Political Digest for May 8, 2011

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on.

Resources

For those who want further information about the topics covered in this blog, I recommend the following sites. I will add to this as I find additional good sources.

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/03/resources-for-opinion-leaders-who.html

Feds Issue Train Alert Based on bin Laden Lair Info

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/BinLaden-RailThreat/2011/05/05/id/395353#ixzz1LcSfYWUL

Excerpt: Federal officials sent law enforcement officials a warning that al-Qaida may be targeting trains in the United States, based on information gleaned from documents at Osama bin Laden's compound after the world's top terrorist was killed. The Homeland Security advisory tells law enforcement officials to be vigilant about train security. The missive is general and precautionary in nature because the information dates back more than a year, and no recent intelligence indicates that such a plot is active, officials said. Federal officials say they have not found reference to specific plots, NBC News reported.

The Waterboarding Trail to bin Laden

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859304576305023876506348.html

Excerpt: Osama bin Laden was killed by Americans, based on intelligence developed by Americans. That should bring great satisfaction to our citizens and elicit praise for our intelligence community. Seized along with bin Laden's corpse was a trove of documents and electronic devices that should yield intelligence that could help us capture or kill other terrorists and further degrade the capabilities of those who remain at large. But policies put in place by the very administration that presided over this splendid success promise fewer such successes in the future. Those policies make it unlikely that we'll be able to get information from those whose identities are disclosed by the material seized from bin Laden. The administration also hounds our intelligence gatherers in ways that can only demoralize them. Consider how the intelligence that led to bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information—including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden.

Shifting US story invites disbelief

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/shifting-us-story-invites-disbelief/story-fn8ljzlv-1226050798703

Like the "DIY Osama Photo." But this event didn't convince me that OBL and al Qaeda had the support of senior members of the ISI. I was convinced of that long ago. ~Bob. Excerpt: This week, The Australian spoke to several senior officials and former officials of different nationalities who have served in Pakistan. All regard it as inconceivable that bin Laden could have been there, unknown to the Pakistanis. As one senior former Indian official said: "It is impossible to live for one day in any cantonment area of a Pakistani military city without the knowledge of the military itself, much less for years at a time." In the analytical community, everyone now privately accepts that bin Laden must have had the support of senior figures in Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence and among other Pakistani intelligence agencies.

The War Continues: Bin Laden’s death is an inflection point, not the end of the war.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266579/war-continues-charles-krauthammer

Excerpt: On the contrary. The bin Laden operation is the perfect vindication of the War on Terror. It was made possible precisely by the vast, war-like infrastructure that the Bush administration created after 9/11, a fierce regime of capture and interrogation, of dropped bombs and commando strikes. That regime, of course, followed the more conventional war that brought down the Taliban, scattered and decimated al-Qaeda, and made bin Laden a fugitive. Without all of this, the bin Laden operation could never have happened. Whence came the intelligence that led to Abbottabad? Many places, including from secret prisons in Romania and Poland; from terrorists seized and kidnapped, then subjected to interrogations, sometimes “harsh” or “enhanced”; from Gitmo detainees; from a huge bureaucratic apparatus of surveillance and eavesdropping. In other words, from a Global War on Terror infrastructure that critics, including Barack Obama himself, deplored as a tragic detour from American rectitude.

The First-Person Presidency

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266580/first-person-presidency-victor-davis-hanson

Excerpt: Most of these first-person pronouns could have been replaced by either the first-person plural (our, we) or proper nouns (the United States, America). But they reflect a now well-known Obama trait of personalizing the presidency. The problem of first-personalizing national security is twofold. One, it is not consistent. Good news is reported by Obama in terms of “I”; bad news is delivered as “reset,” “the previous administration,” “in the past”: All good things abroad are due to Obama himself; all bad things are still the blowback from George W. Bush. Two, there is the small matter of hypocrisy. The protocols for taking out Osama bin Laden were all established by President Bush and all opposed by Senator and then candidate Obama.

ExxonMobil’s U.S. taxes and U.S. earnings – Some relevant numbers for Washington

http://www.exxonmobilperspectives.com/2011/05/02/exxonmobil-u-s-taxes-and-u-s-earnings/

Excerpt: During the first quarter of this year, our U.S. operating earnings were $2.6 billion. The rest of our earnings – more than $8 billion – came from operations in more than 100 countries worldwide. Here’s a number you won’t hear in Washington: During the first quarter, on those U.S. earnings of $2.6 billion, we incurred tax expenses in the United States of $3.1 billion. That’s right – our U.S. tax bill was higher than our U.S. earnings. That includes income taxes, sales-based taxes and others such as property taxes. But it doesn’t include royalties or lease payments we pay to the government to produce oil and gas on government-controlled lands, which would make the government’s take from our operations even bigger. Another number you won’t hear in Washington, which also puts our earnings into context, is our earnings relative to our sales. During the quarter, we made about 9 cents for every dollar of sales, which is about average for U.S. industries. We earned $10.7 billion in worldwide earnings on worldwide sales of $114 billion. That’s about half (or less) of what companies in pharmaceuticals or computers make, just to name a few. But strangely, there’s not much talk about reducing their tax deductions. (I'd guess most of their stock is held by Mutual Funds, which are large parts of IRAs, 401Ks and Pension Funds. We are all "Big Oil." ~Bob.)

Herman Cain for president?

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/opinion-zone/2011/05/herman-cain-president

Excerpt: Okay, so he’s got no former political experience. He’s held no prior political office. That could actually be a big boon at this point. Whatever the reason, Godfather Pizza chief executive officer Herman Cain stole the show at Thursday’s Fox News debate of Republican primary contenders in South Carolina.

Hundreds of militant Muslims stage mock funeral for bin Laden outside U.S. Embassy in London...as relatives of 7/7 terror attack weep at inquest just three miles away...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384353/Osama-bin-Laden-mock-funeral-Fury-erupts-outside-US-Embassy-London.html

Excerpt: A protest by hundreds of Osama Bin Laden supporters sparked fury outside the US Embassy in London today as they staged a mock 'funeral service' for the terror leader. Police stepped in to separate the protesters and members of the English Defence League amid threats of violence from both sides. Radicals carrying placards proclaiming 'Islam will dominate the world' branded US leaders 'murderers' and warned vengeance attacks were 'guaranteed'.

Chinese National Arrested for Leading Fake Military Unit in LA

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/13/chinese-national-yupeng-david-deng-arrested-for-leading-fake-m/

Excerpt: A Chinese national will be in court today after he was arrested for running a phony special forces military unit and recruiting "soldiers" who paid money believing that they would be rewarded with citizenship. Yupeng "David" Deng, 51, gave himself the title "supreme commander" over the fictitious U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve, which donned actual U.S. Army uniforms to participate in drills, march in a parade and visit the USS Midway museum in San Diego, authorities said. "It's very sad that the people he recruited thought they would become citizens by doing this. They thought they were in the legitimate army," FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told AOL News after the arrest Tuesday. "They were largely blue-collar-type workers he recruited, who would then tell others by word-of-mouth."

The End of a United Kingdom?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/end-united-kingdom_559313.html

Excerpt: The news has flown a bit under the radar here in the United States, for understandable reasons; but the results earlier this week of the Scottish parliament elections are historic. Whether this is good or bad history, of course, remains to be seen. For the first time, and much against the odds and recent opinion polls, Alex Salmond's Scottish Nationalist Party has won an absolute majority in the Edinburgh parliament--something that the Hollyrood system was designed to prevent, and which now puts the future of the United Kingdom itself in jeopardy.

VIDEO: Scottish Election Results: Scottish National Party Secures Surprise Majority

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/scottish-politics/8498136/Scottish-election-results-SNP-secures-surprise-majority.html

Excerpt: The SNP has secured enough seats to form a historic majority in the Scottish Parliament for the next five years. Alex Salmond's party has achieved 65 seats which means there will be a referendum on independence during the next term.

It's the Economy, Stupid

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-05/bin-laden-kill-independents-still-not-sold-on-obama/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC9

Excerpt: President Obama received no immediate approval bump from the bin Laden kill, according to the new Newsweek/Daily Beast poll, though the subsequent days may have produced a smallish increase. The Gallup poll released on Thursday shows a six-point increase in Obama's job approval, and the Real Clear Politics average shows a four-point bounce in Obama's job approval rating. And a detailed examination of the Newsweek/Daily Beast numbers show that while Americans accord recognition for what Obama accomplished with the raid, and believe he has been a strong leader, this opportunity to provide leadership is not a validation of his presidency in and of itself. This is specifically true among the group most important to him: Independents, 66 percent say the economy is headed in the wrong direction, and two-thirds say that the country is on the wrong track. Over half (52 percent) say Obama is a strong leader overall, but only 32 percent of Independents say that President Obama deserves re-election, while half say it is time to replace him with someone else. (…) If the president can translate the goodwill he has garnered into leadership on the budget, the deficit, and the debt, he can turn a bounce much smaller than most expected into a lasting political benefit. Short of that, while the expression of enthusiasm for Obama's Osama achievement is real, tangible, and part of his legacy, it just may not help re-elect him in 2012.

