Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Jimmy Carter to The 2nd Power = Barack Obama [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

Hostage crisis redux. I guess we could argue all day that Obama is naïve, stupid or complicit. But the damage is already done, and at the end of the day he’s allowed our country to look like a gullible tourist in the Arab bazaar. If you’re still looking for a reason to send Obama packing, I can’t think of a better one.

Egypt outlines evidence in case against Americans


CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian judges say the evidence collected in the case against 19 Americans referred to court for their alleged involvement in banned political activity through nonprofit groups includes maps, cash and videos taken of churches and military facilities.

Egypt's crackdown on pro-democracy and rights groups has soured relations between Cairo and Washington, which has warned Egypt that it could cut some $1.5 billion in aid over the dispute.

Sameh Abu-Zeid, one of two judges investigating the case, for the first time outlined for reporters Wednesday the evidence authorities have collected in the investigation.

The comments echoed allegations repeatedly made by Egypt's ruling military council that "foreign hands" are plotting unrest in Egypt.

Among the Americans referred to court is the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Barack Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like Idi Amin Dada.


Sunday, February 05, 2012

Alaskan Fishing Lodge Sign o' the Day


Hat tip: Wanda.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Sure, Why Not? Congress "Calls for Accelerated Use of Drones in U.S."

I don't see how anything could possibly go wrong with this.

A House-Senate conference report this week called on the Administration to accelerate the use of civilian unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or “drones,” in U.S. airspace.

The pending authorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration directs the Secretary of Transporation to develop within nine months “a comprehensive plan to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.”

...[It also calls for tests] in cooperation with NASA and the Department of Defense, expanded use of UAS in the Arctic region, development of guidance for the operation of public unmanned aircraft systems, and new safety research to assess the risk of “catastrophic failure of the unmanned aircraft that would endanger other aircraft in the national airspace system.”

The Department of Defense is pursuing its own domestic UAS activities for training purposes and “domestic operations,” according to a 2007 DoD-FAA memorandum of agreement. (“Army Foresees Expanded Use of Drones in U.S. Airspace,” Secrecy News, January 19, 2012.)

Because drones are necessary to ensure citizens are driving the right electric cars, using the right light bulbs and bathing with legal shower heads.

The circle of liberty grows ever smaller around us, my friends.


Perfect: Obama pulls combat pay for U.S. troops

But he obviously holds the U.S. military in very high esteem.

President Obama’s latest policy outrage makes no attempt to hide his contempt for our military, as he is ordering that our troops serving overseas in war zones overseas are not to receive combat pay unless they are being shot at. A Marine who lives in Florida has just posted a note on Facebook which stated that he received a letter from his PayPal account that he would only be receiving his Hazard pay (Imminent Danger Pay) if he is actually in a hostile area and at risk of being shot at...

...According to Military.com, as of February 1, 2012, this new measure went into effect, and soldiers who are to received the additional $225/mo. combat pay ‘must’ must be in immediate risk of harm. The measure is very specific in its criteria for receiving the additonal pay.

This follows efforts by the president to make veterans pay for their own health insurance -- even those injured in combat -- and his calls last month for raises for millions of federal paper-pushers.

In other words, the president continues to siphon off more and more money from our defense infrastructure -- hitting our warriors first, last and hardest in the process -- to fund his green energy scams and public sector union cronies (which, coincidentally, also contribute heavily to his campaign).


Thursday, February 02, 2012

Three Must-Read Quotes from Eric Holder's Fast and Furious Testimony Today. Plus: Brian Terry's Mother Rips Holder.

Eric Holder was back in front of the House Oversight Committee today to testify on Operation Fast and Furious. For those unfamiliar with the crimes, consider it like Watergate, only with 300 dead -- including Brian Terry, a U.S. Border Patrol agent killed by murder weapons supplied to drug cartels by Eric Holder.

During testimony, three particular quotes struck me as especially memorable:

• GOP Rep. Anne Marie Buerkle to Eric Holder:

"What more could have possibly gone wrong before you'd have been held accountable [for Operation Fast and Furious]? I would suggest that the President has been eerily quiet about coming to your defense. So let me ask it this way: How many more Border Patrol agents would have had to die as part of Operation Fast and Furious for you to take responsibility?"

