Thursday, September 4, 2014

A LOT of important news today

Update

Things are going well. At rehab Wednesday, I did the usual plus added 30 reps on the lap pull. O2 staying in the 95% to 99% range. Did some baking, worked on a revision of our Condo Association's declaration, Bylaws and Rules (a tedious task), and plowed through a lot of email to create this post. A LOT of important items today. ~Bob

General News and Comment

Excerpt: This was always nonsense, but then again so much of the hype about Obama in the early days of his presidency was nonsensical. Still it does contribute to the poignancy of the moment. I’m referring specifically to the Islamic State and their celebration of slavery. MEMRI has excerpts of Facebook chats between British and French supporters of the group as they discuss the great news that you can buy Yazidi women as sex slaves. 

Worth reading: The Obama economy is not working for the Democrats. By Ed Rogers 
Excerpt: At Milwaukee Laborfest in Wisconsin this past weekend, President Obama spoke about how he and the Democrats believe the American economy has strengthened over the last six years. The president told the crowd that “by almost every measure, the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office.” That just isn’t true. And a trove of new analysis proves my point.

Worth Reading: Excerpt: The world seems to be falling apart.
Excerpt: Only lunatics from North Korea or Iran once mumbled about using nuclear weapons against their supposed enemies. Now Vladimir Putin, after gobbling up the Crimea, points to his nuclear arsenal and warns the West not to “mess” with Russia. The Middle East terrorist group the Islamic State keeps beheading its captives and threatening the West. Meanwhile Obama admits to the world that we “don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with such barbaric terrorists. Not long ago he compared them to “jayvees.” Egypt is bombing Libya, which America once bombed and then left. (In 2012, Obama famously bragged that he had "Al Qaeda on the run." Looking at the world, it seems to me that in the past five years of Obama, the Islamist militants have civilization on the run. ~Bob)

What your 1st-grade life says about the rest of it

Excerpt: In the beginning, when they knew just where to find everyone, they pulled the children out of their classrooms. They sat in any quiet corner of the schools they could claim: the sociologists from Johns Hopkins and, one at a time, the excitable first-graders. Monica Jaundoo, whose parents never made it past the eighth grade. Danté Washington, a boy with a temper and a dad who drank too much. Ed Klein, who came from a poor white part of town where his mother sold cocaine. (I tell my co-workers…there are 4 factors required for success: talent, desire, encouragement, and resources. See what’s missing here and where the focus of problem solving needs to be…--G)

5 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die: If we're genuinely committed to improving the circumstances of women, we need to get the facts straight. By Christina Hoff Sommers
Excerpt: Much of what we hear about the plight of American women is false. Some faux facts have been repeated so often they are almost beyond the reach of critical analysis. Though they are baseless, these canards have become the foundation of Congressional debates, the inspiration for new legislation and the focus of college programs. Here are five of the most popular myths that should be rejected by all who are genuinely committed to improving the circumstances of women: (Looking for perfection is always a bit silly, but continuing to look for improvement has always been a part of America. --Del)

The Top 10 Questions About the World's Biggest Problems. By Stephen Walt (professor of international relations at Harvard University)
Excerpt: I'm in Washington today to attend the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. The timing is fortuitous, because I'm pondering a number of big questions these days and I'll be interested to see what some of the nation's best scholars think about them. So for what they may be worth, here are my Top 10 Foreign Policy Puzzles: (The professor has come up with a reasonable summary of major problems in the world. They aren't the only ones, I think that overpopulation and depletion of natural resources are pretty serious, and the decline of much of Western Civilization is no small matter either, but there is no doubt we are all victims of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times". On number 8, the author is a full believer in AGW and writes as if it's "settled science", which is most certainly is not. On top of which, were the idea correct, there is absolutely NOTHING that human beings can do to stop it at this point, and it will only get worse because we have 6+ billion people on the planet, and more of them are burning oil and coal all the time. The USA could cripple its own industries and raise the cost of living markedly, and achieve nothing but make the carbon credit brokers super rich. I would say the question is, will the near-panic propaganda about "Global Warming" finally die down or not? --Del. He's at Harvard, Del. It's like being a Cardinal--you are required to believe in certain things. AGW is one of them. ~Bob)

Emails Prove that IRS Head Ignored "Dirty Money" from Liberal Unions While Persecuting Conservatives!
http://lastresistance.com/7114/emails-prove-irs-head-ignored-dirty-money-liberal-unions-persecuting-conservatives/
Excerpt: The official at the center of the IRS tea party scandal once dismissed complaints that labor unions were not reporting millions of dollars in political activities on their tax forms, according to an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/7114/emails-prove-irs-head-ignored-dirty-money-liberal-unions-persecuting-conservatives/#QxCI69fIKdTiFrGZ.99

Federal judges voice concern about privacy implications of NSA tactics
Excerpt: A panel of federal judges voiced significant concerns Tuesday about the privacy implications of NSA surveillance tactics during a wide-ranging hearing on a legal challenge brought by the ACLU. In an oral argument that was set for less than 30 minutes and lasted nearly two hours, three judges on a panel hearing the case at the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan probed claims by the ACLU that the federal government's collection of data relating to "every phone call made or received by residents of the United States" is illegal and unconstitutional.

More than 57,000 gun-friendly bars, eateries crop up across America: Welcoming armed customers can attract Second Amendment rights activists, deter crime. By Kelly Riddell 
Excerpt: “This is a Virginia restaurant, and we abide by Virginia state laws, which allow for open carry or concealed carry in a restaurant — so why should I hinder it? It’s our constitutional right to bear arms,” said Bryan Crosswhite, owner of the Cajun Experience. “We definitely see more traffic since we started this. It’s been an overwhelming response.”
In addition to owning a gun-friendly eatery, Mr. Crosswhite has started an organization that lists other pro-Second Amendment companies nationally, called www.2amendment.org. He started the venture this winter and already has 57,000 businesses signed on.

Worth Reading: An eye on the Baltic states? By George F. Will
Excerpt: The Islamic State is a nasty problem that can be remedied if its neighbors, assisted by the United States, decide to do so. Vladimir Putin’s fascist revival is a crisis that tests the West’s capacity to decide. Putin’s serial amputations of portions of Ukraine, which began with his fait accompli in Crimea, will proceed, and succeed, until his appetite is satiated. Then the real danger will begin. ... So, suppose Putin, reprising his Ukrainian success, orchestrates unrest among the Russian-speaking minorities in Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia. (In a military contest with Russia in that area, we use nukes or we lose. ~Bob)

Dem candidate drops out of Senate race in Kansas against Sen. Roberts
Excerpt: The Democratic candidate in the race against Sen. Pat Roberts in Kansas ended his campaign Wednesday, leaving an independent candidate and a Libertarian candidate to face off against the three-term Republican incumbent. ... Roberts' executive campaign manager Leroy Towns called the move a "corrupt bargain" between Democratic leaders and Orman's campaign and said Orman's independent status is "a smoke screen."

