddies and you say, ah 'He wants to take my gun away.' You've heard it here, I'm on television so everybody knows it. I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people's lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away." (Of course, he also promised to cut the deficit in half, said raising the debt ceiling was unpatriotic, promised to get us out of Iraq in a year, to win the “good war” in Afghanistan, to close Gitmo, to post bills on the Internet for three days before he signed them, to have all the health care meetings open and transparent and to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250k a year. He’s a Chicago Politician, naturally lies to get elected, low-information voters believe him and the media cover for him. ~Bob.)

NRA accuses White House of mounting 'attack' on Second Amendment
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/276599-nra-accuses-white-house-of-mounting-attack-on-2nd-amendment-

Excerpt: The National Rifle Association said Thursday it was "disappointed" by its meeting Thursday with Vice President Biden, accusing the Obama administration of using the time to "attack the Second Amendment."

Best older posts for new blog readers

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-older-posts-for-new-readers.html

Worth Reading: America's Massive Debt Has Come Back to Bite Us

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=22724&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Excerpt: The current debt ceiling is at about $16.4 trillion. That would require about $52,000 per person in the United States to pay off the debt. But that doesn't assume the $400 billion a year in interest the government has to pay. If the government continues to borrow money and spend it, there will be serious implications for every taxpayer. First, there will likely be a reduction in public services. Currently, 17 cents of every dollar goes to paying interest on the debt. But that figure will rise to 25 cents in the next decade, meaning that cuts will have to be made to pay off the debt and the interest it accrues. (Not to worry. Obama will be able to kick the can for four more years. Then he’ll be retired in Hawaii, enjoying golf and the beaches almost as often as now and making $50M a year on the book and speaking circuit. So this is really only a problem for us “little people.” We will fondly remember his promise to cut the deficit in half during his first term. ~Bob.)

Will Banning Firearms Reduce Murders & Suicides? By Don B. Kates And Gary Mauser, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

I included this yesterday, but the link was bad. Try this one. ~Bob.

Worth Reading: Demography as Destiny: The Vital American Family. By Joel Kotkin

http://www.newgeography.com/content/003374-demography-destiny-the-vital-american-family

Excerpt: Yet family size is far more than just another political wedge issue. It is an existential one – essentially determining whether a society wants to replace itself or fall into oblivion, as my colleagues and I recently demonstrated in a report done in conjunction with Singapore’s Civil Service College. No nation has thrived when its birthrate falls below replacement level and stays there – the very level the United States are at now. Examples from history extend from the late Roman Empire to Venice and the Netherlands in the last millennium. (This is one of the key factors in the coming collapse of the American republic. [Catchy title, no?] In college, my professors gave me Ehrlich’s Population Bomb as received wisdom. It predicted massive shortages, famine and death in the US due to over-population by the 1990s. As a result, I decided not to have kids of my own. I’ve never believed a Progressive since. ~Bob.)

Worth Reading: Switzerland: A Case Study in Consumer-Driven Health Care. By Avik Roy

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/12/26/switzerland-a-case-study-in-consumer-driven-health-care/

Excerpt: Switzerland, the only developed country with a long-standing consumer-driven health care system, provides broad evidence and important lessons about its efficacy. Unlike the U.S. system, in which employers or governments select health insurance, in Switzerland, it is the consumers themselves who purchase their health insurance. The Swiss have considerable experience with some of the consumer-driven insurance policies newly introduced in the United States, such as those with high deductibles. (The Swiss have universal health care, but no large government bureaucracy and no single-payer system. It’s the one European country Obama and the Progressives never mention. ~Bob.)

The GM Reactionaries. By Henry I. Miller and Graham Brookes

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-economic--health--and-environmental-benefits-of-gm-crops-by-henry-i--miller-and-graham-brookes

Excerpt: People everywhere are increasingly vulnerable to the use of what Nobel Prize-winning chemist Irving Langmuir dubbed “pathological science” – the “science of things that aren’t so” – to justify government regulation or other policies. … More than 17 million farmers in roughly three dozen countries worldwide are using GM crop varieties to produce higher yields with fewer inputs and lower environmental impact. … Critics of GM products insist that they are untested, unsafe, unregulated, unnecessary, and unwanted. But the facts show otherwise.