• Eric Holder threatens Darrell Issa, asserting that Congress can not view sealed wiretap records even if a whistleblower reveals them:

"That direction that you just said, about the media and Congress and court orders, is really incorrect and you act at your peril if you think that's the truth."

• GOP Rep. Patrick Henry to Eric Holder on the delays in the DOJ's "investigation", which has now taken longer than the Warren Commission Report on the assassination of JFK:

"Thirteen months later, we have a possibility of somebody actually being punished for an agent getting killed. This is absolutely absurd."

Brian Terry's mother also watched Holder's outrageous performance today and had the following to say on Facebook.

“THIS IS FOR YOU SON,” Mrs. Terry posted on Facebook at about 3:30 p.m. “Mr. Holder. How come you can never say my sons name. You never have. All i ever hear you say is ‘i didnt find out or I cant say’ Im actually tired of hearing your double talk in answering questions. What a joke you are. You know my son was a real AMERICAN, a WARRIOR, and a HERO, who was also protecting COWARD POLITICANS like you.”

“Hope you remember that,” Mrs. Terry added in her message to Holder before signing it: “PROUD MOM OF BRIAN A. TERRY.”

Brian Terry was murdered with a weapon his own government allowed to be sold to Mexican drug cartels via Operation Fast and Furious. Like Terry, about 300 Mexican citizens were also murdered with the guns Holder’s Justice Department gave to the drug cartels.

Nobody has been held accountable inside the Justice Department, and more than 100 congressmen, three U.S. senators, two sitting governors and all major Republican presidential candidates have demanded that Holder step down in the wake of the scandal. Holder has time and again refused to hold anybody accountable and has refused to step down himself.

Holder never even apologized to the Terry family until publicly shamed into it during November's Congressional testimony. And, even then, he released the apology publicly to Politico before the family ever saw it.

Holder needs to be held in Contempt of Congress right now and prosecuted for obstruction of justice.


Cartoon: IBD - Ramirez

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Constitutional Showdown: DOJ Threatens to Defy Congressional Demands for Fast and Furious Documents

Yesterday the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued yet another demand for documents, this time going to the unprecedented step of threatening Attorney General Eric Holder with Contempt charges should he again defy Congress (PDF). The highlights of the Committee's demands revolve around the Justice Department's fabrications, delays and denials, many of which appear to involve false testimony. In short, Holder has until 4 February 2012 to avoid a Contempt of Congress charge.






CNN reports this evening that the DOJ is ignoring those threats and claiming it can't produce any documents in time (this, after literally years of requests).

...the Justice Department late Wednesday sent a sharp letter to Issa rejecting his demands from a day earlier for documents by a next-week deadline... Issa is threatening the attorney general with contempt of Congress if DOJ fails to deliver.

The exchange of stinging letters the past two days caps weeks of maneuvering by both sides in advance of the anticipated Holder appearance Thursday before Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Justice Department [claimed] Issa's letter showed "significant misunderstanding both of the documents we recently produced and of the Department's position on the issues you raise."

The Justice Department response Wednesday rejected Issa's February 9, 2012, deadline to produce all demanded documents. Cole called the deadline "impossible" to meet because of the broad scope of the request... He did not directly refer to the threat of a contempt charge by Issa.

The political battle has been raging for more than a year, following the discovery that two of the "fast and furious" weapons that had gone missing in Mexico in the botched sting were discovered at the scene of the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

This, my friends, could precipitate a true Constitutional crisis. The DOJ's lawless behavior is unacceptable no matter which political party is in power.

Liberals who ignore this flagrant criminality do so at their own peril. Because Democrats will not always control the Executive Branch.


Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Map: how close to you live to a U.S. terrorism hot spot?

I contend that a careful examination would reveal that each of these hot spots is located near a Militant Quaker gathering place.

...[For the DHS,] researchers from the University of Maryland and University of Massachusetts-Boston  (PDF) mapped all events considered terrorism since 1970 to 2008 in the United States (below). This established areas they deemed terrorism “hot spots” but also revealed that terrorism is actually “widely dispersed”. So widely dispersed that every state has experienced some act of terrorism in some form, according to the report. The report defines a hot spot as an area where more than the average number of terrorist attacks have taken place — the average for the U.S. is six.

