Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

Friday, September 06, 2013

RESET OR BLUE-SCREEN? USA Today Headline: "Putin calls Kerry a liar on Syria"                  

Methinks Hillary got out while the gettin' was good:

Things aren't exactly warming up between the Obama administration and Vladimir Putin, even as President Obama arrived in St. Petersburg for the G-20 summit.

Putin called Obama Secretary of State John Kerry a liar over Kerry's testimony this week before Congress.

The question may be al-Qaeda's influence on the Syrian rebels, an issue Kerry has downplayed.

Speaking to his human rights council Wednesday, Putin said, "This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them (the Americans), and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad."

Putin has criticized Obama administration claims that Bashar Assad's government attacked the rebels with chemical weapons.

Last month, Obama canceled a summit meeting with Putin after a series of U.S.-Russian disputes, including Russia's decision to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

Word has it that President Obama plans to issue a sternly worded memo to express his dissatisfaction with Putin's remarks.

Got Cold War?


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

KRAUTHAMMER: Left Mocked Bush For Going Into Iraq With 50 Allies But "Obama Can't Even Get One And A Half"

Consistency? From progressives? Surely you jest, Charles.

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer blasts the liberal establishment for mocking the Bush administration at the time that the United States intervened in Iraq. He compared actions in that conflict to the Obama administration's inability to unite America's allies in the present Syria situation:

"I don't think it is a sudden embrace of the separation of powers or a renewed interest in constitutional action in which he brings in the Congress.

On domestic issues, he hasn't shown any interest in that, and all of a sudden he develops religion on the eve of the supposed strike. The reason is, he was alone and naked in the world.

He didn't have Russia, he didn't have the U.N., didn't have the Security Council, he didn't have the Arabs who, yes, very much oppose but won't lift a finger and didn't even approve in the resolution of the Arab League support for unilateral or any kind of action against them, military action against Syria, and he lost our closest ally in Britain.

He had nobody. Here are Obama and the Democrats who mocked the Bush administration for unilateral intervention In Iraq where we had a coalition of almost 50 countries and he can't get one and a half. So he had to have the Congress, that's the reason he did that switch in the end. He knew how alone he was and how he needed cover."

Anti-war progressives Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Harry Reid -- to name but a few -- all now support war in Syria. This gang of chickenhawks (always a favorite term during the Bush era) are banging the drums of war even though we have no idea whether anyone actually used chemical weapons and, if they were used, who used them; or who we're fighting for; or what the goal is; or whether a regional or global conflict will result; or how blowing up some camels helps U.S. national security interests.

All of those factors don't matter. This is about saving face for Barack Obama and keeping the attention off the litany of scandals -- Benghazi, IRS, NSA, James Rosen and AP wiretaps, Fast and Furious, and dozens more -- engulfing the administration.

These Democrat hacks are the worst of the worst. In fact, if the field of politics didn't exist, I find it difficult to imagine how they would earn honest livings.

Which reminds me of Mark Twain's famous missive: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

What Do We Stand For?

Guest post by Brandon Smith

At the very edge of oblivion, some men reflect, and some men snivel and cry. I have spent many years now studying the societal strengths and failings of modern American culture, and I have to say, that most citizens within our once grand Republic will do far less reflecting and much more crying when the bell tolls. This is not to say that I believe the fight is lost. Far from it. In fact, I would consider myself an optimist amongst many of my peers in the Liberty Movement as to our chances of defending Constitutional freedom today. There is a very strong core within our country that still embraces the ideals of individualism and independence. The problem is, those who are awake face each day surrounded by lunatics and and the giggling blind. It's difficult to find solace within the asylum of the “mainstream”, and so, we begin to assume we are alone.

Even worse, we sometimes have to deal with misguided and biased persons that join the Liberty Movement, not to stand upon any solid fundamental principles, but who seek to impress their own twisted world views upon us as if they “know better”. You would think that the concept of freedom would be simple to understand and grasp, but for some, it is like plunging into a trigonometric wonderland of confusion.

As the U.S., led by the Obama Administration, moves towards yet another possible war in the Middle East, using covert terrorists as proxies and enacting violent policy based on dubious or non-existent evidence and far flung accusations, I realize that with all the blathering voices out there telling us what to think, what to do, what to fear, who to admire, who to worship, how to live, and what to aspire, perhaps it is time for each of us to solemnly question what we stand for, and what America is supposed to stand for?

Really, think about it. What are we here for? What purpose do we serve in the grand scheme of things? What are our defining principles?