C. S. Choules, Veteran of World War I, Dies at 110

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/europe/06choules.html?_r=4&partner=rss&emc=rss

Excerpt: Mr. Choules (rhymes with jewels) was born March 3, 1901, in the small British town of Pershore, Worcestershire, one of seven children. World War I was raging when Mr. Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917 he joined the battleship H.M.S. Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war. (…) During World War II, he was the acting torpedo officer in Fremantle, Western Australia, and chief demolition officer for the western side of the Australian continent. Mr. Choules disposed of the first mine to wash ashore in Australia during the war. (The last known combat veteran of WWI, and quite a character. Ron P.)

Why the Balanced Budget Amendment Must Be Stopped

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/why_the_balanced_budget_amendm.html

Excerpt: Currently, Washington Republicans are mulling over two versions of a Balanced Budget Amendment. One, sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn, would limit government spending to 20% of GDP and require a balanced budget (i.e., without a deficit) five years after the amendment is ratified. The version introduced by Sen. Mike Lee would be similar, but it would limit government spending to 18% of GDP, the lowest in decades. Both versions, however, are fundamentally flawed and therefore utterly unacceptable. Let me explain. Firstly, and most worryingly, both proposed amendments would effectively undo all the limitations on the federal government currently listed in the Constitution. Goodbye to the principle of enumerated prerogatives, the nondelegation doctrine, and the 9th and 10th Amendments. Both versions would effectively mean that the federal government will be allowed to meddle with, legislate on, and spend money on anything, as long as its total annual spending doesn't exceed 18% or 20% of GDP (whose estimates it could falsify to justify higher spending). This would allow the Congress to legislate on whatever it wants to regulate and spend vast sums of money on programs that should be reserved to the states. And guaranteeing this beast -- the federal government -- even 18% of GDP is obscene. It is not a limited government policy.

Last Will of Osama bin Laden

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/last-will-of-osama-bin-laden.htm

Excerpt: Allah attests that the love for Jihad and death in the cause of Allah has taken over my life and the Sword Verses have penetrated every cell of my heart, “and kill all the polytheists [infidels] as they fight all of you”. And how many times I wake from my sleep and find myself reciting this holy verse. If every Muslim would ask himself why did our Ummah reach to where she is [in a state of] humiliation and defeat, his instinctual response would be, because she has clung to the pleasures of life and tossed the book of Allah [Koran] behind its back and it is the only source that has the cure and success in the here and now and the hereafter. The Jews and Christians have tempted us with the pleasures of life and its cheap delights and they invaded us with their monitory values before invading us with their armies. And we were, like women, did not react, because the love for death in the cause of Allah has departed the hearts.

San Diego, California: Terrorist Group Setting Up Near Border: Hezbollah Considered to be More Advanced Than Al-Qaida

http://www.10news.com/news/27780427/detail.html

 Excerpt: Tunnels the cartels have built that cross from Mexico into the U.S. have grown increasingly sophisticated. It is a learned skill, the agent said points to Hezbollah's involvement. "Where are the knowledgeable tunnel builders? Certainly in the Middle East," he said. Why have Americans not heard more about Hezbollah's activities happening so close to the border?

McRecovery Continues to Erode American Middle Class

http://www.infowars.com/mcrecovery-continues-to-erode-american-middle-class/

Excerpt: It’s turns out to be a McRecovery. The Labor Department announced today the private sector has created jobs at the fastest pace since 2006. “Nonfarm payrolls rose 244,000 last month, the most in 11 months, the Labor Department said on Friday. The private sector accounted for all of the job gains last month, with payrolls rising 268,000, the largest rise since February 2006,” reports CNBC. According to the data, McDonald’s was responsible for the modest gain. “McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the United States after receiving more than 1 million applications,” the Star Tribune reports.

The SEAL Sensibility

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576307021339210488.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Excerpt: At Camp Pendleton in California, where I did my initial weapons training, we must have fired thousands of rounds at practice-range targets printed with the likeness of Osama bin Laden. To take the real shot, the one that brought down bin Laden, was the dream of every Navy SEAL. The man who got that chance in Pakistan last weekend was a member of the SEAL community's most elite unit. He and the others who descended on bin Laden's lair would have put in relentless practice for weeks beforehand—assaulting mock compounds, discussing contingencies and planning every detail of the operation. Most of the men on that mission had dedicated the past decade of their lives to this fight, and they—and their families—had made great personal sacrifices. Turning on my cellphone last Sunday, I got a text message with the incredible news: "OBL is dead. Hoo Yah!" Within minutes, a tidal wave of messages followed from fellow Navy SEALs and other military and nonmilitary friends. My own thoughts went back to James Suh and Matt Axelson ("Axe"), two members of my own SEAL training class. When Axe was pinned down by the Taliban in a firefight in Afghanistan in June 2005, Suh boarded a helicopter to fly in for a rescue mission. The helicopter was shot down that day and both men died. I thought to myself: Axe, Suh, they got him.

VIDEO: University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh Officials Release Details of Investigation of Professor

http://www.wfrv.com/news/local/UW-O-officials-release-details-of-investigation-of-professor-121436094.html

Excerpt: An apology [has been issued] from the UW-Oshkosh professor caught on tape urging his students to sign a recall petition. Professor Stephen Richards says he regrets using class time to inform students about recalling a state senator. Recording: "I have two students here who are from the committee to recall Republican state senator Hopper. By signing this sheet, all it's saying is, that you'd like, you're signing it to have him recalled." The recording was made two months ago but just surfaced this week. (Professors used to think their job was to teach students HOW to think. Now it's WHAT to think. ~Bob. )

SEIU drops mask, goes full commie

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2011/05/06/seiu-drops-mask-goes-full-commie/

Excerpt: A May Day rally in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by the SEIU and various communist groups, as well as other unions, reflected yet another step in the normalization of self-identified communist and socialist ideologies in the Obama era. Not only did the SEIU help to organize the rally in conjunction with communists, they marched side-by-side with communists, while union members carried communist flags, communists carried union signs, and altogether there was no real way to tell the two apart. Southern California citizen journalist and photographer “Ringo” was on hand to record the day’s events, and posted a full-length photo essay on his site Ringo’s Pictures. To bring this important photo essay to a wider audience, I present here a small selection of Ringo’s May Day pictures; visit his site to see dozens more photos from the rally.

Republicans Scramble to Avoid another New York special election loss

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/06/republicans-scramble-to-avoid-another-new-york-special-election-loss/#ixzz1LgsaIIXk

Excerpt: Republicans in New York may again face defeat in a safe district filled by a special election. The 26th District, formerly represented by “Craigslist Congressman” Christopher Lee, will be electing a new congressman later this month. Three candidates have substantial support in polling. Republican Jane Corwin, Democrat Kathleen Hochul and Jack Davis, who is running as a Tea Party candidate. In a late April Sienna poll, Corwin led with 36 percent of the vote to Hochul’s 31 percent. Davis, however, was supported by a significant 23 percent of respondents.

Department of Education orders universities to lower burden of proof in sex crime cases

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/06/dept-of-education-orders-universities-to-lower-burden-of-proof-in-sex-crime-cases/#ixzz1Lg8YIoj4

Excerpt: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is going to bat against the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) over what they see as infringements on college students’ due process and free speech rights. In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent to colleges and universities in April, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali announced new federal regulations publicly funded schools must employ to address allegations of sexual harassment and sexual violence. The new standards most notably lower the burden of proof to prosecute.

Hispanic Voters on the Fence

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/07/hispanic-voters-on-the-fence/#ixzz1Lg7PIgyE

Excerpt: Candidate Barack Obama ’s 2012 campaign team is set to announce a Hispanic outreach campaign next week, just as President Barack Obama travels to the Mexican border to give a speech on immigration. Hispanics are a key element in his reelection campaign, partly because his support among working-class whites and swing-voters have crashed after two years of lousy economic conditions. But Hispanics’ turnout is low, and their lopsided support for him has tumbled from 68 percent to 54 percent over the last few years.