...The research found that a third of all terrorist attacks during that time-frame studied took place in five metropolitan cities — Manhattan, New York (343 attacks); Los Angeles County, Calif. (156 attacks); Miami-Dade County, Fla. (103 attacks); San Francisco County, Calif. (99 attacks); and Washington, D.C. (79 attacks).

...In addition to tracking areas prone to terrorist attacks, the study authors saw trends in timing of terrorist attacks and type of motivation behind the attack. For example, co-author Bianca Bersani, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, said that terrorist attacks they classified as extreme left-wing — “groups that want to bring about change through violent revolution rather than through established political processes” – were limited almost exclusively to the 1970s. Whereas in the 1980s terrorism with religious motivations took place and the 1990s had extreme right-wing attacks by “groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent”.

A comment following the article voiced the obvious follow-up question: "Didn't our trusty Congress just declare the United States part of the battlefield on the war on us, I mean war on terror? That was part of the excuse to pass NDAA, wasn’t it?"

Perhaps this is a job for Obama's vaunted "Civilian National Security Force" that he crowed about in 2008 and 2009.


Hat tip: BadBlue.com.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Priorities

Contrary to rumor, the President and Democrats in Congress really do have a national security strategy. See if you can figure out what it is.

...President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have already settled on a plan to slash $487 billion from existing manpower, as well as from procurement and development of equipment and weapons. The cuts include reducing the Army by 72,000 people and the Marines by 20,000. The cuts also include elimination of six tactical fighter squadrons and one training squadron, plus buying fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighters -- on top of already planned reductions in the number of F-22 air superiority fighters to be put in service. The Navy will decommission seven cruisers and two amphibious craft, plus delay its procurement process for new ships. Together, these moves will dramatically reduce our ability to put "boots on the ground" and to insure the air superiority needed to protect and assist U.S. forces in major conflicts. Having such forces at the ready is also the best way to keep minor conflicts from exploding into big ones.

But the Obama-Panetta cuts aren't nearly enough for some in Congress. On Friday, representatives Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey of California, and Rush Holt of New Jersey wrote Obama to encourage him to "take even bolder leadership on this issue as you finalize your budget." They want Obama to double the Pentagon cuts because "the Cold War is long over, and no remotely comparable adversary has emerged or is likely to emerge. ... We believe that savings of around $900 billion over the next 10 years can be realized." Following their advice would greatly reduce the reach of American power, and make us seem like a paper lion to the bad guys of the world.

...The terrible irony here is that military spending has been on a steady decline since 1965, as seen in the nearby chart. And, as the defense portion of the budget has contracted for nearly five decades, entitlement spending has exploded... Obama, Panetta and their liberal Democrat allies like Frank are playing chicken with American security.

Was that last sentence racist? Let's ask Leonard Pitts.


Thursday, January 26, 2012

What's Wrong With This Picture? [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

What's wrong with this picture? Hint: Every move Obama makes in the Middle East abets the Muslim cause at Israel's expense. Sheer coincidence, no doubt.

###

JPost, 01/26/2012

Muslim Brotherhood repeats: No talks with Israel


Spokesman says dialogue with Jewish state ‘not up for discussion.’

###

Reuters, 25 Jan 2012

Obama set to speed up aid to Egypt-official


Obama considers redirecting aid to Egypt

Oh, and then there's this:

Reuters, 26 Jan 2012

U.S. outrage as Egypt bars Americans from leaving


Among those hit by travel bans - one of those targeted called it "de facto detention" - is a son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood... The United States said Egypt should reverse them: "We are urging the government of Egypt to lift these restrictions immediately and allow these folks to come home as soon as possible," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Perhaps the White House will go to the Obama version of DEFCON 1; i.e., issuing a strongly worded memo, with copies to the United Nations and George Soros.


Tuesday, January 24, 2012

FDR Didn’t Bomb The Death Camps, Obama Won’t Bomb Iran [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:



As more and more evidence accumulates that shows FDR and the allies knew about Hitler's death camps and decided not to bomb them, the more and more Obama’s unwillingness to take the atomic bat out of Iran’s hands starts looking like déjà vu all over again. Of course, there is one (and only one) big difference between now and then: Israel was born and has been blessed with the wherewithal to crush the Iranian viper in its infancy, before it becomes lethal. What’s yet to be determined, though, is whether Israel has the will to carry out its G-d-given mission. We should get our answer before the year is out.


