The Old Jarhead

Political Digest for March 5, 2012

2012-03-04T21:06:00.000-06:00

The Old Jarhead Blog. Bringing you news and information theMSM is too busy covering American Idol, celebrity affairs and sensationalmissing person cases to cover. Please forward to friends who need to beinformed.

Information on my sixbooks
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html

30 Stupid Things TheGovernment Is Spending Money On

http://www.mrconservative.com/2012/03/2471-30-government-waste-projects/
Excerpt: If you want to get paid for doing something stupid,just turn to the U.S.government. The U.S.government is paying researchers to play video games, it is paying researchersto study the effects of cocaine on Japanese quail and it has spent millions ofdollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly. The amount of moneythat the government wastes is absolutely horrifying.

77 Percent ofIllegals Caught on Mexican Border Were Not Prosecuted
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/77-percent-illegals-caught-mexican-border-were-not-prosecuted
Excerpt: About 77 percent of the 327,577 illegal alienscaught along the Mexican border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)during fiscal 2011 were not prosecuted, according to government data analyzedby the office of Rep. John Culberson. The Texas Republican, whose districtincludes parts of Houston,submitted a document containing the data for the record at a Wednesday hearingof the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. The hearingfocused on the budget for CBP.

Dad arrested afterdaughter draws man with gun
http://www.wellandtribune.ca/2012/02/26/dad-arrested-after-daughter-draws-man-with-gun
Excerpt: Jessie Sansone and his family are reeling after hewas arrested and strip searched by police after his four-year-old daughter drewa picture of a man with a gun in her Kitchener, Ont., kindergarten class. The26-year-old father of four said Saturday the sketch was supposed to be him,getting the bad guys and monsters. (Canada, but where we are going asfreedom erodes. ~Bob.)

Boko Haram plans 'toeradicate Christians' from areas in Nigeria

http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/03/boko_haram_plans_to_eradicate.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LongWarJournalSiteWide+%28The+Long+War+Journal+%28Site-Wide%29%29
Excerpt: Boko Haram, the radical Islamist terror group thathas been linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as well as Shabaab, alQaeda's affiliate in East Africa, is intent on turning its insurgency in the north of Nigeria into a full-fledged warbetween Christans and Muslims. The terror group has bombed numerous churches inthe country in the past two years, including a suicide attackat a church in Jos at the end of February. Leadership, a Nigeriannews outlet, interviewed a Boko Haram spokesman who said that the group will"eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country"while fighting to establish "a proper Islamic state." (ThePresident says we are not at war with Islam, which would be fine if he couldconvince millions of Muslims they weren't at war with Christianity. ~Bob.)

Patriot Guard RidersDrown Out Westboro Baptist Church Protesters

http://www.breitbart.tv/patriot-guard-riders-drown-out-westboro-baptist-church-protesters/

The Debt Generation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnDyXrSwJnA
U-Tenn video. ~Bob

Daylight: New film blastsObama's Israel record

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/02/daylight_new_film_blasts_obamas_israel_record
Excerpt: The trailer for a new 30-minute video, entitled"Daylight: The Story of Obama and Israel," cuts together clips ofObama quotes and outside commentary to put forth the narrative that Obama hasmade statements and taken actions as president that have put him out of stepwith the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hissupporters. (UPDATE: Now you can watch the entire 30 minute video here.)

Her PerceivedSexuality’? Occupy OaklandProtesters Accused of Robbing Lesbian, Stealing Her Obama Pin

http://theothermccain.com/2012/03/04/her-perceived-sexuality-occupy-oakland-protesters-accused-of-robbing-lesbian-stealing-her-obama-pin/
Excerpt: Three Occupy Oakland protesters suspected of stealingan Oaklandwoman’s wallet and making offensive remarks about her perceived sexuality werecharged Friday with robbery and committing a hate crime, both felonies,authorities said.

Financial Woes Keep Spanish AirportGrounded

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/04/147806399/financial-woes-keep-spanish-airport-grounded
Excerpt: Spanish politicians spent $220 million on thesparkling new Castellon airport on Spain's Mediterranean coast — $40million alone was spent on TV ads and other marketing. They also paid $600,000for ferrets and falcons to kill birds that endanger aircraft. Yet no plane hasyet taken off. Construction, which began in 2004, went over budget, partly tofund a 75-foot statue of a local politician out front. The project in Valencia — Spain's most indebted region — ranout of money before any deals with airlines were signed. Though the airportheld a "grand opening" last year, the terminal still hasn't seen asingle passenger. (Today, I was treated to a perfect example of the selectivenature of the liberal mind. NPR is perfectly capable of good journalism. Intheir NEWS division, only. This story aired on NPR’s Weekend Edition. The storyclearly identifies the source of the problem: the authority—think of it as a“state”—that built the airport IS NOT responsible for paying for it, thatresponsibility rests on lower governmental bodies—think of them as counties andtowns. This situation was presented as clearly BAD, which it is. The very nextstory I heard was a local activist speaking in favor of “infrastructureprojects”—like another new civic center for Boston—to improve the economy “state andregion-wide.” I actually laughed so hard, I pulled into a parking lot until Icould control my guffaws. Obviously they don’t see or understand thesimilarities. Ron P.)

Judicial Watch SuesObama Justice Department for Records Related to Justice Kagan’s Role inObamacare Discussions While Serving as Solicitor General

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-obama-justice-department-for-records-related-to-justice-kagans-role-in-obamacare-discussions-while-serving-as-solicitor-general/
Excerpt: Judicial Watch, the organization that investigatesand fights government corruption, announced today that it filed a lawsuitagainst the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking access to records relatedto U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s role in Obamacarediscussions while she served as President Obama’s Solicitor General (JudicialWatch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:12 –cv-00277)). Previous documentsuncovered by Judicial Watch have raised concerns about whether Justice Kaganshould recuse herself from considering the Obamacare litigation when it goesbefore the High Court in March 2012.

Climate madness

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-climate-20120225,0,3701177.story
Excerpt: So who is Gleick? Some anonymous cyberhacker with agrudge against climate skeptics? Not quite. Gleick is a prominent environmentalactivist, head of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environmentand Security in Oakland, Calif. He's also a former MacArthurFoundation "genius grant" recipient, and ... chair of the AmericanGeophysical Union's Task Force on Scientific Ethics. (I don’t believe I’ve everheard the Chicago Tribune described as a conservative or right-wing orRepublican medium. Yet, in this mildly worded editorial, they politely holdtheir nose and point their finger at Dr. Gleick and his supporters in the CAGWcamp. Ron P.)

A Last Battle for Vietnam War's'Secret' Soldiers

http://www.military.com/news/article/a-last-battle-for-vietnam-wars-secret-soldiers.html
Excerpt: In a small building on Arcade Street about a dozen Hmongveterans of the Vietnam War -- all trained, paid and armed to fight for the United Statesby the Central Intelligence Agency -- gather regularly to discuss upcomingpublic service events or festivities where their honor guard might be needed.They dress in old military uniforms they have bought on their own and havedecorated with patches of their own design. The meetings now come with arenewed urgency. When they die, these secret warriors of a secret American warwant to buried in veterans cemeteries alongside their American comrades. Buteven though they now are commonly acknowledged as having fought for the United States in northern Laos, they are prohibited by law from beingburied in national or state veterans cemeteries, which are reserved forAmerican service members and honorably discharged U.S. military veterans and theirfamilies. (We used them and abandoned them in life. Why should they expect usto stand by them in death? ~Bob.)

U.S.

government ultimately paid bail for EgyptNGOs (cited by ColAllen West)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/03/us-egypt-usa-ngos-idUSTRE82206H20120303
Excerpt: The bail paid for U.S.pro-democracy activists facing charges in Egyptultimately came from the U.S.government, the State Department said on Friday. Egyptian authorities hadaccused the workers, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary RayLaHood, of working for groups receiving illegal foreign funding and had barredthem from leaving the country. The case put at risk $1.3 billion in annual U.S.military aid to Egypt, a cash transfer that began flowing after Egypt madepeace with Israel in 1979, and it marked the deepest rift in U.S.-Egyptianrelations in decades. (They think we are stupid and are laughing at us. Theyare probably right. ~Bob.)

A Sobering Surpriseon Fifth Avenue:Ash Wednesday: St. Patrick's Cathedral

http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/only-in-america/a-sobering-surprise-on-fifth-avenue.html
Excerpt: People began to enter the downtown New York City building at 7:30 in themorning, but by 11:30 a massive snake-like-line of people was so large, somegot a bit frustrated and wondered if it was worth the wait, yet none left theirspot. I overheard one very worldly and irritated looking businesswoman commentto her friend, as they watched the crowd, “It will take us an hour to getinside.” Her friend tried to allay her fear. “It won’t take that long."

Britain

's Health Care Disaster: Our Model - byGary J. Isbell, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family andProperty

http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/news-commentary/britains-healthcare-disaster-our-model.html
Excerpt: It seems at least one person in Britain isbeginning to see the light. The current Prime Minister David Cameron, alongwith some conservatives, is suggesting to outsource healthcare to the privatesector circumventing the NHS. It is cheaper, higher quality and faster.

Are Dolphins Persons?- by Gary J. Isbell, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Familyand Property

http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/news-commentary/are-dolphins-really-persons.html
Excerpt: It seems that animal rights advocates are neversatisfied. Now researchers are attempting to demonstrate that dolphins andwhales are so intelligent that they should be recognized as “non-human persons”and accorded their own bill of rights. One simple question remains to beanswered: How can one recognize personhood without solid evidence of a person,that is, an individual substance of rational nature? (So, baby human beings areno longer persons, but now dolphins are? I'm finding it hard to keep up...Katein LA.)

Isaac Herzog:Israelis Feel Obama-Netanyahu Summit Will Decideon Iran

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/02/isaac-herzog-israelis-feel-obama-netanyahu-summit-will-decide-on-iran.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
Excerpt: “Are we going to war by early summer?” Tammy, a16-year-old schoolgirl, asked me as I was delivering a lecture to her class onhow the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, operates. All of a sudden a serious,heavy silence fell in the lecture hall, and the laughing and chattering crowdof youngsters froze. (…) “People in this country are somewhat in denial aboutit,” I told her. “We cannot foresee what will happen—so much depends on theupcoming Obama-Netanyahu meeting.” (I pity the Israelis, having to put theirfaith in us; I’m not sure I have that much faith in us, anymore. But only acraven low-life coward consumed by self-interest could turn his back on suchcourage. Ron P.)

Another burglarkilled breaking into home

http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-another-burglar-killed-breaking-into-home-20120301,0,7371012.story
Excerpt: Police have identified an Oklahoma City man who was fatally shotWednesday night by a woman who said he was trying to break into her house. JoseHernandez, 24, was pronounced dead at the scene in the 600 block of SW 51st St. justafter 10 p.m. Thursday.

Russell County man indicted in scheme to transportimmigrants has been deported 8 times

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/03/03/v-print/1956103/russell-county-2-indicted-in-scheme.html
Excerpt: A married couple accused of transporting severalillegal immigrants from Ladonia, Ala., to Floridawere indicted last week by a federal grand jury, court records state. KathleenAnn Roberson, 21, and her 33-year-old husband Roberto Jimenez-Delgado, anillegal immigrant who’s been deported eight times, face charges of bringing inand harboring illegal immigrants. Jimenez-Delgado faces additional charges ofre-entry of deported illegal immigrants and concealment of facts aboutre-entry, court documents state.

The United StatesAir Force has established two new aircraft squadrons to support theadministration's travel needs during the campaign season.

http://www.89aw.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123282220
Excerpt: The 305th and 306th Expeditionary Airlift Squadronswere activated as subordinate units of the 89th Airlift Wing on December 1.

Wouldn't it be nice?

http://townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/2012/03/02/wouldnt_it_be_nice/page/full/
Excerpt: How nice it would be if there were no such thingsas unemployment, uncertainty, instability, recurring crises and all the otherills that a free people is heir to. Why not pass a law to that effect? It wascalled the National Industrial Recovery Act and was passed in the first floodof New Deal emergency legislation in 1933 -- toward the end of the fabled HundredDays. It covered just about everything in the economy -- every wage paid forevery job, every price for every item manufactured, even down to every chickenslaughtered in New York City. But it didn't last.

Baltimore Mayor Prohibits Police From EnforcingFederal Immigration Law

http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2012/03/02/baltimore-mayor-prohibits-police-from-enforcing-federal-immigration-law/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StandWithArizona+%28Stand+With+Arizona%29
Excerpt: What’s wrong with this picture: Arizonaand Alabamapass legislation mandating that police officers enforce Federal immigrationlaws – and are sued for doing so by the Federal government. And now this: amayor of a major city orders her police to REFUSE to enforce those laws – andwill face no lawsuit whatsoever. The inmates are truly running the asylum in America, whenit comes to illegal immigration.

What if Catholicbishops aren’t bluffing?

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/01/what-if-catholic-bishops-arent-bluffing/
Excerept: Earlier this week,Francis Cardinal George of the archdiocese of Chicago sent a message to parishioners inBarack Obama’s home town that imposition of the HHS mandate to fund andfacilitate contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization would force theCatholic Church to close its hospitals, clinics, schools, and all otherorganizations that would otherwise have to comply. “Two Lents from now,”Cardinal George warned, “unless something changes, the page [listing Catholicorganizations] will be blank."

Obama to CutHealthcare Benefits for Active Duty, Retired Military

http://freebeacon.com/trashing-tricare/
Excerpt: The Obama administration’s proposed defense budgetcalls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for theirhealthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefitsuntouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, accordingto U.S.officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed toincrease the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

Wikileaks GlobalIntelligence Files: Israel Day 4, Bin Laden’s Body Brought Back to U.S.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/03/01/wikileaks-global-intelligence-files-israel-day-4-bin-ladens-body-brought-back-to-u-s/
Excerpt: Wikileaks claimsthat Osama bin Laden’s body was transferred to Dover, Delawareon a CIA plane. An email dated May 2, 2011states the body will then be moved “…to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathologyin Bethesda.”Two US Air Force Airlift Wings are based at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware.In another email dated May 2, 2011a Stratfor staff member expresses doubt that Bin Laden’s corpse was buried atsea and mentions, “We would want to photograph, DNA, fingerprint, etc. His bodyis a crime scene and I don’t see the FBI nor DOJ letting that happen.”

Breitbart’s Legacy resides in the Future by Madeleine McAulay

http://faithhopeandpolitics.com/breitbarts-legacy-resides-in-the-future/
Teen conservative writer. ~Bob.

Random Thoughts for March

2012-03-04T00:10:00.000-06:00

Random Thoughts for March, 2012

Robert A. Hall

http://www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com/

Here’s a great idea. Since Wisconsin has open primaries, in the Recall Election primary, all supporters of Scott Walker can vote on the Democrat side, and write in Walker. If he wins the Democrat primary, it’s game over. I beat a Democrat in the 1976 Democrat state senate primary in my district (we were both running on write-ins), thus being the only name on the ballot in November.

I’m starting this right after watching the Super Bowl. As a NE Patriots fan, I was quite disappointed. Took me almost until I went to bed two hours later to get over it. But in Florida a guy was shot dead at a SB party. Here in Chicago, four people including him were killed by a drunk leaving a SB party, going the wrong way on I-80. And at my alma mater, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, they had to break up student riots with tear gas. Pay attention. IT’S A GAME. Way down the list of what’s important in this world.

As regular readers know, I have Pulmonary Fibrosis, an eventually terminal illness. In fact, since the average time from diagnosis to death is 3-5 years, I’m about a year past my sell-by date. But I try to make those compromises with the disease I have to make, and go on with life, ignoring it as much as possible. I note some folks embrace the disease so it’s the major thing in their lives, better than a hobby. Thus letting it destroy their lives earlier than necessary.

We are all mostly enjoying life and averting our eyes, as Europeans did in July of 1914 and again in July of 1939.

In a continuing effort to appease Muslims out of murdering us kuffer, word is the Left is changing the words of its theme song to, "Kumbaya my Allah, kumbaya."

My suggested new motto for Chicago: “On the lake, on the make and on the take.”

Marine uniforms have been much sharper than Army uniforms since at least WWI. But it had to have been a Marine who slipped the Army the idea that a French black beret would look cool with dress uniforms or be practical with field uniforms (which they now wear everywhere, not just in the field). As far as I can tell, they haven't gotten the joke yet.

Is it me, or are more people than ever using "your" when they mean "you're"? Yes, my fingers are likely to type either, but I try to proof. Language is important. There's a major difference between "knowing your shit" and "knowing you're shit."

If you are sloppy in e-mail, you can’t blame folks for thinking you are a sloppy person.

Reading a book, even a novel, often changes how you think and how you view the world. I'm certain that being immersed in Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels, and later Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, both started in Junior High, influenced my worldview. For the better, I think. And certainly Leon Uris' Battle Cry led me to the Marines, and his Mila 18 influenced my views on Jews and

Israel

in a positive way. The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater helped form my political views. I read these in High School. Pick your books carefully and read a wide variety.

The definition of “naïve” is an adult who still believes in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and what he reads in the newspapers.

All people want is a candidate who won't raise the debt, raise taxes, create inflation, spend more than we take in, drive jobs overseas, make the country weak, endanger public safety or cut any program that might ever benefit them in any way. Is that so hard?

The GOP nomination fight is starting to create some nostalgia for McCain, I think. Not to mention Bush.

It will be a real travesty if they don’t make La Internationale the permanent theme song of the Democrat convention.

You want to see a chart of “ethnic cleansing” made flesh? Graph the percentages of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and other religious minorities living in Muslim-majority countries over the last 40 years.

Despite its continuing failure, leftist economists still apparently believe that the route to prosperity is immense debt, driving large businesses overseas through high taxes and regularity costs, and driving small businesses under the same way. And the economically-ignorant vote for it, out of politically-honed envy.

How about a new voting rule: In order to vote, you have to show up with a check to pay off 1% of your share of the national debt?

The Culture War is over. Our Culture lost. (Individual responsibility, hard work, tolerance of other’s religious views, freedom of speech however offensive, limited government, property rights, the rule of law, the right to better your and your family’s economic condition unrestrained, family itself, the right to benefit from what you earn. The freedom to be let alone.)

My surgeon friend Dave refers to the actions of government bureaucrats as, “The revenge of the “C” students.”

Planned Parenthood was established to reduce the number of the “unfit” being born, compared to the “fit.” Looking around, they failed. (No, that’s not racist. Planned Parenthood’s idea of the unfit was based on race. Mine is based on behavior.)

I wonder if when Margaret Sanger established Planned Parenthood so “more of the fit and fewer of the unfit would be born,” she had any idea that in much of the 21^st century world, the designation “unfit” would be based on gender, not race as she was thinking, thus aborting millions of babies for having a flower instead of a stem.

When liberals talk about a “war on women,” do they mean the millions of baby girls aborted in India and China thanks to modern pro-abortion policies?

Today’s liberals revere JFK. But if he were here today, running on the things he stood for, they’d rip him as a right-wing kook. (And boy, would his sex life be fair game for them now!)

I use Twitter when I have a few minutes in order to pick up links for my blog. But I have no idea why people tweet things like, “I’m having lunch at Denny’s on

Third Street

.” Who could care?

When I was a State Senator, they were going to name a street after me, but they realized no one crosses Bob Hall and lives.

If you have a job, you are in Customer Service. You may not know it, of course.

I wonder if the fact that liberals love bikes while conservatives love cars is helping the growing 2:1 ratio of conservatives to liberals in the

, given the outcome of most bike/car accidents?

From my friend George: When you are about to cast your vote for Obama, just remember that Whitney Houston died on his watch.

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the people we helped win in Libya will eventually help people trying to kill us for being infidels.

The good news is that I really think Obama is going to make me rich. The bad news is that I think he’ll do that by steadily lowering the definition of who are “the rich who aren’t paying their fair share.” Having recently spent six hours on my tax returns, I kind of feel I’m already paying enough. But that’s just me. Warren Buffet thinks he isn’t paying enough, though the records indicate he isn’t paying what he already owes. And there’s no law stopping him from paying more, if he wants to, but he doesn’t.

If Obama had to make a political decision between saving your job and making his rich, 1% liberal friends feel all green and fuzzy over the environment, you had better get your resume updated.

Reporters once used, "who, what, when where and why" to write good news stories. But if it involves Islamic terrorism, they now skip the "why" in favor of some pabulum like "random violence," and avoid identifying the religion of the "who" if they possibly can.

I was talking with a couple of women at lunch recently. One said she was glad she retired from the phone company where she worked. The union came in, and she was reprimanded for not hanging up on a customer mid call and going to lunch at 12:00 noon on the dot, per the union rules. The other said she takes stuff to read to work at her company, because after the union came in the union steward told her more than once she worked too fast, making it hard on everyone. So she has a lot of free time at work, so as not to make the other union workers look bad. Meanwhile, American companies taking jobs overseas or to “right to work” states? Just "bad luck."

If they are talking about millions of dollars, it's a lotto prize. Government now only talks about billions and trillions.