Charlie Chan and the Mystery of the Mansion Hideout

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/charlie_chan_and_the_mystery_o.html

Excerpt: As the story of the death of Osama bin Laden grows more curious by the day, it's time we call in that legendary Honolulu police detective of yesteryear, Charlie Chan, to visit the scene. With his Number One Son, Jimmy, Chan arrives at the former hideout of the deceased mass murderer, where a small crowd of on-lookers still lingers. This conversation ensues:

In Celebrating OBL’s Demise, the Kids Are All Right

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/in-celebrating-obls-demise-the-kids-are-all-right/?singlepage=true

Excerpt: On September 11, 2001, grade school and high school children around the country saw giant jets crash into two 100-story skyscrapers. They saw those towers, with thousands of people still inside, collapse one after the other into horrible and previously unimaginable heaps. They saw the carnage at the Pentagon, and they heard about how Flight 93′s heroes died preventing an additional attack targeting either the White House or our Capitol. Children shouldn’t have to see these things, but it was of course unavoidable. Many of them, especially in and around New York and Washington, either lost relatives or dear friends that day, or know someone who did. Unlike the Kennedy assassination which shook the baby boomers, the September 11 generation saw it all unfold in real time. Unlike the kids who saw the Challenger explosion live in 1986, everyone who witnessed 9/11 in school soon learned that the building takedowns were acts of war perpetrated by an unprecedented type of enemy. This enemy had and still has no respect for life, not even their own. This enemy was and still is bent on destroying Western civilization and taking the world back to a seventh century existence which would enslave everyone who won’t subscribe to their oppressive Islamofascist belief system. This enemy recognizes no norms of conflict, will kill anyone and everyone they can in the process, and will broadcast and brag about their murderous “accomplishments” in the hope of instilling fear and anxiety in everyone else. (I admit I didn’t run out in the street to celebrate. I drank a beer sitting on my couch watching the news with a very soul-satisfied feeling in my mind. I would’ve cheerfully gone on that raid, but I’m so old, fat, and slow, I’d have been more trouble than I was worth. But, I would’ve gone even if I knew I wouldn’t return. Unlike in other countries we can think of, nobody organized these celebrations of “justice done.” While there may be satisfaction in the execution of a murderer, there is no dignity in celebrating the murderer’s death—but there is both dignity and justification in celebrating the exacting of valid retribution. Ron P.)

Is Obama A Gunrunner?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=571468&p=1

Excerpt: Under a program run by the Justice Department, weapons were knowingly sold to criminals suspected of links to Mexican drug cartels, with two guns ending up at the murder scene of a border patrol agent. Considering how this administration has made a cause celebre out of gun control, the revelation of a program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), in which weapons were transferred on purpose to Mexican drug cartels and criminals and then lost track of, is at best embarrassing and at worst an unconscionable dereliction of duty. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder, among others, have blamed the rising violence in Mexico by the drug cartels on the transfer of weapons from the U.S. by unscrupulous gun dealers and their "straw buyers" — purchasers who may have legitimate credentials and purchase guns for those who can't legally obtain them.

Tinhorn Treatment

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/571446/201105061854/Tinhorn-Treatment.htm?

Free Press: Is the U.S. really still the leader of the Free World? A string of attacks on the press by the White House press office is starting to add up to more than hostility to individual outlets. It's raising freedom-of-speech issues. All of which is ironic, given the fawning coverage President Obama has received. Alas, it's likely that a corrupted press — from the JournoList collaboration of media and political operatives to ABC's rollover of its schedule for Obama are at the root of the growing hostility toward a free, independent and balanced Fourth Estate. With an amen corner, the president's men launched unprecedented attacks, starting with media dissidents such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Now the White House press office is growing bolder.

Obama's 'Gangster Politics'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576305414137806694.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Excerpt: President Obama has officially kicked off his 2012 re-election campaign, and don't Republicans know it. The president is expected any day now to sign an executive order that routs 70 years of efforts to get politics out of official federal business. Under the order, all companies (and their officers) would be required to list their political donations as a condition to bidding for government contracts. Companies can bid and lose out for the sin of donating to Republicans. Or they can protect their livelihoods by halting donations to the GOP altogether—which is the White House's real aim. Think of it as "not-pay to play."

Drones Target Yemeni Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576307594129219756.html

 Excerpt: The U.S. launched a drone strike in Yemen on Thursday aimed at killing Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric suspected of orchestrating terrorist attacks in the U.S, but he evaded the missile, Yemeni and U.S. officials said. The attack came days after a U.S. Navy SEALs team killed Osama bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan. Had Thursday's strike succeeded, the U.S. would have killed two of the most-wanted terrorists in a week. (Good thing we have Obama in office. Imagine what the media would say if Bush ordered the killing of an American citizen without trial. ~Bob.)

Muslims hold mock funeral for bin Laden in London, threatening revenge and waving signs proclaiming "Islam will dominate the world"

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/05/muslims-hold-mock-funeral-for-bin-laden-in-london-threatening-revenge-and-waving-signs-proclaiming-i.html

Excerpt: The pictures really speak for themselves. This spectacle was organized by Anjem Chaudary, and it's worth repeating that he lives on £25,000 in benefits. Don't curse the kuffar with your mouth full, "Andy."

New Osama urges UK terror blitz

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3563875/New-Osama-urges-UK-terror-blitz-in-email-to-undercover-Sun-investigator.html

Excerpt: Yemen-based Anwar al-Awlaki - tipped as Osama Bin Laden's successor - urged a Mumbai-style massacre after being duped by a Sun sting. Security services were last night studying our dossier on his drive to recruit fanatics in the UK over the internet.

Truth vs. Ideology

http://townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/2011/05/07/truth_vs_ideology

Excerpt: Frustrating! That's the appropriate word for what is happening in the wake of the Osama bin Laden raid. Besides the precision of the Navy SEALs, the big story to emerge from the action is that coerced interrogation gave the CIA vital information used to track bin Laden to his lair. Current CIA Chief Leon Panetta has confirmed that. Of course, that exposition is embarrassing to the left, including President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton, who are all on record as saying coerced interrogation does not work. Apparently, they were wrong in a big way. The nails-on-the-blackboard part of this story is that some liberal pundits are trying to deny the undeniable. The spin they are using is that a "mosaic" of intelligence led the CIA to bin Laden. It was not just waterboarding or whatever. To paraphrase Panetta: We'll never know if we could have gotten the same intel without the water. That's true, but who cares?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Will Muslim Brotherhood Succeed Where Osama bin Laden Failed?

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2011/0506/Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali-Will-Muslim-Brotherhood-succeed-where-Osama-bin-Laden-failed

Excerpt: Unlike Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved and learned the hard way that the use of violence will be met with superior violence by state actors. The clever thing to do, it now turns out, was to be patient and invest in a bottom-up movement rather than a commando structure that risked being wiped out by stronger forces. Besides, the gradualist approach is far more likely to win the prize of state power. All that Khomeini did before he came to power in Iran was to preach the merits of a society based on Islamic law. He did not engage in terrorism. Yet he and his followers took over Iran – a feat far greater than bin Laden ever achieved. In Iran the violence came later. The point is that fighting violent extremists is only part of the battle; perhaps the easier part. The bigger challenge may be to deal with those Islamists who are willing to play a longer game.

Mark Steyn: Why Pakistan Knew It Could Hide Osama

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/-299428--.html

Excerpt: In the fall of 2001, discussing the collapse of the Taliban, Thomas Friedman, the in-house thinker at The New York Times, offered this bit of cartoon analysis: "For all the talk about the vaunted Afghan fighters, this was a war between the Jetsons and the Flintstones – and the Jetsons won and the Flintstones know it." But they didn't, did they? The Flintstones retreated to their caves, bided their time, and a decade later the Jetsons are desperate to negotiate their way out. When it comes to instructive analogies, I prefer Khartoum to cartoons. If it took America a decade to avenge the dead of 9/11, it took Britain 13 years to avenge their defeat in Sudan in 1884. But, after Kitchener slaughtered the jihadists of the day at the Battle of Omdurman in 1897, he made a point of digging up their leader the Mahdi, chopping off his head and keeping it as a souvenir. The Sudanese got the message.

Michael Moore Says Bin Laden ‘Executed,’ Not Killed: ‘He Won’

http://conservativebyte.com/2011/05/michael-moore-says-bin-laden-%e2%80%98executed%e2%80%99-not-killed-%e2%80%98he-won%e2%80%99/

Excerpt: Michael Moore is back at it. This time, his target is the Obama administration.

Political Digest for May 7, 2011

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on.

Resources

For those who want further information about the topics covered in this blog, I recommend the following sites. I will add to this as I find additional good sources.

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/03/resources-for-opinion-leaders-who.html

My new book: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic

Is in production and will soon be available. All royalties will go to a charity to help wounded veterans, not to me. Watch this space.