Monday, January 23, 2012

Dual Disasters Boil Over in Egypt: "Millions of Egyptians will die"

Advocates of Egypt's "Democracy" movement -- Barack Obama included -- failed to note that there were no organized secular, liberal political parties that could offer a counterweight to Islamists in a popular election. The result, therefore, was utterly predictable. Predictable, at least, by anyone with a modicum of sense.

The United States and other Western governments must accept the new reality that Islamists have emerged to fill the power vacuum in the Arab world after a wave of popular uprisings, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report Sunday.

The New York-based group also urged Islamist parties, which have emerged as the biggest winners in recent elections in Tunisia and Egypt and are expected to fare well in Libya, to respect the rights of women and religious minorities, saying they cannot "pick and choose" when it comes to human rights. [Ed: delusional? You make the call.]

...Since the collapse of the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia a year ago, Islamist groups once largely confined to the political sidelines, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have formed parties and contested parliamentary polls, winning the greatest share of seats.

As background, about half of all Egyptians are "functionally illiterate"; 90% of adult women have undergone ritual, genital mutilation; and nearly a third of Egyptians marry their first or second cousins. And nearly half of Egypt's citizens live on subsistence rations, earning less than $2 a day, much of which must be spent on food.

With that as context, Spengler's "Failed treasury auction portends Egyptian disaster" in Asia Times is unsettling, to say the least.

Investors bought less an a third of the 3.5 billion Egyptian pounds (US$580 million) worth of Treasury bills offered to the market on January 22, a red flag warning that Egypt's foreign exchange position is close to the brink.

Yields on Egyptian government debt maturing in nine months jumped to nearly 16%, but the government could not place its local-currency debt to Egyptian investors, even at that exorbitant rate.

This is a new and ominous decline in the financial position of the most populous Arab country. I have been warning since last May that "Egypt is running out of food, and, more gradually, running out of the money with which to buy it." How fast this may occur is hard to specify, but the government's inability to borrow on money markets suggests that the crunch is not far off.

Why are investors fleeing?

After Islamist parties won more three-quarters of the seats in recent parliamentary elections - 47% for the Muslim Brotherhood and 25% for the even more extreme al-Nour Party - the business elite that prospered under military rule is counting the days before exile...

...Egypt's middle class will leave and tourism, down by a third over the past year, will virtually disappear in response to Salafist restrictions. The Barack Obama administration in Washington will try to appease the new Islamist government whenever it takes power, but will succeed no better than the Jimmy Carter administration did when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979.

Spengler concludes with an ominous prediction: "Millions of Egyptians will die before this is through."

Should such a disaster come to pass, much of the blame will rightly fall on Barack Obama, who sold out a long-time U.S. ally in pursuit of heaven knows what.


Hat tip: Winterspirit.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Obama: Resolutely Determined to Do Absolutely Nothing About Iran

Dan from NY:

This comes from an Iranian news site (www.mehrnews.com), and you have to assume the Iranian regime has to approve the slant of everything that goes out.

Even so, the idea that Obama is still offering to engage the Mullahs, and being ridiculed for it, is more like a running joke over there than it is news or giving away state secrets.

# # #

Details of Obama’s letter to Iran released


TEHRAN, Jan. 18 (MNA) -- A number of Iranian officials have released the details of the letter that U.S. President Barack Obama recently sent to Tehran [...] warning that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a “red line” that would provoke a response by the United States.

Obama has called for negotiations ... MP Ali Motahhari said on Wednesday, “In the letter, it has been stated that ‘closing the Strait of Hormuz is our red line’ and they have requested direct negotiations..."

Obama says U.S. will not take hostile action against Iran ... “In the letter, Obama has mentioned cooperation and negotiation based on the interests of the two countries... He has stated in the letter that they will not take any hostile action against the Islamic Republic of Iran..."

