Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for January 23, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for January 23, 2013
Robert A. Hall

Information on my books

Debt Ceiling Speech for Every Republican in Congress
The revised Obama speech every GOP Senator and Representative should give before voting against raising the debt ceiling: “The problem is, is that the way Obama has done it over the last four years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $10 trillion for the first 43 presidents – #44 added $6 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $16 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $52,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”

Worth Reading: Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns? By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: The gun control controversy is only the latest of many issues to be debated almost solely in terms of fixed preconceptions, with little or no examination of hard facts. … When it was legal to buy a shotgun in London in the middle of the 20th century, there were very few armed robberies there. But, after British gun control zealots managed over the years to disarm virtually the entire law-abiding population, armed robberies became literally a hundred times more common. And murder rates rose.

Excerpt: All of the mass shootings, including the one in Houston this morning, were in NO GUN ZONES…History has proven that NO GUN zones are a ridiculous concept and complete failure. Criminals do not abide by the signs. What the signs accomplish is publicize to criminals that this particular building is a place filled with defenseless people waiting to be victims of their next crime.

VIDEO: Tiananmen Square activist speaks up the for the second amendment. Allahpundit
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/22/video-tiananmen-square-activist-speaks-up-for-the-second-amendment/
Excerpt: One gun-control argument I’ve always had trouble understanding, never more so than now, is the idea that millions of citizens armed with pistols and rifles as a bulwark against tyranny might as well give those weapons up because they’re no match for a modern military with tanks and planes. Really? Since when is guerrilla warfare a sure loser, even against a sophisticated, well-equipped army?

Excerpt: House Republicans are now proposing to ignore the federal debt limit altogether -- at least until May 18. The House plans to vote Wednesday on a measure that would leave the $16.4 trillion debt limit intact, but declare that it "shall not apply" from the date the measure passes until mid-May. This novel approach would let Republicans avoid a potentially disastrous fight over the debt limit without actually voting to let the Treasury borrow more money.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a proud Zionist
Excerpt: Martin Luther King, Jr., was an opponent of the jihad against Israel. While there are some disputed quotations circulating in this connection, here are some key and authenticated MLK quotes

Today’s “feel good” story: At Least 13 Suspected Al-Qaida Men Killed in Yemen
Excerpt: A Yemen security official says an explosion in the province of Bayda has killed at least 13 suspected al-Qaida militants. The official in Bayda's capital city of Radda says the explosion went off in a house owned by a known al-Qaida operative, Ahmed Abdullah Deif-Allah Al-Zahab. It appeared to be an accident.

Congress’s addiction to kicking the can down the road. By Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan
Excerpt: Newsflash: Congress is not particularly good at getting things done these days.
What it is very good at, however, is waiting till the last minute, delaying and — eventually, when all other options are exhausted — kicking the can down the road.

The Myth of the Limits on Itemized Deductions. By Alan D. Viard
Excerpt: Contrary to the recent accounts, the new law actually increases incentives to give to charity. For high-income people, the rise in the top bracket boosts the tax reward for giving from 35 to 39.6 percent. Unfortunately, the bracket increase also boosts the tax reward for working less and saving less.

Three Myths about Government Default
Excerpt: In order for clarity to emerge on the debt ceiling debate, three false claims must be addressed, say David Rivkin, Jr., and Lee Casey, both former members of the Reagan and Bush senior administrations. Myth one: If Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling limit, it will trigger a default.

Excerpt: Every “we,” every “our,” every reference to “the nation” in this speech was a reference to a government solution to a “problem.” In this vision of America, no families, churches, charities, voluntary groups, or other institutions of civil society make any appearance at all. And when there are only the government and the individual, we know which one will be in charge.

Worth Reading: For President Obama, al-Qaeda is our problem now: The US no longer sees itself as the world’s bodyguard. By Janet Daley
Excerpt: This transformation had been ongoing for over a decade, ever since 9/11 made Osama too hot to go near. For all its symbolic value, by the time it happened, his death was largely irrelevant. This has not prevented the Obama administration from effectively declaring that the war is over – at least, for the US. Whatever mopping up there is to be done of the anarchic franchise that al-Qaeda left behind, it will be for the old colonial nations to settle.