NBC: Say, this 2nd-term transition has really been an “unforced error,” huh? Update: Rangel calls it “embarrassing as hell.” By Ed Morrissey

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/10/nbc-say-this-2nd-term-transition-has-really-been-an-unforced-error-huh/

Excerpt: This goes to a chronic problem for Obama and his team — they’re a lot better at campaigning than at actual governing. They can build successful organizations for winning elections and raising money, but they can’t figure out how to organize staffing decisions so that they don’t run into the Diversity Police after it. Obama can rile up class-warfare passions to push for Buffett Rule tax hikes, but can’t write a budget that can gain a single vote in a chamber his own party controls … two years in a row. (Perhaps what we relish about this is that it illuminates how phony most of the traditional cries for diversity are. In the end, the "bean counters" always back down for Democratic presidents. -- Jim Geraghty in NRO’s Morning Jolt)

Democrats Dread 2014 Drop-Off. Thomas F. Schaller

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/democrats-dread-2014-drop-off/

Excerpt: “There is little to nothing Democrats can do to mitigate the drop-off of turnout among their core constituencies that regularly happens — like a clock — when moving from presidential to midterm elections. Indeed, the primary way to stimulate midterm voters who do vote to support Democrats will not be present in 2014: a poorly performing Republican president that Democrats can rally against (e.g., Bush 2006 or Nixon 1974),” George Mason University’s Michael McDonald, one of the nation’s foremost experts on electoral turnout, explained to me via email. 

White House may consider funding for police in schools after Newtown. By Philip Rucker

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-considers-funding-for-police-in-schools-after-newtown/2013/01/10/e0044e58-5b3f-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Excerpt: The Obama administration is considering funding many more police officers in public schools to secure campuses, a leading Democratic senator said, part of a broad gun violence agenda that is likely to include a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips and universal background checks. (Wait, didn’t the left say the NRA was nuts for suggesting this? But Bill Clinton also proposed it, for political effect, and nothing happened. ~Bob.)

U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan on rise for 2013

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-on-rise-for-2013/2013/01/10/d0a204a0-5b58-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Excerpt: The CIA has opened the year with a flurry of drone strikes in Pakistan, pounding Taliban targets along the country’s tribal belt at a time when the Obama administration is preparing to disclose its plans for pulling most U.S. forces out of neighboring Afghanistan. A strike Thursday in North Waziristan was the seventh in 10 days, marking a major escalation in the pace of attacks. (Personally, I’m okay with Obama turning terrorists—and anyone dumb enough to hang with them—into raspberry jam. ~Bob.)

In lawsuit against Energy Department, two firms claim cronyism in ‘green car’ loan program

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/car-company-says-obama-team-hurt-its-company-steered-stimulus-to-political-favorites/2013/01/10/169d384a-5a86-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Excerpt: An electric car start-up and its sister company sued the Energy Department on Thursday, claiming Secretary Steven Chu and his agency awarded money to politically favored firms and strung along their firms and others in a “fixed” race for federal funds. (Political favoritism? In the Obama Administration? I’m shocked, shocked I say. Round up the usual suspects. ~Bob.)

Chinese Investment in the U.S. Shatters Records

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/01/11/china-investment-in-the-us-2012/?roi=echo3-14210356034-10936072-5da52720fbd3948935839ffda7436c04&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Excerpt: China set a record with its investments around the world in 2012. And in the United States, China shattered its previous investment record. Before people start panicking, it’s important to know: This is not a bad thing.

Mali Government Is Left Reeling After Islamists Take Village Long Held by Army

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/africa/mali-islamist-rebels-france.html?ref=world&_r=1&pagewanted=all&

Excerpt: Islamists advanced into territory held by the Mali government on Thursday, overrunning a long-held defensive position in the center of the country and dealing a significant blow to the Malian Army in its effort to contain the militants who have seized the nation’s north, according to a Malian Army officer. (The “Religion of Peace,” on the march everywhere. Sure, after Shari’a Law is implemented, you won’t be able to go to the movies or dance, but stoning women accused of adultery, including rape victims, and hanging gays will be entertaining. ~Bob.)