Mysterious Fake Cellphone Towers Are Intercepting Calls All Over The US
Excerpt: The point is: we don't really know whose they are," Goldsmith said to Popular Science.....In an amazing coincidence, police departments in a handful of U.S. cities have been operating "Stingray" or "Hailstorm" towers, which — you guessed it — conduct surveillance on mobile phone activity. They do that by jamming mobile phone signals, forcing phones to drop down from 4G and 3G network bands to the older, more insecure 2G band

Excerpt: Poroshenko is over a barrel. Russia has stepped up its campaign, and the Obama administration responded with a clear signal that the United Statesand the West would provide no meaningful support to Ukraine – a signal reaffirmed last week when President Obama refused to call Putin’s aggression an “invasion” and stressed that a U.S. military confrontation with Russia was unthinkable. Ukraine’s army is in retreat and it cannot compete with Russia’s invasion forces. (With friend/allies like US, who needs enemies? Ahh, that "flexibility." --Barb)

Race Card News

Eric Holder: A More Dangerous Race-Card Hustler Than Al Sharpton. By Larry Elder
Excerpt: It’s one thing to watch race hustlers like the Rev. Al Sharpton bellowing, “No justice, no peace.” But when the attorney general of the United States makes false but racially incendiary claims about today’s alleged “pernicious racism,” we are in uncharted territory.
Holder complains about different prison rates, different school expulsion rates and longer prison sentences for black boys and men compared to white boys and men. He equates “equal rights” with “equal results.” (The writer is one of those uppity black conservatives. ~Bob)

The other racism
Excerpt: Americans know of the Aryan Nations, "skin heads," Neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and similar groups of white people who, for any number of reasons, harbor grave animosity toward other Americans. More specifically, these groups are known for their racial hatred of blacks. It is a rabid hatefulness that lessens the bearer's humanity. There exists, however, a hesitancy to examine similar racial hatred in American blacks. Not only is there a hesitancy to examine such hatred, but it is forbidden even to voice its existence. I will voice that existence here, because it needs to be voiced. The existing notion among some leftist black activists that a person cannot be racist if he is of a minority race without power is laughable.

The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks against death penalty at Yale
Excerpt: Among mostly Yale University undergraduate students, the Rev. Al Sharpton spoke Tuesday on how he is against the death penalty, explaining execution does not resolve problems. Speaking Tuesday evening at Woolsey Hall, Sharpton, head of the National Action Network, said the death penalty doesn’t resolve any justice, and suggested life in jail as a possible solution. The event was held by the Yale Political Union. (I can think of one problem it could solve…--G. My position as a senator was that it should be like a barber shop: Two chairs, no waiting. ~Bob)

The ‘War on Black People’: But Who Is Winning?. By Colin Flaherty
Excerpt: St. Louis is now Ground Zero for the “war on black males”: So named by Spike Lee after a white cop shot a black teenager, unleashing ten days of riots and rage and free shopping in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. But here is what Spike Lee did not say: Black people are winning the war. At least in St. Louis. Black-on-white crime is an everyday fact of life in this once vibrant city. And more and more people — the ones who are left, anyway — are wondering why local media refuse to tell the truth about it.

Speed Kills Racial Profiling Study. By Ann Coulter 
Excerpt: But Wines revives the canard about blacks being disproportionately targeted in traffic stops. There actually is a study for that. ... Blacks constituted 25 percent of all speeders and they were 23 percent of drivers stopped for speeding. Controlling for age and gender, blacks sped at about twice the rate of whites.

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News

Excerpt: Having spent $26 billion of taxpayers’ money since 2009 inducing hospitals and physicians to install electronic health records (EHRs), many champions of the effort are dismayed that the EHRs are not interoperable. That is, they cannot talk to each other — which was the whole point of subsidizing the effort. ... But what do these EHRs do? What they do not do is talk to each other. According to the same review, “only 10 percent of ambulatory practices and 30 percent of hospitals were found to be participating in operational health information exchange efforts.”

Undocumented Democrat News

Voters Strongly Oppose Obama's Amnesty Plan for Illegal Immigrants
Excerpt: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 62% of Likely U.S. Voters oppose the president granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants without the approval of Congress. Just 26% are in favor of Obama's plan, while 12% are undecided. (Which is why he won't act until after the November election. ~Bob)

"You're Greener Than Gore" News

Important: Electricity prices rise most since 2009. By Zack Colman 
Excerpt: Electricity prices for the first half of the year increased the most in a year-over-year basis since 2009, according to the Energy Department's statistics arm. U.S. power prices are up 3.2 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. (Obama and the Green Progressives stick it to the poor and working class again. And, of course, you too. ~Bob)

Yes, solar is booming, but ... By Robert Bryce
Excerpt: Since 2011, the amount of energy produced by the solar sector has more than doubled. But amidst the solar frenzy, we must remember the critical issue of scale. Indeed, despite solar's rapid growth, its output is still being dwarfed by the ongoing growth in hydrocarbons.
That fact can easily be proven by comparing the surge in solar-energy production with the remarkable growth in domestic oil output. 

Don't Cut Carbon, Just Adapt to Climate Change
Excerpt: The Obama administration has been focused on mitigating carbon emissions, writes Edward Lazear of the Hoover Institution, rather than adapting to climate change (such as planting crops that can withstand high heat). The mitigation approach is not cost-effective, and it will have no impact on the world's warming. Lazear explains that the entire world emitted 31 gigatons of carbon dioxide in 2012, led by China (responsible for 25 percent of the emissions) and the United States (responsible for one-sixth of the emissions). China's carbon emissions have increased each year, a trend that puts the country on track to emit 99 gigatons of carbon by 2014 -- three times the amount the entire world emits today. But according to Lazear, the 99-gigaton estimate is unrealistic, because countries increase their energy efficiency as they develop. Even so, with no emissions growth, by 2041 China would emit the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the entire globe today.

Religion of Peace News

Worth Reading: Urgent Memo For The President - Re: ISIS. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: Sir, disturbed by the grisly beheading of a second American, Mr. Steve Sotloff - by the barbarians of ISIS (whom you refer to as ISIL) - I could not sleep peaceably last night (think George Orwell).

Obama's ISIS Strategy
Excerpt: This was Obama's war and Obama has lost it. It's a failed state in which jihadists are running around seizing commercial airliners. If Bush had done this it would be on the front page of every newspaper.

Former CIA Operative: Yes, ISIS is in The U.S. By Katie Pavlich
Excerpt: "What are your sources telling you about ISIS and any cells in the United States?" Tapper asked. "The people who collect tactical intelligence on the ground, day-to-day, and this isn't Washington, but people collecting this stuff say they're here, ISIS is here, they're capable of striking. 

Excerpt: ISIS or the Islamic State “Caliphate” is the focus  of a great deal of discussion
and demands for action from the United States – and also inaction – from many quarters. What is to be done? That is a famous question. In matters of geopolitics and strategy, it is more fitting to begin with “Should something be done?”. We need to define the problem before rushing toward solutions. What is ISIS/ISIL/IS and does it threaten the United States and American interests?: (Really excellent article. --Del)

Sotloff Family Furious With White House… And The Nyt Buried It
Excerpt: The family of Steven Sotloff, the latest American journalist beheaded by ISIS, is reportedly "outraged" at the Obama administration for "deliberate leaks" they interpret as "an attempt to absolve the administration of inaction." 

Excerpt: The intelligence community is pushing back, saying that the growing ISIS threat has been included in the Presidential Daily Brief over the past year. A former Pentagon official confirms to Fox News that detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of ISIS was included in the PDB, or the President’s Daily Brief, for at least a year before the group took large swaths of territory beginning in June. The official, who asked not to be identified because the PDB is considered the most authoritative, classified intelligence community product providing the President with analysis of sensitive international events, said the data was strong, and “granular” in detail, adding a policy maker “…could not come away with any other impression: This is getting bad.”