Government Scientist Gets Fired for Telling the Truth. By David Spady
Excerpt: Something’s amiss at the Department of Interior. Eight government scientists were recently fired or reassigned after voicing concerns to their superiors about faulty environmental science used for policy decisions. Which begs the question, “Are some government agencies manipulating science to advance political agendas?” (This is a report on how the Dept. of Interior lies and covers up the truth about its intention to destroy dams that have until now done what they were designed to do. It's a case of ideology trumping science and falsifying information to the public. After illegal schemes, lies, cover ups and media manipulation by this Administration (dare I say that previous ones have done the same things?) --Benghazi, Fast & Furious, Obamacare, its assault on the Second Amendment, how can any citizen who is paying attention trust the Government? At the end of the article is a video that presents this case. Cordially, --Larry Greenberg)

Psychiatrist Dr.Welner: Why CT Shooter Adam Lanza killed
On the View. he doesn't let them put words in his mouth or give the easy answers they want. Worth watching. ~Bob

Why Martin Luther King Was Republican
Excerpt: It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.

Caught Red-Handed on Climate Change. By John Ransom
Excerpt: A prominent global warming scientist, Peter Gleick, who was chairman of the ethics committee at the American Geophysical Union, admitted last year that he stole some documents- and he may have forged others- from the conservative think-tank the Heartland Institute. But that’s all in a day’s work for a work-a-day climate warrior. The important thing isn’t the quest for the truth in global climate research, but, as Charlie Sheen would say, winning. With winning comes cash. 

Can You Guess How Many Straw Man Arguments Were In Obama’s Speech? By Mytheos Holt
Excerpt: Unfortunately, another characteristic was also in evidence in Obama’s speech: namely, his tendency to argue against positions that nobody holds (and by extension, to mischaracterize his opponents’ views so as to make them easier to argue against). In logic, this unfortunate tendency is referred to as a “straw man fallacy” and it was well-worn in President Obama’s speech today – so well-worn that at times, he seemed to cough up a new straw man fallacy with every sentence. 

Excerpt: Why are so many politicians around the world declaring that the debt crisis is “over” when debt to GDP ratios all over the planet continue to skyrocket? The global economy has never seen anything like the sovereign debt bubble that we are experiencing today. The United States, Japan, and nearly every major nation in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt.

First Lady Rolls Eyes At Boehner During Lunch
This is what we have for POTUS and FOTUS… one with elbow on table, rolling eyes, rude, shoveling food nonstop and one picking his nose on the dais. –Barb.

Second Inaugural Address: Obama Declares War On Liberty As We Know It
Excerpt: President Obama's address failed to deliver on promises earlier in the day by senior political adviser David Axelrod that the speech would sound themes of national unity on a day of national "consecration." Instead, the president sounded combative themes familiar from his divisive first term, albeit wrapped occasionally in the lofty rhetoric of "hope" and "tolerance," and punctuated by the repeated refrain: "We, the People." He acknowledged Americans have diverse concepts of liberty, but insisted that these could all fit together under the collective mission of the government to achieve its redistributive aims. (The one bit I accidentally heard, he was screaming/shouting. Did not sound presidential; rather, fanatical. I imagined minions below shaking their arms in the air…1938. Sure Lincoln rolling in his grave, despite the concrete poured on top of him. –Barb. I usually ignore set piece ceremonies like inaugurals and state-of-the-union addresses, Dem or GOP. Little to be learned. ~Bob))

Algerian Hostage Crisis May be the New Benghazi for the U.S. Source: Just before Algerian crisis, U.S. received a number of reports that "something big" would be carried out against a Western target.
Excerpt: Recent reports reveal that the U.S. may have another Benghazi scandal on their hands. The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said that the U.S. received a number of reports that "something big" would be carried out against a Western target just before the Algerian hostage crisis which ended in a final assault Saturday night - although he claimed the information was not decisive enough to act on. … According to Algerian authorities, the 32 terrorists, armed with heavy machine guns, missiles and other weaponry, specifically singled out foreign workers at the gas plant, killing some and attaching explosives to others.

The Week That Was: 2013-01-19 (January 19, 2013)
Excerpt: There are massive sums of money involved both for political policy and for the climate establishment to keep the global warming express on track. No doubt Hansen will come under intense pressure from the climate establishment and from politicians to retract or significantly modify the paper. Similarly, no doubt the research scientists of Britain’s MET Office are under intense pressure to retract or significantly modify their findings of no statistically significant global warming in the surface data for 16 years and their projections of no warming through 2017. (With this excerpt in mind, read all three of the numbered articles at the bottom of the posting. It explains many things. --Ron P.)

In cable the day he died, U.S. ambassador warned Clinton about Benghazi security
Excerpt: Just hours before he died in a terrorist attack at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent a cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton painting a chaotic, violent portrait of the eastern Libya city and warning that local militias were threatening to pull the security they afforded U.S. officials.

Universities Slash Teachers' Hours To Evade Obamacare
Excerpt: A new piece in the Wall Street Journal reports that many colleges are cutting back on the number of hours worked by adjunct professors, in order to avoid new requirements that they provide healthcare to anyone working over 30 hours per week. This is terrible news for a lot of people; 70 percent of professors work as adjuncts and many will now have to cope with a major pay cut just as requirements that they buy their own health insurance go into effect.

