Saturday, November 8, 2014

A lot of interesting political news today

Update

Monday, November 10, is the 239th birthday of the US Marine Corps. Saturday night, Bonnie and I attended the Golf Co., 2/24 ball in Madison, WI. Semper Fi, Marines. ~Bob

General News and Comment


I’m Pro Choice—and Not Just for Women. By Robert A. Hall
Responses from blog readers and a contributor: I'd offer a single caveat that covers all... I think people should be free to choose to do whatever they want within the confines of the law but must be held responsible to pay, in total, for their poor choices. --Andy. Excellent - I don't understand why so many voted for a man who would VETO ALL our rights if given half a chance. --Stephanie.

Must Read: 20 Delusions That Shape How Liberals Vote. By Bryce Buchanan
Excerpt: It is instructive to consider the premises that underlie the liberal view of the world. These are the ideas that determine their votes in elections; ideas that could shape the future of our country. Taken together, it is striking how detached from reality the beliefs are. The list could be much longer, but consider the following 20 beliefs from the imaginary world where liberals live. (Nicely put together. When you realize there are 20 seriously upsetting things about this Administration, not to mention the one the writer left out, below, and at least a couple others, and yet there are still something like 35% minimum citizens who still love Mr. Obama and think the problems of today are not his fault, ..... well, it goes past surprising and slides into depressing. But the election this week demonstrated that enough of "reality therapy" and people do start to respond, at least in most areas. California, Connecticut, and a couple of others seem to have just dived even deeper into the make-believe world of naive idealism and Political Correctness, but maybe some people just need to really have the house all the way aflame before they decide it's maybe time to get out the door. #21 The way to really function properly in the world is to let former partnerships slide (especially Israel), apologize for our history of being imperialists, racists, exploiting capitalists, and having a lot of us related in history to those who were Crusaders, and suck up as much as possible to various nations and groups that really haven't liked us for a very long time, not because of what we've done so much as for being who we are. And negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, back away if the other guys really get mad, and don't commit to any solid military goals in any other part of the world, they'll respect us more if we are deferential and never, ever really throw our weight around. --Del)

Marine Corps Leadership Explains Crushing Defeat of Obama. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: The debate continues about Tuesday's election results. Was it about President Obama? Was it about President Obama's policies? Was it about loss of confidence in Democrats? Was it about confidence in Republicans to right the left listing, sinking ship? Was it something else?

Meet Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican Who Just Became the Youngest Woman Ever Elected to Congress
Excerpt: With her win yesterday, Elise Stefanik becomes the youngest woman to ever be elected to the House of Representatives. With 55% of the vote, this 30-year-old just took the 21st district of New York from blue to red. She is the first Republican to win the district since 1990, Business Insider reports.

Excerpt: 1. Will U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast change from being an incoherent pastiche of endless war and Imperial meddling? ... 2. Will basic civil liberties be returned to the citizenry? 

Important: Clashes, water cannon as 100,000+ march in Brussels against austerity (PHOTOS)
Excerpt: Violent clashes broke out in Belgium as more than 100,000 protesters marched in Brussels against the government’s austerity measures. Police deployed water cannon as dockworkers, metalworkers and students took to the streets. (We will have the same and worse if/when we really try to balance the budget and certainly when the money runs out. Thus the entire west staggers toward fiscal, political and social collapse. See my book: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://tiny.cc/g02s4 Also this article: The West and the Tyranny of Public Debt. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/27/the-west-and-the-tyranny-of-public-debt.html ~Bob)

Republican woman wins Wendy Davis' Senate seat. The 'war on women' wasn't supposed to work this way. By Clinton Gillespie
Excerpt: After 11-hours standing on the floor of the Texas Senate, filibustering legislation that would ban abortion after five months, Wendy Davis enraptured Democrats and the media across the United States. Although her filibuster in pink tennis shoes failed, Wendy Davis announced she would run for governor just a few months after her meteoric rise in the media. ... Not only did Davis lose her bid to become governor, the senate seat she vacated when she began her gubernatorial campaign was gained by a Republican woman, Konni Burton. Burton campaigned on conservative ideas and pro-life credentials.