France says ready to halt any rebel offensive in Mali

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/11/us-mali-rebels-idUSBRE90912Q20130111

Excerpt: France would intervene to stop any further drive southward by Islamist rebels in Mali, President Francois Hollande said on Friday, as Malian soldiers launched a counter-offensive to wrest back a key town captured by militants this week. (A Demi-Brigade of Legion Paras might do the trick—if Mali wants those evil colonial types back. ~Bob.)

Japan Approves $116 Billion for Urgent Economic Stimulus

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/business/global/japan-approves-116-billion-in-emergency-economic-stimulus.html?ref=world

Excerpt: The Japanese government approved emergency stimulus spending of more than $100 billion on Friday, part of an aggressive push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to kick-start growth in Japan’s long-moribund economy.

Iran Finding Ways to Evade Sanctions, Treasury Department Warns

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/world/middleeast/iran-finding-ways-to-circumvent-sanctions-treasury-department-says.html?ref=world

Excerpt: Despite onerous sanctions that have basically shut Iran out of the global financial system, the country is still finding some ways to bypass them, the Treasury Department said Thursday, describing what it called a small but “emerging threat” to the effectiveness of the sanctions effort.

Somali pirate 'Big Mouth' quits

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20973886

When I saw “Big Mouth” had retired, I felt a surge of hope. Alas, wrong big Mouth. ~Bob.

Lawmakers release documents on Wal-Mart bribery

http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-release-documents-wal-mart-bribery-164603468--finance.html

Excerpt: Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s CEO Mike Duke found out in 2005 that the retailer's Mexico unit was handing out bribes to local officials, according to emails obtained by lawmakers. The lawmakers say the emails contradict earlier claims by Wal-Mart that executives weren't aware of bribes being made by the company. (when I was 18, and a Marine in San Diego, the drink age was 21 there, but “if you’re tall enough to reach the bar” in Tijuana. So I spend a lot of happy, blurry weekends there, until the unfortunate misunderstanding where the Navy shore patrol delivered me to MCRD on a Sunday morning after a night in the tank, and I was “restricted from the Republic of Mexico.” At that time, every Mexican cop would put his hand out if he had you on a minor infraction. Bribes were a way of life there. So I’m not shocked to find that US companies must pay bribes to do business there. I assume Walmart missed out on paying someone, who blew the whistle. ~Bob.)

'Riot' Involves Dozens At Pennsylvania School

http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/riot-involves-dozens-at-pennsylvania-school/

Excerpt: Racial violence around the country is spreading into schools and growing in intensity. And thanks to YouTube, school district superintendents and the media are having a harder time denying it. The latest episode took place this week in Woodland Hills High School in Swissvale, a suburb of Pittsburgh. For two days, 70 black students – and some parents – were punching, kicking, and terrorizing themselves and neighbors. (Hey, Barack. I got a great way for you to show your black power. First incite racial hatred by shedding a crocodile tear talking about the Trayvon Martin shooting, pretending that Trayvon was not a thug looking for a house to burglarize. Then when a mass shooting occurs, shed another tear over the dead and pretend now you have to take our guns. That way, when the riots that YOU incited get out of hand all across America, white Americans will have no way to defend themselves against the thugs trying to burn down their houses. Whattaya think, Barry? Can I get some good stamps now so I can trade them in for hashish? What's that ya say? You already DID that stuff? Well, I'll be! --Don Hank)

Obama Wants Your Guns but Signs Bill Giving Him Armed Protection for Life

http://visiontoamerica.com/13596/obama-wants-your-guns-but-signs-bill-giving-him-armed-protection-for-life/

Excerpt: Despite launching a gun control agenda that threatens to disarm the American people, President Obama has signed a bill that would afford him armed Secret Service protection for life. 9Probably supported by SS Agents hoping to be posted to Hawaii in the future. ~Bob.