First the tears, now the anger: Pakistanis burn U.S. flags as backlash over Bin Laden's death grows
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383011/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-Pakistanis-burn-US-flags-backlash-grows.html

I’m as outraged and offended by Muslims burning the US Flag as Muslims are over some American burning the Qur’an. So if I go nuts and slaughter the nearest Muslim, who is entirely innocent but handy, it will not be my fault, right, but the fault of those flag-burning Muslims for provoking me and not being sensitive to my feelings, the Americaophobic bastards! And if the innocent-murdering bin Laden who Obama assured us (rightly) had slaughtered many more Muslims than kuffer doesn’t represent Islam, why are so many Muslims weeping for him? He must have represented them. ~Bob. Excerpt: These were the angry scenes across Pakistan today as Muslims staged protests against the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Hundreds of people marched through Multan, burning U.S. flags and waving placards as they warned the terrorist's death could produce many more radical figures to take his place. It comes after crowds of weeping mourners were pictured offering funeral prayers for the Al Qaeda mastermind widely blamed for thousands of deaths at 9/11.

When Will the SEALs Kill George W. Bush?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/lib-radio-talker-when-will-the-seals-kill-george-w-bush/

Sarah Palin inciting violence again? Nah, just some liberal radio guy. Perfectly acceptable. Nothing to see here. ~Bob. Excerpt: If any American with a patriotic pulse listened to the Mike Malloy radio show, they would have been shocked on Monday night when Malloy outrageously suggested that Navy SEALs should have shot former president George W. Bush, and not Osama bin Laden.

Thanks George?

Since Bush’s terror policies on waterboarding and invading Afghanistan led to the elimination and disposal of Osama bin Laden, and since captured materials suggest he was planning terror attacks for the September 11 in NYC, LA, DC and/or Chicago, there are Bush haters whose loved one may live out the year thanks to George Bush. But they won’t know it and would rather die than acknowledge it.

A Most Justified Jubilation: Why there should not be any moral qualms about celebrating bin Laden’s demise

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266493/most-justified-jubilation-daniel-krauthammer

Excerpt: Similar sentiments have been heard from other religious and community leaders, on editorial pages and in the blogosphere and across social-networking sites. Even for those who do choose to celebrate, there may be twinges of uncertainty and ambivalence at the prospect of rejoicing in someone’s death. There is a reason, after all, that such celebration is not a common occurrence. Not in American culture, at least. Of course there is a culture in which the celebration of death is not only common, but paramount: the culture of suicidal mass murder that is the very core of Osama bin Laden’s ideology.

If Supermarkets Were Like Public Schools

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704436004576299571015982098.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Excerpt: Teachers unions and their political allies argue that market forces can't supply quality education. According to them, only our existing system—politicized and monopolistic—will do the trick. Yet Americans would find that approach ludicrous if applied to other vital goods or services. Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—"for free"—from its neighborhood public supermarket. No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes. (I hold a special place in my heart for well executed satire: George)

Burlingame After Meeting With Obama: He Turned His Back On Me

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/05/burlingame_after_meeting_with_obama_he_turned_his_back_on_me.html

Excerpt: Debra Burlingame, the sister of Chip Burlingame (pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon) met with President Obama today, along with other families who were victims of 9/11. Burlingame said she confronted Obama about Attorney General Eric Holder prosecuting the men who interrogated KSM, which may have produced intelligence leading us to bin Laden. Burlingame describes the encounter with Obama: "As a former attorney I know you can't tell the Attorney General what to do, he said, 'No, I can't.' But I said 'we -- that shouldn't stop you from giving your opinion. We wouldn't be here today if they hadn't done their jobs. Can't you at least give them your opinion.' And he said 'no I won't,' and he turned around and walked away."

Treasury Suggests $2 Trillion Debt Cap Raise: sources

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-usa-budget-limit-idUSTRE7434UG20110504

Excerpt: (Reuters) - The Treasury has told lawmakers a roughly $2 trillion rise in the legal limit on federal debt would be needed to ensure the government can keep borrowing through the 2012 presidential election, sources with knowledge of the discussions said. Obama administration officials have repeatedly said that it is up to Congress to decide by how much the $14.3 trillion debt limit should be raised. But when lawmakers asked how much of an increase would be needed to meet the government's obligations into early 2013, Treasury officials floated the $2 trillion working figure, Senate and administration sources told Reuters.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Norwegians

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/05/ethnic-cleansing-of-norwegians.html

Excerpt: “Cultural enrichment” is still being promoted by governments, schools, and the media as a rainbow enhancement of our societies, as if it involved nothing more than quaint costumes and spicy food eaten from a stick. If we were to eschew euphemism, however, and decide to speak the truth about what is happening, we would describe the current devastation of our cultures as an invasion, for that is in fact what it is. When we hear the term “ethnic cleansing”, we normally think of the actions of the Serbs, and maybe occasionally the Croats, in the various states of the former Yugoslavia. And — if we’re especially vigilant and willing to peer through the MSM smokescreen — we might also consider the actions of the Bosniaks and the Kosovo Albanians. But ethnic cleansing is in fact occurring in major cities all across the Western world, as huge numbers of inassimilable immigrants — invaders — are imported. The new arrivals inexorably drive out the native inhabitants with their relentless antagonism and predatory criminal behavior. The difference between Pristina and Krajina on the one hand, and Rotterdam, London, and Oslo on the other, is that the treasonous political leadership of the latter is forcing ethnic cleansing upon its own people. (This is what is happening in LA. - Kate)

Charles Krauthammer: Evil Does Not Die of Natural Causes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/evil-does-not-die-of-natural-causes/2011/05/05/AFhTKG2F_story.html

Excerpt: The bin Laden operation is the perfect vindication of the war on terror. It was made possible precisely by the vast, warlike infrastructure that the Bush administration created post-9/11, a fierce regime of capture and interrogation, of dropped bombs and commando strikes. That regime, of course, followed the more conventional war that brought down the Taliban, scattered and decimated al-Qaeda and made bin Laden a fugitive.

CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cia-spied-on-bin-laden-from-safe-house/2011/05/05/AFXbG31F_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

Excerpt: The CIA maintained a safe house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted extensive surveillance over a period of months on the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Operations forces this week, U.S. officials said. The secret CIA facility was used as a base of operations for one of the most delicate human intelligence gathering missions in recent CIA history, one that relied on Pakistani informants and other sources to help assemble a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the fortified compound where bin Laden was found, the officials said.

Worth Reading: Rich and me: How we fell out

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0505-20110505,0,5004794.column

Great Kass column about the Boss Daley (Jr.) years here in Chicago. Long but worth reading. This is the machine that produced and supports Obama. ~Bob. Excerpt: It also turned out that Daley's friends were making a fortune off the flood. I understood the mayor wanted a fall guy and that it wasn't going to be one of his people. But what I didn't understand is why Daley wouldn't make a call and find McTigue a job in the private sector afterward. That's what bothered me. McTigue wasn't at fault. He had a wife and kids. All Daley had to do was pick up the phone and do the right thing. The mayor told me he didn't owe McTigue a thing. I told him, respectfully, that he should make the call anyway, to show compassion, and so that city workers who knew the real story wouldn't think the mayor was a jerk. That's what your father would have done, I said.

Man sentenced to life for killing 5 family members

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-quintuple-murder-sentence-20110504,0,1670749.story

When they convert someone, don't they tell them that "Islam is a Religion of Peace"? And how is killing an unborn child "homicide? Isn't that, like, abortion? ~Bob. Excerpt: A man who was angry that his family would not go along with his conversion to Islam was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in the slayings of his mother, pregnant wife, infant son and two nieces in a rampage last year on the South Side. James A. Larry, 33, of Madison, Wis., pleaded guilty last month to multiple counts of murder, attempted murder and the intentional homicide of an unborn child. ... "He was upset at his wife and their family — he felt disrespected that they would not join his religion," Assistant State's Attorney Jim McKay said. "It didn't matter if they were young or old, pregnant or not. He wanted them dead." The massacre began in the early morning hours April 14, at the family home in the 7400 block of

South Mozart Street

. Larry first shot his mother, Leona Larry, 57, as she slept on a sofa in the living room. He then went systematically through three first-floor bedrooms, fatally shooting his wife, Twanda Thompson, 19; his 7-month-old son, Jihad; his 3-year-old niece, Keleasha Larry; and his 16-year-old niece, Keyshai Fields, who was pregnant.