It's Over: DSCC Pulls Ads For Mary Landrieu in Louisiana Run-Off. By Katie Pavlich
Excerpt: After Republicans easily clinched a Senate majority on Tuesday night, we knew the run in Louisiana wouldn't go well for Democrat Mary Landrieu against her Republican opponent Bill Cassidy and now, it just got a lot worse. POLITICO is reporting the DSCC has pulled funding for television advertising in the state. (That will be a pick up of 8. Since she owns a mansion in DC, and her address is LA is her parents' basement, she'll settle right in as a lobbyist. ~Bob)\

Excerpt: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has just a 26 percent approval rating among individuals currently serving within the national security community, according to findings from a new survey commissioned by Defense One.

It's Over: Ed Gillespie Concedes Virginia Senate Race To Democratic Incumbent Mark Warner. Matt Vespa
Excerpt: Republican challenger Ed Gillespie has conceded to incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner. Gillespie was trailing Warner by 16,727 votes in a race that was surprisingly close given that Warner was leading his Republican challenger by double digits in the vast majority of polls. The fact that Warner squeaked out a win with 0.4 percent of the vote is another indication of the disastrous night Democrats had last Tuesday. (I expected this, but a damn shame to come from that far behind and miss by a nose. I won my first by a much smaller %, 42 years ago Friday, November 7. ~Bob)

Politics in the Age of Big Data: Poll-assisted pandering has not made us any better off. By Jonah Goldberg
Excerpt: In a sense, this is the last piece of the puzzle to click into place for the president’s Nixonian transformation. Spy on reporters? Check. Bomb a country (or two) without authorization from Congress? Check. Issue dubious claims of executive privilege to conceal embarrassments or prevent scandals? Check. Withdraw from — and lose — an unpopular war he didn’t start? Check. Corrupt IRS? Check. Imperial presidency? Check.

Important: Ukraine crisis: Tanks 'cross border' from Russia
Excerpt: A column of 32 tanks and 30 trucks has crossed into eastern Ukraine from Russia, the Ukrainian government says. The trucks were carrying ammunition and fighters, said a military spokesman, but the BBC cannot confirm his report. (So it turns out Putin thinks he has more flexibility after the election, too: -- Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt)

Excerpt: On Tuesday, Wendy Davis lost badly in Texas. All that is known at this time is A) It wasn’t Davis’ fault, and B) She’ll never go hungry again thanks to all the free meals she’ll be getting at Planned Parenthood “Lifetime Achievement Awards” dinners around the country to honor her for advocating fewer lifetimes to have achievements.

Senate Democrats plan a legislative rush before power shifts to the GOP
Excerpt: Before ceding full control of Congress to the GOP in January, Senate Democrats are planning to rush a host of critical measures to President Obama’s desk, including bills to revive dozens of expired tax breaks and avoid a government shutdown for another year. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is also aiming to chip away at a backlog of presidential nominations to the federal bench and the State Department over the next month, although Democratic aides say they will be unable to process all of the hundreds of pending appointments before turning the chamber over to Republicans.

How bad was Tuesday for Democrats? Just look at their campaign chairmen. By Aaron Blake 
Excerpt: Tuesday's election was really bad for Democrats. How bad was it, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. Consider this: The three men charged with winning elections for Democrats at the House, Senate and gubernatorial level weren't even able to win them at home.

Comedian Goes Undercover To Find Out If ‘Cat-Calling’ Is Really Offensive To Women
Excerpt: What happens when I go to the local mall and “cat-call” or compliment real women? Well, unlike neo-feminists, their reactions were very different.