Have we lost track of ourselves as Americans so completely that we cannot even explain in a reasonable fashion what kind of people we want to be, and what kind of world we want to live in? Are we so busy squabbling with each other that we have no time to examine the foundation upon which we all rely?

INFURIATING: Senate to Vote on Air Support for Al Qaeda on 9/11

I cribbed most of that headline from Pamela Geller, who calls it a "perverse horror":

President Obama cleared his first hurdle on Wednesday in his push for a military strike in Syria, as a key Senate panel voted to authorize the use of force... The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10-7, with one senator voting present, to approve a military strike in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack last month.

The Senate now plans to return early from recess and meet Friday to file the resolution, setting up a key test vote in the full chamber as early as next Wednesday [9/11].

Josh Rogin reports that Harry Reid and Democrats in the Senate are violating the rules to cover for Obama's embarrassing 'red line' gaffe.

Senate Democratic leadership tossed aside the rules for moving legislation with regard to the resolution authorizing the use of military force against Syria, angering some Republicans and creating confusion on Capitol Hill in the run-up to the war vote ... some GOP Senate offices are upset with what they see as a rush by Democratic leadership to pass the war authorization outside the rules that govern how legislation goes through the committee process.

This is a rush to war behind closed doors,” one senior GOP Senate aide said. “We were told there was a need to have a thoughtful and public debate about how this nation goes to war, but this seems to be about simply getting a resolution done to cover the president.”

A rush to war to "cover [for] the president"?

A rush to war to support Al Qaeda on, of all dates, 9/11?

And what are John Boehner and Eric Cantor doing? Well, like clockwork they continue to ignore the will of the people -- who oppose Syrian intervention by overwhelming margins -- to help cover for a failed president.

Meanwhile, where does the House stand with the NSA Scandal, the Benghazi investigation, the IRS Scandal, the investigation into DOJ wiretapping of reporters and their families?

Meanwhile, where does the House stand with defunding Obamacare, the Continuing Resolution, or the Debt Ceiling debacles that face us in mere weeks?

Meanwhile, what was Boehner's priority prior to the Syrian diversion? Amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Michael Walsh is right: we have a "partisan fusion party."

And no one in Washington represents "we, the people" any longer.


Hat tip: BadBlue News. Artwork: MattrosArt

Egyptian Newspaper Depicts President Obama as the Devil

I'm guessing that Bush gets the blame for this, too.

Popular and widely read Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd published the above picture today portraying U.S. President Barrack Hussein Obama as Satan himself. The unflattering picture has been making the rounds on Facebook in the Middle East and, according to Al Wafd, is representative of the hatred growing numbers of people in the region have for the American president, thanks to his staunch and unwavering support for Islamists and jihadiis — whether in Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, or Syria — even as they terrorize, murder, rape, and burn down Christian churches, that is, even as they engage in diabolical activities.

Remember when President Obama was going to repair the image of the United States in the Muslim world while bringing peace to the Middle East?

Good times. Good times.

Now we appear to be only a couple of prophecies away from the apocalypse.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Obama: I Didn't Build That Red Line, World Government Did!

All that talk about red lines? It ain't President Obama's fault:

President Barack Obama repeatedly denied Wednesday that he ever set a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and he insisted that the “world community” and Congress created the so-called red line, and should enforce the line.

I didn’t set a red line,” he insisted to reporters at a press conference in Sweden Wednesday morning.

“The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world’s population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a [1993] treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war,” he said.

“Congress set a red line when it indicated that — in a piece of legislation [in 2003] titled the Syria Accountability Act that some of the horrendous things that are happening on the ground there need to be answered for,” he said.

MOTUS offers the following perspective (via Thomas Lifson):

This new tact is no doubt the work of his old trusted team of really big brains: the Axelrod, Gibbs, Plouffe and Favreau Brain Squad (BS) team was called into an emergency session yesterday to "coordinate the administration's message strategy on Syria," as it continued to spin totally out of control, i.e., Big Guy's favorability polls are dropping like rockets. Because everyone knows that what we need now, more than a strategy, is a messagestrategy.

Maybe the BS would be better utilized going to work for General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who's still unable to tell Congress exactly what the U.S. is seeking to accomplish in Syria. (snip)

This turn of tables is clearly the result of having called in the Brain Squad (BS) whose sole strategy in the past has been to blame stuff on everybody else.  BO then criticized the do-nothing Congress for dithering on the authorization of his "Syria Accountability Act" or, as ACE calls it, "Operation Enduring Hesitation."  And while the BS team likes that turn of phrase, they've softened it to "Operation Enduring Dithering."