In a free country, you are free to make as much money as your talent, hard work and, perhaps luck allow to improve your and your family’s lifestyle. Life isn't fair. It's certainly not fair that Tom Brady was born with athletic gifts that allow him to make more money in a year than I can in a lifetime. Nor is it fair that John Kerry married a rich widow that allows him to be probably the richest US Senator and to own yachts docked in Rhode Island to duck Massachusetts taxes, while I married a widow of, shall we say, more modest means. Is it fair that a surgeon has the brains and drive to get 14 years of education and training after high school, thus to make in a year what a Wal-Mart Greeter makes in 15? But if they made the same salary, who would go to medical school? Barack Obama's idea of fair is he gets to decide what your income is. After he decides, you can bet that neither he nor his elite friends will suffer any deprivation or miss any expensive vacations. His idea of fair is that the 5% who pay 60% of the income taxes should pay more, while the 47% of people who pay none at all should grow to be a permanent majority.

I’m on the Liberal Diet. I gain about ten pounds a month, but I was going to gain fifteen and cut back to ten, so it’s a huge success.

I recently got an e-mail from a woman I dated almost 40 years ago, who tracked me down because of “I’m Tired.” She said we probably wouldn’t get alone now, as she is an Obama campaign worker. And her take is not to worry about the debt, because it’s not real money—the government can just print more. She is a retired educator. We are so doomed.

Since I do these “Random Thoughts” about once a month, I’m not sure how often I circle back to a thought. The privilege, I guess, of the aged and enfeebled.

If our immigration laws are “racist,” why don’t we adopt the same laws

Mexico

has. They must be perfectly free of racism, since they criticize us.

I suspect very few of the folks who are always lobbying to use the military to achieve their social goals were ever under fire themselves.

If a person left, “to take another position,” he quit. If he, “left to pursue other opportunities,” he was fired.

I used TurboTax this year for my taxes. It was great until Illinois rejected the return—twice—for some picky thing on the electronic signature. Getting back to that section was a nightmare, not intuitive at all. And getting help from TurboTax was a double nightmare. It’s not like I’m computer illiterate. I finally did it the old fashioned way—I printed and mailed it.

I’m told the Jews have a wonderful custom. In addition to praying for someone who is sick or in need, you do extra acts of kindness to others in their behalf, which is pleasing to God. It appears that the Islamists have a similar custom. In order to please Allah, you slaughter additional random innocents, with dismembered children apparently being most pleasing to their concept of god.

The Jihadists’ use of child suicide bombers is starting to make the Nazis look good.

E-mails where large sections of the copy are in BRIGHT RED CAPS can safely be deleted without reading.

Back in the 1960s, the “do your own thing” counter culture made fun of “traditional values” like the protestant work ethic and belief in God. Their children are now finding out how ugly it is to live in a culture without those derided values.

Three trends that doom our culture and country: 1. Judges deciding cases on their personal feelings of what is right and “fair,” not on the law. 2. Educators teaching students what to think, not how to think. 3. Journalists advocating for an agenda, not reporting the news straight up.

I have to admit that Obama has increased jobs and increased available energy supplies. Okay, it was in

China

, but still…

When Obama said he didn’t want his daughters “punished with a child,” do you get the feeling he was thinking of his mother?

Republicans longing for Reagan need to remember that he wasn’t Reagan before he was Reagan, and sometimes not afterwards. (You gotta think about it. All candidates are flawed.)

It drive me nuts when people use “Ex-Officio” to mean “non-voting.” It means by virtue of the office, can be voting or non-voting, as set up.

Campaign fundraisers on all political sides wake up each morning and think, “Who can I demonize today to raise money from the base?”

The correct pronunciation of “forte,” when you mean strength is “FORT.” Yes, I know in the last few years many dictionaries, overwhelmed with folks who think using the musical term is chic and say FOR-TAY for strength, have begun giving that as a second usage. Doesn’t make it right.

All political freedom and economic well-being above the subsistence level for the general populations in western civilization depends on property rights and the ability of individuals to accumulate capital. That so few of our “educated” younger generation have been educated to understand this is a failure that may doom future generations to slavery and poverty.

My wife always wants me to be more expressive. So the other night I said, “I love you dear…in spite of everything.” Apparently that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Do you get the feeling that a lot of voters would have to study the issues long and hard just to get to the level of "uninformed"?

Many people try to disguise cowardice as principal.

With countries as with people, when you prove untrustworthy, you are not trusted. This comes as a shock to many.

Many, perhaps most, people wish so hard that the world was like they want it to be that they become blinded to the world as it is. Yes, I’m thinking of progressives, but conservatives and the folks in the mushy middle are guilty as well.

Healthcare is a need, so it’s become a “right” you are owed by other people. Soon your need for food, clothing and shelter will become a “right” you are owed by other people. And of course, sex is a human need…. I’m getting in line at Hooter’s now.

“Liberty” and “Equality” are incompatible. A quest for equality requires ever more coercion. Eventually, even Robespierre goes under the blade.

If the troops really wanted Obama’s support, they’d join a union and make political contributions.

If you reward behavior, you get more of it. If you punish behavior, you get less of it. But still politicians get elected promising to punish success and reward failure.

It seems to me there are some real odd ducks in my profession of association management. And it seems to me that I’m one of them.

I don’t feel self-conscious about having to pull an oxygen tank around, but I do hate that some people are thinking, “That’s what he gets for smoking cigarettes.” I didn’t, and pulmonary fibrosis has no connection to smoking. But maybe someone will see me and quit, so I suppose that’s to the good.

I don't agree with Mormon theology. Or Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or Bahia theology for that matter. Some days I don't even agree with my own theology! But if the Mormons want to baptize me, now or after I'm dead, they are welcome to, as long as it doesn't take any effort or cash on my part. Can't hurt, might help.

Many of my retired friends have developed the hobby of searching the Internet for interesting things and sharing them via e-mail. Not being retired yet, I wish I had time to open them.

Funny how the left can spot racism in every nook, cranny and word, but not the huge load they carry around and depend on to obtain power and buy votes.

Slogan: Obama loves the poor. That’s why he made so many of them.

I got an e-mail from Nancy Pelosi with the subject: “Vicious.” I thought she was confessing, but she was just fund raising. Millions of innocent electrons, generated by coal, died to send me that.

*****

Robert A. Hall is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.

http://tiny.cc/g02s4

For a free PDF of the book, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com

Political Digest for March 3, 2012

2012-03-03T00:10:00.003-06:00

The Old Jarhead Blog: Bringing you news and information the MSM is too busy covering American Idol, celebrity affairs and sensational missing person cases to cover. Please forward to friends who need to be informed.

I’ll be out of pocket Saturday, so no Political Digest on Sunday, but I will leave the March “Random Thoughts” to keep you bemused. ~Bob.

Charities I support

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/09/charities-i-support.html

23^rd 5-star Collapse review posted on Amazon:

The ONE book every AMERICAN should read!

Jessep (Jack Nicholson): You want answers?

Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I'm entitled to them.

Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

From: A Few Good Men, written by Aaron Sorkin

If we can handle the truth, then this book is definitely well worth the relatively short time it takes to read it. I recommend it without reservation!

As Mr. Hall notes in the book, it will not likely be thoughtfully read by "transnational progressives, central statists, Trotskyite dreamers from academia, or garden-variety Leftists who believe intentions matter far more than the results of their policies."

However, for those able to do a bit of critical thinking (which requires an educated and open mind), it puts into one easily accessible package a clear synopsis of the ugly story of our country's (national, state, and municipal) financial mess.....and, just in case our own fiscal state is not scary enough, it factors in our illegal immigration problem, narco-terrorism on our southern border, international Islamic terrorism, middle-east turmoil, the coming Muslim majority in Europe, China's ascendance, ..., and on, and on -- things of which we all should be more aware [if we are not already].

Mr. Hall describes a few possible scenarios he sees coming as a consequence of the western world's fecklessness in managing its economic resources and its misguided politically correct policies. We are currently speeding down a path that plays into the hands of malevolent forces seeking to destroy everyone and everything not aligned with their vision for the world.

As a recent [legal] domestic immigrant to California, my fellow CA state-citizens and I may become part of the leading edge of a debt induced tsunami that is set to inundate the whole country.....IF we don't figure out somehow to do something to stop it or get it to shrivel into a mere devastating flood.

Robert Hall is not a crank or a Chicken Little. He describes the problems and offers suggestions (painful though they may be) for us on what we might do to help prevent this looming collapse.

For all of this, his book should be read all across the nation and he should get our deeply felt thanks for writing it. -- Fredric G. Stewart

Comment on the March 1, Political Digest blog post

Hi there, Sir. I am an Iranian man living inside Iran and can tell you that the Iranian people love the United States of America. Your website was recently linked on an site of my local party. We the Iranian people are not Muslim, many youth in Iran especially turn irreligious and Christianity is very popular in Iran. I must personally use proxy to visit 90% of the net due to my governments restrictions. As a member of SUMKA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUMKA) I wish to teach you about Iran. You must know that the Iranian people do not belong to the Arab ethnicity, they belong to the Persian ethnicity, and unlike Jews and Arabs, are not Semitic, but rather Indo-European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people) and as well speak an Indo-European language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language). Iran is not currently run by its Persian majority, but rather Muslim Semitic snakes of Arab (Ahmadinejad for instance), Turkic (Khamenei) and other ethnicities. Iran is a beautiful nation with 6 millenniums of cultural history and civilization, sadly it has been taken over by Semitic non-Persian snakes. I am a proud right-wing racist and Neo-Nazi, I have spoken to many Americans online who despise the Negroes and the Jews and respect Iran. Our enemies are not Americans or Europeans, our enemies are simply Arabs, Turks, and Jews. We consider Semitic religion (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) our enemy as well. I am a proud Zoroastrian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5--7MjqFqE. God bless America and the American people! HH! Hail Victory! 88!

Dear “Hail Victory”

I hope your comment is a joke, because you've got the wrong idea here. True Americans do not despise Jews, Blacks, Iranians, Arabs, Muslims, Turks or other people because of the group they belong to. We do despise individuals who are bigoted, who oppress others, who seek to deprive others of their political and economic freedom, who harm others for gain or pleasure. We do not hate or discriminate against people because of their race, gender, religion, sexuality or ethnicity. I have friends who are black, Jewish, Muslim, female, Gay, Hispanic and those who disagree with me sharply on politics--but we don't try to kill each other over it. We are tolerant of differences, intolerant of those who oppress and hate on group identity. If you are all Iran has to offer in opposition to Ahmadinejad, may God help your poor country. And, by the way, we are busy killing Jihadists now, and in my youth killed a lot of Communists, but you might recall we were pretty adapt at killing Nazis in living memory. Pretty much any monster can come into our sights. I know a lot of black and Jewish Marines who are as good as the boys who gave the Persians hell at Thermopylae and beat you badly at Marathon, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale. ~Bob

The Fukushima Question: How close did Japan really get to a widespread nuclear disaster?

http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/03/02/the-fukushima-question-how-close-did-japan-really-get-to-a-widespread-nuclear-disaster/

Excerpt: Cohen goes on to spin a scenario of a gasoline spill resulting in out-of-control fires, a disease epidemic, and, eventually, nuclear war. Cohen concludes his fantastical thought experiment by saying, “I have frequently been told that the probability doesn’t matter—the very fact that such an accident is possible makes nuclear power unacceptable. According to that way of thinking, we have shown that the use of gasoline is not acceptable, and almost any human activity can similarly be shown to be unacceptable. If probability didn’t matter, we would all die tomorrow from any one of thousands of dangers we live with constantly.” (The first anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima is 11 Mar. Recently, the NYT ran a story claiming ultimate disaster was averted only by good luck. PBS also ran a story that was far less intimidating. This article is rebuttal to both. Ron P.)

I love happy endings: Springville man shoots, kills home intruder

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53623285-78/caron-intruder-gun-police.html.csp?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Salt%20Lake%20Tribune&utm_content

Excerpt: A Springville man shot and killed an intruder who was breaking into his home early Thursday, police said. Footprints in the snow show the intruder broke into a duplex at 800 South 475 East after trying to get into about 20 other houses in the neighborhood, said Springville police Lt. Dave Caron. … "The suspect thought he was going to get his wallet, but instead he grabbed his handgun," Caron said.

Editor-In-Chief Joel Pollak On CNN: Breitbart Was A ‘Happy Warrior’

http://www.breitbart.tv/editor-in-chief-joel-pollak-on-cnn-breitbart-was-a-happy-warrior/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

English Defence League (EDL) Peacefully Protest in Hyde Park

http://digitaljournal.com/article/320220#ixzz1nuQH6i9X

Excerpt: “The Muslims that killed – and they did kill, Charlene Downs [whose body, "bones and all," was put through a mincing machine] are still running the same chicken shop. OK. They are still running it. This is orchestrated, criminal, paedophile gangs that are targeting, through their kebab shops, our girls and it’s about time Britain stood up to them. And two nights ago I watched and I listened and I read, that British were standing up to them. And that’s what we’ll do.”

What Happened To My Grandfather After the Titanic Sank

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/christopher-ward/titanic-centenary_b_1310209.html?ref=email_share&just_reloaded=1

Excerpt: No one has ever told the story of what happened after the Titanic sank. It is more shocking than any of the events that led to the foundering of the great liner. Jock's pay, along with the rest of the crew, was stopped at 2.20 am. Two weeks later, before his parents had been informed of his death, they received a bill for the brass buttons on his bandsman's tunic. Later still, when it was confirmed that Jock's body was among only 328 recovered from the sea, they were told that "normal cargo rates" would apply if they would like his body to be brought home to Scotland. ... And The Band Played On begins where the other books and films all end:

Are We Looking at the Wrong Depression?

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past/are-we-looking-at-the-wrong-depression/

Excerpt: Leaving aside whether the “Keynesian” analysis and prescription were correct in the 1930s (or indeed whether that was the argument Keynes actually made), it is worth pointing out a number of big differences between the events of the last four years and those of 1929–32. Most important, we have not seen the kind of decline in prices that took place then; indeed there have been short-term spikes in a number of prices, notably food and fuel. Furthermore, and fortunately, there has not been the kind of dramatic collapse in economic activity and employment that we saw in the entire world in the early 1930s.

Dying to be Green by Daniel Greenfield

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/02/dying-to-be-green/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e44bb89989-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Excerpt: Some 8,000 people die in the UK every year due to what is being called “fuel poverty” or, more simply, when it costs too much to heat your home. Naturally the left is already on the case, staging “die-ins” outside energy companies and demanding that carbon credits be used to make homes “super-energy efficient.” Left out of the equation is that rising fuel prices can in no small part be attributed to the environmental mania which is at the heart of the movement. (Obama promised that under his plan, energy costs would necessarily skyrocket. The poor will die, the rich greenies will feel fine. ~Bob.)

Disparate Impact

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/hill-ethics-in-black-and-white-20120301?page=1

Excerpt: The facts say this: African-Americans make up 10 percent of the House, but as of the end of February, five of the sitting six named lawmakers under review by the House Ethics Committee are black. The pattern isn’t new. At one point in late 2009, seven lawmakers were known to be involved in formal House ethics inquiries; all were members of the Congressional Black Caucus. An eighth caucus member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, had also been under investigation, but his probe was halted temporarily while the Justice Department undertook an inquiry of its own. (…) Those are the facts, as Cleaver said. The question is why so many African-American members have been in the ethics spotlight. (This is the kind of in-depth article I used to read newspapers hoping to find. Ron P. It’s not PC to suggest as some writers have that many blacks grew up in a culture where putting things over on “The Man,” like the tax man, were considered ethically acceptable, a legacy of slavery days when it was considered ethical [and I agree] for slaves to do as little work as possible, and to steal from or sabotage the Master. ~Bob.)

GOP Headwinds

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/cook-report/the-cook-report-gop-headwinds-20120301

Excerpt: My personal view had been that the most likely Senate outcome in November would be somewhere between a Republican gain of three seats, turning the chamber’s current makeup of 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans into a 50-50 proposition (with the majority resting on the outcome of the presidential race) and a six-seat net gain for the GOP, flipping the Senate to 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. The most likely outcome seemed to be a Republican gain of four or five. In recent weeks, my gut has told me that I should drop the possibility of a six-seat gain and just say a gain of three to five seats for the GOP. With Snowe’s seat in Maine now in play, that seems very prudent. The only question is whether to drop the floor to two seats, saying two to five, compared with my three-to-six view in past weeks. (This is NOT good news for us. Cook may personally favor the Democrats, but that seldom influences his reading of the landscape. It also squares with the new-found energy I’ve noticed in the Democrats I see. We have work to do. Ron P. To have any hope of turning the country around, we need the WH, Senate and House. Then it will be a very long shot. ~Bob.)

The Cruelest Month: Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum won primaries in February, but the real winner was Barack Obama.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/political-connections/the-cruelest-month-20120301

Excerpt: With apologies to T.S. Eliot, February was the cruelest month for Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Republicans’ hopes of ousting President Obama. In the tumultuous four weeks since Romney seemingly sealed the nomination in Florida, momentum in the GOP race has careened between the buttoned-up former Massachusetts governor and the voluble former senator from Pennsylvania, who displaced Newt Gingrich as Romney’s principal challenger. But even many Republicans privately agree that the past month’s one consistent winner was Obama.

Illinois inmates sue over soy food

http://qctimes.com/news/local/illinois-inmates-sue-over-soy-food/article_42bdd25c-58cc-11e1-8854-0019bb2963f4.html

Maybe they need more lead in their diets. ~Bob. Excerpt: Food made from one of Illinois’ top exports has become the focus of a federal lawsuit that could head to trial in the coming year. Five current and former Illinois prison inmates are suing the state, claiming the amount of soy in their diets while behind bars has caused “irreparable, actual harm,” including allergic reactions, heart problems, gastrointestinal distress and thyroid dysfunction.

NightWatch: Japan Challenges China at Sea

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/nightwatch/2012/03/02/nightwatch_japan_challenges_china_at_sea/page/full/

The sections on North Korea and Iran are worth reading. Ron P. Excerpt: For starters, the North Korean announcement contains no mention of nuclear weapons or South Korea. The US did not negotiate as a member of an alliance and did not negotiate to suspend the nuclear weapons program. The agreements are bilateral and thus do not bind South Korea. To put the agreement in context, since the time of Kim Il-sung the North always has tried to drive a wedge between the Allies, to deal with them separately and thus undermine the strength of unified Alliance negotiating positions. This agreement is a triumph of North Korean diplomacy because it represents precisely what the North has failed to do for almost 50 years: get a strategic deal with the US without South Korea.

Obama's Hidden Tax Hikes

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/02/morning-bell-obamas-hidden-tax-hikes/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Excerpt: It could be said that President Obama has never seen a tax hike he doesn't like -- whether it's letting the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire, insisting on higher taxes for job creators, and yesterday calling on Congress to raise taxes on the oil industry. But as much as the President wants to raise taxes, Heritage has discovered that are even more tax hikes hidden in his budget, adding up to a total of $2 trillion in higher taxes. In a new report, Heritage's Curtis Dubay uncovers Obama's hidden tax hikes and finds that the President's proposed $1.561 trillion tax increase over 10 years is much bigger than advertised. In fact, the President wants to raise taxes by $1.689 trillion -- that's $128 billion more than was reported by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the President's FY 2013 budget proposal.

Military and Militants Clash in Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/asia/pakistani-soldiers-killed-in-clash-with-militants.html?_r=1&ref=world

Excerpt: Gunfights, military airstrikes and a large suicide bombing on Friday killed as many as 70 people in the tribal agencies bordering Peshawar, the provincial capital of northwestern Pakistan, in some of the worst violence in months in a strategic corner of the country.

Egypt Christian man jailed for insulting Prophet

http://bikyamasr.com/59777/egypt-christian-man-jailed-for-insulting-prophet/

Don’t shake your head. They would like to make “insulting Islam” a crime in the US. Already is in parts of Europe. ~Bob. Excerpt: Egypt has jailed a Christian man for 6 years on charges of showing contempt of religion and insulting the Prophet Mohamed, the country’s state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported on Thursday.

Dearborn Pays $100,000 In Lawsuit By Evangelists

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/03/01/dearborn-pays-100000-in-lawsuit-by-evangelists/

excerpt: The city of Dearborn has paid $100,000 in legal fees to attorneys for a Christian evangelist whose free-speech rights were violated at a popular

Arab-American street

festival. Dearborn has a large Muslim population and one of the nation’s biggest concentrations of people with roots in the Arab world.

Danish Muslim ghettos: Nine times higher crime rate, hostility towards the surrounding community

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/danish-muslim-ghettos-nine-times-higher-crime-rate-hostility-towards-the-surrounding-community.html

Excerpt: Recently a German police chief said that places like Wedding in Berlin, a Muslim ghetto in the German capital, are as dangerous for policemen to work in as Afghanistan. Call them parallel societies, Muslim ghettos, Sharia colonies, lawless areas, lost territories, failed multicultural experiments -- or whatever. … The areas are characterized by strong Islamic social control, especially of women. Inlets to Islamic courts, child brides, polygamy.

Raymond Ibrahim: The Historical Reality of the Muslim Conquests

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/raymond-ibrahim-the-historical-reality-of-the-muslim-conquests.html

Excerpt: Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic (see here for example), it may be useful to examine one of those aspects that are regularly distorted: the Muslim conquests. Few events of history are so well documented and attested to as are these conquests, which commenced soon after the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad (632) and tapered off circa 750. Large swathes of the Old World—from the India in the east, to Spain in the west—were conquered and consolidated by the sword of Islam during this time. (The much-maligned Crusades may be viewed as a defensive reaction to Muslim imperialism. ~Bob.)