NRA Membership Soars

http://visiontoamerica.com/13598/nra-membership-soars/

Excerpt: The National Rifle Association has gained more than 100,000 new members in the past 18 days, the organization told POLITICO’s Playbook on Thursday.

Book review: The Other Great Emancipator. By David S. Reynolds

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443749204578051880023806270.html

Excerpt: The life of John Brown, the militant abolitionist who helped trigger the Civil War by waging a holy war against slavery in the 1850s, raises provocative questions. … One way of addressing such a question is to grasp just how John Brown was perceived in his own time. "The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid," skillfully edited by John Stauffer, a Harvard historian, and Zoe Trodd, a professor at the University of Nottingham, allows us to experience firsthand the debate that Brown generated during his lifetime.

The High Cost of Obama’s America. By Bernard Goldberg

http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/the-high-cost-of-obamas-america/?utm_source=BernardGoldberg.com+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c79c05e1df-NEWSLETTER&utm_medium=email

Excerpt: It didn’t take Carnak the Magnificent to see this one coming. The euphemistically titled Affordable Care Act … isn’t. Affordable, that is. Turns out that hundreds of employees at Wendy’s are having their hours cut because of the new health care law, better known as ObamaCare.

Medical Malpractice Tort Reform Signed into Law in Michigan

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2013/01/11/277089.htm

Excerpt: Tort reform advocates in Michigan, including medical malpractice insurer, The Doctors Company, lauded the recent signing of reform legislation in Michigan. The Michigan State Medical Society, with significant support from The Doctors Company and its trade organization, the Michigan Insurance Coalition, initiated the legislation known as the “Patients First Reform Package.”

The Absurdity of 'Gun Free Zones'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAFAywYZK-M&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1

Video

CNN Contributor Made $400K Advising Pro-Obama PAC In 2012

http://www.newsmax.com/US/begala-earned-400k-superpac/2013/01/10/id/470931

Excerpt: Liberal CNN contributor Paul Begala has spent a lot of time since the 2010 Citizen’s United ruling by the Supreme Court criticizing Super PACs and the amount of money they pump into politics but left one thing out — he benefits greatly from them too.

Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition. By Burt Prelutsky

http://www.burtprelutsky.com/2013/01/praise-lord-and-pass-ammunition.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+burtprelutsky%2FSQlQ+%28BurtPrelutsky.com%29

Excerpt: My title refers to the title of a popular song during World War II. Today, as we know, both pieces of advice are frowned upon in left-wing circles. The irony is that at the very same time that Obama and his favorite Munchkins are doing their level best to disarm Americans, the same crowd is gift-wrapping 20 F-16 fighter jets and sending them to the Muslim Brotherhood, the folks running the show in Egypt. Now a sane person might wonder why liberals trust our sworn enemies more than they do law-abiding American citizens.

50-year blueprint for remaking Detroit revealed

http://news.yahoo.com/50-blueprint-remaking-detroit-revealed-145912542.html

Detroit is Obama's model city. Destroyed by taxes and unions, businesses and industries are fleeing to friendlier 'right to work' states. Can Detroit make a comeback? Nope. Not as long as liberal democrats run the city. – LLW

EBT Abuse: The Cash-for-Drunkards Program. By Michelle Malkin 

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/01/11/ebt-abuse-the-cashfordrunkards-program-n1486679?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Excerpt: From New York to New Mexico and across the dependent plains, welfare recipients are getting sauced on the public dime. Drunk, besotted, bombed. But while politicians pay lip service to cutting government waste, fraud and abuse, they're doing very little in practice to stop the EBT party excesses. Where's the compassion for taxpayers? (A young, fit, 20-something guy ahead of me at Walgreens tried to use his EBT card to buy high-priced energy drinks. When that failed, he paid with a $100 bill. After he left, the tired, 50-something clerk, on her feet all day for low wages, looked at me and said, “our money.” Just that. I would bet you $1,000 he was an Obama voter—if he voted. ~Bob.)