View from the far left: “So wrong about so much”: Paul Krugman blasts newly empowered GOP
Krugman started his career as an economist, but in recent years has become just a mouth piece for Progressive talking points. Whatever Obama says or believes, Krugman is sure to endorse in the Democrat Party House Organ, the New York Times. ~Bob

Time to rethink Hillary Clinton 2016. By George F. Will
Excerpt: Now that two of the last three Democratic presidencies have been emphatically judged to have been failures, the world’s oldest political party — the primary architect of this nation’s administrative state — has some thinking to do. The accumulating evidence that the Democratic Party is an exhausted volcano includes its fixation with stale ideas, such as the supreme importance of a 23rd increase in the minimum wage. Can this party be so blinkered by the modest success of the third recent presidency, Bill Clinton’s, that it will sleepwalk into the next election behind Hillary Clinton? In 2016, she will have won just two elections in her 69 years, the last one 10 years previously. 

Excerpt: Maine and Nebraska do not allocate their electoral votes in the presidential election by “winner take all.” These states allocate two electoral votes to the popular vote winner, and then one each to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska) in their state. Starting in January, Republicans will hold state legislative majorities and the governor’s mansions in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, Iowa, and Nevada. If some or all of those states passed laws allocating their electoral votes by districts, all of these purple-to-blue states would allocate their electoral votes in a way that would make it extremely likely for Republicans to win at least half of them. And without half the electoral votes in those states, it would nearly impossible for the Democratic nominee to win. (I've long thought that this should be done nationwide by constitutional amendment. I know--fat chance. But it would mean no party could write off a state. Dems would campaign in Texas, GOP in Calif. ~Bob)

Interesting: Election beating yet to turn Senate Democrats against Harry Reid
Excerpt: “I’d like to congratulate Sen. McConnell, who will be the new Senate majority leader,” Mr. Reid said. “The message from voters is clear: They want us to work together class="itxtrst itxtrstimg itxthookicon" v:shapes="itxthook3icon">. I look forward to working with Sen. McConnell to get things done for the middle class.” (So Senator Reid, why do you think that voters didn't want you and the GOP to work together before yesterday? The American people would like nothing more than Congress putting their petty differences aside and working toward solving problems that help Americans. Unfortunately, I don't hold much hope for that happening. --MasterGuns. Democrats always discover Bipartisanship when they are in the minority. Reid blocked votes on hundreds of House-passed bills, many of which were bipartisan, to protect Obama and Democrats. ~Bob)

MO: Rep. Linda Black switches to Republican Party
Excerpt: District 117 State Representative Linda Black of Desloge dropped a bombshell at the state capitol Wednesday when she announced at a news conference that she is switching to the Republican Party after an election in which the GOP built upon its already large majorities.

Gun News

Quote
"Men with guns are not as easily exploited as men without them." --Edmund S. Morgan, American Freedom, American Slavery: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, p. 240. Published in 1975, this well-written history of the Virginia colony and the foundations of American slavery is straightforward and free of today's PC requirement that every publication by an academic in the liberal arts areas advance progressive principles, however obvious the facts. ~Bob

Utah Dad Wakes to the Horrifying Sight of a Man Carrying His 5-Year-Old Daughter Out of the House — He Had Mere Seconds to Act
Excerpt: The girl’s father went to the door and saw the man carrying his daughter in the front lawn. He ran outside and confronted the man, asking him what he was doing and demanding that he give back his little girl. The suspect handed her over to her father without confrontation, Carriger said. (Bet dad buys a gun. what if the scum had been armed? ~Bob)

Armed Thugs Invade Family’s Home, Force Them to Strip Naked — Suddenly, There Was a Sound Everyone Was Elated to Hear… Except the Bad Guys. By Jason Howerton
Excerpt: In a vicious Oklahoma City home invasion on Thursday morning, three armed men reportedly forced before making them strip naked and stand against a wall at gunpoint. The thugs also pistol-whipped three of the family members and hit them in the head with a liquor bottle, police said. (Bet this dad buys a gun too. They were lucky. ~Bob)

Ebola and Enterovirus News

New Haven launches fundraiser to help sister city in Sierra Leone fight Ebola
Excerpt: Mayor Toni Harp launched a community-wide charitable initiative Thursday aimed at aiding one of New Haven’s sister cities during one of its darkest hours. Freetown, Sierra Leone, became New Haven’s sixth sister city in 1997 and within the last 21 days the number of newly-confirmed Ebola virus cases stands at more than 1,160, according to the World Health Organization. The agency reported Wednesday that the country has reported 435 new cases during the past week alone, with 115 of those hitting Freetown. (Really? Isn’t it kind of against their civil rights to quarantine them? It’s the definition of insanity to fund a plan that cannot possibly work, because cultural needs will trump scientific reality. --George.)