Tweet: David Burge ‏ iowahawkblog

If deficits aren't important, then why have anybody pay any taxes at all?

U.S.

probe of Koran burning finds 5 soldiers responsible, officials say; clerics demand trial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-probe-of-koran-burning-finds-5-soldiers-responsible-afghan-clerics-demand-public-trial/2012/03/02/gIQAwJqYmR_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

Excerpt: Military investigators have concluded that five soldiers were involved in the incineration of a pile of Korans in Afghanistan last week, according to U.S. military officials who have been briefed on the inquiry. The burning of the Muslim holy books — which U.S. officials say was accidental — incited a week of protests that left 30 Afghans dead. The burnings also were cited as motivation for at least some of the six fatal attacks on U.S. soldiers that have occurred in Afghanistan in the last eight days.

The Hadiths

http://counterjihadknight.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/the-hadiths/

Excerpt: The Hadiths is a canon of books which house a collection of the “prophet” Mohammed’s sayings and to Muslim are as Holy as the Qur’an. The Hadiths are vast and even more violent that the Qur’an.

Chicago Police Dept. Embraces Hamas Front

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3469/chicago-police-dept-embraces-hamas-front

Excerpt: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is exploiting recent criticism of the New York Police Department's surveillance of a Muslim students group and some mosques to acquire legitimacy and intimidate police departments to promise not to investigate Islamic groups. CAIR has been described as a front for Hamas by federal law enforcement. After a meeting Tuesday, CAIR's Chicago chapter announced that Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy will speak Saturday night at CAIR-Chicago's annual fundraising banquet. In their meeting, McCarthy reportedly said surveillance by Chicago police would not be used in intelligence gathering as it was in New York.

Why CAGW theory is not “settled science”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/02/why-cagw-theory-is-not-settled-science/#more-58110

Though written by a scientist (Prof. Robert Brown, Duke University Physics) for other scientists—but, not necessarily ones familiar with his specialty—this is surprisingly clear and bordering on brilliant. I highly recommend it. --Ron P. Excerpt: You compare the predictions of their “catastrophic” theory five, ten, twenty years back to the actual data. If there is good agreement, it is at least possible that they are correct. The greater the deviation between observed reality and their predictions, the more likely it is that their result is at least incorrect if not actual bullshit. That’s all. Accurately predicting the future isn’t proof that they are right, but failing to predict it is pretty strong evidence that they are wrong.

Killing Babies No Different from Abortion, "experts" say - Stephen Adams, Telegraph UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html

Excerpt: “We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”. The authors therefore concluded that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled”. (and killing ten-year-old not much different than babies. And killing granny not…~Bob.)

Iranian Carnival (aka “elections”) Redux

http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2012/03/01/iranian-carnival-aka-elections-redux/

Excerpt: The Iranian regime, given its remarkable capacity to screw up most everything (above all the country itself, which vies with the Soviet Union at its worst for a wrecked system), every now and then fails to get it right and some real votes get counted. That’s what happened in June 2009, when Mir Hossein Mousavi — the leader of the Green Movement — got more votes than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the regime had to scramble to produce results that gave the victory to Ahmadinejad. They did it so ham-handedly that everybody saw what was happening, and months of demonstrations followed.

U.S. Jet contract decision "surprised" Brazil government

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/01/us-embraer-us-idUSTRE8202HV20120301

Election Year! ~Bob. Excerpt: A decision by the United States to cancel a $355 million defense aircraft contract with Brazilian planemaker Embraer (EMBR3.SA) has surprised the government of Brazil which had hoped for the development of a bilateral defense program, Brazil's Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Thursday. The ministry said in a statement that the government was "surprised" with the cancellation "especially with the way that it happened and the timing." The U.S. Air Force earlier this week called off the purchase of 20 Embraer's Super Tucano jets due to problems with documentation.

Auto Industry Cartoon

http://timesfreepress.com/photos/2012/mar/01/60186/

Too true. ~Bob.

VIDEO: Grateful Lybian People Thank Britain For Their Liberation From Gadaffi (NOT) - James Delingpole, Telegraph UK

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100140857/cameron-vindicated-grateful-libyan-people-thank-britain-for-their-liberation-from-gadaffi/

Obama In Full Pandering Mode: Too Odious For Words –The Guy Can’t Even Pander Right

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/03/02/obama-in-full-pandering-mode-too-odious-for-words-the-guy-cant-even-pander-right/

Excerpt: Yes, it’s an election year, and no, he’s not the first president to pander to the press, but his predecessors did it with more subtlety. But then, they were more serious, more intelligent and had more politically savvy advisers. What has he done, now, you ask?

Ben & Jerry raise cool 'Occupy' cash and get cold shoulder from Occupiers

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/ben-jerry-raise-cool-occupy-cash-get-activists-cold-shoulder/

Excerpt: Responding to an activist who asked how to submit a proposal for financial support, [Ben & Jerry's Jerry] Greenfield responded, “We are not Occupy Wall Street. We are working in a way that’s different, and we want to integrate values and ideals to the degree that we can, but we are not committed to consensus decision making.” That slap to the sensibilities of the Occupy movement, known for its leaderless and sometimes interminable committee meetings, made several activists visibly angry. (So...she gets it that the wealthy design, create, build and retain control over the fruits of their labors...but she doesn't get it? - Kate in LA)

Allen West to Obama: Quit Bragging About Killing Osama bin Ladan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/allen-west-obama-osama-bin-laden_n_1316160.html?ref=mostpopular

Excerpt: Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Friday that President Barack Obama needs to stop boasting about killing Osama bin Laden, saying that it was Navy SEALS who killed the terrorist leader, not the president. "Please stop with the Osama Bin Laden line, U.S. Navy SEALS double-tapped that rascal," the freshman lawmaker posted on his Facebook page Friday morning. Obama regularly touts taking out bin Laden at his campaign events.

AUDIO: Mark Levin on Obama: "It's the condom president." - Jeff Poor, Daily Caller

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/mark-levin-on-obama-its-the-condom-president-audio/#ixzz1nzYBd2RC

Excerpt: Levin went on to explain how to take the conservative message and sell it to younger audiences, which have been exposed to “years and years of propaganda and indoctrination.” “Look, if you’re confronted with 10 young people who are not politically involved … and you’re not sure how to address them, the first thing you do is you change the situation — the them against me to me talking to two or three of them at a time, if that helps. And you go step by step by step by step and you ask them questions. ‘Well, what do you mean you’re a liberal? What does that mean?’

Wikipedia Vandals Attack Rolling Stone Blogger Who 'Couldn't Be Happier' About Andrew Breitbart's Death

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/wikipedia-vandals-attack-rolling-stone-blogger-who-couldn%e2%80%99t-be-happier-about-breitbarts-death/#ixzz1nzaJyKZL

Excerpt: On Thursday, the Wikipedia page describing the career of liberal “Rolling Stone” blogger Matt Taibbi was vandalized on more than a half-dozen separate occasions, apparently by readers angry about an article in which he castigated the late Andrew Breitbart. Taibbi wrote, among other things, that he “couldn’t be happier” Breitbart died suddenly Wednesday night. Cue the Wikipedia vandals. (Taibbi is vile, but better just to expose his vileness than to use these tactics. ~Bob.)

Insufferable Portland

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/insufferable-portland_631919.html

Excerpt: Still, that doesn’t adequately explain why Portland looms so large in the imagination of the [New York Times]. Things reached the point in 2009 that a columnist for the Oregonian actually wrote a Dear John letter to the Gray Lady, announcing, “Sorry, NYT, we’re just not that into you”: Look, we know you have strong feelings for us. We can tell—like the rest of the English-speaking world—by your incessant need to write about us.

James Q. Wilson, 1931 - 2012 - by William Kristol, The Weekly Standard

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/james-q-wilson-1931-2012_633076.html

Excerpt: Whether they know it or not, most people are intuitive Aristotelians. They know that character is important, that it is formed by the routine activities of family and village life, and that having a good character is in the long run the only route to such happiness as people can achieve through their own efforts. Many people are, of course, more than Aristotelians; they are also Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, or whatever, but though faith often adds much to this ancient view, it rarely subtracts much.

Turning the Tables on Big Brother: Now Internet Users Can Watch Who Is Spying on Them in Blow Against Google's New Spying Policy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2109223/Google-privacy-policy-Mozilla-add-Collusion-reveals-spying-internet-users.html

Excerpt: Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, has unveiled a new add-on for the popular web browser that gives web users an instant view of which companies are 'watching' them as they browse. The move comes the same week that Google pushed ahead with its controversial new privacy policy, built to provide even more data for Google's $28 billion advertising business - despite concerns that the massive harvesting of private data might be illegal in many countries.

The Climate Wars

http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/the-climate-wars/

Excerpt: The problem the alarmists had, was that there was never anything substantial to hit back at. They had the equivalents of the big guns and the massive air support but there never was a skeptic HQ to be pounded, no big central organisation, no massed ranks of skeptic soldiers or even any third-party backing the resistance. Every one of the skeptics was a lone volunteer guerilla fighter, who needed absolutely no logistical support of any kind to continue the fight indefinitely. The alarmists never understood this, preferring to think that there simply had to be some massive hidden organisation orchestrating the resistance. While they wasted time and effort attacking targets that only existed in their head, each of the guerillas chewed on them mercilessly in their own particular way.

Volt production on hold for 5 weeks

http://www.freep.com/article/20120302/BUSINESS0101/120302035/Volt-production-on-hold-for-5-weeks

Obama’s green economy strikes again. ~Bob. Excerpt: General Motors has told 1,300 employees at its Detroit Hamtramck that they will be temporarily laid off for five weeks as the company halts production of the Chevrolet Volt and its European counterpart, the Opel Ampera.

Political Digest for March 2, 2012

2012-03-02T00:10:00.001-06:00

Information on my six books

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html

Victory in Iraq: How America Won

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2012/02/book-review-from-march-issue-of.html

my book review from the March, 2012 issue of Leatherneck. ~Bob

Andrew Breitbart dead in Los Angeles at 43

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/andrew-breitbart-dead-in-la-at-43.html

A huge loss to the cause of freedom, integrity in government and limited government. I appreciate his service. ~Bob. Excerpt: Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart passed away unexpectedly from natural causes early Thursday, his website reported. Breitbart, 43, a star of the tea party movement, died shortly after midnight in Los Angeles, his website said.

Liberals Dance on Breitbart’s Grave

http://www.libertynews.com/2012/03/01/liberals-dance-on-breitbarts-grave/

Quotes from the left who, not surprisingly, thought Obama’s lecture on “civility in public discourse” didn’t apply to them. ~Bob.

Liberals Rejoice Over Death of Andrew Breitbart - Hotair.com

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/03/01/liberals-rejoice-over-death-of-andrew-breitbart/

Excerpt: Both The Washington Examiner (h/t Weasel Zippers) and The Blaze.com have compiled representative lists of the hideous hate-filled tweets that have spewed from the left today regarding the shocking and sudden death of Andrew Breitbart. The comments are too noxious to bear repeating, but those who enjoy stopping to ogle highway accidents are free to link through and have at it. (The anonymous nature of the web exposes the vileness of some people. Which is why I sign my name to my posts on websites. ~Bob.)

Holder and Obama

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2012/03/holder.html

Cartoon

Nato soldiers shot dead in Afghanistan amid Koran anger

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17218152

Excerpt: Nato says two of its troops have been shot dead on a base in Afghanistan, the latest of several attacks after the burning of the Koran by US soldiers. Nato said a man in Afghan army uniform and another in civilian clothes opened fire in southern Kandahar province. The dead are believed to be US soldiers. … More than 70 Nato troops have been killed by Afghan colleagues in recent years.

Worth Reading: Blasphemy and Free Speech by Paul Marshall

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2012&month=02

Excerpt: A growing threat to our freedom of speech is the attempt to stifle religious discussion in the name of preventing “defamation of” or “insults to” religion, especially Islam. Resulting restrictions represent, in effect, a revival of blasphemy laws. … More recently, we have seen eruptions of violence in reaction to Theo van Gogh’s and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s film Submission, Danish and Swedish cartoons depicting Mohammed, the speech at Regensburg by Pope Benedict XVI on the topic of faith, reason, and religious violence, Geert Wilders’ film Fitna, and a false Newsweek report that the U.S. military had desecrated Korans at Guantanamo.

Worth Reading: History Never Quite Ends by Victor Davis Hanson

http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2012/03/01/history_never_quite_ends/page/full/

Excerpt: The European Union and the United Nations, as well as globalization and advanced technology, were all supposed to trump age-old cultural, geographical and national differences and bring people together. But for all the high-tech veneer of the 21st century, the world still looks a lot like it did during the last hundred years and well before that. (For a Hanson article, this is relatively short, though he manages to say quite a bit in it. Ron P.)

The Not-So-Great Eight By Ben Crystal

http://personalliberty.com/2012/02/29/the-not-so-great-eight/?eiid=

Excerpt: While the Republican Presidential candidates vie for top billing in Tampa, Fla., the Democrats have evidently convinced themselves that President Barack Obama is a shoo-in for another four-year occupation of the White House. Let me rephrase that: The Democrats are trying desperately to convince themselves that President Barack Obama is a shoo-in for another four-year occupation of the White House. ... From our home office in Cullman, Ala., it’s the top eight reasons not to vote for Barack Obama this fall.

Diagnosis: Disaster - The $44 billion price tag of state retiree health insurance

http://illinoispolicy.org/news/article.asp?ArticleSource=4698

Excerpt: Illinoisans are beginning to see the dangers of another unfunded liability: free or subsidized health care for retired state workers. The state has promised, in today’s dollars, nearly $44 billion in retiree health benefits to government employees over the next thirty years. Unfortunately, it has not set aside any funds for those future payments. These unfunded liabilities are growing 2½ times faster than state revenues and, if left unreformed, will work in tandem with rising pension costs to dramatically cut government services. Many state retirees contribute little or nothing to their health insurance premiums. In fact, for the state’s largest retiree health program, retirees only contribute 9 percent toward their premiums.

The Circle faces backlash after mocking hero

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8427370

Excerpt: Network Ten's The Circle is facing a furious backlash from viewers after the hosts mocked war hero Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, suggesting he was dim-witted and "not up to it in the sack". The panel was discussing the Victoria Cross recipient after he appeared in a candid Sunday Night profile and aired a shot of him shirtless in a pool. After one of the hosts commented on Corporal Roberts-Smith's physique, Yumi Stynes said: "He's going to dive down to the bottom of the pool and see if his brain is there". (Of course the obligatory excuses were given after the backlash, and to his credit Cpl Roberts-Smith has accepted. But you still got to wonder if what she said was really a "joke". I think probably not, that she was expressing her personal opinion of Roberts-Smith and the Australian military. --MasterGuns. As Kipling wrote, “Making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep, is cheaper than them uniforms—and they’re starvation cheap.” ~Bob.)

Two NATO soldiers "killed by Afghan soldier, civilian"

http://news.yahoo.com/two-nato-soldiers-killed-afghan-soldier-civilian-090037601.html

Excerpt: Two NATO soldiers were shot dead on Thursday by two Afghans, including a man believed to be a soldier, NATO said, an attack that is likely to raise further questions about the future of the country's struggling security forces. (The President told Bob Woodruff yesterday that his apology to Karzai had "calmed things down a bit". How's that working out for our troops and the NATO coalition Mr. President? MasterGuns)

Stockton could become biggest city to go bankrupt

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/stockton-could-become-biggest-city-062559370.html

Excerpt: STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) -- City leaders seeking a way to dig out from under massive debts have taken a step toward making Stockton the nation's largest city to file for bankruptcy. However, thanks to a new California law, the City Council's move also could be the first step toward avoiding such a dramatic move. (And the Fiscal Collapse gathers steam. ~Bob.)

Defense Sec. Panetta unaware of $750,000 Gitmo soccer field

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/29/defense-sec-panetta-unaware-of-750000-gitmo-soccer-field/

Probably Bush’s fault. Or global warming. ~Bob. Excerpt: IN the wake of the revelation that the Department of Defense has spend $750,000 on a soccer field for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp pressed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on his knowledge of the expenditure at a Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday. Panetta denied knowledge of the project.

Could Vladimir Putin be in power until 2024? 10 key questions about Russia's elections

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10542779-could-vladimir-putin-be-in-power-until-2024-10-key-questions-about-russias-elections

Excerpt: Most polls indicate it will be an outright victory for Vladimir Putin, the current prime minister and former president who has made a deal with his ally Dmitry Medvedev, the former prime minister and current president. Despite initial public outrage over their job swap, Putin is consistently polling at around 50 per cent – well ahead of the fragmented opposition.

New WikiLeaks Stash: A Frightening View of Government Intelligence

http://townhall.com/columnists/rachelmarsden/2012/02/29/new_wikileaks_stash_a_frightening_view_of_government_intelligence/page/full/

Excerpt: Apparently the entities charged with keeping us safe now require full-blown lessons from the private sector in how to do their jobs. According to leaked email written by Stratfor's CEO, George Friedman: "We have also been asked to help the United States Marine Corps and other government intelligence organizations to teach them how Stratfor does what it does, and train them in becoming government Stratfors. We are beginning this project by preparing a three-year forecast for the Commandant of the Corps. This is a double honor for us." (Perhaps the author is confusing “strategic intelligence” (gathered by people like CIA) with “military or battlefield intelligence” (usually gathered from POWs, markings on captured equipment and captured documents). The sources and purposes are very different. Military intelligence seeks to find and defeat the enemy in the field today and tomorrow, or perhaps a few weeks from now. Strategic intelligence focuses on defeating enemies and POTENTIAL enemies months or years from now. While much battlefield intel comes from interrogations of prisoners, or translating papers, most strategic intel comes from open sources like newspapers, street conversations, personal observation of the general attitudes of the populace, et cetera. When actual “spook work” (clandestine spying) is required, it’s seldom given to the military to carry out. Not only do soldiers usually lack expertise in whatever specialized field the intel concerns, they look like soldiers. Far better to use a retired person already trained in that field—so they know what to look for—who has or can make connections in the location of the data desired. Or, perhaps she is confusing the gathering of data with “paramilitary operations.” A paramilitary operation is when violence is expected to occur as an integral part of the mission, say taking out a drug lord or atomic scientist or blowing up a bridge. Soldiers might be the best choice for that kind of op, but usually part of the object is to leave little or no idea who has done this violence—which can be chancy. In “spying,” the best job is done when no one even knows it happened—which again calls for that inconspicuous nerd, hippie, or retired person, not a soldier. Battlefield intelligence is done pretty well by all branches, but of course, the USMC—like the Army, Navy, and Air Force—has no particular expertise in the strategic intelligence area. Yet. Ron P.)

International law bars returning refugees to places where their lives are endangered.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577253521717740652.html?mod=djemITP_h

Excerpt: Nevertheless, China's repatriation policy is a blatant violation of the International Convention on Refugees, to which it is a signatory. The Convention bars "refoulement," the diplomatic term for returning refugees to places where their lives would be endangered. (An important piece of North Korea's system of control over its own people is finally being exposed: China's complicity. On Monday, Seoul raised the issue of Beijing's policy of repatriating North Korean refugees in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Every year the Chinese authorities arrest an unknown number of North Koreans who have fled to China. Some of the refugees are trying to escape North Korean tyranny permanently by making their way through China to third countries, from which they can travel to the South. Beijing forcibly repatriates these unfortunates without giving them a chance to apply for asylum. North Koreans who are suspected of having met Christians, South Koreans or Americans while in China are executed or shipped off to the gulag. The rest of the returnees are sent to other prisons, where conditions are little better. Pregnant women are forced to undergo abortions, even in their third trimester, for the crime of carrying "Chinese seed." Until now, the South Korean government has not spoken out publicly about this ongoing atrocity, in part because it doesn't want to incur the wrath of its largest trading partner and in part because it realizes that Beijing could make life much harder for those North Korean refugees whose presence it chooses to overlook. Seoul's silence was China's price for allowing some North Koreans to escape. Last year, 2,727 North Koreans reached safety in South Korea, according to the Unification Ministry in Seoul. Most fled through China, traveling on an underground railroad that Beijing could shut down in an instant. –DH)

The not-so-great super PAC menace by George Will

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_not_so_great_super_pac_menace_uzd9cmiYxLnjrZndFgSdKL#ixzz1nrvKGYDW

Excerpt: When Communists and sympathizers made excuses for Stalin’s terror, they said, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” To which George Orwell responded, “Where’s the omelet?” The Washington Post, dismayed about super PACs, reports “a rarefied group of millionaires and billionaires acting as kingmakers in the GOP contest, often helping to decide, with a simple transfer of money, which candidate might survive another day.” Kingmakers? Where’s the king?

Senate defeats bill to reverse birth control rule

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-defeats-bill-to-reverse-birth-control-rule/2012/03/01/gIQAIUShkR_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNP_p

Excerpt: The Senate has defeated a Republican effort to roll back President Barack Obama’s policy on contraception insurance coverage. The measure sponsored by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican, was defeated 51-48.