Climate Change Curbs May Cost $700 Billion a Year, Report Shows
Excerpt: About $700 billion a year of new spending on renewable power, low-carbon transport and energy efficiency is needed to meet the United Nations goal to cap temperature rises, a report for the World Economic Forum showed. That cash is needed in addition to the $5 trillion a year countries must spend on infrastructure for agriculture, transport, power and water through 2020, according to a report released today by the consultant Accenture Plc for the forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance.

NYT no longer gushing about Arab Spring: Jihadists’ Surge in North Africa Reveals Grim Side of Arab Spring
Excerpt: As the uprising closed in around him, the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi warned that if he fell, chaos and holy war would overtake North Africa. “Bin Laden’s people would come to impose ransoms by land and sea,” he told reporters. “We will go back to the time of Redbeard, of pirates, of Ottomans imposing ransoms on boats.” In recent days, that unhinged prophecy has acquired a grim new currency. (Somewhere, Qaddafi’s ghost is laughing sat Obama. ~Bob.)

Al Qaeda on the rise: The grim news from Africa. By John Bolton
Excerpt: Accepting his party’s re-nomination for president on Sept. 6, Barack Obama boasted, “Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.” The crowd roared its approval. It’s now painfully clear that someone wasn’t listening.

Excerpt: Ask yourself this question as you read: “where is the U.S. Press in similar coverage of our guys”? Are they so invested in covering for the failed foreign policy of the Obama administration they cannot bring themselves to report on the most horrific of all terror attacks in recent history?

'We're only after the Christians...' Minutes later a Briton lay dead: Terrifying moment gas plant gunmen rounded up non-Muslims and strapped explosives to their necks
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265206/Algeria-Crisis-Terrifying-moment-gas-plant-gunmen-rounded-non-Muslims-strapped-explosive-necks.html#ixzz2IhTVFWHd
Excerpt: A British security guard was murdered in cold blood just minutes into the siege at the Algerian gas plant, an IT worker caught up in the hostage crisis has told The Mail on Sunday. The Algerian employee, who managed to escape, has given the most detailed account so far of how Islamist terrorists rounded up foreign workers during the four-day stand-off and placed explosives round their necks.

French Airstrikes Push Back Islamists and Regain Towns in Central Mali
Excerpt: Malian and French troops appeared to recapture two important central Malian towns on Monday, pushing back an advance by Islamist militants who have overrun the country’s northern half.

Federal Courts Strike Down Challenges To Collective Bargaining Reforms In Indiana, Wisconsin
Excerpt: A pair of federal courts struck down union challenges to labor reforms in Indiana and Wisconsin last week, preserving major Republican gains aimed at cutting costs and attracting business. Federal Judge Philip Simon on Thursday tossed out a lawsuit aimed at preventing Indiana from becoming the first right-to-work state in the Midwest. He rejected the union’s contention that Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and the legislature overreached in pursuing labor reforms.

Obama Lets Chinese Own U.S. Energy Resources: Beijing acquiring major ownership in oil, natural gas across nation
Excerpt: The Obama administration is quietly allowing China to acquire major ownership interests in oil and natural gas resources across the U.S….The decision to allow China to compete for U.S. oil and natural gas resources appears to stem from a need to keep Beijing economically interested in lending to the U.S….. In 2005, the Bush administration blocked China on grounds of national security from an $18.4 billion deal to purchase California-based Unocal Corp.

Google chief's daughter on 'strange' trip
Excerpt: Analysts say access to the Internet is for the super-elite only, meaning a few hundred people or maybe 1000 at most. On his return, Eric Schmidt said he had told North Korea it would not develop unless it embraces Internet freedom - a prospect dismissed by most observers as inconceivable. Sophie Schmidt's description of the "unsettling" e-library visit suggests the delegation was all too aware that it was being shown a facade.

Excerpt: Today, we (re)inaugurate a liar. What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: “At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.;’” There is no possible way Barack Obama is that stupid.

With an eye on legacy, Obama developing second-term strategy
Excerpt: How he will pursue his goals will more closely resemble the successful elements of his campaign, particularly the ways in which the former community organizer works to mobilize public opinion around his agenda. Each issue will have its own campaign. As he has previewed since the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings, Obama will speak often beyond the Beltway, enlist public support through online petitions and social media, propose legislative priorities and take executive action in pursuit of specific second-term goals, according to several senior administration officials involved in setting strategy.