NYC Ebola 'Active Monitoring': From 117 Cases to 357 in 1 Week
Excerpt: In a stunning press release, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), and the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC) announced that the number of individuals in New York City who are being “actively monitored” for the Ebola infection has jumped to 357 people from 117 people the prior week. That represents almost a 300% increase. This also does not represent people who have entered New York City from West Africa and lied on their entry forms, regarding the risk that they carry the virus. (Making America like Africa; payback? But does Ebola care what color your skin is? --Barb)

Race Card News

Quote
Right is of no sex. Truth is of no color. God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren. -- Frederick Douglass.

NAACP Releases Statement On 2014 Elections, But No Mention Of Mia Love Or Tim Scott's Historic Wins. Matt Vespa
See, Sen. Scott and Congresswoman-Elect Love are too uppity to vote as told. Got to thinking for themselves and became Republicans. ~Bob)

Democrats Discover Race Baiting. By John C. Goodman
Excerpt: Actually the Democrats have been race baiting for decades. And it’s not going away. Using fear and race-polarizing agitation to drive minority voters to the polls is going to be the increasingly overt face of the Democratic Party. They can’t win any other way. What’s new is that the mainstream media has suddenly discovered all of this. Through the years, these same news outlets have wasted no time at all in spotting anything that even hints of Republican race baiting. Take the presidential campaign of 1988.

‘Peaceful’ #Ferguson Protesters Beat College Student & Chase Him Down Street Screaming
Excerpt: The Ferguson protest movement held a meeting tonight at St. Mark Family Church on Glen Owen Drive. The protesters took time out from their meeting to beat a college student. Then they chased him down the street screaming.(He was as student who had been protesting WITH them, but he's white. I think they just made him a KKK recruit. ~Bob)

Michael Brown’s mother may face felony armed robbery charges: report
Excerpt: The mother of Michael Brown could be charged with felony armed robbery for allegedly attacking people in a Ferguson, Mo., parking lot because they were selling T-shirts honoring the late teenager. The Ferguson Police Department is currently investigating claims that Lesley McSpadden brought a group of people — including her own mother — to beat vendors and rob them of their “Justice for Mike Brown” merchandise Oct. 18, The Smoking Gun has learned. (Like son, like mother? Bet they don't dare press charges. ~Bob)

Common Core Co-Author Admits He Wrote Curriculum to End “White Privilege.” By Dean Garrison
Excerpt: According to Dr. Pook, he helped write it to balance the scales because he, and many others, are benefiting from some mythical 'white privilege' that was not earned. No, it's not about uniform and effective educational standards that benefit our children.

Worth Reading: Condi Rice criticizes 'appalling' campaign ads with racial focus
Excerpt: “The idea that you would play such a card and try fear mongering among minorities just because you disagree with Republicans, that they’re somehow all racist … I find it appalling, I find it insulting,” said Rice during a Fox News interview. “As a Republican black woman from the South, I would say really? Is that really the argument you’re going to make in 2014?”
The former secretary of State grew up in segregated Alabama, when riots and police abuse of blacks were common in her hometown of Birmingham. One of the four girls killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was a playmate of hers. (Well, Rice holds a Ph.D. in political science, like Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Walter Williams, so at 26 she was already "Acting White" by getting an education. Or at least according to inner city Black culture, beloved of all right-thinking progressives. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice. ~Bob)

The NAACP Gave an ‘F’ to the First Southern Black Senator Elected Since Reconstruction. His Response is Lights Out.
Excerpt: “Well, let’s just ask ourselves if we look back over history when the Congress was controlled by the Democrats for 40 consecutive years. If we look at the result of that control what has happened in black America? We saw greater poverty. If we take the statistics from 1970s to the 21st century, what we see very clearly is that poverty’s gone from 11 percent to 15 percent. These are classic examples that the policies of the left have not worked. I will tell you that if I have an F on the NAACP’s scorecard, it’s because I believe that progress has to be made, and the government is not the answer for progress.”