National GOP: Romney 40%, Santorum 24%, Gingrich 16%, Paul 12%

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/february_2012/national_gop_romney_40_santorum_24_gingrich_16_paul_12

Excerpt: Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, coming off his primary wins in Arizona and Michigan, has jumped to a 16-point lead over Rick Santorum in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters shows Romney with 40% support to 24% for the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. This is Romney's biggest lead to date and the highest level of support any GOP candidate has earned in regular surveying of the race. Two weeks ago, it was Santorum 39%, Romney 27%.

Obama Loses His First Debate

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/29/obama-loses-his-first-debate/print

Excerpt: Lying is not going to rebut Newt Gingrich's compelling understanding of America's energy policy and huge energy reserves. (All Republican candidates should jump on this strategy. –GBH)

US pays $5 million to buy freedom for rights workers on trial in Egypt

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/01/us-buys-freedom-for-rights-workers-on-trial-in-egypt/

Excerpt: Seven American rights workers are on a plane out of Egypt after the U.S. paid nearly $5 million in bail costs to secure their freedom. Egyptian officials said the U.S. paid $300,000 each for 16 Americans, nine of whom were already out of the country. The State Department said the money was paid by the nongovernmental organizations where the democracy and rights workers work. (And how many billions of dollars will the US Taxpayers now pay in “foreign aid” to these (expletive deleted) people? It’s not just the money. It’s that they are laughing at us for being so gullible and stupid. ~Bob.)

US Pays $5 Million in Jizya to Buy Freedom for Americans Held in Europe - Jihad Watch

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/us-pays-5-million-in-jizya-to-buy-freedom-for-americans-held-in-egypt.html

Excerpt: Will the freeing of the blind Sheikh (a story I broke here) follow this capitulation to terrorism and banditry? "US pays $5 million to buy freedom for rights workers on trial in Egypt," from Fox News, March 1 (thanks to Robert):

Solar Flare Big Enough To Cause Catastrophe On Earth Called Surprisingly Likely

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/solar-flare-big-enough-to-disrupt_n_1313136.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing6%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D139772

Excerpt: An aurora borealis may be beautiful, but can there be too much of a good thing? A new study published in the journal Space Weather analyzed the frequency of the solar storms that cause auroras and found that there's a one in eight chance that by 2020 the Earth will be affected by a major solar flare. The risk is far greater than previously thought. "Even if it’s off by a factor of two, that’s a much larger number than I thought,” study author Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science, a space "weather" research firm in San Diego, told Wired. (This is just now hitting the MSM. TOJ has covered this issue twice, first on 22 Feb 2011 and two weeks ago on 16 Feb 2012. A reprise of my comment from two weeks ago is this: We have good news, bad news, and worse news. The good news is that any step we take to mitigate a solar geomagnetic (Carrington) event will also act as protection from the far weaker manmade EMP of nuclear weapons. The bad news is there isn’t much public information available on “hardening” your personal items or home (and no information at all on how to harden yourself if you, like me, have an implanted medical device like a pacemaker or defibrillator—perhaps we’ll just explode and not have to worry about it?). Few companies, even in the financial field where a few electrons are the difference between poverty and mega-wealth, have taken any steps to protect either their data or their physical assets; few are even aware of the problem. The worse news is that over the past two years, there have been at least three solar CME events—Coronal Mass Ejection events—that caused significant auroras over both hemispheres of the globe. A CME is just a slightly smaller version of a Carrington Event. And, you thought we already had plenty to worry about. Ha! Ron P. Well, George Bush did NOTHING about the sun for eight years. Obama inherited the worst sun in the history of suns, so naturally there are problems. ~Bob.)

Why Doctors Die Differently

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577243321242833962.html

Excerpt: Doctors don't want to die any more than anyone else does. But they usually have talked about the limits of modern medicine with their families. They want to make sure that, when the time comes, no heroic measures are taken. During their last moments, they know, for instance, that they don't want someone breaking their ribs by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (which is what happens when CPR is done right).

Islam & the NYPD: Why we should cheer cops’ work By Qanta A. Ahmed

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/islam_the_nypd_wgVYH7k6WWSKmwRGFg1IOM#ixzz1nrrYbqgg

Excerpt: The relentless campaign to paint the NYPD as Islamophobic is itself an offense to Islam. In fact, our faith compels American Muslims to stand with the NYPD — both to protect the faith, and by its direct dictates. Let me be clear: By investigating Islamist sympathizers who seek to curtail the freedoms of all Americans, the NYPD is aggressively protecting the freedoms and privileges that Muslims enjoy in America (freedoms that aren’t available even in the birthplace of Islam). … Dr. Qanta Ahmed practices medicine in New York. She is the author of “In the Land of Invisible Women.” (This is a woman of great courage, who needs our support. Rational Muslim voices are often suppressed from fear. ~Bob.)

"Honest" Public Broadcasting Service documentary lies about the economy - by Larry Elder, Townhall.com

http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2012/03/01/creators_oped

Excerpt: The whopper we get hit with right away and again and again is this: Clinton inherited a recession -- not an economy that long ago came out of a recession. Never mind that 1993 -- 19 years ago -- is within the living memory of many Americans. Yet we are repeatedly told that Clinton entered office under a full-on economic meltdown.

"Super Tuesday" - by Thomas Sowell, Townhall.com

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/03/01/super_tuesday

Excerpt: If a clear winner with a commanding lead emerges, the question then becomes whether that candidate is someone who is likely to defeat Barack Obama. If not, then the fate of America -- and of Western nations, including Israel -- will be left in the hands of a man with a lifelong hostility to Western values and Western interests. President Obama is such a genial man that many people, across the ideological space, cannot see him as a danger. For every hundred people who can see his geniality, probably only a handful see the grave danger his warped policies and ruthless tactics pose to a whole way of life that has given generation after generation of Americans unprecedented freedom and prosperity.

Why Liberals Like Taxing the Rich - by Michael Barone, Townhall.com

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2012/03/01/creators_oped

Excerpt: Plus, as liberal economist Lane Kenworthy points out, you don't get much income redistribution from higher tax rates. You get more from transfer payments. But, as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has documented, federal transfers are getting less progressive. Social Security and Medicare increasingly transfer money from young low earners to old people with relatively high incomes and considerable accumulated wealth.

Detection Points in the Terrorist Attack Cycle By Scott Stewart

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/detection-points-terrorist-attack-cycle?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120301&utm_term=sweekly&utm_content=title&elq=2233550c5ff448e4a696d34fd49d0cfe

Excerpt: Last week's Security Weekly discussed the fact that terrorism is a tactic used by many different classes of actors and that, while the perpetrators and tactics of terrorism may change in response to shifts in larger geopolitical cycles, these changes will never result in the end of terrorism. Since that analysis was written, there have been jihadist-related attacks in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Yemen and Pakistan, an assassination attempt against the president of Abkhazia, and a failed timed-incendiary attack against the Athens subway. (The latter incident, which militant anarchists claimed, reinforces that jihadists are not the only ones who practice terrorism.)

Quote

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stewart Mill

Earlier: Officers hurt in Occupy clash in Calif. Capitol

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/27/4295265/occupy-group-confronts-pro-white.html

Excerpt: At least two law enforcement officers were injured Monday during a clash with members of the Occupy movement who were at the state Capitol to protest a rally by a pro-white group. … Earlier, a teenage girl was detained outside the Capitol after police separated Occupy protesters from the group opposing black-on-white violence in South Africa. (Damn racists, opposing black violence. Black violence, like Muslim violence, is PC. It’s the potential violence from the Tea Party and veterans that has everyone worried, not the actually violence going on in the world. ~Bob.)

Tweet on GOP primary votes

Vote totals across the 11 states that have held contests: Romney: 1,749,677 Gingrich: 978,229 Santo: 932,508 Paul: 463,176. That's +770k.

Video Shows Why Requiring Voter IDs Makes Sense

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqMVxeZhflI

A Future for Britain Free of Islamization: An Interview with British Freedom Party Chairman Paul Weston - by Jerry Gordon, New English Review

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/108985/sec_id/108985

Excerpt: Gordon: What are the origins of the British Freedom Party? Weston: It was set up in 2010 as an offshoot from the British National Party. It was an offshoot because the four founders were expelled from the party because they rejected the whites’ only policy of the British National Party. They believed that culture, not color, was the important thing in Britain especially multi-cultural Britain. We can have one culture and it's not important about what color or race you come from. So they set this up having been expelled and we have rolled on from there.

Number of Mosques in US Nearly Doubles Since 9/11 - Jihad Watch

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/number-of-mosques-in-us-nearly-doubles-since-911.html

Excerpt: In recent years we have seen mosques used to preach hatred; to spread exhortations to terrorist activity; to house a bomb factory; to store weapons; to disseminate messages from bin Laden; to demand (in the U.S.) that non-Muslims conform to Islamic dietary restrictions; to fire on American troops; to fire upon Indian troops; to train jihadists; and so we know they're places of peace, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a greasy Islamophobe. (Why they celebrate 9/11 as a great Islamic victory. ~Bob.)

Ten Indications that Obama is Scared - Kevin Jackson, American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/ten_indications_that_obama_is_scared.html#ixzz1ntz99Ykl

Excerpt: Obama is not the cool, calm, and collected guy that he portrays publicly; he's far from it. Obama is described privately as a thin-skinned hot-head when it comes to questioning his policies, or anything else, for that matter. Though there has been a slight shift upward in Obama's poll numbers, Obama knows the real temperature of the American people.

Obama and the End of American Exceptionalism - by Steve McCann, American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/obama_and_the_end_of_american_exceptionalism.html#ixzz1nty7UPRn

Excerpt: Barack Obama began his presidency by donning the hair shirt and groveling before the nations of world, begging forgiveness for what he perceived to be the sins of America's past. He did not care to understand that while allies may have mildly complained about past U.S. policy, it was out of a combination of envy and grudging respect. Yet it is America's enemies and their loud and false protestations that frame the basis of Obama's outreach and appeasement mindset.

Holder

2012-03-01T08:45:00.002-06:00

Political Digest for March 1, 2012

2012-03-01T00:10:00.001-06:00

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on. In some cases I post things sent to me by readers I might not have posted on my own, to get ideas circulating.

Mitt Romney wins Arizona, Michigan primaries

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-im-not-willing-to-light-my-hair-on-fire-to-win-conservative-votes/2012/02/28/gIQADDk9fR_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Excerpt: Mitt Romney won both of Tuesday’s Republican presidential primaries, routing Rick Santorum in Arizona and narrowly securing Michigan, his birth state. The victories will provide an important boost for Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who has sought to cast himself as the GOP’s inevitable nominee. He has now won primary contests in six states: New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Maine, Michigan and Arizona.

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe to retire in blow to GOP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/maine-sen-olympia-snowe-to-retire-in-blow-to-gop/2012/02/28/gIQAkzWkgR_blog.html

Excerpt: In announcing her plans, Snowe, 65, emphasized that she is in good health and was prepared for the campaign ahead. But she said she was swayed by the increasing polarization in Washington. (If a Democrat wins her seat, and it puts Harry Reid and liberals in charge of the senate in 2013 instead of conservatives, people who complained she was a RINO may sorely miss her! ~Bob.)

Obama Administration Ignored Iranian Opposition’s Advice

http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2012/02/27/obama-administration-ignored-iranian-oppositions-advice/?singlepage=true

Excerpt: The president had come to office promising to establish good relations with the Islamic Republic, but no progress had (or has) been made. Moreover, there was mounting public evidence of the Iranian role in both Iraq and Afghanistan, ranging from the provision of explosives and components of the murderous IEDs (the so-called “roadside bombs”), to training terrorists (who subsequently killed Americans) inside Iran, to supporting and housing al-Qaeda members, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, to sending officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary Guards Corps onto the battlefield (several hundred were in American military detention camps in Iraq). (I've never had reason to question Ledeen's integrity or accuracy. Look for the link that says “Read it here” about halfway through Ledeen’s article. If this document and story are true, everyone in Washington should hang their heads in abject shame. Ron P.)

U.S.

Military Burned Bibles at Bagram in 2009

http://bigpeace.com/bshapiro/2012/02/27/u-s-military-burned-bibles-at-bagram-in-2009/

Excerpt: While Muslims riot in Afghanistan, murdering soldiers over the accidental burning of Korans – Korans which had been used by terrorists to transmit Islamist messages – it turns out that the U.S. military has routinely burned Bibles in

Afghanistan

to be more sensitive to Muslims.

Would Suicide-Bomb Suspect Have Won 'Prosecutorial Discretion'?

http://townhall.com/columnists/terryjeffrey/2012/02/29/creators_oped/page/full/

Excerpt: The would-be suicide bomber who allegedly tried to attack the U.S. Capitol two weeks ago is living proof the people who run our government are not serious about enforcing our immigration laws. Amine El Khalifi was born in 1983. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he had been in the

United States

illegally for more than a decade when he attended an inopportune meeting in the presence of someone the FBI would later describe as a "confidential human source."

LIGHTSquared CEO resigns amid revelations of proximity to White House

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/28/lightsquared-ceo-resigns-amid-revelations-of-companys-proximity-to-obama-white-house/

Excerpt: LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday amid revelations of his company’s political proximity — and his own closeness — to the White House and Obama administration officials. The Daily Caller first reported one week ago on emails and documents that indicate political ties and numerous meetings between LightSquared and Obama administration officials as the was undergoing regulatory review. Ahuja’s resignation comes after Obama’s FCC suspended conditional approval of a waiver LightSquared needed to complete its high-speed broadband network. Until two weeks ago, the company’s final approval appeared imminent.

Fears grow of Israel-Iran missile shootout

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/28/10534518-fears-grow-of-israel-iran-missile-shootout

Excerpt: With tensions between Israel and Iran running sky high over the latter’s nuclear program, U.S. officials and military analysts are growing increasingly concerned that Israel will launch a multi-phase air and missile attack that could trigger waves of retaliatory missile strikes from Tehran. Such a shootout could quickly spiral into a regional conflict that would potentially force the

U.S.

to intervene to protect its interests. (A war would help Obama's reelection. His problem is that his non-Jewish base hates Jews and

Israel

. ~Bob.)

Australian Ethicists Call For “After-Birth Abortions” In Medical Journal

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/02/28/australian-ethicists-call-for-after-birth-abortions-in-medical-journal

Who is surprised. Granny's next. ~Bob. Excerpt: Two ethicists working with Australian universities argue in the latest online edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics that if abortion of a fetus is allowable, so to should be the termination of a newborn.

New Navy Railgun Tests Leading to Ship Superweapon by 2020

http://news.yahoo.com/navy-railgun-tests-leading-ship-superweapon-2020-201003095.html

Excerpt: The first weapon-scale prototype of a futuristic Navy railgun began undergoing firing tests last week, the next big step toward putting the electromagnetic superweapon on

U.S.

warships by 2020. The Navy envisions using railguns to destroy enemy ships, defend against enemy missiles, or bombard land targets in support of Marines hitting the beaches.

DNC Boss Wasserman Schultz to Keynote Muslim Group's Fundraiser

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/blog/dnc-boss-wasserman-schultz-keynote-muslim-groups-fundraiser

Excerpt: Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be the keynote speaker at the annual fundraising banquet of a Muslim group with some controversial connections. EMERGE USA -- which is aligned with the Florida-based Center for Voter Advocacy -- is headed by Khurrum Wahid, a South Florida attorney. According to the Florida Bar, Wahid “has defended individuals charged with allegedly committing or conspiring to commit acts of terrorism.”

Gun Walking Caused Death of ICE Agent Zapata

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/02/gun_walking_caused_death_of_ice_agent_zapata.html#ixzz1nm93Qo7J

Excerpt: Watching Congressman Darrell Issa, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee go up against Eric Holder's Justice Department is like watching Golding's Piggy try to reason with Jack's bloodthirsty gang of sow-worshipping killers. But instead of a conch shell, the two men are writing letters -- lots of letters demanding the most corrupt Attorney General in history answer for the murders of two federal agents and hundreds of Mexican civilians.

Loans flow from Europe’s central bank, but analysts debate if they’re a cure or a crutch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/loans-flow-from-europes-central-bank-but-analysts-debate-if-its-a-cure-or-a-crutch/2012/02/28/gIQAJQk0gR_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

Excerpt: Throughout his waning months in office, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet boasted that he had avoided the excesses of his counterparts at the U.S. Federal Reserve and kept the ECB’s response to his continent’s financial crisis relatively modest. It has taken his successor, Italian central banker Mario Draghi, less than three months to upend that approach, triggering a debate about whether the ECB has quietly solved the euro-zone debt crisis or simply postponed a reckoning by shuffling hundreds of billions of dollars among banks, governments and the central bank’s own coffers.

Obama Admin Spends $750,000 On Soccer Field For Gitmo Detainees

http://members.beforeitsnews.com/story/1828/603/Obama_Admin_Spends_750,000_On_Soccer_Field_For_Gitmo_Detainees.html

Excerpt: President Obama pledged to shut down Guantanamo Bay at the very outset of his administration; within two days of his inauguration, he issued an executive order to close the facility within a year. We are now three years into the Obama Administration, and Gitmo is still open.

Iran

’s underground nuclear sites not immune to U.S. bunker-busters, experts say

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/experts-irans-underground-nuclear-sites-not-immune-to-us-bunker-busters/2012/02/24/gIQAzWaghR_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

Excerpt: Western spy agencies for years have kept watch on a craggy peak in northwest

Iran

that houses of one the world’s most unusual nuclear sites. Known as Fordow, the facility is built into mountain bunkers designed to withstand aerial attack.

Iran

’s civil-defense chief has declared the site “impregnable.” But impregnable it is not, say

U.S.

military planners who are increasingly confident of their ability to deliver a serious blow against Fordow, should the president ever order an attack.

Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ap-newsbreak-obama-administration-plan-would-kill-rival-bird-to-save-spotted-owl/2012/02/28/gIQAvxAUgR_story.html

Some owls live, some owls die. The One has spoken. (But did you even know spotted owls could make political contributions?) ~Bob. Excerpt: To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.

Isn't It Ironic? (From an e-mail, no attribution.)

The food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever. Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to "Please Do Not Feed the Animals" because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.

Romney looks ahead to Super Tuesday

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/christian-heinze/213217-romney-looks-ahead-to-super-tuesday

Excerpt: While Romney’s victories in Michigan and Arizona may have restored him to frontrunner status, the path ahead still poses challenges as attention shifts to the 10 states up for grabs on Super Tuesday.

Obama’s Energy Budget: Misplaced Subsidies, Overlooked Benefits by Robert Bryce

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ir_1.pdf

Excerpt: When it comes to energy, the Obama administration consistently promotes subsidies for “clean” energy technologies while accusing the oil-and-gas industry of benefitting from excessive taxpayer support. But in setting its policy priorities, the administration overlooks some important facts: subsidies for the oil and gas sector aren’t all that big when compared to the amount of energy being produced; the vaunted “green” economy is not creating large numbers of jobs; and tens of thousands of jobs are being created by the oil-and-gas industry.

Subtitle: Obama Blackmailed. U.S.: North Korea suspends nuclear activities

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/29/us-north-korea-suspends-nuclear-activities/

Excerpt: Calling the agreement "important, if limited, progress" in addressing North Korea's behavior, Nuland said in return the U.S. work to finalize details for a proposed package of 240,000 metric tons of food aid "with the prospect of additional assistance based on continued need.' (We give them food, which frees up their funds to buy more weapons to oppress their people and threaten

South Korea

And a successful blackmailer always returns for more as long as the victim has more. As Kipling wrote: “It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray, So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: "We never pay any one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost, For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that plays it is lost!" ~Bob.)

White House Wants to Keep Gas Prices High

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/29/morning-bell-white-house-wants-to-keep-gas-prices-high/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBel

Excerpt: With the national average of gas prices hitting $3.65 a gallon, nearing $6 in some parts of the country, and poised to head even higher, America's families are wondering when the bleeding at the pump will stop. But for Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, those steep prices aren't even a concern. In fact, he says his goal is not to get the price of gasoline to go down. Chu delivered those stunning remarks in testimony before Congress yesterday. When Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.) asked Chu whether it's his "overall goal to get our price" of gasoline lower, Chu said, "No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy." (Obama 2012: “Grinding the poor to please rich greenies.” ~Bob.)

25 Suspected Hackers Arrested in International Raids

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/world/europe/25-suspected-hackers-arrested-in-international-raids.html?_r=1&ref=world

Excerpt: Twenty-five suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America, Interpol, the global police agency, said on Tuesday. (I’m in for the firing squad. ~Bob.)

Carpenter accused of insulting Zimbabwe’s president over birthday balloon comment

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/carpenter-accused-of-insulting-zimbabwes-president-over-birthday-balloon-comment/2012/02/29/gIQAMpbnhR_story.html

Excerpt: A lawyers group says police arrested a carpenter who questioned whether

Zimbabwe

’s president still had the strength to blow up balloons at his 88th birthday celebrations. (Back in the bad old days of “white rule” in Zimbabwe, when black life expectancy was 63 instead of about 36 like it is today under black rule, leftists agitated for a change. That change apparently didn’t include any freedom of speech. But when you are starving, this isn’t that big a deal, I guess. ~Bob.)