Fed informant passed delicate message to Blagojevich from Obama

http://blogs.suntimes.com/blago/2011/05/fed_informant_passed_delicate.html

Excerpt: John Harris testifies that on Nov. 10, 2008, lobbyist John Wyma called him with a message from President-Elect Obama's camp. Harris, of course, doesn't know that Wyma at this point had been secretly working with the feds for at least a month in the Blagojevich probe. Wyma, former congressional chief of staff to Blagojevich, was also close to Rahm Emanuel. "(Wyma) told me he had a message to deliver to me from Rahm Emanuel, who was trying to get a hold of the governor. And John Wyma was trying to get a hold of the governor, but they could not get through. I understood they knew each other well, Wyma was chief of staff," to Blagojevich Harris testified. It does not appear that the Wyma/Harris phone call happened on a wired line. The message Wyma passed along? "That the President-elect would be thankful and appreciative if the governor would appoint Valerie Jarrett to the Senate seat," Harris said. "I said I understood and I would deliver the message."

Attorney General Holder blasted for "creating public safety hazard"

http://www.examiner.com/law-enforcement-in-national/attorney-general-holder-blasted-for-creating-public-safety-hazard-1

Excerpt: At a House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa confronted Attorney General Eric Holder on the DOJ’s Operation Fast and Furious, a highly controversial operation where federal authorities facilitated the purchase of assault weapons for drug cartels and chose not to interdict them before being transported to Mexico. While Attorney General Holder was unwilling to provide answer about who at the Department of Justice authorized, knew about, and even whether he still defended Operation Fast and Furious, three new documents provide information that Attorney General Holder did not address in response to questions posed by Rep. Issa. Following a second day of Capitol Hill hearings in which he professed little or no knowledge about the controversial Project Gunrunner or Operation Fast and Furious, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms called for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder. "For the second day in a row, Attorney General Holder has stated on the record that he didn't know about one of the most egregious government scandals in memory," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb.

Next step after bin Laden.... Reboot our Middle East strategy by M. Zuhdi Jasser

http://www.mzuhdijasser.com/9542/next-step-after-bin-laden

Excerpt: The operation this week that culminated in the long-overdue death of Osama bin Laden has opened a window of opportunity for the United States. While any remaining import of bin Laden to the strategic operation of al-Qaeda is debatable, his position as the global face of terror is undeniable. Our nation's resolve in bringing him to justice delivers an unmistakable message that America will stay the course against our enemies wherever they may hide. Our nation needs to awaken to the fact that the bin Ladens of the world are byproducts of the primary ideological threat - militant Islamism, the violent offshoot of the construct of political Islam or 'the Islamic state." It is based in a deeper mindset of the supremacy of Islamic law, shariah, in government. It is the gasoline to the fire of Islamist extremism. Islamism cannot be defeated by bullets or the valor of our SEAL teams. It will only be defeated in an open war of ideas where we pit western principles of universal equality and liberty under God against political Islam and Islamist interpretations of shariah. As British Prime Minister David Cameron recently noted, we must not only remove the militants, we must drain the pool in which they swim. That pool is their ideology.

At Ground Zero, Obama quietly completes a circle

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-ground-zero-obama-quietly-completes-a-circle/2011/05/05/AFhqGw0F_story.html?nl_headlines

Better headline: Obama spikes ball thanks to Bush policies. ~Bob. Excerpt: Nearly 10 years ago, on Sept. 14, 2001, another president, George W. Bush, came to Ground Zero bulky and workmanlike in a windbreaker and boots, stood on a heap of smoking debris with his arm around the shoulders of a firefighter and shouted through a bullhorn. To the armies of volunteers in the wreckage who couldn’t hear him, he blared, “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” Obama’s visit was a bookend to that event. But it was a far different affair, and a somewhat tricky one, given that the White House seemed anxious to find the right tone and to avoid the appearance of taking a “victory lap.”

Criticism of Obama dominates first GOP presidential debate

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-presidential-primary/159617-criticism-of-obama-dominates-first-gop-presidential-debate

From this group, I’d take Pawlenty first, Cain second, Johnson third. Santorum and Paul would be electoral disasters. ~Bob. Excerpt: The stage in South Carolina on Thursday was absent most of the top-tier contenders for next year's Republican presidential nomination, but the first debate of the 2012 primary season still managed to produce a handful of lively moments amidst the volleys directed at President Obama. Five likely GOP contenders met Thursday evening, with the biggest name on the stage being former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. He was joined by former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and talk radio host Herman Cain.

The All-New Failure of the New Economics: Unemployment rates and other useless measurements

http://reason.com/archives/2011/04/06/the-all-new-failure-of-the-new

Excerpt: If you've been pinning your job-search hopes on the conventional wisdom that employment gains follow an economic recovery, you have a problem right now. The so-called Great Recession has been over for almost two years, but unemployment remains about where it was before the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared that the recovery had begun. In June 2009, the month the NBER has pinpointed as the end of the recession, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' unemployment rate stood at 9.5 percent. In early 2011, the unemployment rate was 9 percent. To put this feeble recovery into perspective: Just eight months after the job-loss peak in the 1948 recession, which saw unemployment increase by 5.2 percentage points, all of those jobs had been replaced. Less than a year after the trough of the 1958 recession, the economy had reversed an unemployment spike of more than four percentage points. In 1981–82, job growth more than erased a 3.1 percentage point increase in unemployment within 11 months, leaving the rate lower than it was before the recession.

Complex but important: CBO: The Underfunding of State and Local Pension Plans

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12084

Excerpt: The recent financial crisis and economic recession have left many states and localities with extraordinary budgetary difficulties for the next few years, but structural shortfalls in their pension plans pose a problem that is likely to endure for much longer. This issue brief discusses alternative approaches to assessing the size of those shortfalls and the implications of those approaches for funding decisions: By any measure, nearly all state and local pension plans are underfunded, which means that the value of the plans' assets is less than their accrued pension liabilities for current workers and retirees. There are two leading approaches for valuing assets and liabilities, and the reported amount of underfunding varies significantly depending on which one is used.

California Dreamin’: Why is Jerry Brown so eager to increase electricity rates when his state’s economy is in the dumps?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/266243/california-dreamin-robert-bryce?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Excerpt: California leads the nation in a number of ignominious categories. Its budget deficit of $26 billion is nearly twice as large as that of the next state (Texas).

It ranks second in unemployment at 12 percent, behind only Nevada. Unemployment is so pervasive that six of the 14 metropolitan areas in the U.S. with the highest rates of unemployment are in California. Given those facts, why are California’s leaders hell-bent on making the state’s electricity costs — already among the nation’s highest — go even higher?

The Increasing Progressivity of U.S. Taxes

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=20638&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

Excerpt: Recent discussions of tax reform and tax expenditures mistakenly assume that static tax expenditure estimates predict that $402.9 billion of added revenue could be raised from 2010 to 2014 by taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rate as ordinary income. On the contrary, such a policy would surely reduce federal tax revenue by greatly reducing the reported amount of capital gains and dividends, says Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Average individual income tax rates fell most dramatically for the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers from 1979 to 2007, with the bottom 40 percent now receiving more in refundable tax credits than is paid in taxes. The highest marginal tax rate fell from 70 percent to 15-35 percent on investment income and from nearly 40 percent on capital gains in 1976-1977 to 15 percent after 2003. Revenues from the individual income tax nonetheless remained close to 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) whenever the economy was doing well, regardless of top tax rates, and overall revenues remained close to 18 percent of GDP. The dramatic tax cuts for the bottom 80 percent were made possible by greatly improved incentives to report and pay taxes on the highest incomes in recent years, particularly on realized capital gains, taxable interest and dividends. To put that process into reverse, by moving back toward the higher tax rates of the past, would clearly reduce the amount of capital gains, dividends and other income reported by the top 1 percent. Unfortunately, it would probably also reduce the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent, says Reynolds

Muslim bus drivers refuse to let guide dogs on board

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295749/Muslim-bus-drivers-refuse-let-guide-dogs-board.html#ixzz1LV7BwtJC

Excerpt: Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their 'unclean' guide dogs. One pensioner, a cancer sufferer, told how had twice been confronted by drivers and asked to get off the bus because of his guide dog, and had also faced hostility at a hospital and in a supermarket over the animal. The problem to carry guide dogs on religious grounds has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog.

Apology over 'offensive' puppy police advert after Muslim complaints

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2229719/Apology-over-offensive-puppy-police-advert-after-Muslim-complaints.html

Excerpt: A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the "offensive" postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel. The German shepherd puppy has proved hugely popular with the public, hundreds of who have logged on to the force's website to read his online training diary. But some Muslims in the Dundee area have reportedly been upset by the image because they consider dogs to be "ritually unclean", while shopkeepers have refused to display the advert. Tayside Police have admitted they should have consulted their 'diversity' officers before issuing the cards, but critics argued their apology was unnecessary.