No Oxygen, Please, for This Show. By Brent Bozell 
 http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2013/01/11/no-oxygen-please-for-this-show-n1486744?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Excerpt: Television is getting a little unreal. First, the idea that Al Gore would sell out to Al-Jazeera sounded like an April Fools' joke. Then the Oxygen network -- that supposedly uplifting women's channel founded in 2000 by Oprah Winfrey -- announced it was producing a reality show called "All My Baby's Mamas" starring an Atlanta rapper and former drug dealer named "Shawty Lo," alongside his 11 children and their 10 different mothers. This story didn't originate on a satire site like The Onion. (Anyone who doesn’t think is a huge problem needs to read Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 By Charles Murray

http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/0307453421/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349042135&sr=1-1&keywords=coming+apart)

A Conspiracy So Immense: What will it take for the mainstream media to cover the progressive movement? By Matthew Continetti

http://freebeacon.com/a-conspiracy-so-immense/

Excerpt: It is impossible to say. But is it not unreasonable to assume that our pretend meeting of the vast right-wing conspiracy would attract far more scrutiny than was devoted to the actual, real-life, believe-it-or-not inaugural meetings of the progressive “Democracy Initiative”? After all, no one seemed to know anything about those meetings, held in June and December 2012, until a writer for Mother Jones named Andy Kroll broke the story on Wednesday.

The Truth About Law Enforcement & Gun Violence Prevention. By Daniel Greenfield 

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-truth-about-law-enforcement-gun-violence-prevention/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=081b6f0809-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Excerpt: Meanwhile over in Chicago, the latest corpse was being scraped off the sidewalk. In just nine days, Obama’s hometown was already 15% ahead of last year’s whopping murder rate. In New York, one of the city’s liberal judges gave civil rights activists a late Christmas present with a verdict against the NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” program in the Bronx. The Bronx is one of the smallest of the five boroughs, but it’s number one in murders, rapes and robberies. 

Man jailed in Sweden for ordering webcam rape in Philippines

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/9793567/Man-jailed-in-Sweden-for-ordering-webcam-rape-in-Philippines.html

Excerpt: A man will serve eight years behind bars after a Swedish court found him guilty of ordering the rape of Filipino children over the internet and then watching the assault via web-cam back home in Sweden. (Here’s an older case from the US: “Girl, 8, raped to order on the internet.” I guess I’ll never be a right-thinking Progressive. I’d be happy to shoot all involved, make them beg first, and I think I’d sleep fine that night. ~Bob.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1322551/Girl-8-raped-to-order-on-the-internet.html

Excerpt: A GIRL of eight, attending a sleepover party at a school friend's home, was raped to order by her friend's father for the entertainment of a dozen paedophiles logged on to the internet in four different countries. The abuse of Allison by Ronald Riva took place five years ago in the rural setting of Greenfield, California. )

Obama Admin Defended Agents Putting Gun To Little Girl’s Head
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/01/obama-admin-once-defended-agents-putting-gun-to-little-girls-head/
Excerpt: While acting as if they are holier than the rest of us when it comes to gun control, the Obama administration defended agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s use of force against the 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters of Thomas and Rosalie Avina. The “excessive” force included putting a gun to the youngest girl’s head. Attorney’s for the Obama administration defended the actions of the agents arguing that “the DEA agents’ conduct was plainly reasonable under the circumstances.”

This is the sharia Muslims in the West never want to tell you about

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/01/10/this-is-the-sharia-muslims-in-the-west-never-want-to-tell-you-about/

Excerpt: This is the sharia you are now seeing on billboards all over America, telling people that sharia is totally compatible with our Constitutional laws. This is the sharia for which CAIR is spending millions of dollars in court battles against U.S. legislators trying to have it banned in their states. This is the sharia CAIR never talks about in court, because this is the sharia that comes later.

Video: Secret gun-rights provision in ObamaCare?