Saudi king warns of terrorist threat to Europe, US. By Abdullah Al-Shihri and Sameer Yaacoub
Excerpt: The king of Saudi Arabia has warned that extremists could attack Europe and the U.S. if there is not a strong international response to terrorism after the Islamic State group seized a wide territory across Iraq and Syria. While not mentioning any terrorist groups by name, King Abdullah's statement appeared aimed at drawing Washington and NATO forces into a wider fight against the Islamic State group and its supporters in the region. 

Official: American May Be Key in ISIS Social Media Blitz. By Michele Mcphee and Brian Ross
Excerpt: An American college graduate from Boston, who has been on the run from the FBI for years, is suspected of joining ISIS and leveraging his computer skills to spread the Iraqi terror group’s propaganda on social media, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News.

State Department Won't "Label" ISIS So They're Attacking Fox News Instead. By Katie Pavlich 
Excerpt: Last night on the O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly said State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki is in over her head and Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf is really upset about it. Keep in mind Harf and Psaki both speak on behalf of Secretary of State John Kerry. 

Fears Grow Over American Terrorist 'Wannabes' Trying to Join ISIS
Excerpt: As the conflict with the Islamic State (ISIS) intensifies, a small group of young Americans have been seeking to join extremist groups in the Middle East, intent on fighting against U.S. interests. At least seven "wannabes" have been arrested in the last 15 months after trying to travel to join the militant groups, while an eighth — a former police officer from North Carolina — was arrested on an unrelated charge after unsuccessfully attempting to join ISIS in Syria, according to NBC News.  (He's saying that because if you accept the Sharia, etc, as the word of God, it will lead you directly to becoming a jihadist, dedicated to the spread of Islam by any means necessary. He has just explained what it means to be a Muslim IF you accept those parts of the sacred books. All Muslims accept the Quran as the word of God, but not all accept the Sharia, Sunna, etc, also as the word of God, if they don't, they don't have to see being Muslim as the same as being jihadist. --Del)

The moderate rebels: A needle in a haystack
Excerpt: If the nature of the Free Syrian Army’s name was ambiguous since its inception in 2011, it is clear today that it is nothing but a label for media consumption. … Announcing their FSA affiliation was a mere pathway to receiving foreign support. Funders - most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait’s Salafis - were keen on the Islamist identity of the groups receiving support without requiring them to announce it publicly.

Excerpt: As soon as weapons shipments from the CIA were arriving in Syria, the FSA weapons caches were being raided by jihadist groups, including ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, under very suspicious circumstances. … But by April of this year, the Obama adminstration’s CIA weapons spigot was turned back on, with the FSA now receiving heavy weapons, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. And in late June, President Obama asked Congress for $500 million to arm and train the FSA. (Remember also Liz O’Bagy outed as an agent for the Syrian rebels, quickly hired by Sen. John McCain, despite her false credentials….Barb)

Excerpt: Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary, provided some additional details on last night's airstrike on Shabaab, al Qaeda's official branch in Somalia. Shabaab's emir, Ahmed Abdi Godane, a.k.a. Mukhtar Abu Zubayr, was the target of the strike, which included both drones and manned aircraft, Kirby confirmed. And the strike hit a Shabaab "encampment" south of Mogadishu

Excerpt: The Pakistani military claimed that 910 "terrorists" and 82 soldiers have been killed since it launched an operation against the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan and allied jihadist groups in North Waziristan in mid-June. Dismissing the military's claims as "complete lies," a Taliban splinter group denied that hundreds of jihadists had been killed and said training camps and bomb factories were moved before the operation was launched.

Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11
Excerpt: Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa.

WFB’s Bill Gertz: Obama Administration ‘Trying to Play Down’ Missing Libyan Airliners
Excerpt: “It seems like the State Department, the Obama administration, is trying to play down these reports, but the people I talked to were fairly concerned about them,” Gertz said. “Again, they are trying to locate these jets. I don’t think the CIA has a full handle on where all of the aircraft from the airlines were. T

Muslim Man Massacres 186 Christian Children, And Then Says, “I Don’t Feel Guilty”
Excerpt: Nurpashi Kulaev, the only surviving Muslim jihadist who took part in the Beslan Massacre, in which 186 Christian children were killed, has affirmed that he feels no guilt for his crime, saying:

Indian states on alert after al Qaeda announces local wing
Excerpt: India put several provinces on heightened alert on Thursday after al Qaeda announced the formation of a wing of the militant group in India and its neighborhood, a senior government official said. In a video posted online, al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri promised to spread Islamic rule and "raise the flag of jihad" across the "Indian subcontinent".

Why I’m Unsubscribing From the New York Times
Excerpt: I am a lifelong Democrat, a political liberal, a Reform rabbi, and for four decades, until last week, a New York Times subscriber. What drove me away was the paper’s incessant denigration of Israel, a torrent of articles, photographs, and op-ed columns that consistently present the Jewish State in the worst possible light.

Israel is the Safest Place for an Arab in the Middle East. Byy Anat Berko
Excerpt: A while ago we went to get the car fixed in one of the Arab villages in Israel's northern coastal plain near where my husband was born. The area is a microcosm of Jewish-Arab coexistence, characterized by the kind of easy relations between good neighbors. The repair shop is run by a man named Muhammad, who welcomed us into his office and offered us Turkish coffee with cardamom, in the best Arab tradition. Despite the complex situation in the Gaza Strip, there was no tension in the air.

Israel and a Tale of Two British Exports. By Kenneth Levin
Excerpt: Arguably the UK’s most successful domestically produced export to Israel has been parliamentary democracy. Arguably its most successful domestically produced export to the Arab world has been the anti-Semitic blood libel, the claim that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children to bake their Passover matzah or for other ritual purposes. What is curious is that there are so many in Britain for whom the latter “achievement” resonates more and finds expression in new domestic iterations of this hoary, murderous British creation. (I'd like to believe the average Briton does not buy into this, but given the dominance of the elite, the media, the universities and the craven kowtowing to Muslims in Britain, I'm afraid they have been poisoned beyond saving. This seems to already have happened in Ireland and Scotland. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)

Excerpt: So it's time to look at some dirty secrets, foreign correspondent edition.
Trench coats and panamas have given way to sat phones and moral ambiguity. An ideal starting point in understanding this media ambiguity – and its occasional, sinister undertones and implications for us – is the Israel-Hamas war. The penny should have dropped well before today's Gaza crisis. No later than April 11, 2003, in fact. That day, CNN admitted in the New York Times that it hid and manipulated reality, though the wording was more delicately self-regarding.

Nigeria's Boko Haram 'seize Banki town near Cameroon'
Excerpt: Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram has captured the town of Banki, which borders Cameroon, after government troops fled, residents say.
The military has not yet commented on the latest town to reportedly fall to the insurgents in recent weeks.