Pakistan’s Bin Laden Scapegoat

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-06/pakistans-intellifence-chief-expected-to-resign-ahmad-shuja-pasha/

Excerpt: To allay both domestic and international anger and dismay over the presence of Osama bin Laden in a military cantonment town close to the capital, senior Pakistani officials have told The Daily Beast they recognize that an important head has to roll and soon. They say the most likely candidate to be the fall guy is Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the director general of the country’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. (…)  “It could ease a lot of pressure,” Masood says. It would also help rehabilitate the army’s and the ISI’s badly tarnished image. Under Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. who assumed the military’s top position in late 2008 from the autocratic Pervez Musharraf, the army has made a public-relations comeback. Under Musharraf, the military was seen as meddlesome and oppressive force. Kayani pulled it back from direct involvement in government and politics. Pakistanis were also impressed by the humanitarian work the military carried out last year in rescuing victims of the devastating floods. Now those good works have largely been forgotten as a result of the bin Laden fiasco.

Jay Carney is floundering under pressure, say Washington insiders

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100086530/jay-carney-is-floundering-under-pressure-say-washington-insiders/

Excerpt: There is increasing concern in Washington that Jay Carney, the new White House Press Secretary, isn’t up to the job. Even when faced with an innocuous question that requires only that he trot out the official line, he looks completely stunned, as if the questioner is Bob Woodward asking him about Deep Throat. He gathers himself, embarks on a stuttering reply, pauses for what seems like an eternity, then starts gabbling, tripping over his words, rephrasing what he’s just said, then looking plaintively back at the questioner as if to say, “How did I do? Was that okay? Or would you like me to try again?” “I think he’s doing very badly,” says a political contact based in Washington. “And I’ve heard others say that he’s really struggling.” 9I could do better—but I’m not available. Sorry, BO. ~Bob.)

Stop Digging! Please!

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/05/028983.php

Excerpt: All of these narratives--apart from the disadvantage, in some instances, of being untrue--share a common defect. They assume that the SEALs are in the dock as accused murderers, and need to be seen as acting in self-defense. This is ridiculous. The SEALs may have acted in "national self defense," the doctrine that Eric Holder articulated to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But in the immediate context of the raid on bin Laden's compound, the SEALs were not defending themselves. They were on the attack, as they needed to be to carry out their orders. Whether bin Laden was shooting at them, reaching for a gun, clothed or naked, or in the same room with a weapon is irrelevant. The SEALs went into Pakistan to kill bin Laden, and succeeded brilliantly. The administration needs to forget about self-defense and stand behind the orders it gave the military.

Tweet

Jim Treacher: The next time you make a pizza joke about Herman Cain, ask yourself whether Obama ever even delivered one. (Or could make one. Or run a business that sold them for a profit. ~Bob.)

In Praise of Flanders, Right-wing Intellectuals and Theodore Dalrymple

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100086301/in-praise-of-flanders-theodore-dalrymple-and-right-wing-intellectuals/

Excerpt: We are so in thrall to the Wilfred-Owen/Oh-What-A-Lovely-War/Journey’s-End interpretation of the Great War that we have edited out of our national memory anything that might look like a justification for having joined it. We may not remember the episode, but the Flemish do; they remember, too, the money which the United States poured into the reconstruction. Leuven’s library was rebuilt after the war, its stones carved with the names of the hundreds of American institutes of higher education which contributed.

Ahmadinejad allies charged with sorcery

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/05/ahmadinejad-allies-charged-with-sorcery

Excerpt: Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits). (Two reasons to stop laughing: first, is the Iranians take this seriously, and if found guilty, those arrested could be hanged or stoned to death. Second, like many during the inquisition, the charges may be religious, but the motive and objective are purely political. Besides, if they were really witches, they’d use their powers to escape. Ron P. Did anyone tell them BO used sorcery to get OBL? ~Bob.)

Finnish Professor: Drop Crisis States

http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/05/professor_drop_crisis_states_from_euro_2565724.html

Excerpt: Professor of Economics Vesa Kanniainen of the University of Helsinki says that eurozone crisis economies should be allowed to go into debt restructuring. Kanniainen adds that Greece and Portugal should be dropped from the common currency.

Paris: French Police Arrest Tunisian Migrants, Influx Grows

http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFLDE74321N20110504

Excerpt: French police arrested 138 Tunisian migrants on Wednesday, clearing out an illegal squat in Paris as unease deepened in France over an influx sparked by the upheaval in North Africa. About 250 riot police were deployed to evict the squatters, most of them Tunisians who entered Europe a couple of months ago via Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island that is one of the closest points for people fleeing North Africa. (Let’s send them Janet N. to help out. ~Bob.)

VIDEO: South of France: Illegal Tunisians Attack French Police

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/05/tunisian-youths-abroad.html

Excerpt: The French have been mostly successful in keeping the Tunisians on the Italian side of the border, but some of the “youths” have slipped through the cordon into the South of France.

Athens: Greece Powerless to Quickly Expel Illegal Migrants: Minister

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20110505-277341.html

Excerpt: Greece's police minister on Thursday called for new detention centers to be built as the country is powerless to expel undocumented migrants seeking to cross into other European countries. "Without detention centres in various parts of the country...we cannot solve the problem," Citizen's Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis told parliament. "Nobody can arrest a migrant, whether they be illegal or legal, and throw them out. International rules do not allow it, the laws do not allow it, our country's constitution does not allow it," the minister said. (Belay my suggestion above. Sounds like Janet N. has already advised them on border security. ~Bob.)

Progress? Now Even Egypt's Religious Establishment Hates America

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/05/04/progress-now-even-egypts-religious-establishment-hates-america/

Excerpt: This is the kind of serious development that everyone better pay close attention to if they want to understand what’s going on in the Middle East and how the West doesn’t get it. The Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, gave an interview to al-Jazira. Al-Azhar is the most important religious center in the Sunni Muslim world. Up until now, its leadership has been controlled by the Egyptian government, which meant the government of President Husni Mubarak until earlier this year. That regime was a dictatorship. It appointed the head of al-Azhar and the mufti of Egypt. It controlled mosque sermons and which preachers went on television. Consequently, it limited their extremism and, knowing their careers were at stake, the clerics complied. They weren’t real moderate but, for example, wouldn’t think of passionately attacking the United States or calling for the abrogation of the peace treaty with Israel. (Americans will eventually “get it” about the Muslim Brotherhood., But there will be a price in American blood to educate them. ~Bob.)

House GOP Throws Down the Gauntlet on Energy

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/05/house-gop-throws-down-the-gauntlet-on-energy/

Excerpt: It’s a battle that’s been a long time coming. We’ve watched for at least the last year while the President and his enablers have essentially shut down various elements of domestic energy production, first through a moratorium and then through a permitorium. And judging by reader responses here there has also been a palpable sense of frustration with Congress and their seeming inability break this impasse. The time may finally be at hand when you won’t have to wait any longer. Yesterday Hot Air was invited to sit in on a call with Congressmen Doc Hastings (chairman of the Natural Resources Committee) and Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam. The subject of the discussion was three bills being brought to the floor which may, if we can muster the support required, finally break the log jam.

European Union in Major U-Turn as it Says National Border Controls could be Introduced

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1383455/EU-major-U-turn-says-national-border-controls-reintroduced.html

Excerpt: The European Union's executive has proposed allowing the reintroduction of national border controls in exceptional circumstances, even though the development of a ‘borderless’ continent had long been hailed as a prime EU achievement. The EU Commission made the proposal today after France and Italy insisted on action to revamp the so-called Schengen system, which allows for unfettered travel across many European borders for citizens, but also for illegal immigrants. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said that ‘it may also be necessary to foresee the temporary reintroduction of limited internal border controls under very exceptional circumstances’.

Srdja Trifkovic on Osama bin Laden

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/05/srdja-trifkovic-on-osama-bin-laden.html

Excerpt: The WaPo analysts [of the 1980s] were concerned that the United States had no coherent plan about what to do with the mujahideen once the Soviets were gone from Afghanistan. Considering that it was the 1980s, the correspondents had a remarkably good grasp of what motivated the jihad fighters, and why they would destabilize the region and endanger the security of the United States after the Russians left. I hate to say it, but The Washington Post was right. Our foreign policy experts and national security professionals were feckless about Islam back then, and they are feckless about Islam today.

Nearly Half of Detroiters Can't Read. Cause Apparently a Mystery.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/nearly-half-of-detroiters-illiterate-cause-apparently-a-mystery/

Excerpt: A study funded by 10 major foundations reported yesterday that 47 percent of Detroiters are functionally illiterate–unable to read a bus schedule, fill out a resume, or make sense of the directions on an aspirin bottle. (Since Detroit has been Democrat-run for as long as most folks can remember, one would think it would be a paradise. ~Bob.)