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/09/video-secret-gun-rights-provision-in-obamacare/

Excerpt: By golly, Nancy Pelosi was right — they didn’t know what was in ObamaCare until it passed! Of course, in this case all she needed to do was ask her buddy Harry Reid, who apparently sandbagged his party’s gun-control wing by inserting an interesting clause in the 2800-page bill that no one in Congress bothered to read before voting on it. CNN’s Jim Acosta reveals the restriction on firearms-registration data collection built into the 2010 law:

What’s the Difference between Planned Parenthood and Mass Killers?
http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/01/whats-the-difference-between-planned-parenthood-and-mass-killers/
Excerpt: I just wrote my quarterly tax check to the IRS. Then I read that Planned Parenthood’s total assets are more than $1.244 billion, part of which is some of my and your confiscated tax money. Planned Parenthood is subsidized to the tune of $524 million. That subsidy comes from us!

Fox’s ‘Reality Check’ Destroys Piers Morgan’s Arguments Against Guns
http://conservativevideos.com/2013/01/foxs-reality-check-destroys-piers-morgans-arguments-against-guns/

Socialism and High Taxes: Did Russia Learn Its Lesson? By Julio Severo

http://www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com/2013/01/socialism-and-high-taxes-did-russia.html

Excerpt: In Russia, there is a flat tax of only 13 percent, an unimaginably low levy for a nation that formerly was a communist power that used its citizens as mere slaves, without rights and freedom. An American lawyer recently told me that the Russian tax rate is much lower than the American one, which ranges up to 39.5 percent. (Julio only hints at it, but it is a fair assumption that Russia learned its lesson not only on socialism (which they sometimes called communism but it was one and the same for them) but also on what can be called cultural Marxism. No one will probably ever know the extent to which Russian agents provocateurs helped spearhead the gay agenda in the years before the Soviet Union fell, but it would be naive to think they didn't have a hand in it, even if only to 'divide and conquer.' Creating disgruntled interest groups is a great way to do that and Russia had to know that. So it is only natural that Russia today would be more wary of the homosexual agenda than any other world power. So mark Julio's words. Look at the handwriting on the wall: economic decline tracks social decline, which in the West, tracks the state of traditional Christianity, and there is nothing more destructive to traditional Judeo-Christian values than the way the West is distorting the definition of marriage. --Don Hank)

Good quotes from this guy: Eric S. Raymond

http://www.catb.org/esr/fortunes/esr.html

Former abortion lobbyist busted in child-sex sting. Timothy P. Carney

http://washingtonexaminer.com/tim-carney-former-abortion-lobbyist-busted-in-child-sex-sting/article/2518194?utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20-%2001/11/2013&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest

Excerpt: Scott Swirling, former president and top lobbyist of the pro-choice, family planning advocacy group National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, was arrested allegedly seeking to have sex with a 12-year-old girl being pimped out by her father.

Biden’s meetings on gun control

The word on the street is the Obama Administration already had its plan about violence, and is simply holding a few meetings so they can say that they solicited views from others. Duhh! –R. Color me shocked. ~Bob.

Worth Reading: Israel's jihad is mine. By Qanta Ahmed
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3887/israel-jihad-is-mine

Excerpt: As Israel considers building a new fence to contain the Syrian conflict to the north, which fences can keep out Hamas's even more lethal ideologies? While Gaza and the Muslim Arab world continue to claim victory in the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, for the sane observers among us, there is only ever defeat – the defeat of morality in the desecration of a great religion. While most Muslims laud Hamas and scorn Israel, for me, an observing Muslim, Israel's war against Hamas remains my struggle – my jihad.

Quote on the Laws

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow." --James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788 (This is an example of why those who want to dismiss the Founders as "old White men [and slave owners] whose minds could not imagine the situations we live in today" are so stupidly wrong. Understanding human nature and how human institutions can change over time is real wisdom that is largely timeless. Madison's comments below connect perfectly with today's "you have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it" political blarney. So maybe the Constitution, put together very painstakingly by those men, has a lot of timeless principles built into it. And we violate those principals at our serious risk. The talk about the "living Constitution" has to be considered very, very carefully. Only in a very few cases will what's written there be disconnected enough with today's reality that we might consider any form of accommodation to be allowable. And the people that are eager to jump on changing or creatively reinterpreting the Constitution need to be reined in, strongly. They represent more danger than opportunity for our future. --Del