Important: Morphing Into ‘Conventional Army,’ Boko Haram Poised to ‘Explode Any Day, Like ISIS’ Terrorist group's new "caliphate" makes lightning-fast gains, closing in on a state capital that, if seized, would tear Nigeria apart and create a huge al-Qaeda base.
Excerpt: As the world’s attention is captured by the terrifying determination and bloody modus operandi of the Islamic State, an al-Qaeda affiliate that declared a caliphate last week is sweeping across northeast Nigeria with lightning-quick efficiency and equally brutal means in a bid to break up the most populous nation on the continent. (The Nigerian government never took the steps they should have at least two years ago to bring the army up to that district and really smash these guys. They let the cancer grow, and now it's turned into a big tumor, and still growing. We can only hope the Nigerian President now becomes deadly serious about saving his country and brings every bit of military power he can muster to go after Boko Haram all-out, blast them to pieces and take no prisoners. Nothing else has any chance of stopping this horrible mess. --Del)

Whistleblower of UK Child Rape Rings Ignored; Sent to Diversity Class Instead. By Christine Rousselle
Excerpt: An estimated 1,400 girls were groomed, abused, and raped between 1997 and 2013 by gangs of mostly Pakistani men. Some of the horrific reports of abuse include stories of being gang raped and doused with gasoline. Perhaps equally troubling are reports that the abuse was uncovered in 2001—and instead of being addressed by police and appropriate authorities, the whistleblower was instead sent to diversity training after she revealed the ethnicity of the rapists in her report. (To progressives, child rape is a part of the beauty of diversity, all cultures being equally valid. ~Bob)

Muslims Sexually Enslaving Children: A Global Phenomenon. By Raymond Ibrahim
Excerpt: As shocking as the Muslim-run sex ring in Rotherham, England may seem to some—1,400 British children as young as 11 plied with drugs before being passed around and sexually abused in cabs and kabob shops—the fact is that this phenomenon is immensely widespread. In the United Kingdom alone, it’s the fifth sex abuse ring led by Muslims to be uncovered. Some years back in Australia, a group of “Lebanese Muslim youths” were responsible for a “series of brutal gang rapes” of “Anglo-Celtic teenage girls.”


Excerpt: Under the headline “The World in Flames,” Henry Kissinger warns in a London Sunday Times op-ed of the consequences of state failure and anarchy in the Muslim world. Read it carefully: Kissinger reviews the collapse of America’s idea of exporting democracy during the Arab Spring and its dire consequences. He suggests that the US needs to work with Russia to put out the fire: Participants in the contests search for outside support, particularly from Russia and the US, in turn shaping relations between them.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

ISIS murders another American and other important news

Update

On Christmas, two days after my lung transplant, I was in the hospital, still mostly in a coma. On Memorial Day, I was in the hospital, on 100% oxygen, close to the edge and had to be put on a ventilator with a breathing tube down my throat. On the Fourth of July, I was admitted to the hospital after my O2 de-saturated sue to swelling in the bronchial tubes. So I was glad to be able spend Labor Day at home, off oxygen. Britnye's dad was here, so we took him to the House on the Rock in Spring Green. (Our first visit--it's terrific. (http://houseontherock.com/). We only did one of the three tours, a lot of up and down, but my O2 level stayed at 94% to 97% despite the climb, though my breathing got labored. So all good. ~Bob

Facebook Comments on Old Jarhead Poems. http://tiny.cc/cyp0i
Bob, read some of your poetry today. MY GOD, fabulous! my dad, Stan (A Marine Officer), would have thoroughly enjoyed your book of poetry. am purchasing a copy. LOVE that proceeds help the Semper Fi fund....my mother, Rebel, always admired and enjoyed you. They are both smiling down from heaven at you! Hugs L--ori. Just finished reading the poetry book - wonderful. simply wonderful...i was quite tearful reading several of them. whew! I am going to share with my dear pal Rick who is former Navy & Marine. --Lori. (I dated Lori a couple of times when I was in the senate. She had a pet boa constrictor. Critter tried to bite me, but I'm pretty fast. Or I was. ~Bob)

Thanks for pulmonary fibrosis article -- Robert A. Hall
Letter to WSJ August 29, 2014

General News and Comment

Must Read: The New World Disorder: To Obama, the retrenchment of the West was not only inevitable but to be welcomed. By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/386779/new-world-disorder-victor-davis-hanson
Excerpt: In just the last five or six years the world has been fundamentally transformed. Instead of the old accustomed Western-inspired postwar global order, crafted and ensured by the United States and its European and Japanese partners, there is now mostly chaos, from Ukraine to Syria to the South China Sea. Or, rather, there may be emerging new rules, given that we are still frozen in a Wild West moment, when everyone in the saloon has drawn his six-shooter, paused, and is wondering what happened to the sheriff — and wondering, too, who will be the first to dare start shooting.

WaPo Editorial Worth Reading: President Obama needs to focus on how the United States can meet global challenges
Excerpt: PRESIDENT OBAMA’S acknowledgment that “we don’t have a strategy yet” in Syria understandably attracted the most attention after his perplexing meeting with reporters Thursday. But his restatement of the obvious was not the most dismaying aspect of his remarks. The president’s goal, to the extent he had one, seemed to be to tamp down all the assessments of gathering dangers that his own team had been issuing over the previous days. This argument with his own administration is alarming on three levels.


Grim Anniversary
September First was the 75th anniversary of the National Socialist in Germany, supported by their International Socialist allies in the USSR, invasion Poland, partitioning it between the two socialist empires, starting WWII, which killed some 40 million people, especially Germans and Russians, after Hitler turned on Stalin. Poland was enslaved until 1989. ~Bob

Quote
"Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!" --Samuel Adams ("Candidus"), 1776

Worth Reading: Global Democracy: A Dream From Obama’s Father? By Samuel L. Skogstad, Ph.D
Dr. Skogstad is a blog reader, an economist and, most importantly, a brother Marine. ~Bob

Worth Reading: Absent In The Presidency - The Art of Class. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: With hesitation I opted to write this morning's brief comment. For it must be written just so as not to breach the topic itself.

Important: Why Conservatives Are Up in Arms at the College Board's Advanced Placement Course in History. By Peter Wood
Excerpt: In 2012, the College Board released a new set of standards for the Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) course. APUSH vanishes some figures who would seem indispensable to any basic history of the United States. This is American history seemingly without Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. “Seemingly” is a key word. If you examine the APUSH standards for the period 1754-1800, these three figures are not mentioned, but there is a reference to “Jeffersonian Republicans” that could imply the existence of someone named Jefferson. One of the members of the APUSH Redesign Committee teaches at a place called the “James Madison School.” And in an appendix that considers possible AP Exam questions aligned to APUSH, we are counseled that a student could demonstrate how the American Revolution failed to change the structure of privilege in society by citing “George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson” as “examples.” ... Peter Wood is an anthropologist and former provost at King's College in New York City. He serves as the president of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). OK, here it is now, right in-your-face "revisionist" history in the pejorative sense, where the politically correct ideology of who we were founded by, what our legacy is from the Founding years, and how our society was so rampant with terrible faults from the beginning, is to be set in concrete by the experts over at the College Board think tank. They didn't quite use the line that our Founders were all "old White men who owned slaves" with all the negative connotations that the phrase brings along, but they sure have taken an approach that neglects the simple facts of who was critical in those times, and how their ideas and ideals set the bedrock for our nation. Of course by today's standards the society of 1776 was dominated by Caucasians, mostly Christian, in a class system, not an open "multicultural" one. There weren't any such in the Western world (or anywhere else) at the time, and trying to make judgments on people of that time by some of the standards of this one is not just inappropriate, it's simply stupid. What is really crazy is that the same kind of thinking that says all cultures today are equally valid, so let's not be upset about how women are treated in strict Islamic cultures, somehow says it's perfectly OK on the other hand to condemn the culture of the far past to which we are heirs. Hopefully the screaming about this perversion of teaching will bring about a review and reversal in short order. --Del. The more theories on modern education that have sprung from liberal academia to percolate through society, and the more money we have spent on schools over the last 50 years, the worse educated our kids have become. ~Bob)

Mathematician Dr. Jim Milgram Warns Common Core Will Destroy America's Standing in Technology. By Dr. Susan Berry
Excerpt: During a Friday conference call sponsored by Texas-based Women on the Wall, Stanford mathematician and former member of the Common Core Validation Committee Dr. James Milgram, told listeners that if the controversial standards are not repealed, America’s place as a competitor in the technology industry will ultimately be severely undermined.