Wall Street Journal: If you can't beat Wikileaks, replace them

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/06/wsj-if-you-cant-beat-wikileaks-replace-them/

Excerpt: Love it or hate it, Wikileaks has become part of the international conversation and continues to make headlines on a regular basis, even in sources that tend to disapprove of founder Julian Assange. Given that there’s clearly a market and an appetite for hush-hush whistleblowing goodness, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the Wall Street Journal is going to take the concept mainstream by launching a competing site of their own. The Wall Street Journal has launched its own WikiLeaks-inspired whistleblowers’ site, SafeHouse. (Can’t beat them? Send SEAL Team Six. ~Bob.)

Cop's rape comment sparks wave of 'SlutWalks'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42927752/ns/us_news-life/t/cops-rape-comment-sparks-wave-slutwalks/

I agree with them. But think they should start with the capitals of Muslim countries where blaming rape on the victims is government and religious policy. BTW, I’ve read that “slut” was originally a useful word meaning something like “kitchen help,” but the help being often taken advantage of or abused by the lords of the manor, it pejorated. ~Bob. Excerpt: An international series of protests known as SlutWalks, sparked by a Toronto police officer's flippant comment that women should avoid dressing like "sluts" to avoid being raped or victimized, is taking root in the United States. Some women and men who protest dress in nothing more remarkable than jeans and T-shirts, while others wear provocative or revealing outfits to bring attention to "slut-shaming," or shaming women for being sexual, and the treatment of sexual assault victims. "It was taking the blame off the rapist and on the victim," said Nicole Sullivan, 21, a student at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and an organizer of the SlutWalk planned Saturday in that city. "So we are using these efforts to reclaim the word 'slut.'"

New York Times Tried to Revive the "Crazy Vet" Meme

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/06/nyt-tries-to-revive-the-crazy-vet-meme/

Excerpt: One of the most enduring themes of the Viet Nam era was that of the badly damaged Vietnam vet who came home and created mayhem – all because of his experiences and training. It was a myth that died hard only because the war was so unpopular and so many people wanted to believe it. BG Burkett in his book Stolen Valor, completely takes all the underlying premises that supported that myth apart with facts and statistics. I don’t have time to relate them all but I cannot recommend that book highly enough. That said, this article by Luke Mogelson in the New York Times Magazine (via PJ Tatler) entitled “The Beast In The Heart Of Every Fighting Man” is a travesty. It’s subhead gives you a clue why:

Orrin Hatch: 'We're going to win' against National Labor Relations Board in South Carolina

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/06/hatch-were-going-to-win-against-nlrb-in-south-carolina/#ixzz1LaxuwkvI

What? Businessmen instead of the government should make economic decisions about their companies. Shameful. If they don’t like it, let them move overseas! ~Bob. Excerpt: Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, expressed confidence that Republicans will win the fight against the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) power grab in South Carolina. “We’re going to win that one,” Hatch told The Daily Caller, referring to the NLRB’s recent charge against The Boeing Company for plans to open a non-union factory in the southern state.

UK: Judge Tells Immigrant Drug Dealer on Benefits: 'Learn English, Get a Job and Stop Smoking Cannabis'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383818/Judge-tells-immigrant-drug-dealer-benefits-Learn-English-job.html

Excerpt: A judge gave an immigrant drug dealer a verbal dressing-down by telling him to 'get a job, learn English and stop smoking cannabis'. Pakistani-born Mohammed Ramzan, 32, had been spending £20 a day on cannabis, paid for by his benefits from the taxpayer.

After admitting three drug possession counts following police raids on his home in Derby, he faced a verbal tirade from a Crown Court judge. As he was handed a suspended jail term at Derby Crown Court, Judge Andrew Hamilton told Ramzan, who had spoken in court through an interpreter: 'It's about time you learnt to speak English.

Mark Steyn Reacts to bin Laden Killing: 'This is strong horse/weak horse all in one.'

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/06/steyn-reacts-to-bin-laden-killing-this-is-strong-horseweak-horse-all-in-one/

Excerpt: “I think this is strong horse-weak horse all in one. If you want highly trained, superbly equipped warriors on a precise, targeted mission, to go in and do what they’re supposed to do, then this is a brilliant operation,” Steyn said. “I think when you look at everything surrounding it, including the reaction in Washington, and the facts on the ground in Abbottabad, then I think it’s, we’re deep in weak horse territory, in part because our so-called ally feels it can in effect, de facto officially shelter Osama bin Laden, his three wives, and his 13 children – as the Senator said on your show the other day. And they know, the Pakistanis know they will pay no price for it. That’s real weak horse stuff. That’s serious weak horse stuff.”

Judge Files Complaint Against German Chancellor Angela Merkel over Bin Laden Comments

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,761077,00.html

And you thought we were too PC! ~Bob. Excerpt: A Hamburg judge has filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel for "endorsing a crime" after she stated she was "glad" that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces. Meanwhile a new poll reveals that a majority of Germans do not see the terrorist's death as a reason to celebrate.

In Raid on bin Laden, Little-Known 'National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency' Played Vital Role

http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/in-raid-on-bin-laden-little-known-geospatial-agency-played-vital-role-20110505

Excerpt: President Obama’s first brush with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency was ignominious. Out for lunch in May 2009, at a Five Guys burger franchise in Washington, the new president started to shake the hands of other customers, TV cameras in tow. Then he turned to men with government ID badges. “So, what do you do?” Obama asked. “I work at NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,” one said. “Outstanding. How long have you been doing that?” the president wondered. “Six years.” Obama then asked: “So, explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial--” His voice trailed off. “Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery.” Obama: “Sounds like good work.” The response is obscured by the audio. Suffice it to say: Obama knows what the NGA does today. (“Say, could we use that to turn out the union vote in key districts?” ~Bob.)

The LWOT: Al-Qaeda acknowledges bin Laden death

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/06/the_lwot_al_qaeda_acknowledges_bin_laden_death

Excerpt: Al-Qaeda offered the first confirmation of the death of its leader today, saying in a statement posted to a jihadist Internet forum that the group will continue to target Americans and America's allies, and that bin Laden's blood, "will not be wasted"

It’s Just Lipstick on a Pig, Mr. President

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/06/morning-bell-its-just-lipstick-on-a-pig-mr-president/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Excerpt: Despite the good news this week about Osama bin Laden’s demise, all is not rosy for President Barack Obama — at least in the eyes of the American people. The approval of his handling of the economy hit an all-time low with only 34 percent of Americans giving him a thumbs up, according to a CBS/New York Times poll. Looking for a reason why? According to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report, unemployment rose from 8.8 percent to 9 percent in April. And though the U.S. economy added 244,000 jobs, beating expectations, the bad news is that when the bar for success is set so low, even increasing unemployment and decent job growth can seem like a silver lining on a dark and stormy cloud.

Repressing Women is Sharia's raison d'etre

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/repressing-women-is-sharias-raison-detre-20110504-1e8ca.html#ixzz1Lb2e3ABZ

Excerpt: Al-Qaeda's harsh and anti-democratic version of Islam was irrelevant in the Arab spring earlier this year, when tumult against oppressive regimes rocked Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and Kuwait. Women took to the streets. In Egypt the unemployment rate for young women is almost 60 per cent. They have a huge stake in reform. But when a steering committee of 10 prominent Egyptians was set up to fill the vacuum left by the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, women were conspicuously absent. Not just sexual inequality, but sexual repression, is a structural problem in the Muslim world. Millions of young men cannot have a girlfriend and are unable to find a wife because they are unable to find a job.

Class Action Lawyers Go After Social Networks

http://www.projectlawsuitabuse.com/2011/5/5/class-action-lawyers-go-after-social-networks

Excerpt: Class action lawyers have found a new set of targets: social networking sites. As Overlawyered reports, class action lawsuits were recently filed against both Facebook and Twitter.

There's no Shortage of Mommy-Lawsuits

http://www.projectlawsuitabuse.com/2011/5/4/theres-no-shortage-mommy-lawsuits

Excerpt: With Mother’s Day just around the corner, we took the liberty of rounding up some of our favorite mom-themed lawsuits. Does mother always know best? We'll leave that up to you.

Frivolous lawsuits drain state of employment

http://www.sfexaminer.com/print/opinion/letters-editor/2011/04/frivolous-lawsuits-drain-state-employment?utm_source=feedburner%20sfexaminer%2FOpinion&utm_medium=feed%20Opinion&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20sfexaminer%2FOpinion%20%28Opinion%29feed&utm_content=FeedBurnerfeed

excerpt: Bad lawsuits cost good jobs. One way to create jobs in the Bay Area would be for our Legislature and governor to pass legal reform laws — especially stopping vexatious litigants who wipe out jobs by repeatedly filing frivolous lawsuits against our small business owners. Vexatious litigants target small businesses where the cost of a legal defense exceeds the cost to settle. Many businesses simply decide their best choice is to settle out of court .