‘More Flexibility’: Obama to Govern by ‘Executive Fiat’ in Second Term
Excerpt: Remember when President Obama was caught on a hot mic telling then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to be patient with him because he would have more “flexibility” in his second term when he would never again have to face American voters? That message wasn’t just for Medvedev to relay to then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: it was for Obama’s friends on the far left as well, who have been waiting for the “real” Barack Obama to usher in a new age of liberalism – to “fundamentally transform America,” as the president himself put it during his first campaign. That time has come. 

Gallup: Obama average first-term approval ratings among lowest in modern history
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/21/gallup-obama-first-term-approval-ratings-among-lowest-in-modern-history/#ixzz2IhR4wH00
Excerpt: A Gallup poll released on the morning of Barack Obama’s second public presidential inauguration shows that his first term was marked by a level of public disapproval exceeded in the modern era only by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Obama “averaged 49.1% job approval during his first term in office, among the lowest for post-World War II presidents,” Gallup said Monday. (Except he got reelected, so this matters how? ~Bob.)

Gun Control For Dummies

President Obama's socialist agenda will divide America – or, rather, make the existing divisions even more bitter and rancorous. By Toby Young
Excerpt: What a contrast last night's Inaugural Address was compared to the one President Obama gave four years ago. Gone was any attempt to reach out to his Republican opponents. In its place was an aggressive assertion of modern liberalism, with the emphasis on gay rights, gun control, gender equality, combating climate change and – if his remarks about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and income inequality are anything to go by – redistributive taxation. (Interesting that a UK columnist has figured this out so neatly. Mr. Obama now has the "more flexibility" he mentioned to the Russian politician, or at least he thinks he does. So Katy bar the door, it's coming at us for sure. The next couple of months will see the attacks on the system beginning, following on the gun control stuff he's already started. --Del)

Sarkozy's plans 'to dodge new 75% French tax rate by moving to London with wife Carla and setting up £1bn private equity fund'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266331/Nicolas-Sarkozy-Carla-Bruni-dodge-new-French-tax-hike-moving-London-setting-1billion-fund.html
Excerpt: Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to move to London to set up a billion pounds plus investment fund, it was claimed today. If the move goes ahead, the controversial Frenchman will become the latest to escape a potential top tax rate of 75 per cent in his home country. (If true, the end of his political career. ~Bob.)

Scrapping the Culture of Dependency. By Kemberlee Kaye
Excerpt: One of the greatest threats to individual liberty is dependency on the state. Yet, over the last four years, America has experienced a surge in those trading economic freedom for government dependency.

Excerpt: We make more than we’ve ever made, we owe more than we’ve ever owed, and we have less than we've had in decades which is distributed to those that did not earn the money. This is a working definition of Trouble.

Some day, we'll rediscover freedom
Excerpt: The re-election of Barack Obama was an in-your-face move away from the core values I once thought we all shared — a tectonic shift that is reaffirmed with every executive order that tosses the constitution onto the trash heap.(Yes. There are actually a few teachers left that have it right. MM) 

George McGovern wanted America to "Come Home." In Obama's second term, he may just get his wish.
Excerpt: Isn't it fitting that, as a final order of business in President Obama's first term, the United States would haggle with France over the federal equivalent of a $2.15 check?
Last week, the Journal reported that the administration was asking the French to pay for the limited logistical support—mainly cargo flights and aerial refueling—that the U.S. had agreed to provide the French mission to Mali.

A Presidency Made in Indonesia. Never Yet Melted
http://neveryetmelted.com/2013/01/22/a-presidency-made-in-indonesia/
ExcerptDan Greenfield takes the occasion of America’s reaffirmation of the choice of Barack Obama as president to discuss how it is possible for any country to make such a choice. "Mitt Romney, a fake authentic politician of the old school, back when politicians were working with magazine covers, snapshots and a 30 second clip, couldn’t compete against the truly fake Barack Obama, who in truly modern media style doesn’t just fake 30 seconds or 30 minutes in front of the camera, but fakes his entire life going back decades.”

Obama declares war on reality. James Delingpole
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100199161/obama-declares-war-on-reality/
Excerpt: If you want to expand the size of government as much as [Obama] obviously does, there's really no better way than to declare war on reality. Reality is a slippery foe; it has many heads – and no sooner have you cut off one than a thousand more grow in its place; it's everywhere, at all times, and there's no escaping it, meaning you have to mobilise unimaginably large resources if you are to have a hope of defeating it. Which, of course, you never will. (Two to one on Obama. ~Bob.)

Sir David Attenborough: Humans are plague on earth. Louise Gray
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9815862/Humans-are-plague-on-Earth-Attenborough.html
Excerpt: “We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say.” (The ultimate Progressive view. Do away with carbon-based life forms. ~Bob.)

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