Not a Parody: “Peace Now” Shocked to Discover Arabs Don't Want Peace By Jonathan Tobin

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0212/tobin022912.php3

Excerpt: However, it's hard not to chuckle a little bit at the indignant tone affected by Friedman in her op-ed published in the Forward as she conveys her shock and dismay to discover the Arab world believes Jews have no rights in Jerusalem or any other part of

Israel

. She and her group had so convinced themselves all it will take to create peace "now" was for Israelis to support a two-state solution and negotiate, it appears they never took the time or effort to realize the other side has little interest in peace, now or at any other time.

Al-Arabiya: US in talks to swap jihad terror Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman & 49 others for 19 Americans held in Egypt

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/al-arabiya-us-in-talks-to-swap-jihad-terror-sheikh-omar-abdel-rahman-for-19-americans-held-in-egypt.html

Just flipping beautiful. I hope this isn’t true. We get Americans out of jail in

Egypt

by trading them terrorists—and foreign aid, I’m sure. The terrorists then murder more Americans. Maybe your family. ~Bob. Excerpt: Al-Arabiya is reporting, in Arabic only so far, that the U.S. is talking with the Egyptian government to free the blind Sheikh and 49 other Egyptians currently imprisoned in the

U.S.

in exchange for the freedom of the 19 Americans the Egyptians are holding. The blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, is in prison for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center jihad terror bombing. If he is freed, it will be the apotheosis of Obama's policy of appeasement toward the Islamic world.

Egypt lifts travel ban on US pro-democracy workers, officials say

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/29/egypt-lifts-travel-ban-on-us-pro-democracy-workers-officials-say/

Excerpt: Egyptian officials say a travel ban on seven Americans employed by pro-democracy

U.S.

groups has been lifted. The decision Wednesday appeared to signal the end of the worst crisis in relations between Egypt and the

U.S.

in 30 years. (Hopefully this means the above item was just typical Arab BS. I wonder how much this will cost American taxpayers., ~Bob.)

A Movie about Muhammad: An Idea whose Time Has Come. by Ali Sina

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/a-movie-about-muhammad-an-idea-whose-time-has-come.html

Excerpt: I started writing about Islam in 1998. When I read the Quran and the life of Muhammad it became clear to me that the world is in danger. Islam is a threat to mankind and this threat will not end until we all surrender to a global tyranny ruled under Sharia – the most draconian law since Hammurabi. Never underestimate the power of stupid people motivated zealotry. (Be a brave actor who took the part. ~Bob.)

Good Piece: A Guide to the Liberal Mind By Victor Volsky

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/a_guide_to_the_liberal_mind.html#ixzz1nmtdQb7p

Excerpt: As a great fan of Jeff Foxworthy, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to use his hilarious you-might-be-a-redneck comedy routine in an attempt to characterize the liberal mindset (tweaking Jeff's formula a bit to convert it from the suppositional to the unconditional). So, with apologies to the wonderful country comedian, here are some of the notable features of the liberal's mental landscape:

Worth Reading: Some Free Advice for the Republican Field by Bernard Goldberg

http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/some-free-advice-for-the-republican-field/?utm_source=BernardGoldberg.com+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f458297bea-NEWSLETTER&utm_medium=email

Excerpt: I still think Mitt Romney has the best chance to beat President Obama, but I also think he’s one of those rich guys who’s embarrassed about being rich. Rick Santorum is a train wreck. … I like Newt Gingrich. I think he’s smart and has some good ideas and would make Barack Obama look silly in a nationally televised debate. But every now and then he goes off the deep end and someplace along the line I fell out of love with him. Then there’s Ron Paul, who makes a lot of sense when he’s talking about money, and very little sense when he’s talking about a whole bunch of other things, especially foreign affairs. (I share his pain. ~Bob.)

Outraged by Mormon Proxy Baptism? Not This Jew By Jeff Jacoby

http://patriotpost.us/opinion/jeff-jacoby/2012/02/29/outraged-by-mormon-proxy-baptism-not-this-jew/

Excerpt: In a column many years ago, I described how I once attempted to chart a family tree. Most of my father's family had been killed in Auschwitz and my efforts to trace their genealogy left me, I wrote, with a family tree that "has stumps where branches ought to be" and "gets narrower, not wider, as it grows."

Fannie asks gov't for almost $4.6B after 4Q loss

http://srnnews.townhall.com/news/business/2012/02/29/fannie_asks_govt_for_nearly_46_billion_for_4q

Excerpt: Mortgage giant Fannie Mae said Wednesday that it lost money in its fourth quarter and is asking the federal government for $4.57 billion in aid to cover its deficit. Washington-based Fannie said it lost $2.41 billion in the October-December quarter, stung by declining home prices. Revenue was $4.53 billion. (We are still paying for Bill Clinton’s buying votes with affordable housing in the 1990s, and 95% of the voters don’t have a clue about that. Say, government, I didn’t have a great quarter, and for say, a niggardly $5M, I could get by and never ask for a penny again. ~Bob.)

Prohibition

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2012/02/29/creators_oped/page/full/

Excerpt: But 10 years ago,

Portugal

decriminalized every drug -- crack, heroin, you name it. The number of abusers actually declined. Joao Goulao,

Portugal

's top drug official, said that before decriminalization "we had a huge problem with drug use ... around 100,000 people hooked on heroin." Then they started treating drug use more like a parking ticket. People caught with drugs get a slap on the wrist, sometimes a fine. Independent studies have found the number of people in

Portugal

who say they regularly do drugs stayed about the same. (Similar reports are available from other countries that have decriminalized drugs, but we’ll continue to ignore them. Think of all that D.A.R.E. money that would vanish if the prohibition went away. Can’t have that. Ron P. No one hates drugs and dealers like I do. But think this would work with draconian penalties for anyone selling privately. ~Bob.)

Holder loses cool during House hearing when asked about Fast and Furious

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/29/holder-loses-cool-during-house-hearing-when-asked-about-fast-and-furious/#ixzz1nmt0IKQo

Excerpt: A visibly frustrated Attorney General Eric Holder slammed the table when responding to a question about Operation Fast and Furious during a Tuesday budget hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. “That was a fundamentally flawed program, fundamentally flawed,” Holder said of Fast and Furious. … “The inspector general at Justice has 80,000 pages and we have 6,000 pages, but even in those 6,000 pages we find damning evidence that high-ranking people in Justice knew all along and not only didn’t stop this program, but believed in it,” Issa said.

House subcommittee votes to repeal healthcare reform law's 'death panel'
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/213295-house-panel-repeals-health-laws-cost-cutting-board-with-bipartisan-support

Excerpt: Bipartisan legislation to repeal the healthcare law's cost-control board sailed through a House panel on Wednesday, raising pressure on the Senate to take up the bill and dealing President Obama a political blow. The Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee vote was 17-5, with ranking member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) crossing the aisle to vote for repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

Obama's Latino Landslide?

http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2012/02/29/obamas_latino_landslide/page/full/

Excerpt: It seemed like someone had been inhaling something at CNN on Friday morning. They kept touting an upcoming interview: "Barack Obama could win the presidential election by a landslide. Op-ed contributor Charlie Garcia tells us how next." Garcia, a consultant to corporations on how to market to Hispanics, broke out rainbows and unicorns for Obama: "He's doing all the right things. He's basically saying, 'look guys, comprehensive immigration reform. I'm all for it. It's those Republicans that just keep getting in the way.'" (If I offer you $100 to vote for me, it’s a crime. If to get your vote I offer to pass a bill that will take millions of dollars from other people and give them to a program that benefits you, it’s democracy. Obama may well buy reelection as Clinton did in 1996. ~Bob.)

Economics for Five-Year-Olds

https://secure.piryx.com/donate/93uJ6Aql/Barry-Hinckley/hudson

Great campaign ad by a five year old. ~Bob.

Split on the Left as progressive indies tossed out by Mark

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/division-left-prog-indies-tossed-out/400936

Excerpt: Don't expect it to get much coverage in the liberal mainstream media but there is a bitter split on the Left between funders and activists who want to be more closely identified with helping Democrats win elections and those who prefer to remain independent and focused on building a progressive infrastructure for the future. Huffington Post has the story this morning concerning the split in the ranks of the Democracy Alliance, the powerful umbrella funding panel formed a decade ago explicitly for the purpose of building a new progressive infrastructure explicitly modeled on that of the Right from the 1970s and 1980s. (The losers will flee to Mexico city, where a guy with an ice axe… ~Bob.)

“Climate Deniers” Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name By S. Fred Singer

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/climate-deniers-are-giving-us-skeptics-a-bad-name/

Gallia omnia est divisa in partes tres. This phrase from Julius Gaius Caesar about the division of Gaul nicely illustrates the universe of climate scientists — also divided into three parts. On the one side are the “warmistas,” with fixed views about apocalyptic man-made global warming; at the other extreme are the “deniers.” Somewhere in the middle are climate skeptics. In principle, every true scientist must be a skeptic. (Well, I’m a skeptic. Can’t deny there’s a climate if you live in Chicago. ~Bob.)

Man Shows up Naked to Job Interview, Gets in Fight with Police

http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-man-shows-up-naked-to-job-interview-gets-in-fight-with-police-20120228,0,1338287.story

Excerpt: Jose Ayala didn't make the best first impression at a Del Paso Heights-area welding shop, but shop owner Chris Johnson won’t soon forget him. Ayala showed up to his interview naked and high on meth, and cell phone footage of his fight with police has gotten a lot of attention on the internet. (Even money the police get sued for violating his constitutional right to let it all hang out. ~Bob.)

Kentucky: Iraqi Refugee Bragged About Bombing US Soldiers

http://frontlines2011.blogspot.com/2012/02/kentucky-iraqi-refugee-bragged-about.html

Excerpt: An Iraqi man who settled in Kentucky as a refugee, boasted about having been an insurgent in Baghdad, as he plotted with a confidential informant to ship weapons and money to Al-Qaida in his home country, the FBI said in a search warrant application obtained Monday. FBI Special Agent Chris Faber quoted 24-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi as saying he didn’t know how many explosives he had placed in

Iraq

because “By God I didn’t count them.” (Will President Obama please explain to this guy that “Islam is a Religion of Peace”! ~Bob.)

Update from Tom Kratman

Three items of some interest. One: The paperback for Amazon Legion came out yesterday. Two: Finished Countdown: H Hour, and sent it in. Still need to address a couple of editorial items but, ya know, it's not bad. Three: signed the contract for another five books in the Carreraverse, Molon Labe, The Rods and The Axe, and three for which I don't yet have titles. Best --Tom (For those not familiar, LtCol Tom Kratman,

USA

(Ret.) writes terrific, pro-freedom military science fiction. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by him. ~Bob.)

Army Dietitian Touts Warning Labels for Desserts and Fried Foods at Mess Halls

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/army-dietitian-touts-warning-labels-desserts-and-fried-foods-mess-halls

Excerpt: The healthy eating campaign has the

U.S.

military in its sights. During a panel discussion Thursday on how government can promote healthy eating habits, the U.S. Army touted its mess hall labeling system that places warning on desserts and fried foods. The event, held at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, saw Lt. Col. Sonya Cable highlight the “Go for Green” program, which labels healthy foods green, moderate foods amber, and high calorie foods red. (Maybe some baked Brie? A vegetarian quiche? And don't forget the Perrier at the "hydration station." Maybe some Activia yogurt to keep them regular and everything? Tofu burgers instead of sliders? Or a perfectly shaped lentil-and-brown-rice patty on a bun. Or, as you might know it, a veggie burger. --MasterGuns)

Bernanke warns lawmakers country headed for 'massive fiscal cliff'
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/213351-fed-boss-warns-of-massive-fiscal-cliff

Excerpt: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned Congress against taking the nation over a "massive fiscal cliff" at the end of the year, asking lawmakers to come up with more gradual plans to implement major policy reforms. The central bank head struck a nervous tone Wednesday about what the end of the year could hold for the fledgling economic recovery, given the slew of overhauls to taxes and spending set to occur if Congress does not step in. (Guess he just woke up. Welcome to reality, Mr. Bernanke, we hope you enjoy your visit. ~Bob.)

VIDEO: Proud and Prejudiced Part 2 - "Burn Burn USA! Burn Burn Democracy!"

http://englishdefenceleague.org/proud-and-prejudiced-part-2/

Excerpt: Last night [

Britain

's] Channel 4 screened a documentary entitled ‘Proud and Prejudiced’. The film-makers followed Tommy Robinson of the English Defence League and a group of Muslim extremists. Their aim was to show how tensions in Tommy’s home town of Luton led to the formation of the EDL, as well as to summarise the beliefs of both sides. The documentary covered many key events in the history of the EDL, but we believe that some important events were excluded. So, we’ve put together the following video to help ensure that people have the full picture:

Obama's fake accent on a big night.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/29/no-there-there

Excerpt: But it's more than that. He also has a southern cracker imitation tossed in there to appeal to what he imagines are southern men who work in auto plants -- so he sounds like a strange mixture of Joe Hill, Martin Luther King, Jr., and George Corley Wallace of Alabama. It's a whole new accent never seen on earth before created by this master chameleon to disguise his ultra-privileged background.

BBC Manchester UK: Muslim Gang Members 'plied underaged white girls with drink and drugs for sex'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-1711753

Excerpt: The court heard that some of the girls were raped and physically assaulted and some were forced to have sex with "several men in a day, several times a week". Miss Smith said the girls were given alcohol, food and money in return for sex but that there were times when violence was used. The court was told that some of the defendants also took payments from other men to whom they supplied the girls for sex. (Hat tip: English Defense League)

How cuts hurt the military by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Higginbotham, USMC (Ret.)

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2012/02/29/1160682?sac=fo.opinion

Excerpt: Cutting Fort Bragg construction in half is bad enough for national security and North Carolina's economy ("Defense budget calls for $200 million in construction projects at Fort Bragg," Feb. 14). But it's nothing compared to the damage another $500 billion in budget "sequestration" cuts would do if they're allowed to take effect next year. Sequestration - chopping a mechanical 23 percent from every function of our military (including bases) - would hit critical functions, such as satellites and Special Operations, as much as lesser priorities such as marching bands and office supplies. The defense strategy the Department of Defense rolled out just weeks ago would be a dead letter: "out the window," in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's words.

The English Defence League Condemns Rioting and Unchecked Lawlessness in England

http://englishdefenceleague.org/the-edl-condemns-rioting-and-unchecked-lawlessness-in-england/

Excerpt: We know it’s not the rank and file police who are responsible because we know we have huge sympathy in their ranks. There is something very rotten being fed down from the top, however. It’s obvious that, perhaps because of a perceived “un-whiteness” of the current criminal looters, the police have not been ordered to crack heads. Maybe individual police officers are too fearful of being later blamed if they injure someone but the reality is the human rights of these violent criminal looters have been placed way above the right of decent people to walk the streets, to sleep soundly in their beds and to expect the police will protect their businesses and livelihoods. (There was a creepy guy bugging me when I was living in the North of England in 1998. One night I couldn’t sleep and got up got up at 3 o’clock in the morning to make a cup of tea, and I heard the guy being arrested right outside the kitchen window I was standing next to. Later I learned he’d had an axe in his hand at that time, not to axe me, but to axe his way into a local shop. When he was not evicted from his flat, and persisted in bothering me after this incident, I rang the police. When the police officer came round, I told him I had a friend who’d offered to beat the guy up for me. The police officer pulled his chair closer to me and said, ”That’s what you have to do. That’s what people have to do now. Don’t tell anybody I told you this. Twenty years ago, we would’ve gone round there and given him a clout, but now you have to do it yourself. –Kate in LA.)

Senators Offer License To Strike Iran Nuclear Program

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/iran-nuclear-program-senators-obama_n_1310934.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing6%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D139539

Excerpt: That pledge came along with the unveiling of a resolution on Capitol Hill that appeared designed to pressure Obama into taking a tougher stance on Iran, and to foreclose any option of letting

Iran

achieve an atomic weapon. If

Iran

were on the verge of building a bomb, the resolution would seem to require that the administration destroy it, but Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said it was more of a show of support for such actions. "This resolution is not an authorization to use military force," Lieberman said. "But in opposing containment, it certainly is, I would think, sending a message to President Obama that if he decides as commander-in-chief that at any point that a military strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons facility is necessary in the national security interest of the

United States

, then he can expect broad bipartisan support from the United States Congress." (A President who is so little impressed by Constitutional and Congressional limitations is unlikely to be impressed by this, either way. On the other hand, if his re-election looks to be in doubt, he has surely noticed how his approval rating jumped with the death of bin Laden…. Ron P.)

Study: Milwaukee School Choice Program Leads To Higher Graduation Rate Among Participants

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/study-milwaukee-school-choice-program-leads-higher-graduation-rate-among-participants

Excerpt: The results of a new study show higher rates of graduation and attendance of four year colleges among students enrolled in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) than public school students not enrolled in the program. “Students enrolled in the Milwaukee voucher program are more likely to graduate from high school and go to college than their public school counterparts, boast significantly improved reading scores, represent a more diverse cross-section of the city, and are improving the results of traditional public school students,” said the study’s press release. (I have to wonder if the parent’s interest by itself isn’t a contributing factor to this result. If the parent doesn’t care, why would the student? Attitudes of the young ARE influenced by parental example. Ron P.)

Democrats blast Bush for high gas prices in 2008 and now are criticizing Republicans for politicizing gas prices.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/02/video-flashback-obama-and-dems-blast-bush-for-gas-prices-in-2008/

VIDEO: BBC's Panorama: Muslims First, British Second

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=203oa4qatUc!

Let's Face It: Devotees of Our Modern Youth Cult Would Prefer That Old People Are Dead Already - Peter Mullen, Telegraph UK

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/petermullen/100140317/lets-face-it-devotees-of-our-modern-youth-cult-would-prefer-that-old-people-were-already-dead/

Excerpt: The problem is our crass misunderstanding of human nature. Modern types think so well of themselves and forget that we are not naturally good, not compassionate by nature. These are virtues and they have to be taught. The old words about this are “charity” and “vocation”. As soon as nursing cut free of those old-fashioned imperatives and turned itself into a heavily unionised profession, it was bound to degenerate.

My Persecution - as told by the English Defence League's Tommy Robinson

http://englishdefenceleague.org/my-persecution-as-told-by-tommy-robinson/

Excerpt: The United People of Luton (Bedfordshire, England) quickly turned into the English Defence League, and I soon found there were thousands of people just like me who were sick and tired of our spineless politicians and senior police officers who were too scared to stand up for our culture or our human rights when faced with the threat of militant Islam. It was February 2010 and I was at Luton airport travelling to

Scotland

for the first Scottish Defence League demo. When I went to check in I was pulled in and held by special branch. When I got into the room I was told I was being arrested for racially aggravated public order and criminal damage!

Worth Reading: Taking Out Dictators: Our interventions follow certain patterns. Do Syria and Iran fit them? By Victor Davis Hanson

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/292125/taking-out-dictators-victor-davis-hanson

Excerpt: In the past 40 years, the United States has intervened to go after autocrats in Afghanistan, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Somalia, and

Serbia

. We have attacked by air, by land, and by a combination of both. In the post-Vietnam, post–Cold War era, are there any rules to guide us about any action envisioned against Syria or

Iran

— patterns known equally to our enemies?

The Gas of Life By Jim Goodridge

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/the-gas-of-life/

Excerpt: CO2 is literally the gas of life for all macro life forms we encounter.
The existence of extremophiles suggests very early non-solar energy sources. Demonizing CO2 started with the plan for peaceful use of atomic bombs.

Book Review from the March issue of Leatherneck Magazine

2012-02-29T17:51:00.000-06:00

Victory in Iraq: How America Won.

By Hon. Duncan L. Hunter. Published by Duncan L. Hunter, 2010. 393 pages.

I suspect that most military readers will feel a bit unsettled, as I did, when they start reading Victory in Iraq. Then the reason hits you: this guy is on our side! The author believes in America and

America

’s cause, and reveres the men and women who serve our Republic in uniform. He feels no need to, in the modern “journalist’s ethic,” be neutral between the child and the virus that is trying to kill it. For someone who spends a lot of hours keeping up with news, commentary and reports on current events, it’s exhilarating.

Victory in Iraq focuses heavily on the struggle that developed after the fall of Baghdad, which is good, as the initial invasion has been well chronicled by other writers. This is history on four levels. It deals with the strategic and tactical levels, but also has a strong focus on the guys stacked outside a Fallujah door, ready to kick it in and deal with what follows. Military readers and their families will appreciate how often and reverently Duncan focuses on the individual heroism of our combat troops and their deeds. These are stories military readers will appreciate, but they are stories that civilian readers, fed a steady diet of negativity by a media determined to downplay American success and magnify American setbacks, need desperately to hear. This book should help overshadow the few, highly-magnified alleged misdeeds of our troops in the public’s mind.

The forth level of Victory in Iraq is the political war at home, where what in the 1860s would have been called “copperhead” politicians and their media supporters were willing to undermine victory and denigrate the troops to score political points. So make no mistake, this is as much a political history of the war as a military history by a writer who was in the thick of the political action. A WWII buff once told me that he was interested “in the war-fighting, not the politics” of that conflict. I replied that all wars are political, and you cannot separate the two. Then-Representative Hunter, as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee from 2003 to 2007 and with a son who was a serving Marine officer in Iraq had both a strong, pro-military point of view and unique access to leaders and to information about the struggle there and in Washington.