If Our 'Food Stamp Recovery' Persists, Obama Will Lose Big

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-economy-still-not-good-enough-reelect-obama_559238.html

Excerpt: I have noticed something unsettling in my own life lately: I know a lot of people who are on food stamps or some kind of extraordinary government assistance. The count right now stands around 10 people, which is a lot for a small town denizen such as myself. That is a personal reminder of a very serious, yet rarely discussed economic, social, and indeed political problem: the fact that better than one out of seven Americans today requires government help to put food on the table. The following graph is only for the hale and hearty: (None of them are cheating, of course. ~Bob.)

After bin Laden: Is the War on Terror Winding Down?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/after-bin-laden-is-the-war-on-terror-winding-down—20110505

Excerpt: Studying the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Beirut in 1983 (after a suicide bombing killed 241 U.S. service members) and from Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1991 (after 19 U.S. soldiers died in a firefight), he concluded that the United States was a “paper tiger.” Based on such anecdotal evidence, the cloistered bin Laden launched his war against the United States. He failed to understand that Beirut and Mogadishu represented a peacekeeping and a humanitarian mission, respectively, with limited national interests at stake. Nor did he anticipate the national rage that an attack on the homeland of the magnitude of 9/11 would provoke, or that the U.S. response would be to invade Afghanistan, topple his benefactors, the Taliban, and send al-Qaida scurrying across the mountains. He likewise misjudged the effectiveness of the armed drone strikes that across 10 years and two U.S. administrations continued to reach into supposed sanctuaries in Pakistan and methodically shrink bin Laden’s circle of friends and trusted lieutenants. SEAL Team Six delivered the final lesson about America’s long memory and will to fight. (The author, James Kitfield, clearly believes the “War on Terror” is over. He implies that we “won,” though he never quite says so, and that we should now retreat from the world and crawl back into our shell. “Arab Spring” has shown a better way, he says. Perhaps he should talk to Laura Logan about that. The war isn’t won and it isn’t over. We aren’t at war with a single man, or a single group, not a nation-state, or even a collection of nation-states. The reason terrorism is still used is because it still works. We exact no penalties against the societies that use and support it as a political weapon. If Achmed or Johnnie blows himself up taking 50 random bystanders with him, there is no price to be paid by Achmed’s or Johnnie’s family, neighborhood, town, or nation. If there is no societal cost, they get to use the terror weapon cheaply. Eventually, we in the West will understand this, and begin to apply “costs” to terror-supporters. When the cost of blowing up 50 at random is a village of 500 or 1000, it will stop very quickly because the societal cost is “too high” for the terror-supporting societies to bear. The reality is we can’t stop every terrorist; we can’t identify every one of them in advance. Yet, every terrorist needs to eat, buy supplies, live somewhere, go to religious services, make human contact with others—live in a society, in other words. That society CAN stop him; they know him, they can withdraw their support, they can ostracize his ideas, they can deny him comfort and, in extremis, physically prevent him from acting against the whole society’s interests. But they will only do so if the societal cost is so high they’re unwilling to pay it. But, but, that’s barbaric. Yes, it is, but that’s who we’re fighting: barbarians. Civilized societies don’t allow terrorists to roam free. Civilized societies have police and militaries specifically to prevent the potential barbarians within their domain from running loose (war fighting takes far less than a majority of a military’s time). There are as many screwballs in the West as there are in other places, so why weren’t we blowing ourselves up long before this started? Because our societies won’t tolerate it. No, we don’t offer classes on avoiding terrorism, but the message is all around us. I don’t recall anyone ever teaching me specifically not to become a cannibal, either, but, again, the message is all around us. When being a terrorist “goes out of fashion”—because the social cost is too high to pay—the society as a whole becomes terror free and polices itself to remain that way. And, until we can learn this lesson and apply it as needed until it takes, this war will go on. Ron P)

The Fog of Fog

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/article/fog-fog

No, It’s the “Fog of Obama.” ~Bob. Excerpt: The official White House account of Osama bin Laden's demise has seen more slapdash cosmetic surgery over the past week than your average "Real Housewives" reality-show star. President Obama's allies attribute the bungled "narrative" (their word, not mine) to the "Fog of War." But each passing day -- and each new set of hapless revisions -- shows that what really ails the administration is the Fog of Fog. Errors happen. Miscommunications happen. Confusing the name of which of bin Laden's myriad sons died (Hamza, not Khalid), for example, is no biggie. But the hourly revamping of key details of Sunday's raid suggests something far beyond the usual realm of situational uncertainty that accompanies any military operation.

NPR Hires Firm to Lobby for its Taxpayer Funding

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/05/npr-hires-firm-to-lobby-for-its-taxpayer-funding/#ixzz1LZqucDuN

Your tax dollars at work. ~Bob. Excerpt: It will remain unclear how much NPR is paying for these lobbying services until second quarter lobbying forms are filed. But before NPR hired the firm to represent it on funding issues, the network spent $131,666 in 2011’s first quarter on an in-house lobbyist.

In South Carolina Debate, Candidates Focus on Foreign Policy

http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/06/in-south-carolina-candidates-showcase-foreign-policy-expertise/#ixzz1LZpmY4uk

Excerpt: But while Pawlenty was seen as the only A-list candidate in the debate, Cain ended the night with the title of “winner,” confirmed by a focus group put together by Frank Luntz which was aired on Fox News’ “Hannity” after the debate. The focus group participants were in near universal agreement that Cain stole the show.

Obama's 'Gangster Politics'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576305414137806694.html?mod=djemITP_h

Excerpt: The president is about to order companies that do business with the federal government to disclose their political donations. President Obama has officially kicked off his 2012 re-election campaign, and don't Republicans know it. The president is expected any day now to sign an executive order that routs 70 years of efforts to get politics out of official federal business. Under the order, all companies (and their officers) would be required to list their political donations as a condition to bidding for government contracts. Companies can bid and lose out for the sin of donating to Republicans. Or they can protect their livelihoods by halting donations to the GOP altogether—which is the White House's real aim. Think of it as "not-pay to play." (No, think of it as “The Chicago Way.” ~Bob.)

A "Muslim-American woman" spreads misinformation about Islam at Fox News

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/05/saima-sheikh-is-media-communications.html

Excerpt: Saima Sheikh is media communications leader for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The Ahmadiyya, of course, are considered heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief in "the Messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani." Saima Sheikh doesn't mention this all-important fact here, but instead gives the impression to unwary and uninformed non-Muslims that some eminent Muslim authority has declared violent jihad un-Islamic. In reality, it is in part for that declaration that Ahmadis are being ferociously persecuted today in Pakistan and Indonesia, and the governing authorities do not even consider them to be true Muslims.

Terrorist Group Setting Up Operations Near Border

http://www.10news.com/news/27780427/detail.html

There will be a price in blood for open borders. ~Bob. Excerpt: A terrorist organization whose home base is in the Middle East has established another home base across the border in Mexico. "They are recognized by many experts as the 'A' team of Muslim terrorist organizations," a former U.S. intelligence agent told 10News. The former agent, referring to Shi'a Muslim terrorist group Hezbollah, added, "They certainly have had successes in big-ticket bombings."

Obama adviser: American freedom, equality are just ‘myths’

http://conservativebyte.com/2011/05/obama-adviser-american-freedom-equality-are-just-myths/

Typical Obot. ~Bob. Excerpt: President Obama’s faith adviser, Eboo Patel, blasted what he called the “myths” of America – describing them as beliefs that the country is “a land of freedom and equality and justice.” Patel explained how he used the “faith-based movement” to channel his rage at America “in a direction far more compassionate and far more merciful.” Patel, a Muslim activist from Chicago, further implied that had he grown up in the 1960s, he may have joined the Weather Underground terrorist group led by William Ayers.

MAS Official: Bin Laden a "Visionary"

http://www.investigativeproject.org/2832/mas-official-bin-laden-a-visionary

If there is real “Islamophobia,” it is people like her who create it. ~Bob. Excerpt: A leader of a major American Muslim organization, the Muslim American Society (MAS), is arguing that there "was nothing wrong with" Osama bin Laden's dream of creating a renewed Caliphate. Khalilah Sabra's comments are the most recent and worrisome from the group, which has a long history of defending alleged terrorists. Sabra, the director of the North Carolina branch of MAS' Freedom Foundation, made the statement in a sometimes disjointed article entitled "Agreeing to Disagree About the Death of Osama Bin Laden" that was released Wednesday under the MAS logo. The statement aligns more with a period of Sabra's life in the late 1980s, when she traveled to Afghanistan with bin Laden's predecessor, Abdullah Azzam, to provide aid to the mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union. Her statement doesn't defend bin Laden's terror attack on 9/11. But it does laud his vision of an Islamic state and his desire to "liberate" the Afghani people.