AG Nominee: Lorretta Lynch from Wikipedia
Excerpt: During her term as U.S. Attorney, Lynch oversaw prosecution of the New York City police officers in the Abner Louima case.... Following the July 2014 death of Eric Garner, an unarmed man who died of a heart attack after being held in a department-prohibited chokehold by a New York City police officer, Lynch agreed to meet with Garner's family to discuss possible federal prosecution of the officer believed to be responsible in his death. Lynch's office indicted Republican congressman Michael Grimm; was involved in the investigation of Citigroup over mortgage securities, sold by the bank, which resulted in the bank agreeing to a US$7 billion settlement; and was also involved in the US$1.2 billion settlement with HSBC over violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. (And per Wikipedia, her grandfather helped blacks flee to the North to "avoid oppression" in the South from Jim Crow laws. No examples of helping white folks noted...... Figure a female Holder. We have had POTUS Green agenda. Gay agenda. Now BLP agenda. --Barb)

NYC Ebola 'Active Monitoring': From 117 Cases to 357 in 1 Week
Excerpt: In a stunning press release, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), and the NYC Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC) announced that the number of individuals in New York City who are being “actively monitored” for the Ebola infection has jumped to 357 people from 117 people the prior week. That represents almost a 300% increase. This also does not represent people who have entered New York City from West Africa and lied on their entry forms, regarding the risk that they carry the virus. (Making America like Africa; payback? But does Ebola care what color your skin is? --Barb)

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News

SCOTUS To Hear New Obamacare Challenge. By Matt Vespa 
Excerpt: Today, the Court decided it would hear the new Obamacare challenge against health care subsidies that was originally argued in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last summer in Halbig v. Burwell.

Obamacare in peril. By Greg Sargent 
Excerpt: The GOP electoral rout this Tuesday does not pose a serious threat to Obamacare. The real remaining threat to the law comes from the courts. Today we learned this threat is very much alive, when the Supreme Court announced to the administrative rule making the law’s subsidies available to people in all 50 states. (Couldn't happen to a nicer big government boondoggle. What will Roberts do? ~Bob)

Undocumented Democrat News


"You're Greener than Gore" News

DOD knows climate change factors into fight. By Anthony Zinni, Ronald Keys and Frank Bowman 
Excerpt: More than a year before the United States formally entered World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur warned that “The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: Too late. Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy. Too late in realizing the mortal danger. Too late in preparedness. Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance.” (OK, here we have an article by assorted generals that parrots 110% the Administration policy and propaganda on "Climate Change". Note in the second paragraph the reference to "another global heat record", which utterly ignores the 18 years satellite records of global temperature that show no significant change. As soon as you see this kind of total junk science nonsense, you know the people doing the writing have either chugged down a gallon of the alarmist Kool-Aid or they have figured out the thing to do to stay in good with the present power structure is started yelling about the beauty of the Emperor's new clothes. Note where some report says that the displacement of people from Syria recently was due in part to Climate Change. Right, mostly it was all that rain, the kind that contains fast moving chunks of metal. It is certainly a tribute to the adaptability of writers to find ways to bring Climate Change into all kinds of events in the world. But having a high IQ and a lot of intellectual energy will allow people to do all kinds on neat things; some of them can prove to you that the sun rises in the West, and by the time they get through with the presentation, you will wonder how in hell you've been so wrong all these years. But BS is BS, no matter how well rationalized it is by smart people. What is really tragic in my mind is to see this major publication of our military pushing what is simply PC propaganda. --Del)