There are lessons to be learned in Hunter’s book, especially about the successful Task Force ODIN to eliminate IEDs, which, “…saw roadside bombs diminished by 90%.” And which “…killed an astonishing 3,000 insurgents, most caught in the act of emplacing roadside bombs.” (p287) Hunter reports that as of his writing, it had not been replicated in

Afghanistan

The inclusion of numerous pictures adds greatly to the interest of the text. Marines, however, will find poignant the photo of Karen Kelly, wife of Lt. General John Kelly, along with her son, Marine Captain John Kelly, pinning lieutenant’s bars on her other son Robert. Lt. Robert Kelly was KIA in

Afghanistan

about the time this book went to press.

Military readers may find a bit tedious both the explanations of common military terms and the reiteration of key points as the focus shifts between levels and tactical areas. But they are necessary for clarity for the civilian reader who is familiar with

Iraq

and the military only from the news-as-entertainment industry.

One note of caution. I recommend this book, especially for your interested-but-less-aware civilian friends, but I hope that politics will not make the title a bitter joke. As a

Vietnam

veteran, I’m keenly aware that a book entitled Victory in Vietnam: How America Won might have been justifiably published in 1972, had there been potential readers. Let us hope that Congressman Hunter’s title will endure, and the sacrifices of our troops will not be made moot for short term political advantage, to the detriment of the nation.

I’ve heard from people who should know that, had McCain prevailed in 2008, Duncan Hunter would have been on the short list for Secretary of Defense. I hope this book is not his last service to the Republic.

--Robert A. Hall

Editor’s note: Former SSgt Robert A. Hall served with HQ, 26^th Marines, at Khe Sanh in 1967, noting that, “It was quiet when I left—I don’t know what happened.” Immediately after earning a BA in Government from UMass in 1972, he served five terms in the Massachusetts state senate, as well as another six years in the USMCR. In 1980, he earned a Master’s degree in history from Fitchburg State University. Since 1982, Hall has been an association executive. He’s a frequent contributor of poetry to Leatherneck. In 2011, he published two books: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic and Old Jarhead Poems. He donates all royalties from both books to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

Political Digest for February 29, 2012

2012-02-28T21:37:00.000-06:00

Happy Leap Day. Do federal workers get the day off? I can’t recall.

I'm leaving this to post before the primary polls close. Why no news of the big win by Romney in AZ & MI

The Gathering Darkness

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-poem-gathering-darkness-2012.html

There I was, minding my own business, when my muse struck. ~Bob

Resources

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

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

The great WWI battle Hollywood forgot

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/27/the_great_wwi_battle_hollywood_forgot/

Excerpt: The toll fell particularly heavily on the educated classes that supplied the young lieutenants and captains who led their troops out of the trenches and into murderous machine-gun fire. To give but a single stunning example, of the men who graduated from Oxford in 1913, 31 percent were killed.

Twitter Must ID User Who Threatened Michele Bachmann, Judge Rules

http://mashable.com/2012/02/27/twitter-bachmann/

Excerpt: A U.S. federal judge has ruled that Twitter users who threaten presidential candidates with violence can’t expect to stay anonymous.

Media Matters’ Brock paid former partner $850k in ‘blackmail’ settlementhttp://dailycaller.com/2012/02/27/media-matters-brock-paid-former-partner-850k-in-blackmail-settlement/#ixzz1ndLg8YOw

Excerpt: David Brock, fearful that damaging information about Media Matters For America would be released, reportedly paid his former domestic partner $850,000 to stay quiet, according to a Fox News report Monday. Brock later characterized the arrangement as “blackmail.” (I would like to assume my fans that no one will ever blackmail me for $850k. Not even close to having $850k. ~Bob.)

Fiat to build Jeeps in Russian factories

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120227/AUTO0101/202270318/Fiat-build-Jeeps-Russian-factories?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp

Excerpt: Fiat SpA has reached an agreement to with Sberbank Rossii to build Jeeps in Russia, according to reports in the Italian media Sunday. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said Sberbank, which is controlled by the Russian government, has inked a letter of intent with Fiat to open two factories to assemble vehicles under the Jeep name. (It's halftime in America. Scratch that, I mean Russia --IowaHawk.)

Pettiness and Mud by Thomas Sowell

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/02/28/pettiness_and_mud

Excerpt: The only good news for the Republicans coming out of the seemingly endless presidential candidate "debates" is that some Republican leaders are now belatedly thinking about how they can avoid a repetition of this debacle in future elections. What could they possibly have been thinking about, in the first place, when they agreed to a format based on short sound bites for dealing with major complex issues, and with media journalists -- 90 percent of them Democrats -- picking the topics?

Idolizing an American Traitor by Rick Moran

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/28/idolizing-an-american-traitor/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=c47581dd05-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Excerpt: Lionized as a hero by the worldwide left, Manning is the latest in a long line of outrageous nominations considered by the peace prize committee, including past winners Yasser Arafat, Mikhail Gorbachev and Kofi Annan. Although it certainly comes as no surprise that a soldier alleged to have committed traitorous acts and severely damaged the interests of the United States would be included in the nominations for the award, the controversy over Manning’s case obscures the truly lamentable figure the young man makes as a liberal icon.

Learning to Love Big Brotherhood by Daniel Greenfield

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/28/learning-to-love-big-brotherhood/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=c47581dd05-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Excerpt: The Muslim Brotherhood is not a supporter of foreign funded regime change, unless it’s a foreign funded regime change that brings them to power. When the Brotherhood is wielding absolute power, then IRI activists won’t merely be prevented from leaving the country, they’ll be put on trial and face the death penalty, like Amir Mirzaei Hekmati in Iran or they’ll be attacked in public like Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, a splinter Brotherhood candidate.

The Vicious Cycle of Western Apologies and Muslim Violence by Bruce Bawer

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/28/the-vicious-cycle-of-western-apologies-and-muslim-violence/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=c47581dd05-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag

Excerpt: And the next thing you know, large numbers of people have been killed, Western embassies have been vandalized, mischief and mayhem of every imaginable kind has taken place. And meanwhile, the air is thick with apologies. Not, of course, apologies by Muslim leaders for the primitive, brutal, and murderous conduct of their coreligionists, but apologies by Western leaders because somebody, somewhere, drew a picture or destroyed a book.

Pamphlet By Maldivian Islamist Party That Triggered Coup Against Reformist President Nasheed: 'No Law Contrary to Islam Can Be Enacted in the Maldives'; Government Taught 'Good Things About the Jews'

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6123.htm

Excerpt: The document accused the Nasheed government of supporting Western governments in international forums, and claimed that it was teaching "good things about the Jews." Mohamed Nasheed headed the first elected democratic government of the Maldives, a group of islands situated about 400 km southwest of India. (Well, you can laugh, but if some third world backwater gets away with teaching good things about the Jews, Obama might try it. Where would we be then? ~Bob.)

Father tries to set 23-year-old daughter alight

http://www.thelocal.fr/2685/20120227/

Excerpt: Le Parisien newspaper reported that the man sprayed teargas in the young woman's face and then covered her in petrol on Saturday evening. The father was apparently annoyed that the woman planned to go out with a group of friends that evening and considered her "too emancipated". The newspaper quoted a source describing him as a "Muslim fundamentalist." (Accidentally burning Qur'ans that have been defaced by Muslim terrorists using them to further murder? Outrage, riots and murder. Burning your own daughter? Not so much. ~Bob.)

With Panetta facing Senate panel, new questions on Afghan future

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/27/10519752-with-panetta-facing-senate-panel-new-questions-on-afghan-future

Excerpt: The murder of two U.S. officers inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul by an Afghan soldier over the weekend is raising new questions about the Obama administration’s ability to implement its strategy in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is sure to face tough questions on the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan when he testifies Tuesday morning before the Senate Budget Committee.

Syrian activists: 64 bodies found near Homs in one of the worst mass killings

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrian-activists-dozens-of-bodies-found-near-homs-in-one-of-worst-mass-killings-of-conflict/2012/02/27/gIQANnebeR_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

Excerpt: The bodies of dozens of men were found dumped on wasteland on the outskirts of the stricken city of Homs on Monday in what appeared to be one of the worst instances of mass killing since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last March. (Assad seems to have learned the lesson from Egypt and Libya that you hold on at any cost or you die. ~Bob.)

Democrats target likely veep pick Sen. Rubio

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/212919-dems-target-likely-veep-pick-rubio

Excerpt: Democrats have started to wage a political assault against Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and the intensity of their attacks will intensify in the coming weeks. Senior officials in the Democratic Party anticipate that Mitt Romney will win the Republican presidential nomination and then tap Rubio to be his running mate.

Worth Reading: Shariah's threat to civil rights By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/gaffney022812.php3

Excerpt: What is going on in country after country, in international forums such as the United Nations Human Rights Council and even in some American courts, is a calculated effort, backed by terrifying violence or its threat, to make us "feel subdued," as the Koran puts it. The idea is to use Western sensibilities and civil liberties - notably, respect for the free practice of religion - to deny the rest of us our fundamental freedoms. These include the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and, yes, freedom of religion.

French election: Hollande wants 75% tax on top earners

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17189739

Excerpt: The Socialist favourite in France's presidential election, Francois Hollande, has said top earners should pay 75% of their income in tax. "Above 1m euros [£847,000; $1.3m], the tax rate should be 75% because it's not possible to have that level of income," he said. (Good news for us. If it passes, the French economy will decline and we can attract wealthy, high-productivity Frenchmen to the US to contribute to our economy. Bono talks about helping the poor, but does he pay high Irish taxes? ~Bob.)

Sudan

rebels say border battle killed 150 troops

http://news.yahoo.com/sudan-rebels-border-battle-killed-150-army-troops-075542944.html;_ylt=AhYGxgI.JZMCBLUpQZXY9hK96Q8F;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0bXZpOHM1BG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBXb3JsZFNGIEFmcmljYVNTRgRwa2cDZDk1YzBkNjMtZDI2Zi0zYmZjLWJjMDMtZTY1YWZjYWZkMDU1BHBvcwMyBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzNkZDI0NThiLTYyMDMtMTFlMS05ZGQ4LThlNjk2ZGFmOGM5Zg--;_ylg=X3oDMTIwMnVtYXZnBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAN3b3JsZHxhZnJpY2EEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnMEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

Excerpt: Sudanese rebels said Tuesday they killed 150 government soldiers along the disputed border with South Sudan in a battle that prompted Khartoum to threaten retaliation against the newly independent state. Sudan's military denied the casualty toll and said it had killed a "huge number" of rebels, but gave no figure.

Democratic mischief in Michigan

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/27/democratic-mischief-in-michigan/

Excerpt: It's no secret that most Democratic strategists consider Mitt Romney the GOP contender who poses the biggest threat to President Obama. It's also no secret that Michigan, the state where Romney grew up, is a must win for him. Combine those two dynamics, add in the fact that any registered voter is allowed to vote in Michigan's open primary, and you get a recipe for Democrats to make mischief.

How Chrysler Can Actually Help Detroit

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/28/morning-bell-how-chrysler-can-actually-help-detroit/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Excerpt: Did you know that there are no Volkswagen manufacturing plants in the Detroit area? Or Mercedes-Benz? Or Kia? Or Hyundai? Or BMW, for that matter? The Motor City has a well-earned reputation for having the greatest auto workers in the nation, yet honorable Michiganders largely build cars for only three companies. Apart from having their cars assembled in Michigan, it turns out that those three companies have something else in common: the United Auto Workers union (UAW). It also turns out that every other car manufacturer has something in common, too: not wanting the UAW to do to them what it did to the Big Three.

Why I am so rude to Warmists

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100139690/why-i-am-so-rude-to-warmists/

Excerpt: The reason this cant phrase makes me want to throw up every time I hear it is that it's such a grotesque inversion of reality. It's not people on my side of the debate who want to ravage the countryside with wind farms (with no provision for decommissioning them), rein in economic growth, introduce wartime-style rationing, raise taxes, destroy farmland and rainforests to create biofuels, and base heinously expensive public policy on hysteria and junk science. It's not people on my side of the debate who are condemning those "future generations" to a lower standard of living and an uglier environment in order to deal with a problem that doesn't exist. So how dare they have the gall to try to take the moral high ground?

State and Local Pension Plans: Funding Status, Asset Management, and a Look Ahead by Jagadeesh Gokhale

http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/state-local-pension-plans-funding-status-asset-management-look-ahead

Excerpt: State and local employee pension plans, which are primarily defined benefit plans, have come under increased scrutiny of late. Plan funding conditions have worsened during the early years of the 21st century, especially during the aftermath of the post-2007 recession. But the patterns of financial changes vary considerably across the U.S. states and under alternative ways of measuring plan funded status. Much of the worsening in plan funding conditions between 2001and 2009 occurred in states with initially well-funded pension plans. Much of the blame for this must be placed on the illogical accounting standards set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), which allow plan managers to discount accrued pension liabilities at rates of return expected on plan asset portfolios.

Israel

Won't Warn U.S. Before Strike On Iran: AP Source

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/27/israel-wont-warn-us-befor_n_1305601.html?1330398253&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing6%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D139018

Excerpt: Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack. The U.S. has been working with the Israelis for months to persuade them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered the message to a series of top-level U.S. visitors to the country, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House national security adviser and the director of national intelligence, and top U.S. lawmakers, all trying to close the trust gap between Israel and the U.S. over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. (BS! If I was the Israelis, I wouldn’t tell us anything, either. They don’t DARE tell us ahead of time or it’ll be all over the news. Notice the source for THIS very story is anonymous “to discuss sensitive strategic negotiations.” In other words, it is probably illegal for him/her to talk about it. In the old days, we called that “espionage,” and hung those doing it. Now, we give them Pulitzer Prizes and/or political promotions. Perhaps they can use those prizes to decorate the graves of the poor beggars they’ve killed by exposing operational intel. Ron P.)

Five Things Children Know That Liberals Have Forgotten

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/02/28/five_things_children_know_that_liberals_have_forgotten/page/full/

Excerpt: This is not a lesson liberals seem to have ever learned because their thinking is, "If it's a 'good idea,' then it should be funded, regardless of what it costs, regardless of whether it's worth the money." It's like liberals start with the assumption that we have infinite money and if anyone opposes spending for any reason, it must be because he’s "mean." Did you know we actually have a higher debt load per person than Greece ($44,215 vs. $39,000), a nation that's only being saved from default because richer countries are paying its bills? (I live in a state with a large liberal majority. I don’t think they’ve “forgotten” these things, I think they’ve refused to “know them” to begin with. Ron P.)

Afghanistan

; Understandable rage or Unacceptable Travesty?

http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/2012/02/afghanistan-understandable-rage-or.html

Excerpt: There have been many in the media, in politics and in the upper echelons of our military structure who have been “grappling” with this question; at least they would like you to believe that. The fact is those who seem to be trying to make sense of the events which unfolded in the wake of the revelation that certain “holy books” were treated disrespectfully, by American Service members, arrived at their “understanding” long before these events occurred.

Gas prices up, Obama wrongly attacks critics again: Americans are simply not getting fact-based leadership and good judgment from President Barack Obama.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2012/02/28/Outside-View-Gas-prices-up-Obama-wrongly-attacks-critics-again/UPI-29781330428600/?dailybrief

Excerpt: When Barack Obama assumed the U.S. presidency, gas prices were less than $2 a gallon. He proceeded to shut down deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, tightened federal restrictions on petroleum development and vetoed the Keystone XL Pipeline. Now, even with Americans driving not a lot more than three years ago and global growth slowing, gas is nearing $4 a gallon.

The Cost of Obama’s Gulf Oil Permit Slowdown By Jim Geraghty

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/292136/cost-obamas-gulf-oil-permit-slowdown

Excerpt: And more drilling plans are rejected than ever. The five-year average had been 73.4 percent approval; now it’s down to only 34 percent of drilling plans approved. (Remember at the pump—and in November. ~Bob.)

New GAO Report Exposes More Duplication & Overlap in the Federal Government

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/rightnow?ContentRecord_id=31da7714-f36d-4de8-ad5b-078c894d4bcc

Excerpt: Today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its annual report addressing duplication and areas for costs savings throughout the federal government.

Durable Goods Orders in U.S. Slump 4%, Most in Three Years

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-28/durable-goods-orders-in-u-s-drop-4-marking-worst-decline-in-three-years.html

Excerpt: Orders for U.S. durable goods fell in January by the most in three years, led by a slowdown in demand for commercial aircraft and business equipment.

Police dismantle Occupy London camp

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/27/world/europe/occupy-london-raid/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29

Excerpt: Hundreds of police in riot gear staged an early morning raid Tuesday to clear Occupy protesters from a campsite outside London's St Paul's Cathedral, activists said.

Just after midnight local time (GMT) officers accompanied by bailiffs converged on the camp, which was home to around 70 activists, Occupy London organizers told CNN.

Worth Reading: President Obama: “America is back!” Guess again: More than 40% of Americans aren’t working.

http://pos.org/2012/02/president-obama-%E2%80%9Camerica-is-back%E2%80%9D-guess-again-more-than-40-of-americans-aren%E2%80%99t-working/

Excerpt: The employment/population ratio compiled by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (see http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000) may provide a better indicator of our economic health and its political impact. This number is the percent of Americans 16 and older who are employed. Right now, that number is 58.5%. That’s right, fewer than six-in-ten Americans who are eligible to work are actually working. More than four-in-ten are not. (scary chart. ~Bob.)

Tim Hawkins - The Government Can

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2eh6f5Go0

Too funny. But too true. ~Bob.

Fairness: Huge Majority of Voters Want Lower Taxes for the Rich by Guy Benson

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/02/28/fairness_huge_majority_of_voters_want_lower_taxes_for_the_rich

Excerpt: An exquisitely delicious data set, courtesy of The Hill's polling team. … Here's how it will go: President Obama will roll up his sleeves (this is how we know he's connecting with the common man, you see) during taxpayer-funded campaign stops and invoke his "fair share" talking points. … The big majority opted for a lower tax bill when asked to choose specific rates; precisely 75 percent said the right level for top earners was 30 percent or below.

Cross

http://twitpic.com/8pu5lo

Excerpt: My son Blake made this para cord Cross while deployed and it was found in his pocket when his body arrived at Dover AFB

Everything you need to know about the power of economic freedom in 3 charts By James Pethokoukis

http://blog.american.com/2012/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-power-of-economic-freedom-in-3-charts/

Excerpt: The West was quite poor heading into the 1700s and then it got richer. A lot richer. Real fast. Its embrace of economic freedom and creative destruction and both legally and culturally — what economist Deirdre McCloskey calls the idea of bourgeois dignity and liberty — led to a rise in real income per head in 2010 prices from about $2-3 a day in 1800 worldwide to over $100 today.

The Work Ethic and U.S. Unemployment

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/the_work_ethic_and_us_unemployment.html

Excerpt: Consider, for instance, developing an official policy banning "foul language." The words and expressions must be specified (including non-English ones), permissible level would be listed (perhaps so many obscenities per day or a point system depending on offensiveness), and then records must be kept of all cursing, swearing, and vulgarities for all employees so as to justify a termination for "too much" bad language. Similar rules must then be formulated for each required work ethic trait and perhaps adjusted for specific tasks (for example, sales jobs may require higher grooming and language standards). (Not to make light of a serious problem, it isn’t often we find an article that says the unsay-able with a sense of humor. In my experience in the convenience retail field, even when hiring only the best to apply, the greatest challenge was simply finding employees who would show up for the hours they had agreed and expected to work; competence was an unexpected bonus. 90+% of new hires were eligible for a tax credit to the company, IF they survived six months; few lasted that long. They viewed us as offering “throw-away jobs;” is it any wonder we sometimes viewed them as “throw-away employees?” Sadly, we figured (conservatively) that it cost the company, on average, about $400 to train ONE part-time employee, and it took (again, conservatively) about three months of employment to recoup that expense (don’t even ask about management candidates). Does this help explain why the C-store employee you saw the other day was born somewhere else—or else wasn’t paying attention to you? Ron P.)

Fighting drugs and border violence at Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument: What about the ranger’s M14 rifle, Yogi?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/fighting-drugs-border-violence-arizona-organ-pipe-cactus-132342614.html

Excerpt: Since 2009, the park has offered van tours to the springs, as long as rangers armed with assault rifles go along to protect the visitors. Now, ten years after Eggle's murder, the park's leadership has decided to open up a portion of the closed areas to the public in March, citing improved safety conditions and a big increase in Border Patrol agents in the area. (See, if you’re an American and think you should be able to enjoy an American national monument, you’re racist. ~Bob.)

‘Your Call Is Very Important To Us’ — Why Else Would We Place You on Hold for 30 Minutes?: Five invaluable tips to prevent call center derangement syndrome

http://pjmedia.com/blog/your-call-is-very-important/

Excerpt: Few statements are more ludicrous, or more insulting to our individual and collective intelligence, than the cloyingly ubiquitous, “Your call is very important to us.”

No, actually, it’s not. If our calls were even remotely important to you, you’d hire more people to answer our very important calls. They aren’t and you don’t. (One of my pet peeves. When you call the non-profit I manage during work hours, a real person usually answers. Yes, with only six people, we can have too many out or tied up, but we try for live answer. ~Bob.)