“Obama’s letter indicates that the United States has become afraid of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s might and has realized the point that an arrogant spirit is of no use... The important issue is that without the Islamic Republic of Iran’s permission, no country can benefit from the Persian Gulf."

Mr. Chamberlain, meet Mr. Obama.


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Just so I get this straight: defecating on a police car is patriotic; peeing on terrorist murderers is... un-American

Leftist logic at its finest.

I, for one, want all of these Marines to autograph a souvenir picture of this event. Compared to the traditional Taliban/Al Qaeda tactic of cutting off the head of a living victim, pissing on the dead bodies of 7th-century throwbacks isn't barbaric. It's historic.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Militant Quaker Starts Shooting At Cops In Alabama

Did I say "militant Quaker"? Cause I meant to say the usual, CAIR-supported Jihadists.

Alabama man suffers sudden jihad syndrome and starts shooting at the cops.

Luis Ibarra-Hernandez wanted to do something extreme “to draw attention to Islam and himself.” So he fired on the police. The Gadsden Times reported:

A man thought to be an Islamic extremist is believed to have shot the windows out of at least two businesses in Alabama City early Sunday to lure police officers to the area and engage them in a shootout.

Luis Ibarra-Hernandez was charged with attempted murder.

Luis Ibarra-Hernandez, 21, from Albertville, was charged today with attempted murder, according to a news release from the Gadsden Police Department.

“After the man was taken into custody, he reported that he knew he must do something extreme to draw attention to Islam and himself, so he planned to shoot police officers,” Gadsden Police Capt. Regina May said.

Gadsden police officers responded to alarm calls for glass breakage after doors were shot out about 1:30 a.m. Sunday at AutoZone and Rainbow Food Mart near the intersection of 27th Street and West Meighan Boulevard.

The article did not say if he was here legally but the department is checking his immigration status.


I blame Bush.

Oh, wait. That's Ron Paul's line.


Tehran TV's Iranian Idol: Ron Paul

Kenneth Timmerman pulls back the covers on the Crackpot-In-Chief's campaign, revealing an ugly scene in Tehran. Turns out the Mullahs love Ron Paul (not like they love goats, mind you, but strictly in a platonic way).

The Iranian regime’s English language propaganda channel, PressTV, has discovered a new American idol: presidential contender Rep. Ron Paul.

PressTV has stepped up its coverage of Paul’s campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination in recent weeks, featuring his anti-Israel rants, his claim that sanctions against Iran are “acts of war,” his approval of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and much more.

The Iranian government channel portrays Ron Paul as an American hero, and brings on conspiracy theorists masquerading as political “analysts” to laud him for “challenging the American establishment” and the “corporate neo-conservative Zionist consensus,” that cabal of Jews, banksters, and Reagan Democrats who in Tehran’s eyes (and in the eyes of these Ron Paul supporters) run the world.

It’s a script taken almost word-for-word from the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

...No contemporary U.S. political leader has been so in sync with Tehran as Ron Paul. Here are just a few of the recent Ron Paul sound bites on Iran and U.S. policy toward Iran prominently featured by PressTV:

“Just think of how many nuclear weapons surround Iran. The Chinese are there, the Indians are there, the Pakistanis are there, the Israelis are there, the United States is there. All these countries—China has nuclear weapons! Wouldn’t it be natural that they might want a weapon? Internationally, they’d be given more respect… They have no evidence that they are working on a weapon. “Paul blasts US policy on Iran, Aug. 12, 2011.

“I think we’re looking for trouble because we put these horrendous sanctions on Iran… Sanctions against Iran are definite steps toward a US attack.” “Iran sanctions ‘acts of war’: Ron Paul,” Dec. 31, 2011; “Ron Paul raps US hostility toward Iran,” Jan. 7, 2012.

Iran’s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had never mentioned any intention of wiping Israel off the map.” Quick Facts: Ron Paul on US Foreign Policy, Dec. 24, 2011.

“Iran is not a physical threat to us. They do not have capabilities. The stories you might hear about them being on the verge of a nuclear weapon is not true by our CIA and by the United Nations. They are not on the verge of it.” Quick Facts: Ron Paul on US Foreign Policy, Dec. 24, 2011.