Wut, wut?



Mexican Border Town's Black-Clad, Blonde Vigilante Said to be Avenging Brutal Deaths of Innocent Women

At The Los Angeles Times, Tracy Wilkinson and Cecilia Sanchez report:

Like a character from a graphic novel, she dresses in black, has unusually blond hair — and kills bus drivers who sexually assault women.

In a place like Ciudad Juarez, known for its years of brutal killings of women, the story has inexorable appeal. But how much of it is true?

Authorities are taking the reports seriously enough to investigate and have posted undercover cops on buses. Women’s advocates say they wouldn’t be surprised if someone finally had taken long-denied justice into her own hands.

Two bus drivers were slain in the last week, and over the weekend an electronic message claiming responsibility was sent to several news outlets.

“You think because we are women we are weak, and maybe we are,” the message says. “But only to a certain point.... We can no longer remain quiet over these acts that fill us with rage.

“And so, I am an instrument who will take vengeance.”

Signed: Diana, Huntress of Bus Drivers.

The message says women who work the night shifts in Juarez’s enormous maquiladora industry repeatedly fall prey to the bus drivers on whom they must rely to get home in the dark.

For now, at least, there is no way to verify the veracity of the message, whether it was written by the actual killer or killers of the bus drivers, whether Diana the Huntress really exists, or even whether she is a she.

What is clear is that for the last two decades, hundreds of women, many of them maquiladora workers, have been killed or have gone missing in Ciudad Juarez. Some disappeared after boarding buses, their raped and tortured bodies later found dumped in the desert. Few of the cases are ever resolved, and families have endlessly protested the lack of justice for their daughters, sisters and mothers...

Human rights activists in the region said that police appeared to be investigating the avenger much more diligently than the rapists.

And, by all means, let's keep those borders open, Democrats!


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Community Organizing Nobel Peace Prize Winner Goes to War

Ann Coulter absolutely shreds the duplicitous treachery of the Left:

No Republican who thinks seriously about America's national security interests -- by which I mean to exclude John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- can support Obama's "plan" to shoot blindly into this hornet's nest.

It would be completely different if we knew with absolute certainty that Assad was responsible for chemical attacks on his own people. (I'm still waiting to see if it was a Syrian upset about a YouTube video.)

It would be different if instead of killing a few hundred civilians, Assad had killed 5,000 civilians with poison gas in a single day, as well as tens of thousands more with chemical weapons in the past few decades.

It would be different if Assad were known to torture his own people, administer summary executions, rapes, burnings and electric shocks, often in front of the victim's wife or children.

It would be different if Assad had acted aggressively toward the United States itself, perhaps attempting to assassinate a former U.S. president or giving shelter to terrorists who had struck within the U.S. -- someone like Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood terrorist.

It would be different if Assad were stirring up trouble in the entire Middle East by, for example, paying bounties to the families of suicide bombers in other countries.

It would also be different if we could be sure that intervention in Syria would not lead to a multi-nation conflagration.

It would be different if we knew that any action against Syria would not put al-Qaida or the Muslim Brotherhood in power, but rather would result in a functioning, peaceful democracy.

And it would be different if an attack on Syria would so terrify other dictators in the region that they would instantly give up their WMDs -- say, Iran abandoning its nuclear program.

If all of that were true, this would be a military intervention worth supporting!

All of that was true about Iraq, but the Democrats hysterically opposed that war...

Led by none other than Barack Obama.

Read the whole thing. And memorize it.

Hey, Leftists: you gonna put some ice on that?


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

You know how Alaskans have dozens of words for "snow"? We conservatives need a similar variety for "hypocrite"

I've heard that Alaskans have dozens of words that mean snow, from light frost to full-bore blizzard.

We need a similar level of variety for the word hypocrite, ranging from Holden Caulfield to Nancy Pelosi:


In tabular form:


Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds reports that at Buzzfeed, memes were running 10-to-1 against Obama's rush to war. And notes one meme that Buzzfeed missed.


These Democrat and Republican establishment types are the lowest of the low.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

What do John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Karl Rove and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Have in Common?

They all support war in Syria, even though we have no idea whether anyone actually used chemical weapons and, if they were used, who used them; or who we're fighting for; or what the goal is; or whether a regional or global conflict will result; or how blowing up some camels helps U.S. national security interests. Aside from those issues, the case for action is rock solid.