WikiLeaks: Chavez could die within a year

http://times247.com/articles/wikileaks-chavez-could-die-within-a-year

Excerpt: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez may have less than a year to live and his condition is "very serious," reports the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting citing a memo released by WikiLeaks. (I wonder if his Jihadist pals will cut him in on the virgins? ~Bob.)

Mark Levin’s EPIC Apology to the Troops for President Obama

http://conservativebyte.com/2012/02/mark-levins-epic-apology-to-the-troops-for-prez-obama/

Feds allege largest-ever Medicare scam by single doctor

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/feds-say-texas-doctor-ran-375-million-medicare-scam/2012/02/28/gIQAkoTOgR_story.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics

Excerpt: A Texas doctor and five owners of home health agencies were arrested today on charges that they are part of a nearly $375 million fraudulent home health-care ring that authorities say is the largest such case ever against a single doctor. The doctor, Jacques Roy, 54, of Rockwall, Tex., was charged in an indictment with masterminding a Medicare fraud conspiracy over the past five years. (In addition to prison and other penalties, anyone convicted of Medicare fraud should never be able to draw a dollar from any government program, including Social Security, ever again. ~Bob.)

Equality or Inequality by Walter Williams

http://cnsnews.com/blog/walter-e-williams/equality-or-inequality

Excerpt: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Asian men and women earn more than white men and women. Female cafeteria attendants earn more than their male counterparts. Females who are younger than 30 and have never been married earn salaries 8 percent higher than males of the same description. (What? Hold people responsible for their lifestyle choices? Why, that’s, that’s, uh, simply barbaric! Mean, even! Or at least that’s what they want us to think. Ron P.)

Regulators to require rearview cameras in all new cars by 2014

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/28/regulators-to-require-rearview-cameras-in-all-new-cars-by-2014/#ixzz1ng43weZy

Excerpt: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to send its final version of the proposed regulation to Congress on Wednesday, after first proposing the rule change in 2010. (…) In a draft paper, regulators said it would cost automakers between $160 and $200 to install the cameras and viewing screens in each new vehicle -- as much as $2.7 billion per year overall. (Although presented as if those rich auto companies are going to be stuck for the $2.7B, who do you suppose will actually have to bear the cost of this every time we buy a new car? If it’s such a good idea, the market would’ve gotten there by itself by simple competition. And, we’d have been glad to pay for it. Instead, the nanny-state will order it for us—at our expense. Be sure to eat all of your broccoli; it’s good for you. No doubt, this is also interstate commerce, just like healthcare. Ron P.)

New Poem: The Gathering Darkness (2012)

2012-02-28T14:20:00.000-06:00

The Gathering Darkness (2012)

The darkness gathers on all sides,

Our allies slink away,

No hope of victory now abides,

No dawn to light the day.

And those who should have manned the walls,

Now squabble o’er the bones,

And so the culture fades and falls,

With no one to atone.

And we who cannot bend the knee,

Our people’s forlorn hope,

Come joyous, brothers, stand with me!

Bow not before the rope.

Let those who must go make a peace,

Who lack your heart and will,

From freedom’s rigors they shall cease,

And take the galling pill.

Sweet handouts make a man a slave,

As sure as lash and chain.

If freedom’s portion is the grave,

Who kneeling would remain?

So stand my brothers, proud and free,

And make a gallant fight,

That down the decades yet to be

Our doom throws freedom’s light.

--Robert A. Hall

Political Digest for February 28, 2012

2012-02-28T00:10:00.002-06:00

Free PDF Copy of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/10/free-copy-of-coming-collapse-of.html

American Narcissist? Obama Personality Cult Grows Bigger and Stronger

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=6629

Kids forced to memorize song praising BO. Funny but sad. ~Bob. Excerpt: Barack Obama read a book to school children about himself. The President even personally launched African-American's for Obama. Trifecta looks at the growing personality cult of Barack Obama, and the role the President plays in its creation.

Burning the Koran Was Wrong, but Stop Apologizing for Me, Mr. President

http://news.yahoo.com/burning-koran-wrong-stop-apologizing-mr-president-162300384.html

Excerpt: The president of the United States sends an apology letter because a couple of books were burned at a military base in Afghanistan? I had to read the Reuters story twice to believe it and, as unbelievable as it may sound, it is absolutely true.

Protestors throw urine bombs at Denver Police

http://kdvr.com/2012/02/26/5-arrested-in-anti-police-protest-downtown/

Though it says they weren't "directly" associated with Occupy, BO said people like this were the reason he ran for office. Fooled me, I thought it was for the power and wealth. ~Bob. Excerpt: The Mall Ride was forced to shut down as protesters allegedly threw urine-filled balloons, set off fireworks and sprayed painted several vehicles including an RTD bus.

CAIR Slams NY Post for Political Cartoon That ‘Evokes Anti-Semitic Themes’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/cair-slams-ny-post-for-political-cartoon-that-evokes-anti-semitic-themes/

Excerpt: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on the New York Post to apologize for a political cartoon published in the paper Friday which CAIR says “evokes anti-Semitic themes” through its depiction of hook-nosed terrorists objecting to the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims without warrant throughout the city.

American Kadi* in Pennsylvania’s Court

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/02/24/american-kadi-in-pennsylvanias-court/

Excerpt: Responding with self-righteous indignation this past August, 2011 to queries about his judicial appointment of Sohail Mohammed, a Muslim, New Jersey governor Chris Christie proclaimed “Ignorance is behind the criticism of Sohail Mohammed.” He added, peevishly, that his “sharia-[Islamic]law business is crap . . . and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies!” But Christie’s uninformed and defamatory diatribe willfully ignored that Mr. Mohammed was a board member of the cultural jihadist American Muslim Union (AMU) organization, and personal attorney for AMU’s Mohammed Qatanani, an admitted member of Hamas, whose covenantal goal is the jihad genocide of Israel’s Jewish population.

Pakistanis Want Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Arrested For Hurting Feelings Of Muslims

http://tribune.com.pk/story/342031/blasphemy-arrest-mark-zuckerberg-fleming-rose-says-petitioner/

Excerpt: A case for the arrest of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Cultural Editor of Danish Newspaper Fleming Rose, for allowing ‘blasphemous’ caricatures of Prophet Mohammad (pbuh), was registered at the Kotwali Police Station in Jhang. The case, FIR no 134/12, was registered after Advocate Muhammad Zahid Saeed, stirred by websites allegedly demeaning the Prophet (pbuh), filed a petition before the District Session Judge seeking a ban on websites including Facebook, YouTube, Google and others.

What Were They Thinking at Health Affairs? By Linda Gorman

http://healthblog.ncpa.org/what-were-they-thinking-at-health-affairs/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HA#more-24184

Excerpt: Health Affairs is a peer-reviewed journal, which is why it was surprising to see it publish a recent article on the Massachusetts health reform, by Long et al [gated, but with abstract]. Based on telephone surveys, the authors declare that RomneyCare “continued to fare well in 2010.” This is an important finding, as the authors consider RomneyCare “the template for the federal Affordable Care Act of 2010.” Unfortunately, in several cases the authors fail to inform readers that their results are contradicted by other, possibly more reliable, sources of information. They also neglect to put some of their results in proper context. Some examples:

Obama Doctrine Failure

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/27/morning-bell-obama-doctrine-failure/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Excerpt: Three years ago, President Barack Obama set forth to recast American foreign policy in an image of his own design. It was one in which the White House engaged with enemies and undercut allies, apologized for American exceptionalism, and favored the "soft power" of treaties and international organizations. This "Obama Doctrine" was tailor made to burnish America's supposedly flagging reputation on the world stage. Today we are seeing the disastrous results of a doctrine gone wrong. The Middle East is a logical starting point of this Obama Doctrine retrospective, a region where the President's soaring aspirations have been mugged by the reality on the ground. Beginning in Iran, Obama sought to engage a regime led by a man who has openly called for the destruction of Israel. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not mollified by the President's charm offensive, and now, even in the face of escalating sanctions, Iran is ratcheting up its rhetoric, threatening to cut off a quarter of the world's energy supply, and marching toward a nuclear weapon. The Obama Administration's response? An admonishment of Israel for considering a strike against the murderous Iranian regime.

Trial of U.S. Nonprofit Workers in Egypt Is Abruptly Put Off

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/world/middleeast/in-egypt-trial-begins-for-workers-of-nonprofit-groups.html?_r=1&ref=world

Excerpt: The adjournment of the case, until April 26, adds another wrinkle: Congress recently passed a law requiring that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton certify that Cairo is making progress toward democracy before American aid can be delivered to Egypt. State Department officials have said that the deadline for the certification is in April and that Mrs. Clinton would not make the certification while Egypt continued to restrict the American groups and other nonprofit groups. (Look Akbar, we get the infidels’ money first, THEN we hang them. ~Bob.)

Europeans Agree to Review Size of Firewall Fund

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/world/europe/europeans-agree-to-review-size-of-firewall-fund.html?ref=world

Excerpt: The finance chiefs of the Group of 20 countries won a commitment from the European Union on Sunday to review the size of its planned rescue fund, as a step toward amassing international resources to guard against global financial turmoil.

Wikileaks publishes confidential emails from Stratfor

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17176602

Excerpt: Whistleblowing website Wikileaks has begun publishing the first of more than five million confidential emails from US-based security think tank Stratfor. The group said the documents would reveal Stratfor's "web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods".

Here Comes Obama's 3 AM Phone Call by James Lewis

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/here_comes_obamas_3_am_phone_call.html

Excerpt: In the next 60 days Obama's presidential career will finally meet that concrete wall of reality. He will either fail or survive. Trouble is, he might take many innocent people with him if he fails. So far, the most hyped-up and unqualified president in US history has shown no capacity at all to act, in the face of a do-or-die challenge.

Worth Reading: A Canary in the Mine By Victor Davis Hanson

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/292013/canary-mine-victor-davis-hanson

Excerpt: One rare apology might in theory make things safer for Americans; lots of them in fact make things more dangerous for our troops. In general, if you apologize gratuitously when there is no need, remorse loses its currency in the rare cases when it might be necessary. All this saying “we are sorry” has also energized our enemies as much as it has depressed the public at home.

Hamas Prime Minister Breaks With Syria

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3461/hamas-prime-minister-breaks-with-syria

Excerpt: Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh saluted the Syrian revolution during a rally Friday in Cairo, in the group's first sign of support for rebels fighting their former patrons. The comments indicate Hamas may be moving out of the Shiite Syrian-Iranian orbit, and into alliances with conservative Arabian Gulf countries and new Islamic regimes throughout the Arab world.

Apologizing to Our Killers

http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2012/02/25/apologizing-to-our-killers/?singlepage=true

Excerpt: When Jimmy Carter was president, I dreaded the morning news, which invariably brought some new embarrassment, whether it was the president boasting that America had “lost its inordinate fear of Communism,” or whispering to the Polish dictator that Carter had not lost hope of bringing the tyrant back to Christianity, or slashing our military strength, or apologizing to the Khomeini regime in Iran for presumed past American sins. The dread is back. Worse than before. The disgusting spectacle of President Obama personally — the usual first-person verbiage again in play — apologizing to murderous Afghan Muslims for the Koran book burning, without condemning the murder of American soldiers, is a new low in failed leadership.

The Week That Was: 2012-02-25 (February 25, 2012)

http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2012/Newsletter%202-25-12.pdf

Excerpt: Is Heartland justified in intensely defending its work against individuals such as Gleick? Unlike the leaks during Climategate, Heartland is a private organization, not a government funded one. The information came from someone who clearly misrepresented himself, a felony, not from a leaker. And, Gleick’s efforts were to discredit individual funding sources, not discredit a small government funded team manipulating science. Please Article #1 (Just a reminder that all the “numbered” articles appear at the end of the summary. Article #2, “Obama skins the cat” is especially worth reading. Ron P.)

Expect the Unexpected

http://www.scientific-alliance.org/scientific-alliance-newsletter/expect-unexpected

Excerpt: In one sense, energy has always been a constraint. Firewood is needed by less developed societies for cooking and warmth, and large areas have been effectively denuded of trees (a process which occurred much earlier in Europe as forests were cleared for farming, building and fuel), but this is used only intermittently. In the industrialised world, we now take for granted that energy is constantly on tap and, not surprisingly, sometimes get concerned about security of supply. In many ways, our sophisticated lifestyle is uniquely vulnerable; localised power cuts can cause real problems for people in the short term, but national or regional blackouts would soon cause chaos as IT systems went down. (This is an interesting view of the purely economic future (assuming there is one). Ron P. Of course there will be an economic future; I’ll trade you four skins for two spear points. ~Bob.)

Climategate sequel? Scientist lies to get Heartland Institute documents.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0221/Climategate-sequel-Scientist-lies-to-get-Heartland-Institute-documents

Excerpt: Some who advocate action to combat climate change equate Gleick's actions with those of whistleblowers, who make sensitive information public despite the legal and personal risks they may face. Others are more guarded. Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, notes that “it's wrong to obtain documents under false pretenses, just as it was wrong for hackers to have taken scientists' e-mails from the University of East Anglia” – a reference to “Climategate” in 2009. (Keeping in mind that Christian Science Monitor is strongly in the warmist camp, the mild tone of criticism in this article becomes a dismayed shout of outrage. Think about it: how bad does it have to be for the Union of Concerned (Creditcard-holding) Scientists to be against it? Ron P.)

Bending over backwards to let unlicensed drivers keep their cars.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/twisting-lapd-impound-policy-to-favor-illegals/?singlepage=true%20

Excerpt: It has been at once amusing and saddening to witness the debate here in Los Angeles over how police officers should respond when, having made a traffic stop, they find the driver to be unlicensed. At issue is the decision an officer must make as to whether or not to impound the car as authorized by California state law and, if the car is impounded, for how long. It’s been amusing to see so many people twist themselves into legal and intellectual contortions in arguing that cars driven by illegal immigrants should not be impounded, and saddening to know that no matter how tenuous their grip may be on the legal and intellectual arguments, these people will prevail regardless.

The Not-So-Vast Conspiracy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204909104577233191850812630.html?mod=googlenew

Excerpt: Press coverage has focused in particular on Heartland's plans to produce and distribute "educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn't alarmist or overtly political." Heartland is budgeting $200,000 this year for the effort, which in the past has "had only limited success," per one of the documents. Little wonder if teachers aren't returning Heartland's calls: Last year the World Wildlife Fund spent $68.5 million on "public education" alone. (It takes a lot more money to promote lies than to promote truth, I guess. Notice that when WSJ compares Heartland expenditures, it compares them to only the best-known individual organizations, not to the total by ALL the interested groups spending money to promote the AGW cause. The skeptics are such small Davids battling such large Goliaths, terms fail to express the lop-sidedness of the relationship. If the truth wasn’t on our side, we’d have faded away long ago. Ron P.)

Green – the Color of Rotten Corruption

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2012/02/27/green__the_color_of_rotten_corruption/page/full/

Excerpt: As if it were his private stash of fun-money, Barack Obama set aside $80 billion of the Stimulus boondoggle to artificially pump up the green-energy industry through a DOE administered program of grants and loans. When three of the companies that received funding, Solyndra, Beacon Power, and Ener1, each declared bankruptcy in rapid succession, a rotten stench started to waft from the DOE and the White House. It quickly became apparent that there were numerous close connections between many of these heavily government funded businesses and Obama campaign supporters and operatives. (Drained the swamp, eh, Nancy? Or, were you hoping to wash it clean by flooding it? The sheer scale of this makes all previous lootings of the public look like kid-stuff. Ron P.)

Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm’s Dirty Laundry

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/wikileaks-anonymous-partners/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Excerpt: WikiLeaks did not mention the source of the reported five gigabytes of e-mails in its press release, but did say it has been working for months with 25 media outlets from around the world to analyze the documents. The first batch of leaked e-mails purport to show that Stratfor monitored the political prankster group known as The Yes Men on behalf of Dow Chemical, which has been targeted by The Yes Men over the company’s handling of the Bhopal disaster. The e-mails also purport to show Stratfor’s attempt to set up an investment fund with a Goldman Sachs director to trade on the intelligence Stratfor collects, as well as give insight into how the private intelligence firm acquires, and sometimes pays for, information. (Gee whiz, it's all being done to save us from the evil rich! If anyone notices some of the uber-geeks have vanished over the next few weeks…. They might not be celebrating in Disneyland. Ron P.)

Big Asteroid 2011 AG5 Could Pose Threat to Earth in 2040

http://www.space.com/14683-big-asteroid-2011-ag5-threat-earth.html

Excerpt: Scientists are keeping a close eye on a big asteroid that may pose an impact threat to Earth in a few decades. The space rock, which is called 2011 AG5, is about 460 feet (140 meters) wide. It may come close enough to Earth in 2040 that some researchers are calling for a discussion about how to deflect it. (Good luck with this and the national debt kids—outside my lifetime. ~Bob.)

Bradley Manning Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bradley-manning-nominated-nobel-peace-prize_631996.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Excerpt: Bradley Manning has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, the Associated Press reports. Manning is most famous for allegedly leaking troves of classified documents, including State Department cables and Military files, to WikiLeaks. He was arraigned last week in Ft. Meade, Maryland and is being charged with "engineering the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history." Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who allegedly received the leaked information from Manning, was nominated last year for the award, though he did not ultimately receive it. (As deserving as Obama, except he’s not black. ~Bob.)

Political Digest for February 27, 2012

2012-02-26T19:49:00.000-06:00

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doingso doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—orany—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stayinformed by passing the digest on. In some cases I post things sent to me byreaders I might not have posted on my own, to get ideas circulating.

Death Toll Rises forRussian Police and Security Troops Fighting Islamist Insurgency in Caucasus

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/death-toll-rises-for-russian-police-and-security-troops-fighting-islamist-insurgency-in-caucasus/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Excerpt: Russian police say the number of police officerskilled in a four-day operation to wipe out several militant bands in thevolatile Caucasus republics of Chechnyaand Dagestan has increased to 17.

Egypt

: Islamist Parties Take Upper House as Well
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153140
Anyone who cheered the "Arab Spring" was a naiveidiot. Really. Especially Obama and Clinton. ~Bob. Excerpt: Final results inelections for Egypt'sShura council: Muslim Brotherhood takes 105 seats, Salafis take 45. Egypt releasedfinal results in its elections for the upper house of parliament on Saturday,confirming that the Islamist parties are the biggest winners in the vote andnow control both houses of the country’s parliament.

Mike Madigan, this moutza'sfor you by John Kass
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0226-20120226,0,4808187.column
Excerpt: Chicago is the mostcorrupt city in America.Illinois isthe third most corrupt state. Our home values are down, our taxes are high andthe political bosses get rich using our government to leverage their privateenterprise. They hand out free scholarships to state public universities forthe children of their cronies. They promote their own children to publicoffice. We're sick and tired of taking it.

Illegal Who TriedBombing Capitol Protected Under Obama Amnesty

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2012/02/illegal-who-tried-bombing-capitol-protected-under-obama-amnesty/
Excerpt: As the Moroccan who plotted a suicide bombinginside the U.S. Capitol appears in federal court today, much of the mainstreammedia coverage omits a crucial part of the story; this is the class of illegalimmigrant the Obama Administration is sparing from deportation.

A strike on Iranwould pose tough test for Israelis
http://news.yahoo.com/strike-iran-pose-tough-test-israelis-110543238.html
Excerpt: An Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear sites would amount to a roll ofthe dice against elusive targets, drawing in the United States if the gamble fellshort, analysts and former US military officers say. Iran'sair defenses and ageing fighters would be no match for Israel's high-tech aircraft and cyber warfare,but the outcome of a raid would largely hinge on intelligence and whether Tehran is able to hidekey elements of its uranium enrichment network.

Putin presidency means more than taking office

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-presidency-means-more-than-taking-office/2012/01/23/gIQAD5ckXR_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
Excerpt: Thedemonstrators who have turned out in the tens of thousands to protest VladimirPutin’s rule are confronting a deeply entrenched power structure that windsthrough government and industry, extracting great profit and heavily investedin the status quo.

Students PhysicallyAttacked for Interrupting IsraelTalk in New Mexico
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/02/students-physically-attacked-interrupting-israel-talk-new-mexico/49120/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QaYIYa54CSA#!

Excerpt: A group of University of New Mexicostudents "mic checked" an Israel Alliance talk on their campusThursday night, when audience members got up out of their seats and physicallyattacked the protesting students. "Mic check! Nonie Darwish speaks forIsraeli apartheid!," yell the students at around 15 seconds into thevideo. "And genocide at the hands of the IDF [Israeli army]!” From there,older male audience members begin to slowly walk their way up to the students(some of them young women), and start physically pushing and attacking them. At55 seconds in, you can see one of the students goes flying over a row of seats.(Alternate title: Jihadi sympathizers getting their a$$ kicked for disrupting aspeech. --DH)

Angry ChurchgoersClub Suspected Bomber To Death As He Attempts To Flee
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/2012/02/26/angry-churchgoers-club-suspected-bomber-to-death-as-he-attempts-to-flee/
Excerpt: Angry worshippers at the headquarters of Church OfChrist In Nations (COCIN) in Jos (Nigeria) on Sunday killed one ofthe two suspected bearers of the explosives that hit the Church in the morning.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bomber and one other, whoboth wore army camouflage, drove into the Church and beat the security beforehitting the building. (Maybe we should riot over Muslims offending Christiansby destroying the "turn the other cheek" ethic. ~Bob.)