“Who are they [Iran] going to bomb? If they had one or two bombs, they are going to bomb Israel? Israel has 300 of them! And our submarines all around there passing and everything else.” Quick Facts: Ron Paul on US Foreign Policy, Dec. 24, 2011...

Of course, Paul -- an unabashed propagandist for the Mullahs -- willfully ignores their well-documented threats, screeds and promises of destruction.

"We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization... we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles." -- Hassan Abbasi, "strategic adviser" to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years... Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? ...you had best know that this... goal [is] attainable." -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"We have established a department that will take care of England. England's demise is on our agenda." -- Hassan Abbasi

But maybe the Iranians are just kidding about destroying America and Israel. Kinda like Hitler's satirical work, Mein Kampf.


Sunday, January 08, 2012

Who's Lying to Who? [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

Only two days ago I sent around this story: US: Brotherhood says it won't break Israel treaty.

It had this subhead: State Department says America received private assurances from Islamist party contradicting its public statements on peace.

Today I’m sending around this story: Muslim Brotherhood says will not honor peace treaty with Israel.

It has this subhead: Deputy head of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party denies comments by U.S. State Department that Brotherhood made guarantees to honor peace deal with Israel.

Frankly, if I had to chose who to believe, Obama’s State Dept. or the Muslim Brotherhood, I’d put my money on the Brotherhood.


Saturday, January 07, 2012

Will You be Allowed to Read This in 2016? [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

There are many ways a determined president can undermine our freedoms and still go virtually unchallenged, especially when he has the conventional media in his back pocket. For example, I doubt you’ll see a mainstream news outlet follow-up on this important story. Bottom line: If we repeat the mistake we made in 2008 and give a man with hidden agendas four more years in the White House, I hate to think what this great country (and the world) will look like in 2016.

###

Stonegate Institute, January 6, 2012, by Soeren Kern

U.S., E.U. Spearhead Islamic Bid To Criminalize Free Speech


The European Union has offered to host the next meeting of the so-called Istanbul Process, an aggressive effort by Muslim countries to make it an international crime to criticize Islam... The announcement comes less than one month after the United States hosted its own Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC.

The Istanbul Process – its explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law – is being spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim countries.

Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has long pressed the European Union and the United States to impose limits on free speech and expression about Islam.

But the OIC has now redoubled its efforts and is engaged in a determined diplomatic offensive to persuade Western democracies to implement United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat "intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief." (Analysis of the OIC's war on free speech can be found here and here.)

Resolution 16/18, which was adopted at HRC headquarters in Geneva in March 2011, is widely viewed as a significant step forward in OIC efforts to advance the international legal concept of defaming Islam.

However, the HRC resolution – as well as the OIC-sponsored Resolution 66/167, which was quietly approved by the 193-member UN General Assembly on December 19, 2011 – remains ineffectual as long as it lacks strong support in the West.

The OIC therefore scored a diplomatic coup when the Obama Administration agreed to host a three-day Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC on December 12-14, 2011. In doing so, the United States gave the OIC the political legitimacy it has been seeking to globalize its initiative to ban criticism of Islam.

If there's any pillar of this republic that the Obama administration isn't feverishly undermining, I have yet to hear of it.


Hat tip: Israpundit.

500,000 Military Layoffs Planned As Obama Argues for Federal Pay Hikes and Need for $103K/year "Invitations Coordinators"

"The then-press secretary Robert Gibbs was apparently often dispatched to placate Mrs Obama when limits were put on the amount she could spend on clothes or White House redecoration, as well as to explain why she could not take private holiday while on state visits." --Raf Sanchez

The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Obama has proposed pay increases for federal employees.

The White House effort comes despite reports in USA Today and other media outlets that the federal workforce -- which has grown substantially under the Obama administration -- is already grossly overpaid compared to the private sector. Please consider the following snippets of articles from USA Today:

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts: "At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn... Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis... The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year."

Federal workers starting at much higher pay than in past: "Newly hired federal workers are starting at much higher salaries than those who did the same jobs in the past, a lift that has elevated the salaries of scientists and custodians alike... A 20- to 24-year-old auto mechanic started at an average of $46,427 this year, up from $36,750 five years ago... A 30- to 34-year-old lawyer started at an average of $101,045 this year, up from $79,177 five years ago... And a mechanical engineer, age 25 to 29, started at $63,675, up from $51,746 in 2006..."