• "Nancy Pelosi to Congressional Democrats: Use of Force in Syria 'Is In our National Interest'"

• "Of course: John Boehner supports Obama's call for military action against Syria"

• "Wasserman-Schultz says ‘dozens of countries’ will fight with us, but she can’t name them"

• "Karl Rove siding with Muslim Brotherhood in Syria"

I know why anti-war moonbats Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz are now angrily banging the drums of war: because they put politics over principle every hour of every day.

But I have no earthly idea why John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Karl Rove would support this bumbling, feckless administration when there is no concrete proof that: (a) chemical weapons were used; and (b) who used them if they were indeed employed.

Writing at World Tribune, Yossef Bodansky reports that there is evidence a "Aug. 21 chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a premeditated provocation by the Syrian opposition."


Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News.

Monday, September 02, 2013

German Media: Obama Reversed Course on Syrian Attack Due to "Mutiny" in the Ranks

Reports from around the world paint a picture of a military that has no interest in an attack on Syria. If these accounts can be believed, the military has effectively rejected Obama's meandering "red line".

U.S. military mutiny forced Obama to retreat (German Economic News - via Google Translate):

The surprising over by U.S. President Barack Obama of his plans Syria is apparently due to a massive mutiny in the U.S. Army... So far, the U.S. military has always publicly silent and obey the orders of the military-political leadership. The basis for most applications, it was the president managed to convince the soldiers believe that the particular use of "national security" serve.

Even in the case of Syria, Obama tried this term... But his own soldiers did not believe him...

So said the retired Lieutenant General Gregory S. Newbold post: "The politicians are naive about the obligations that exist in foreign policy. Many are woefully ignorant about what can achieve a military operation. "Newbold was the leading cadres in the Iraq war. He said that many of his colleagues share his active serious concerns.

An officer who declined to comment anonymously, said: "I can not believe that the president ever takes this step into consideration. In the past 10 years we have been fighting against insurgents. Syria has advanced weapons systems. We would have to fight in a conventional war. "

Already in the past week had Gen. Martin Dempsey, the head of the commander in chief, pointed to the heedlessness of the Obama administration. He said the station ABC : "The simple use of weapons, without a precise strategy, such as the use is completed, probably never leads to the conclusion that we imagine."

General James Mattis said: "If the Americans actually perform such an operation, then that is a brutal, very, very serious war."

Another active officer said: "What political end state we want to achieve? Ch I do not know what it is. We say it should not be a regime change. If there is to be punishment - there are other ways to punish someone. "

Obama's War on Syria: Dissent in the Ranks (Stephen Lendman, IndyMedia):

The Pentagon goes all out to avoid dissent in the ranks. It surfaced in Vietnam... Army officials admitted they couldn't account for over 1,400 officer and noncom deaths. Perhaps as many as one-fourth occurred at the hands of subordinates.

America was at war with itself. Everyone was the enemy. Officers at times fragged troops they suspected of planning to target them... Congressional hearings in 1973 estimated around 3% of officer and NCO deaths from fragging...

...America's heading for more war. Servicemen wonder when they'll all end. They bear the brunt of war's harshness.


The Washington Post headlined "US military officers have deep doubts about impact, wisdom of a US strike on Syria," saying:

Many in America's military have "serious reservations." They're "coping with the scars of two lengthy wars." They're uneasy now.

According to "interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general," they've had enough... They fear "potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria."

...Marine Lt. Colonel Gordon Miller warned about "potentially devastating consequences, including a fresh round of weapons attacks and a military response by Israel."

Military skepticism grows. Obama's rushing headlong into the breach. He's heading where angels fear to tread. He's mindless of potential fallout. Hindsight won't save thousands of lost lives.

In fact, World Tribune reports that "the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as many in the U.S. military command have opposed Obama’s directive to prepare for imminent air strikes on the regime of President Bashar Assad."

It would seem the U.S. military is exhibiting all the respect for the president that he has earned.


Hat tip: BB.

Sunday, September 01, 2013

Obama Agitates for Syrian Intervention Even While Ignoring a Nuclear Iran                                    

Guest post by Anne Bayefsky


President Obama has turned to Congress to save him from staggering political isolation on the global stage. It is an isolation that is the inverse of the promise of a passionate and reciprocal multilateral embrace that carried him into office.

Asking Republicans to rescue him from a foreign policy catastrophe entirely of his own making is not a neat political trick. It dramatically cheapens the office of commander-in-chief. Contrary to the President’s devious portrayal, therefore, the coming vote is so much more than a response to “this attack” or “the massacre” in Syria.