Worth Reading: Irresponsible Choices. By Thomas Sowell 
Excerpt: The latest Gallup poll indicates that 14 percent of the people “moderately disapprove” of Barack Obama’s performance as president and 39 percent “strongly disapprove.” Since Obama won two presidential elections, chances are that some of those who now “strongly disapprove” of what he has done voted to put him in office. We all make mistakes, but the real question is whether we learn from them. With many people now acting as if it is time for “a woman” to become president, apparently they have learned absolutely nothing from the disastrous results of the irresponsible self-indulgence of choosing a President of the United States on the basis of demographic characteristics, instead of individual qualifications.

Interesting: 5 Charts That Explain Millennial Voters. By Melissa Quinn
Excerpt: The Cold War ended long ago, and according to one survey, it’s time for politicians to leave Cold War-era terms such as “big government,” “socialism” and “capitalism” behind. The reason: Such words mean little to the millennial generation, who came of age during the Great Recession. The 18- to 29-year-old demographic played a crucial role in the 2008 and 2012 elections. These millennials were instrumental in electing Barack Obama to the presidency not once, but twice. In 2008, Obama won 66 percent of voting millennials; in 2012, he captured 67 percent.

Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Support Leftist Foreign Policy Centers at Universities. By Mike Gonzalez
Excerpt: The foreign crises that have challenged the Obama Administration this summer are not the result of a happenstance outbreak of global chaos, but of bad policy choices. From the Middle East to our own border to the Eurasian steppe, President Obama’s “lead from behind” chickens—his wanton abandonment of America’s leadership role—have come home to roost.
Obama, alas, is not alone in spurning American influence and power, or traditional support for world actors like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who identify with American values. Standing behind him is an entire philosophical and theoretical framework, born in academia, that guides his actions. 

Obama’s Miserable Failure. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: It was always obvious what Obama’s supporters wanted. ... They wanted someone larger than life. A head made for Mount Rushmore and a body that would be cast in statues across the country. ... They compared him to JFK and Reagan. He was treated as the icon that his backers wanted him to be. His election was supposed to be a watershed moment in American history. Instead it ends in miserable failure.

How to Lose a Constitution -- Lessons from Roman History. By Lawrence W. Reed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=UUialsmUlTRABKPw31VDx1eQ&v=x6PjLy6hBqc
Excerpt: The history of ancient Rome spans a thousand years -- roughly 500 as a republic and 500 as an imperial autocracy, with the birth of Christ occurring almost precisely in the middle. The closest parallels between Roman and American civilizations are to be found in Rome’s first half-millennium as a republic. We in our day can derive the most instructive lessons from that period. The tyranny of the empire came after the republic was destroyed and that’s the truly awful consequence of decay that America can yet avoid.

Obama attends WH chef’s wedding
Excerpt: President Obama was among the guests at the wedding of White House chef Sam Kass late Saturday, according to a White House pool report. Kass, the president’s senior policy adviser for nutrition policy and the executive director of first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, was getting hitched to MSNBC host Alex Wagner.... Whether or not Obama would appear at the nuptials had become a Beltway guessing game in recent weeks, especially after the president interrupted his annual summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard earlier this month to return to the nation's capital for Kass’s pre-wedding celebration. (So media knew interruption in schedule was for other personal pleasure but painted it as concern for matters of state; this article notes pool reporters puzzled by "return to West Wing" from Vineyard when Congress in recess. So, after vacation ends, Saturday wedding party; Sunday golf. --Barb. No time for General Greene's funeral, or to visit Jim Foley's parents. ~Bob)

Obama plays golf with staffers
Excerpt: President Obama took advantage of the Washington area’s hot weather Sunday by playing an afternoon game of golf with three White House staffers...Playing golf with the Obama were Joe Paulsen, Luke Rosa and Mike Brush. ...The pool reporter noted that Obama appeared to have a bandage on his left middle finger.

Excerpt: The U.S. has more than quadrupled the fee to renounce citizenship as record numbers of citizens file to become expatriates. The State Department increased the fee to renounce citizenship by 422 percent, from $450 to $2,350, Forbes reports, which is a rate more than twenty times the average rate in other high-income countries. In 2013, the number of Americans who renounced U.S. citizenship increased by 221 percent, according Forbes, and Canadians with dual citizenships who want to renounce their U.S. citizenship have created a backlog at the consulate in Toronto stretching into 2015.

MAN HATERS: This Chick Thinks Eradicating The Male Population by 90% Will Heal The World. By Doug Giles
Excerpt: In my 2012 book, Raising Boys Feminists Will Hate, I wrote in the opening salvo that, “Feminists would love nothing more than to take your son and eradicate his masculine uniqueness. They hate men, and therefore, they will hate your son. That is, of course, assuming that you, the parent, intend to raise your son to be a man instead of a rouged and lipsticked, male American Idol hopeful.

WaPo Publisher Katharine Weymouth Steps Down
Excerpt: Today she announced in a note to staff that she’ll be leaving the publication after 17 years. Owner Jeff Bezos wasted no time declaring her successor: Fred Ryan, formerly President and CEO of Politico and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation. 

Letter from the parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn of SEAL Team VI: Please resign, Mr. President. By Billy and Karen Vaughn
Excerpt: After finally choosing to view the barbaric, on-camera beheading by ISIS of freelance war correspondent James Foley, I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace. My offering was my only son — Aaron Carson Vaughn. Aaron was a member of SEAL Team VI. He was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans was shot down in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011.