Religion of Peace News

Obama approves sending up to 1,500 more US troops to Iraq
But they will be wearing ballet slippers, not boots. ~Bob

Response to Ignoring Anti-Semitism in the Name of Palestinian Solidarity at UC Davis. By Richard L. Cravatts, PhD.
Ever since the invention of socialism, per Greenfield (below), the Left has been open about its contempt for Jews. Unlike Christianity whose anti-Semitism arose from its need to show its supersessionism, but which did not reject the responsibility and obligation of individuals, the Left sees Jews and Jewish sources as the archetypical rejectors of groups rights and collectivism. Let's remember National Socialism made it ideologically and legally correct to demonize, strip the rights and property of, strip the liberty of and lives of Jews. Stalin was on the road to a similar goal when he mercifully died. It was the USSR that called Israel a racist country. Being the "chosen people" requires each individual acting virtuously and confers no special benefits. The phenomenon of Leftist Jews stems from self loathing (Jewish self-loathing) and a desire to join the universal without having to give up bagels and lox. Jewish leftists are the most reprehensible in the academic community. When the future trains to Auschwitz are loaded, they will be packed in with the rest of us. The Palestinians have made a cult of victimization (that is belied by the fact that in almost every possible way, they have benefited from Israeli 'occupation' more than they did under the Turks, Brits, Jordanians or Palestinian Authority--much less Hamas) that the Dems feed off, just as they do off supposed systemic anti-black racism in the U.S. Cordially. Larry Greenberg

Too Late: U.S. weighs sanctions on Libyan factions to halt proxy war. By Mark Hosenball and Arshad Mohammed
Excerpt: The United States is considering imposing sanctions on Libya's combative factions to prevent a proxy conflict fueled by regional powers from erupting into full-blown civil war and to force militant leaders to negotiate, U.S. officials said. Three years after Muammar Gaddafi's downfall, outside intervention has exacerbated the fighting, with Qatar and, to some degree, Turkey supporting Islamist-linked forces and Egypt and the United Arab Emirates backing more secular rivals. (This is a civil war Mr. Lead-From-Behind created with his unauthorized war in Libya, and sanctions won't stop it. We have sown the wind, and we will reap...~Bob)

More Than 600 Reported Chemical Exposure in Iraq, Pentagon Acknowledges
Excerpt: More than 600 American service members since 2003 have reported to military medical staff members that they believe they were exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq, but the Pentagon failed to recognize the scope of the reported cases or offer adequate tracking and treatment to those who may have been injured, defense officials say.
The Pentagon’s disclosure abruptly changed the scale and potential costs of the United States’ encounters with abandoned chemical weapons during the occupation of Iraq, episodes the military had for more than a decade kept from view. (Ask any Liberal-there were NO WMDS IN IRAQ. ~Bob)

White House Won't Comment on Obama Letter to Khamenei
Excerpt: The White House would not comment on Thursday on reports that President Barack Obama had written a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei about the campaign against the Islamic State, and would only reiterate that Washington’s policy toward Iran has not changed. The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama sent a letter to the Iranian leader last month describing their shared interested regarding Islamic State (ISIS). According to Reuters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he could not comment on private correspondence between Obama and a world leader.

John Kerry's "The Real Islam:" Muslims in Atlanta Encourage Children to Mutilate Themselves w/Knives. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: The hideous bloody scene you’re seeing isn’t taking place in Pakistan or Afghanistan. It’s happening in Atlanta. And, as Creeping Sharia points out, this is being carried out by “Muslims from an ACLU / DOJ state-sanctioned mosque” (The mosque removed the video. ~Bob)

Ex-SEAL Robert O’Neill reveals himself as shooter who killed Osama bin Laden
Excerpt: The Navy SEAL who fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden is a highly decorated veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who agonized for months over whether to publicly reveal his role in one of the most storied commando operations in U.S. history. Robert O’Neill, 38, a Montana native, was near the head of the column of U.S. commandos who burst into bin Laden’s Pakistan hideout on May 2, 2011. ... O’Neill was preparing to make his story public next week with interviews on Fox News and in The Washington Post, but his identity was disclosed preemptively by the Web site SOFREP, operated by former SEAL members, in a protest over O’Neill’s decision to reveal his role in the mission.