The Brits are donefor: First They Came for the Firemen By Andrew Bostom

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/02/26/first-they-came-for-the-firemen/
Excerpt: An utterly bone chilling example ofself-destructive dhimmitude [1] was described in The London Telegraph 2/26/12[2] by Investigations Editor Jason Lewis. The incident involved David S. Jone[3]s a military veteran of the Household Cavalry, who served in Malaya with thearmored reconnaissance squadron, retired British fireman, author, and developerof the children’s character Fireman Sam (now an international success as achildren’s TV series.). Mr Jones was detained, publicly humiliated and harassedat Gatwick airport by “security” personnel following a mere jocular, passingcomment made to a security official noting that a Muslim woman in hijab wassimultaneously passing through the security checkpoint without showing herface. Upon placing his belongings, including a scarf, into a tray to passthrough the X-ray scanner Jones simply quipped, “If I was wearing this scarfover my face, I wonder what would happen.”

A Look At The World'sMost Powerful Mercenary Armies

http://www.businessinsider.com/bi-mercenary-armies-2012-2?op=1
Excerpt: Business is booming for a growing army of privatemilitary contractors, who take their military training and offer it to thehighest bidder. Modern-day mercenaries are stationed throughout the worldfighting conflicts for governments that are reluctant to use their own troops. (Isuppose they discriminate against fellows who are almost 66, over-weight and onoxygen. Damn. ~Bob.)

Barack in Sarahclothing by Don Surber
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/52071
Excerpt: Republicans have President Obama on the run. He hashad to disguise himself and his stupid policies again — this time by donningthe political garb of his arch rival. President Barack Obama looks pretty nicein Sarah Palin’s dress. And by dress, I mean her energy policy. He is nowmouthing the very words he mocked 4 years ago when he said we don’t need todrill for oil. In 2008, Candidate Obama preached that if everyone just needs tocheck the air pressure in their tires, we’ll be fine.

Mexican government’signorance on full display

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2012/%E2%80%9Cno-more-weapons!%E2%80%9D-sign-erected-along-us-mexican-border.aspx
Excerpt: BATFE officials who supervised the operation out ofPhoenix claimed as early as 2008 that 90 percentof the guns seized in Mexicocame from the U.S.Of course, it has now been shown that many of Mexico’straced firearms originate in Central Americaand other countries. In other words, the “90 percent” statistic was widelyreported, but was obviously inflated, and BATFE officials have themselvesrefuted those numbers (please read related article here). (Not ignorance.Obfuscation. ~Bob.)

Top Ten Alternativesto Apologizing to AfghanistanBy Keith Koffler

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/02/24/top-ten-alternatives-apologizing-afghanistan/
Excerpt: With President Obama, the United Stateswas supposedly getting a worldly figure who had lived in other lands andunderstood the foreign brain. Turns out Obama has little knowledge of how othercultures think, which is why he believes bowing, offering the hand offriendship, and apologizing to overseas savages works. Such activities, as anyveteran of the schoolyard playground will tell you, breed only one thing: Disrespect,contempt, and, eventually, even worse violence.

Political Digest for February 26, 2012

2012-02-25T23:19:00.000-06:00

Information on my sixbooks

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html

Obama endorsed PondScum as auto fuel, but the trade off was Pond Scum endorsed Obama forreelection. ~Bob

Wyoming House advances doomsday bill

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-house-advances-doomsday-bill/article_af6e1b2b-0ca4-553f-85e9-92c0f58c00bd.html

Excerpt: State representatives on Friday advancedlegislation to launch a study into preparing Wyomingfor a complete economic or political collapse in the United States. House Bill 85 passedon first reading by a voice vote. It would create a task force to research and prepareWyoming forpotential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to acomplete meltdown of the federal government. It would look at the feasibilityof Wyomingissuing its own alternative currency, if needed. (They must have read my book, The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.~Bob.)

UN atomic agency: Iran rapidlyexpands nuke work

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&CTIME=2012-02-24-11-39-14&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Excerpt: Iranhas rapidly ramped up production of higher-grade enriched uranium over the lastfew months, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, in a confidential report thatfeeds concerns about how quickly the Islamic republic could produce an atomicbomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency report also said Iran failed togive a convincing explanation about a quantity of missing uranium metal.Diplomats say the amount unaccounted for is large enough to be used forexperiments in arming a nuclear missile. (Do we really need to wait until acity or ten is radioactive ash before we react to this? Surely no one is goingto claim the IAEA is on the payroll of the GOP. Survival is the necessaryrequirement before even socialists can redistribute wealth. Are we bent onnational suicide? Ron P. We are averting our eyes, pretending it can’t happen,as in August, 1939, and August, 1914. ~Bob.)

Polish WWI Vet, Aged112, Promoted to Captain

http://www.military.com/news/article/polish-wwi-vet-aged-112-promoted-to-captain.html#.T0gPvXqwySg.twitter

Excerpt: Poland'sDefense Ministry says a 112-year-old veteran of both World Wars has beenpromoted to captain. The ministry says in a statement that Defense MinisterTomasz Siemoniak visited veteran Jozef Kowalski in a nursing home in Tursk, inwestern Poland, on Thursday and promoted him from lieutenant to captain.(Probably make Major in 30-40 years. ~Bob.)

But Then It Was TooLate

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

Excerpt: "What no one seemed to notice," said acolleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933,between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was tobegin with, here in Germany.And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to theirgovernment to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, orto be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little,really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

Gasoline Prices AreNot Rising, the Dollar Is Falling

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/02/22/gasoline-prices-are-not-rising-the-dollar-is-falling/

Interesting. I'd have to know more just to be uninformed.~Bob. Excerpt: Panic is in the air as gasoline prices move above $4.00 pergallon. Politicians and pundits are rounding up the usual suspects, looking for someone or something to blame for this latestoutrage to middle class family budgets. In a rare display of bipartisanship,President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner are bothwringing their hands over the prospect of seeing their newly extended Social Security tax cut gobbled up by risinggasoline costs.

Awesome: YouTubeapology to President Karzai on behalf of Americans

http://www.therightscoop.com/awesome-youtube-apology-to-president-karzai-on-behalf-of-americans/

This is great! ~Bob.

Students ReceivedCredit For Volunteering for Obama Campaign

http://www.libertynews.com/2012/02/24/students-received-credit-for-volunteering-for-obama-campaign/

Excerpt: A counselor at aNevada high school extended credit to students for volunteering tohelp elect Obama, in 2008. Recently, the counselor, Loretta Harper has been nameda national co-chair of the Obama 2012 campaign—along with Bill Daley,Caroline Kennedy, Eva Longoria and Russ Feingold. Back in November of2011, Harper was given the All Star of theWeek distinction in recognition of her dedication to the Obamacampaign. (I volunteered for the Goldwater Campaign while in High School in 64,before graduating and matriculating at Parris Island,and for the 1960 Nixon campaign in Jr. High. Somebody owes me some credit!~Bob.

Debt doomsday may come sooner than expected

http://www.kurat.com/links/debt-ceiling-doomsday-may-come-sooner-than-expected?&stream=us-debt-crisis

Excerpt: The federal government could hit the debt ceiling sooner thanexpected — and possibly around the November election — according to a reportout Friday. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill had hoped that last summer’s deal to endthe nasty fight over lifting the debt ceiling would ensure the issue wouldn’tresurface until at least 2013. But the Bipartisan Policy Center said Friday thatthe debt-limit doomsday could come earlier than that.

Quotes

How is it that Liberalism, getting more and more into power,has grown more and more coercive in its legislation? - Herbert Spencer

Between Sep.2001 and Sep. 2011, 303 suicide bombings took place in Pakistan, resulting in over 4800 deaths! - Dr. MarlWalia

Radical ProtesterCindy Sheehan Sued by Feds

http://bigjournalism.com/bshapiro/2012/02/24/radical-protester-cindy-sheehan-sued-by-feds/

Excerpt: With Bush no longer president, Sheehan becameirrelevant to the media. While she jetsets around the country looking for thelatest Occupy protest to infest, the media is no longer interested in her,because she has opposed Barack Obama’s foreign policy. But that’s the point:she shouldn’t have been relevant in the first place. She was always a tragic,attention-seeking character.

Syrian rebels getarms from abroad as Russia calls for an urgent ceasefire in Homs

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/24/196740.html

Excerpt: Western and other countries are turning a blind eyeto weapons purchases by Syrian exiles who are already smuggling light arms,communications equipment and night vision goggles to rebels inside Syria, a Syrian opposition source said on Fridayas Russia called for anurgent ceasefire in the Syrian city of Homs.("No, no, Akmed. That pile is for ammo to fight Assad. This pile is forammo to kill Americans and other infidels after we win. Then we use what's leftto kill Muslims who disagree with us on any point of doctrine. Got it?"Gotta love Russia'scall for an "urgent" ceasefire. As opposed to those non-urgent,take-your-time, stop-shooting-when-it-suits-you cease fires we hear called forso often. ~Bob.)

Interesting: Can Health CareBe Bought and Sold on eBay? by John C. Goodman

http://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2012/02/25/can_health_care_be_bought_and_sold_on_ebay

Excerpt: We're not quite there yet. But there is a newwebsite that is getting close. A small, emerging online service called MediBid is creating an actual market thatputs doctors together with patients who need care. Here's the best thing aboutit. Patients who use this service can cut their health care costs in half.

Pentagon-inspiredborder plan elicits congressional support

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20120223_5288.php?oref=rss

Excerpt: Congressional overseers say they support a newstrategy to monitor the Southwest border with military-grade aircraft and otherexisting surveillance tools as a substitute for a botched $1 billion virtualfence. Some Republicans also praise the Homeland Security Department forconsidering the deployment of Pentagon drones no longer being used in overseaswars.

Former ICE agentsconvicted in fraud scheme

http://www.presstelegram.com/breakingnews/ci_20036033

Excerpt: A husband and wife who formerly worked for U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement were found guilty Thursday of multiplefederal charges connected to hundreds of thousands of dollars the womancollected in salary, even though she had done virtually no work for the agencyin years.

Showdown at the EPAcorral

http://sppiblog.org/news/showdown-at-the-epa-corral#more-7326

Excerpt: Over the past three years, the Obama EPA hasconducted a scorched earth campaign against fossil fuel producers and users,especially the coal-fired power industry, with multibillion-dollar rules thatprovide no meaningful environmental or public-health benefits, like theCross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury Air Toxics Standard (MATS). TheEPA will soon propose its greenhouse gas emission standards for power plants –rules that will attempt to make it financially impossible to construct newcoal-fired power plants in the United States. It seems that President Obama wasdeadly serious when he told the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008, “So ifsomebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it willbankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhousegas that’s being emitted.”

Soldier's deathleaked through Facebook

http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Local-womans-soldier-husband-killed-in-Afghanistan-violence-140367993.html

Excerpt: Megan Born’s husband Joshua Born was one of twoAmerican soldiers killed this week during a protest in Afghanistan.Megan was not notified of his death by the military. She found out through atext message after news had been leaked on Facebook.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasserexplains the Muslim-created, U.S.-supported ‘Istanbul Process,’ and the threat it poses tothe First Amendment

http://barenakedislam.com/2012/02/24/dr-zuhdi-jasser-explains-the-muslim-created-u-s-supported-istanbul-process-and-the-threat-it-poses-to-the-first-amendment/

Excerpt: In short, the ‘Istanbul Process’ is a plan puttogether by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (57 Islamic States) and theObama Regime, represented by Hillary Clinton, to criminalize any criticism ofIslam.

What's Their ProblemWith Romney? by Ann Coulter

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-02-22.html#read_more

Excerpt: As governor of one of the most liberal states inthe union, Mitt Romney did something even Ronald Reagan didn't do as governorof California:He balanced the budget without raising taxes. Romney became deeply pro-life asgovernor of the aforementioned liberal state and vetoed an embryonic stem cellbill. (Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich lobbied President George W. Bush to allowembryonic stem cell research.) Romney's approach to illegal immigration in Massachusetts resembled what Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona is doing today,making her a right-wing heroine.

Santorum Was RightAbout Iran—WhenIt Was Unpopular: A grandfather who fled Mussolini taught him to prize freedom.By Michael Ledeen

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577241251146282294.html?mod=djemITP_h

Excerpt: Rick Santorum doesn't fit any of the stereotypes ofcurrent foreign-policy ideologies. He's too idealistic to be a"realist," too conservative and too religious to be a"neocon," and too revolutionary to be a "paleocon." He's anold-fashioned, feisty patriot, in the mold of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.Mr. Santorum's hatred of tyranny traces back to his grandfather Pietro, whotook the family from Lake Garda in northern Italyto Pennsylvania'scoal country to escape Mussolini's dictatorship in the 1920s.

Stephen ColbertTackles Posthumous Mormon Baptisms By Converting All The Dead Mormons ToJudaism

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stephen-colbert-tackles-posthumous-mormon-baptisms-by-converting-all-the-dead-mormons-to-judaism/

Doesn't take courage to pick on Mormons. Now if he announcedhe was converting all dead Muslims to Judaism, that would take guts. ~Bob.

Chevy Volt - BuildingA Better Tomorrow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=avLKiWi71cE#!

Satire ad--too funny.

Commander Views USHelplessness as Root Cause of Quran Burning by American Soldiers

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010176092

Excerpt: A top Iranian military commander said the US helplessness in the confrontation againstIslam is the real cause underlying the burning of the Muslims' Holy Book byAmerican soldiers in Afghanistan,and stressed that nothing but burning the White House and hanging the US commandersresponsible for this cowardly action can relieve the Muslims' pain. (Bombing Iran back tothe stone age might take their mind off their "pain" at our burningQur'ans that had been defaced by Taliban murders. ~Bob.)

Burn a Koran on-line!

http://burn-the-koran.com/

The smoking lamp is lit for ONE Koran, Maggots. Do it. ~Bob

Newt owns PiersMorgan over Obama ‘Koran’ apology

http://www.therightscoop.com/newt-owns-piers-morgan-over-obama-koran-apology/

Excerpt: Newt really handled himself well on Piers Morgantonight, taking on the Obama administration for their one sided view of theMuslim world with respect to their apologies over the Koran burning. (Newtmakes me crazy. Stuff like this makes me want him. Then....~Bob.)

Shariah: The ThreatTo America

An Exercise InCompetitive Analysis

http://shariahthethreat.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Shariah-The-Threat-to-America-Team-B-Report-Web-09292010.pdf

New SatelliteInformation Refutes Major IPCC Climate Prediction: AGW Scientists &Mainstream Press 'Stunned'

http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/02/new-satellite-information-refutes-major-ipcc-climate-prediction-agw-scientists-mainstream-press-stun.html

Excerpt: New satellite evidence shows that the Himalayanglaciers have lost zero ice for the last 10 years, which is the exact oppositeof what the IPCC, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Federation and U.S. climatescientists have predicted, and claimed to actually be happening.

Triggering SchoolReform—and Union Dirty Tricks

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577243054128401994.html

Excerpt: Where's the toughest battlefield in Americaneducation these days? Certainly New Orleans andHarlem host controversially high concentrations of charter schools, while New Jersey and Louisianaboast governors who challenge teachers unions with verve. But for downrightnastiness, Southern California is ground zero.

A Rebuke to OurRudderless President

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/02/a-rebuke-to-our-rudderless-president.php

Excerpt: President Obama has proclaimed himself helpless inthe face of gasoline prices, which have doubled on his watch. He is just fated,apparently, to be a lousy president. Now that it is a little late to try toblame his predecessor, he is out of ammo. Today Senator Jeff Sessions tried tobuck Obama up with a letter containing suggestions as to how the executivebranch might take arms against a sea of rising gas prices, unemployment andpoverty: (Although the economics and results predicted in this articlecertainly sound correct to me, that’s the exact reason why they won’t be doneunless and until we vote in a new administration. Errol P. sent me this. Ron P.)

PETA killed over 95percent of its animals in 2011

http://times247.com/articles/peta-kills-over-95-percent-of-its-animals

Excerpt: Documents published online this month show thatPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an organization known for itsuncompromising animal-rights positions, killed more than 95 percent of the petsin its care in 2011.

Muslim Gang Rape AndMurder In Blackpool

http://leejohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2011/04/paki-alley-muslims-rape-and-murder-in.html

Believable from previous news stories, but would want to seethe original stories. ~Bob. Excerpt: The Times today has a devastating exposeof the extent of muslim rape gangs operating in Blackpoollinked with murders and rapes of white schoolgirls. ELEVEN of the muslim ownedtakeaway shops in Blackpool are running rapegangs. And the police hid all this from the parents of local white children inorder to ensure 'community cohesion'.

VIDEO: UnitedKingdom: The Muslim Pedophile

http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=44883

"This Muslim 'grooming problem', which the press liketo report as an "Asian" problem...The people no longer have to watchthe TV to find out that this is going on in their own towns and cities. Theyfind out either by their own young girls becoming the victims or they knowsomeone else's daughter who has."

Renaissance-Man hasleft a new comment on your post "I'm Tired--some updates":

"it is people who think like you, and no you are not inthe majority, that has this country in the pickle that its in now. you peoplethat stole and murdered since you have been in this country. go ask the nativeamericans what they think about what you think. TIRED, go cut yourthroat..." (I guess "Renaissance-Man missed President Obama's callfor more civility in political discourse. ~Bob.)

Terrifying: What would one big nuke do to Israel? This …By James Pethokoukis

http://blog.american.com/2012/02/what-would-one-big-nuke-do-to-israel-this/

Excerpt: Iranhas called Israela “one bomb state,” meaning one nuclear bomb could effectively end theexistence of the tiny, New Jersey-sized nation. Israel has a population of 7.8million people. Some 42 percent of the population live in the Tel Aviv metroarea.

Gunman kills 2 US advisers inAfghan ministry

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/24/2659113/more-quran-protests-leave-7-dead.html

Excerpt: A gunman killed two American military advisersinside a heavily guarded government building in the heart of Kabul Saturday asprotests over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a U.S. base raged acrossthe country for a fifth day. ... The two advisers, including a lieutenantcolonel and a major, were shot in the back of the head, according to Westernofficials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorizedto disclose the information.

Democratic GovernorsDiscuss Bypassing Congress with Obama

http://conservativebyte.com/2012/02/democratic-governors-discuss-bypassing-congress-with-obama/

Excerpt: Gov. Jack Markell, the Democratic governor of Delaware and the vicechairman of the National Governors Association, told The Hill that the meetingwas “very good” and said many of the governors were responsive to ideas aboutbypassing Congress. (Next: bypassing the courts, then bypassing the voters.~Bob.)

"Israel ApartheidWeek" sickness returns - from Legal Insurrection Blog

http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/02/israel-apartheid-week-sickness-returns/

Excerpt: There are few things so vile as the various “IsraelApartheid Week” activities that have taken place the last few years, an attemptby the coalition of Islamists and Leftists to delegitimize Israel, and everything about Israel. Look atthe speaker list of almost any of the activities, and it’s like a freak show ofwillful denial, such as the “Pinkwashing” charges brought by anti-Israeli gayleftists who seem incapable of appreciating the irony that Israel is the onlycountry in the Middle East where they would not be stoned to death or at leastseverely persecuted.

Video: Film Review:Act Of Valor - by Ed Morrissey, Hotair.com

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/25/film-review-act-of-valor/

Excerpt: Americans love military and action films, as boxoffice returns show. But what if filmmakers eschewed ridiculous plot lines foractual missions fought by American commandos, along with realistic depictionsof terrorism, violence, and weapons fire? And what if most of the actors onscreen aren’t actors at all, but actual Navy SEALs? Act of Valor tells thosestories and uses those fighting men — and the result is an excellent actionmovie that keeps viewers riveted to the action until the very end.

Geithner: Rich ShouldHave to Pay More to be Americans

http://godfatherpolitics.com/3869/geithner-rich-should-have-to-pay-more-to-be-americans/

Excerpt: “That’s the kind of balance you need. Why is thatthe case? Because if you don’t try to generate more revenues through taxreform, if you don’t ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear aslightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American, then you have to— the only? [my emphasis - JB] wayto achieve fiscal sustainability is through unacceptably deep cuts in benefitsfor middle class seniors, or unacceptably deep cuts in national security.”

Contraception DebateDivides Americans, Including Women - GallupPolitics

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152963/Contraception-Debate-Divides-Americans-Including-Women.aspx

Excerpt: Americans have paid fairly close attention to thenews about whether religious-based employers should have to providecontraception coverage for employees as part of their health plans. When askedwhat they think about the issue, 48% of all Americans say they sympathize morewith the views of religious leaders, while 45% sympathize more with the Obamaadministration. The views of men and women are nearly identical. (We are withinsight of total fiscal collapse, and people are arguing about birth control andgay marriage. ~Bob.)

Rick Santorum: Obama"A Snob" for Wanting Everybody to Go to College

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/santorum-obama-a-snob-for-wanting-all-americans

Except: An indignant Santorum continued: "There aregood decent men and women, who go out everyday to put their skills to test thataren't taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Iunderstand why he wants you to go to college — he wants to remake you in hisimage. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into theirimage, not his."