Feds Still Studying Why Lesbians Are Obese. By Elizabeth Harrington
Excerpt: The federal government is still seeking answers as to why the majority of lesbians are obese and U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill, which now totals $2.87 million.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) study is now in its fourth year, receiving an additional $670,567 for fiscal year 2014. The project seeks to determine why “nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese,” and why gay males are not. (Here's an idea: ask them. A lesbian friend told me that gay males are hung up on body image, lesbians are not. ~Bob)

Excerpt: The third year of California drought has exposed all sorts of water fantasies. If in wet years they were implicit, now without rain or snow for nearly three years, they are all too explicit. Add them up. Take the Bay Area, Ground Zero of water environmentalism. (A sad situation in CA, but one that is not hard to understand. And one that is not going to get better, but only worse, unless state government starts doing some intelligent things. Good luck on that. --Del)

Leaks of nude celebrity photos raise concerns about security of the cloud
They had to pay me not to leak mine. ~Bob

Teacher’s arrest over future school shooting novel suggests antigun hysteria
Excerpt: If there’s more to the story of a Maryland middle school teacher being suspended and “taken in for emergency medical evaluation” than the fact that he wrote a novel involving school shootings in the distant future, administrators and police aren't talking, WBOC16 reported last week. 23-year-old language arts teacher Patrick McLaw, a.k.a. Dr. K.S. Voltaer and Patrick Beale, is also a novelist writing under a pen name employed by Mace Lane Middle School in Cambridge. (I had an idea for a terrorist novel, but after the 9/11 murders used Clancy's plane-into-building idea, I scrapped it. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Imagine you are watching a Presidential debate sometime in the late spring of 2016. What readily comes to your mind is surely the faces of Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie...perhaps Marco Rubio..and even perhaps Mitt Romney again. Now imagine there's one more candidate up there on the dais. Note the contrast between him and the other candidates. As each one of the well known politicos accuse each other of everything from being a big spender, or soft on immigration, or molesting his children, there is one who speaks softly, without rancor, among that bunch. Imagine someone who was born in a Detroit ghetto, who was abandoned by his father at eight years old, who was raised by a single mom, who knows poverty, knows what it's like growing up among gang-bangers up on that debate podium.

Race Card News

People rally at Ohio Wal-Mart where cops shot man
Excerpt: Some 200 people held signs and chanted Saturday outside a Wal-Mart where a young man with an air rifle was fatally shot by police. ... An attorney representing Crawford's family says Wal-Mart surveillance video of the shooting shows it was unjustified. Crawford is black, while the two officers involved are white. (Here we go again. This should be calmly, fairly and impartially investigated just as it would be if the officers were black or the dead guy was white. If it was unjustified, they should be charged, otherwise exonerated. ~Bob)

Obamacare/Government Healthcare News

Obamacare's Death of a Thousand Rate Hikes. By Sally Pipes
Excerpt: Get ready to pay more for health insurance next year, compliments of Obamacare.
A new analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that average premiums for policies sold through Obamacare’s exchanges will increase 7.5 percent in 2015. In nearly one-third of the 29 states that PwC investigated, premiums will rise by double digits. 

Undocumented Democrat News

Reports: Obama Considers Postponing Executive Immigration Action Until After Midterms. By Guy Benson
As I predicted in my last Random Thoughts post. Not a tough prediction to make. ~Bob

Investigating Washington: Is the government sharing enough information about ‘unaccompanied alien children’ with the public? By Sharyl Attkisson
Excerpt: The government has abruptly shut down operations at Fort Sill in Oklahoma and two other military bases that sheltered more than 7,700 minors the government refers to as “unaccompanied alien children.” Thousands have been transferred to 150 shelters around the country, mostly group homes run by nonprofits. But try to find out exactly where and the government won’t answer—not the public or reporters, not even members of Congress. (What do you expect from "The Most Transparent Administration in History"? ~Bob)

Lawman’s burden. By Melissa del Bosque
Excerpt: Recovering human remains in the heat of a South Texas summer is not for the faint-hearted. The sight and smell of the dead can linger with you for days. It can give you nightmares if you let it. Whenever ranchers in rural Brooks County, 70 miles north of the Mexican border, find a body, which is often these days, they call the Brooks County Sheriff's Office. (All the bodies that keep getting found, because of the now frequent deaths in the desert of the illegals trying to get further north in the US. A very interesting and informative article about the real consequences of not tightening the border really well, so that fewer people even try to make it through. --Del. Collateral damages in a Democrat voter registration drive. ~Bob))

Border Patrol Agent Disciplined after Speaking with the Press: Senator Tom Coburn wrote to DHS about the Border Patrol’s “culture of retaliation.” By Ryan Lovelace
Excerpt: The federal government has disciplined a Border Patrol agent for speaking to the media — including NRO. After being instructed to “immediately cease and desist” from issuing press releases and statements that contain “Law Enforcement sensitive” information, Agent Ron Zermeno spoke to NRO. 

"You're Greener Than Gore" News

California’s Environmental Enthusiasm Is About To Become Reality. By Patrick Dorinson
http://www.flashreport.org/blog/2014/08/20/californias-environmental-enthusiasm-is-about-to-become-reality/#sthash.d3wWxjBb.dpuf
Excerpt: In 2006 the California Legislature passed the most sweeping environmental legislation in the nation. Celebrity Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t wait to put his signature to the bill. The two basic pillars of AB 32 was first, to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020 and second set up a cap and trade system that would make evil polluters buy credits to offset their GHG emissions. The money from the credits would go to fund green projects that would in turn meet the goals of pollution reduction. At the time an overwhelming number of Californians enthusiastically supported this noble undertaking without asking what it would eventually cost. (California enviro whackos got it done...and now the consequences will finally come along for everyone to enjoy. he already super high gas cost in CA will jump again, one of those taxes that won't bother the wealthy at all, or even much of the upper class who don't do a great deal of driving. But it will get felt right away by the lower class people, and most especially anyone who does a real commute or driving as part of work. Maybe there will be some articles in the papers when it hits. --Del)

Myth of arctic meltdown: Stunning satellite images show summer ice cap is thicker and covers 1.7million square kilometres MORE than 2 years ago...despite Al Gore's prediction it would be ICE-FREE by now
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2738653/Stunning-satellite-images-summer-ice-cap-thicker-covers-1-7million-square-kilometres-MORE-2-years-ago-despite-Al-Gore-s-prediction-ICE-FREE-now.html
Excerpt: The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said. ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.’ Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change. But seven years after his warning, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession – with a surge, depending on how you measure it, of between 43 and 63 per cent since 2012.

Religion of Peace News

BREAKING: Video Reportedly Shows Execution of Reporter Steven Sotloff. By Christine Rousselle
Excerpt: Journalist Steven Sotloff was pictured at the end of the video of James Foley'sexecution, with ISIS militants warning that he would be executed next. Sotloff went missing in Syria in August 2013. The executioner in Sotloff's video is thought to be the same man who executed James Foley. Both speak with British accents, and in the new video, he addressed the camera saying, "I'm back."

Report: Obama Briefed on ISIS Threat for More Than a Year. Guy Benson
Excerpt: Fox News national security correspondent Catherine Herridge probes her sources and reports that President Obama received "specific intelligence" about the rise of ISIS in his daily briefings for "at least a year:" 

While Obama Ponders ISIS Action, UK's David Cameron Takes Charge. By Courtney Coren
Excerpt: While Great Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron cut his vacation short to deal with the Islamic State (ISIS) crisis, President Obama was golfing on Martha's Vineyard. While Cameron took action, raising Great Britain's terror threat to "severe," Obama told Americans "We don’t have a strategy, yet." So, while President Obama has spent Labor Day weekend raising money for Democrats, is it any wonder why some lawmakers and political analysts, including Red State's Erick Erickson are asking: "Can we borrow David Cameron?" (David Cameron in the UK has reacted realistically to ISIS, you can see the article below for the full details. The part that really got my attention was that he wants all UK citizens fighting in ISIS identified, so their passports will be known and they will not be allowed to re-enter the UK. What a great idea! I said the exact same thing, that the USA should identify and cancelled the passports of any citizen fighting for ISIS. But our "leadership" is nowhere near such actions, hell, not even near thinking about it. And I'm sure they would say that's too nasty or illegal somehow, and presto!... the guys who have been taking heads off in Iraq get to come home to the USA to spread the virus of the mental disease that is radical jihadism. Will we have to pay another price of blood in the streets from more innocent victims before the government does anything to protect its people from such murderers? --Del)

Democrat Leader Blasts President Obama on ISIS
Excerpt: Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is a powerful and important figure in Washington, D.C. She may not officially hold the title of “leader” in the either Congressional chamber, but she as much as any one shapes Democrat Party policy. Yesterday on NBC’s flagship Sunday show, Meet the Press, she quietly blasted President Obama’s ISIS policy (or lack thereof).

Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, Nbc News: Military Officials "Apoplectic" Over Obama's Approach To ISIS

Obama at DNC event: “[T]hings are much less dangerous now than they were 20 years ago, 25 years ago or 30 years ago."

Excerpt: They DO have a strategy, but they prefer to appear indecisive. ... The actual strategy is detente first, and then a full alliance with Iran throughout the Middle East and North Africa. ... The central theme in Obama’s outreach to Iran is his conviction that the United States has historically played a wicked role in the Middle East, and that the best things he can do for that part of the world is to limit and withdraw American military might, and empower our self-declared enemies, whose hostility to traditional American policies he largely shares.

73% Worry About Obama’s Lack of Strategy for ISIS
Excerpt: Voters regard the radical Islamic terrorist group ISIS as a major threat to the United States and are very worried that President Obama doesn’t have a strategy for dealing with the problem. They remain reluctant to send U.S. troops back to Iraq to take on ISIS, but support is growing. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of Likely U.S. Voters consider the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) a serious threat to this country.

As Obama considers ISIS strategy, militants continue propaganda push
Excerpt: President Obama flies to Europe on Tuesday ahead of talks with NATO allies over the crisis in Ukraine. But they will also discuss the growing threat posed by ISIS, the Islamic extremists who have seized control of large sections of Iraq and Syria.
While Mr. Obama was touting an improving economy in Wisconsin, the terror group released the third issue of its English language online magazine, complete with pictures of the group executing Syrian soldiers and blowing up the homes of those who cooperated with police.

ISIS Forcing Detained Pilots To Train Militants
Excerpt: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria said in a recent tweet it is forcing detained Syrian pilots to train militant fighters to fly stolen aircraft, CNN Arabic reported on Saturday. In an account reportedly associated with the militant group, ISIS said in a tweet the pilots were abducted when the group gained control over the Tabqa military airbase in Raqqa Province..... The major airfield houses warplanes, helicopters, tanks and other artillery and ammunition, which were also confiscated by ISIS, according to several media reports.

British Leader’s Plan Targets Jihadists’ Passports
Excerpt: Prime Minister David Cameron, trying to show toughness in the face of young British Muslims’ going off to fight in Syria and Iraq, proposed legislation on Monday that would give the police the power to seize the passports of Britons suspected of having traveled abroad to fight with militant groups.

Militants Add Cluster Bombing to Tactics, Rights Group Says
Excerpt: The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the extremist militant group now almost universally vilified for atrocities that include boastful beheadings, summary mass executions and enslavement in the areas it aspires to control, also has attacked enemies with cluster bombs, the banned weapons that kill and maim indiscriminately, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
The FBI’s Islamic Terrorism Denial. By Robert Spencer, JihadWath.com
Excerpt: The Washington Free Beaconrevealed Friday that “the FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.” Instead, the threat assessment focused on eight types of groups: “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists,” along with “violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.” (They'll be political correct if it kills you. ~Bob)

U.S. Authorities Can't Find 6,000 Students Whose Visas Have Expired
Excerpt: An alarming new report from ABC News shows authorities from U.S. Customs and Immigration and the State Department have lost track of 6,000 foreign students whose visas have expired. As a reminder, the 9/11 hijackers purposely applied for student visas to get into the United States and knew when those visas expired nobody would come looking for them. (But don't worry. they are totally competent to track and manage your healthcare. ~Bob)

The Pentagon's Bow to Islamic Extremism. By Raymond Ibrahim
Excerpt: Caving to pressure from Muslim groups, the Pentagon has relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards, turbans and hijabs. It's a major win for political correctness and a big loss for military unit cohesion," said a recent report. This new relaxation of rules for Muslims comes at a time when the FBI is tracking more than 100 suspected jihadi-infiltrators of the U.S. military. Just last month, Craig Benedict Baxam, a former Army soldier and convert to Islam, was sentenced to seven years in prison due to his al-Qaeda/jihadi activities. (And here we are in another mess, giving in to pressures that can and should be ignored. Muslims all over the world ignore the requirements for beards and assorted other practices of strict Islam. They can do so here as well, and most certainly when in our military. --Del)

Islam, Postmodernism, and Political Correctness. By Danusha V. Goska
Excerpt: One of the most important tools humanity needs right now is frank speech about Islam. Unfortunately, in journalism, on campuses, and in politics, politically-correct speech codes demonize any analysis of Islam as "Islamophobia." Speech taboos are obeyed across a wide spectrum. In September, 2001, after the 9-11 attacks, President George Bush stated, "Islam is peace." In 2007, his fellow officers declined to take effective action against U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, even after he exhibited to them a PowerPoint presentation that cited the Koran to predict and support his subsequent, 2009 shooting of soldiers at Fort Hood. As the Christian Science Monitor put it, the Army may have chosen to "ignore red flags out of political correctness." Not a two-minute read, but something that takes more time and careful perusal to really grasp and understand what is being presented. But a really great job in explaining important things about Islam and rebutting some of the common but really false comments that say we don't need to worry and Christianity is just open to strong criticism of its tenets and practices. --Del)

University of Florida to launch Islamic study center
Excerpt: The University of Florida is launching a center for global Islamic studies. ...Officials in the school's Center for African Studies and the Department of Religion have been working to open the center for a year. ...The center is set to launch Sept. 18-19 with a conference on "Global Islam and the Quest for Public Space." (Should be at West Point...and JihadWatch.org should get to design the curriculum. ~Bob)

Excerpt: CNN thinks a debate between Jew-haters Reza Aslan and Peter Beinart offers balanced insight into the conflict between Israel and the “Palestinian” jihadis, and would rather take the gaspipe than give a fair platform to a counter-jihadist, but they have no problem featuring this pro-jihad Muslim cleric who gleefully celebrates the 9/11 jihad mass murders.

Boko Haram beheaded six-year-old Christian boy, group reports
Excerpt: It was revealed this week that Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram beheaded a six-year-old boy on June 1 because he was a Christian. The attack occurred in Attagara, Gwoza district, Borno State – a predominately Christian community, according to Voice of the Martyrs.

US Delivers Military Aid to Lebanese Army
Excerpt: The new weapons were displayed at a Beirut air base on Friday after arriving overnight. A sample of the weapons — mortars, M16-A4 assault rifles and anti-tank missiles — were placed on a white satin-covered table with camouflage netting. "This is just the latest in a series of deliveries that have arrived in the last 36 hours," U.S. ambassador David Hale said at the event.

U.S. Troops Take Action on Militants in Somalia
Excerpt: American military forces launched an operation in Somalia on Monday against the Qaeda-linked militant network the Shabab, defense officials said. Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said that officials were still “assessing the results of the operation, and will provide additional information as and when appropriate.”