A Two-and-a-Half-Country Union. By Burak Bekdil
http://www.meforum.org/4879/turkey-qatar-hamas-union Excerpt: This is from my column nearly two years ago: "The bitter truth is that Turkey is too oriental for the European Union, too non-Arab for the Arab League, too non-African for the African Union, too irrelevant for ASEAN and the Union of South American Nations and too western for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ('The Shanghai Seven?' Feb. 8, 2013)." Before Prime Minister (then Foreign Minister) Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu failed to foresee that spring could also blossom on the Arab Street, he was busy masterminding what looked like a "Middle East Steel and Coal Union" – with, of course, Turkey as its leader. It was the moment to feel imperial again!

Excerpt: US Central Command [CENTCOM] attempted to distinguish between the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria, and the so-called Khorasan Group in yesterday's press release that detailed airstrikes in Syria. CENTCOM, which directs the US and coalition air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, denied that the five airstrikes targeted "the Nusrah Front as a whole" due to its infighting with the Syrian Revolutionaries' Front, but instead claimed the attacks were directed at the Khorasan Group.

The dumbest move yet on Iran? By Jennifer Rubin 
Excerpt: The news media broke (or were given) the story that President Obama penned a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader:

John Kerry's "The Real Islam:" Islamic State crisis: The 13-year-old on 'righteous path.' By Mark Lowen
Excerpt: In a cramped living room in southern Turkey, a 13-year-old boy is training to join Islamic State. ... He had Sharia lessons and learned how to use weapons, proudly showing us pictures in which he takes aim with machine guns. ... "I like Islamic State because they pursue Sharia and kill infidels, non-Sunnis and those who converted from Islam," he says. "The people killed by Islamic State are American agents. We must behead them as Allah said in the Koran."

Libyan cadet in Bassingbourn claims 'poor treatment'
Excerpt: Two of the cadets have admitted sexual assaults against women in Cambridge, with another charged but yet to enter a plea, and a further two have appeared in court charged with rape. ... Asked why the cadets were being flown home two weeks before the end of their course, he said: "I feel, like all the rest of us, there is no problem. "It was the British from the beginning. They should have sought a solution and finished the training well. "They didn't tell us about British law and what's the difference between right and wrong here."

Islam--The Real War on Women: Saudi women with attractive eyes may be forced to cover even them up, if resolution is passed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063143/Saudi-women-attractive-eyes-forced-cover-resolution-passed.html
Excerpt: Women with attractive eyes may be forced to cover them up under Saudi Arabia's latest repressive measure, it was reported yesterday. The ultra-conservative Islamic state has said it has the right to stop women revealing 'tempting' eyes in public.

Pakistani Woman Stoned to Death by Family
Excerpt: A 25-year-old Pakistani woman was stoned to death today by her father and family for registering to marry a man of whom they did not approve. Three months pregnant, Farzana Parveen was on her way to the courthouse to contest an abduction charge her family filed against her husband, Mohammad Iqbal. A group of nearly 20 family members, her father and brothers included, accosted the couple in front of the courthouse and tried to pull them apart. When Farzana resisted, they fatally beat her with batons and bricks from a nearby construction site. (This first story is pretty amazing/depressing. But then just do the headline on the follow-up to really finish blowing your mind. Then the story gets even weirder, as it turns out the prospective husband and guy who got her pregnant, admits to strangling his first wife! This is one really messed-up culture, and so behind in any kind of consideration for women that there are no words for it. --Del)

Pakistan stoning: Farzana Parveen’s husband says he killed first wife

*****

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://tiny.cc/g02s4 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here: http://tinyurl.com/o4nu65u. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.

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