This sort of waste, fraud and abuse is exemplified by jobs like a $103,000-a-year Invitations Coordinator for the so-called "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau". The compensation package includes 10 paid holidays, 13 days of sick leave, and [up to] 26 days of vacation time each year (i.e., more than five weeks).

Furthermore, the Obama administration plans to lay off 500,000 military personnel.

The mighty American military machine that has for so long secured the country’s status as the world’s only superpower will have to be drastically reduced, Barack Obama warned yesterday as he set out a radical but more modest new set of priorities for the Pentagon over the next decade...

...Mr Obama’s blueprint for the military’s future acknowledged that America will no longer have the resources to conduct two such major operations simultaneously.

Instead, the US military will lose up to half a million troops and will focus on countering terrorism and meeting the new challenges of an emergent Asia dominated by China. America, the President said, was “turning the page on a decade of war” and now faced “a moment of transition”.

Why the egregious disconnect?

Why the abdication of the Commander-in-Chief's most important duty -- protecting the United States of America?

Because, my friends, federal bureaucrats pay union dues, which end up recycled into Obama's campaign coffers. Our Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen don't pay union dues, which helps explain why our critical national defense assets are being slashed as federal paper-pushers continue expanding their already ridiculous compensation packages and their unconstitutional control over every aspect of our lives.


Infographic: The Independent [UK].

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Obama fights a two-front war against the U.S. military

Not only is the president gutting America's military, Ron Paul-style, but he appears to be revealing Top Secret material to the fascists who govern Russia.

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that President Barack Obama has indicated he is prepared to convey information about secret American missile defense technology to Russia:

In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority.

As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal.

There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat U.S. missile defenses.

This news comes on the heels of an announcement today that Obama is slashing America's fighting forces.

The cuts are so dramatic that literally tens of thousands of Soldiers and Marines are slated to be axed.

And where are those "savings" going?

Will they to be used to help address America's gaping deficits?

Of course not. They'll be used to fund more of Obama's public sector union boss buddies, through the Department of Education, the Department of Labor and other bloated bureaucracies.

In short, President Obama's priority is gutting America's national security while bankrupting the country. He continues to grow the size and scope of government bureaucracies, with salaries and benefits that are double those in the private sector.

2012 is coming.


Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Sometimes I wonder whose side he is on [Dan from NY]

Dan from NY:

Can all that high-priced talent in the White House and State Dept. possibly be "naïve?"

January 4, 2012

Taliban Prisoner Release A Premature, Dangerously Naive Move


By Lisa Curtis

The British newspaper The Guardian has reported that the U.S. has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantanamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents’ agreement to open a political office in Qatar. If true, this would demonstrate that the Obama Administration is dangerously naïve about the reality of the threat the Taliban continues to pose in the region. It also could reveal that the Administration has no real strategy for achieving U.S. counterterrorism objectives in the region and is desperate to strike a deal with the Taliban in order to justify its troop-withdrawal plan.

A few days ago, the media reported [3] that the U.S. was considering releasing Mohammed Fazl, a “high-risk detainee” held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. According to the report, a senior U.S. Administration official said that the release of Fazl and four other Taliban members had been requested by the Afghan government and Taliban representatives as far back as 2005. As a former senior commander of the Taliban, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghan Shiia between 1998 and 2001.

It is a stretch to portray the Taliban’s opening of an office in Qatar as a major concession by the organization worthy of a reciprocal move by Washington. In fact, allowing the Taliban to open an office outside Afghanistan allows the organization to claim international legitimacy, despite its unwillingness to drop support for international terrorism or to commit to participating in a normal political process in Afghanistan.

...In seeking talks with the Taliban, the Administration must avoid the same pitfalls U.S. officials fell into during the 1990s that ultimately helped set the stage for the 9/11 attacks. If the Taliban is able to reassert influence in Afghanistan without making the political compromises necessary for peace in the region, the U.S. will not only fail the Afghan people, who have already suffered under Taliban rule, but it will also sacrifice U.S. national security by allowing a violent, anti-Western Islamist ideology to succeed in the region.

Gee, ya think?