Important: Libyan Militias Seize Control of Capital as Chaos Rises
Excerpt: The government of Libya said Monday that it had lost control of its ministries to a coalition of militias that had taken over the capital, Tripoli, in another milestone in the disintegration of the state. (How's that unauthorized, lead from behind war on Libya working out for you, Mr. President? ~Bob)

Excerpt: This video was all over the internet, at the same time that it was widely reported that an abandoned annex of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli was taken over by a group of armed rebels. According to the Washington Times, those in the video are members of an Islamist militia group called the Dawn of Libya. (Couldn't we send a drone to take out the entire annex? --JB):

Israel Claims Nearly 1,000 Acres of West Bank Land Near Bethlehem
Excerpt: Israel laid claim on Sunday to nearly 1,000 acres of West Bank land in a Jewish settlement bloc near Bethlehem — a step that could herald significant Israeli construction in the area — defying Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement expansion.

Egyptian police killed in Sinai bomb attack
Excerpt: At least 11 policemen have been killed in a bomb attack on a convoy in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, officials say. Two others when injured when a device exploded as they travelled through the village of Wefaq, near the Gaza border.

Moderate Islam Is Multiculturalism Misspelled. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: I have been searching for moderate Islam since September 11 and just like a lost sock in the dryer, it was in the last place I expected it to be.
There is no moderate Islam in the mosques or in Mecca. You won’t find it in the Koran or the Hadiths. If you want to find moderate Islam, browse the newspaper editorials after a terrorist attack or take a course on Islamic religion taught by a Unitarian Sociologist wearing fake native jewelry.

Rape victim used as sex slave is disowned by family
Excerpt: A YOUNG woman held captive as a sex slave in Bradford has become a suicidal outcast, disowned by her family because she was raped, a court heard. The Bangladeshi student was a naive virgin when she was abducted from London and beaten and kept prisoner by takeaway worker, Abdul Hanif.

I was intimidated and branded a racist for bringing Rochdale abuse gang to justice, says prosecutor
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738804/I-intimidated-branded-racist-bringing-Rochdale-abuse-gang-justice-says-prosecutor.html
Excerpt: As the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West, I led the teams that brought the so-called Rochdale Grooming Gang to justice in 2012 for abusing up to 47 girls.
My work saw me go up against not only the offenders, but those who tried to intimidate me for bringing abusers before the courts. They said I had given racists a stick with which to beat minorities – I said our communities should be carrying their own sticks.

3 Million Refugees Have Fled Syria, UN Agency Says

Excerpt: In addition to the 3 million people who have sought shelter in neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, another 6.5 million refugees have been displaced within Syria, the agency said, adding that half of those people were children. The UNHCR concluded that almost half of the Syrian civilian population has had to leave its homes. Not only are the refugees fleeing violence, but because they frequently bounce from village to village before finally leaving their home country, they arrive in neighboring countries in increasingly “shocking states[s],” according to a UNHCR statement. (Report on ABC Evening News tomorrow on refugee children supporting their parents in Lebanon. --Barb)

Monday, September 1, 2014

Global Democracy: A Dream From Obama’s Father?

Global Democracy: A Dream From Obama’s Father?
Samuel L. Skogstad, Ph.D
August 29, 2014

President Obama’s manner of dealing with international issues has consistently shown a reticence to act without first seeing the formation of a collective coalition, or “community of nations.” News commentaries from fans and detractors alike seem uncomfortably aware of this indecisiveness. The posture commands no respect—and has no deterrent power-- in global crises of aggression such as the three major ones dominating the news during 2014. This change in the American approach to international crises seems to have surprised allies and enemies alike. Yet it seems wholly consistent with the foreign policy direction that Candidate Obama clearly endorsed in his campaigns, namely that the United States’ proper role in the world is not one of leadership, but one among equals in the community of nations.

Most recently, he has watched the advance in Iraq and Syria of ISIS, perhaps the most vicious of the savagely militant Islamist factions. ISIS’s successful blitz and brutal conquests threaten worldwide mayhem, with the ferocity of demons and near boundless resources. Yet our president has not led the formation of a strategy to confront and defeat them, concentrating instead on international community organizing. In this as in all international matters, his affinity for collective action seems to blind him to the reality of impending international disaster if ISIS is not stopped soon and decisively.

The flagrant Russian invasion and conquest of significant portions of Ukraine has been met by the same preference for community action as seen in our tepid reaction. First Russia invaded and occupied the Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The U.S. response represented little more than finger wagging.

Our Commander in Chief warned—gently--that any further incursions would be extremely rude and would lead to somewhat increased sanctions (provided our European allies agreed.) Putin smiled, and our response to the crisis gave him no significant encouragement to leave Crimea. Last week, Russia blatantly invaded more of Ukraine’s important eastern territories. Commander in Chief Obama again disapproved, but hastened to assure all that the United States would not use force to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty. No U.S. demand has been made of Russia to return Crimea and terminate the occupation.

Our president, in fact, would not even use the word “invasion” when commenting on the Russian invasion in a press conference last week. The Russian invasions are the most egregious violations of another nation’s sovereignty since Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland in the 1930s. We, however, apparently have chosen to look the other way, especially scanning the horizon for a “community” to lead the civilized world’s response.

The United States’ response to the latest Hamas-initiated war with Israel, in Gaza, was to send Secretary of State Kerry to win agreement of both sides to stop the violence. Thomas Friedman echoed the Obama Administration’s implicit position that Israel should “change its mindset.” Kerry, predictably, failed, as his proposals offered Israel no confidence that its security concerns would be met. Egypt took over the lead in negotiations and apparently has come close to a temporary narrowing of the gap between the two sides. Whether this was with U.S. blessings, or Egypt merely came to fill the leadership vacuum, is unclear and unimportant. The point is that the U.S. posture was not that of a forceful negotiator. Nor was U.S. partisanship in Israel’s favor, even hinted. Again, U.S. behavior underlined the Obama view that the US role on the international stage should be subject to governance by “the family of nations.”

This small sample of U.S. action in the realm of Foreign Policy, is consistent with the view that President Obama’s dream for the world, like that of his father, is to have a global democracy. There is such inequality among the incomes and the wealth of citizens of the world’s nations that collective action using that vehicle is required to compel the “more fortunate” of the world to share more with the “less fortunate.” With the world’s laws and regulations promulgated by a single popular democracy, which take precedence over individual nation’s laws--much like the laws of the U.S. national government reign supreme over those of states-- the Global democracy could achieve less inequality and more “fairness.” Given the President’s dedication to economic “equality” as an end, and massive income and wealth redistribution as the means, is it not highly likely that abandonment of leadership to groups (or a group) of nations, is a significant motivator in his international as well as his domestic agenda?

Of course the foregoing represents only one logical construct to make sense of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy decisions. But the belief by this writer that it is plausible is not based on a sample of U.S. posture in three crises. Rather, it is based on a reading of Obama’s own writings in Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope, as well as dozens of news commentators and print sources, especially the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Sarasota Herald Tribune, Financial Times and The Economist. A number of books have also been important in forming this view.


Heaven help us if our policy, both domestic and foreign, do not soon undergo a dramatic change of course from the sophomoric, or worse, path to which we have been sentenced for the past 5+ years.

Note: Dr. Skogstad is a blog reader, an economist and, most importantly, a brother Marine. ~Bob