The President had the audacity to ask Congress about the message “we” will send if he does not go forward with his highly circumscribed attack on the Syrian regime. The real question is, what is the message he has already sent by his deed and his words, his paralysis and his verbal scam?

First and foremost, the President cast the rationale for an attack on Syria as a “danger to our national security.” And yet, what is the single greatest threat to the national security of the United States – not tomorrow, but today? There is only one incontrovertible answer, and it is Iran. Not once in his rare appeal to Congress and the American people to use force, however, did President Obama use the word “Iran.”

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Hillary Clinton Edition

Mr. Peabody, please set The Wayback Machine to December 2007:

...Mr. Obama has begun to challenge Mrs. Clinton on her central claim that her candidacy represents a return to the Age of Pericles, a k a the 1990s. The Clinton candidacy -- everyone knows it is a her-and-his affair -- is at its core an appeal to selective nostalgia. We are supposed to remember the lack of a hot war, not the "holiday from history" as al Qaeda gained strength. We are supposed to recall the late-1990s boom, not that it began only after the GOP took Congress and repudiated many Clinton policies.

And we are supposed to forget entirely about Travelgate, Whitewater, lost billing records, the Rose law firm, the Lippo Group, Johnny Chung, Harold Ickes, miraculous cattle-future winnings and lying under oath. So selective is our memory supposed to be that we are asked to credit Mrs. Clinton as a kind of co-President during her husband's eight years, while her husband blocks public access to his Presidential records that might let us examine her actual contribution...

We can now add Benghazi and the entire, catastrophic "Arab Spring" to her impressive C.V. Not to mention the growing Clinton Foundation scandal.

If the field of politics didn't exist, precisely what would a woman like Hillary Clinton be qualified to do?


Friday, August 30, 2013

The Great Destabilizer

Interesting comment by JVictor vis a vis Daniel Greenfield's article entitled "Liberal Hypocrisy in Iraq and Syria."

[A] so-called change of heart with members of the Obama administration is not a change at all.

Every time there has been a destabilizing force that poses a greater threat to Israel, the Obama administration has supported that force. Cases in point:

• whether people liked him or not, Mubarak was a stabilizing force in Egypt--he was thrown under the bus in favor of the destabilizing Muslim Brotherhood revolution;

• whether people liked him or not, Qadafi had become a stabilizing force in Libya--he was ousted by radicals supported by this administration;

• when the Arab Spring fever tried to take hold in Iran to overthrow [Iran's] Ahmadinijad, this administration sat by silently while the revolution was quelled;

• Assad has been a stabilizing force in Syria--now this administration is talking about taking him out;

• now that the people of Egypt have spoken out against the abuses of power by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, this administration has been silent and absent in its support for the people;

• Saddam was a destabilizing force in his own right.

It is clear that the Obama administration is working diligently, either actively or by apparent inaction, to destabilize the Middle East and northern Africa while alienating Israel at the same time.

The question is, why?

I encourage commenters to offer conjecture. I have my suspicions, but then again, I'm a right-wing, Consitutional, conservative Hobbit Visigoth and all.


Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

RED LINES, INDEED: Obama to provide air support for Al Qaeda and Ambassador Chris Stevens' killers in Syria?

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Mideast: The same al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sharia that killed four Americans in Benghazi is now training foreign jihadists to fight with Syria's Islamist rebels. Are we about to provide them air support?

On Sept. 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was crouched in a safe room waiting for help as the al-Qaida terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia was taking credit for the attack, according to emails reaching the White House and the State Department.

Ambassador Stevens did not survive, nor did Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Ty Woods, all killed by the terrorists of Ansar al-Sharia and other groups whose training camps surrounded Benghazi and were ignored by an oblivious Obama administration that now calls the scandal "phony."

Well, phony scandals do not produce body bags.

President Obama promised to bring the Benghazi attackers to justice, which he has not. Ansar al-Sharia roams free. Ali Ani al-Harzi, a leading suspect in the attack and a member of Ansar al-Sharia who was taken into custody after fleeing Libya for Turkey and then sent to Tunisia, is also free.

"Make no mistake," President Obama told reporters the morning after the attack, "we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people."

Well, not exactly. Fellow suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala was tracked down by the New York Times and found to be peacefully enjoying a strawberry frappe at a luxury Tunisian hotel.

Historian Predicted America's Financial Collapse... in 1857

Guest post by J. R. Nyquist

The Great British historian, Lord Macaulay, predicted the future unraveling of the United States economy in a letter written in May 1857. Macaulay’s prediction was based on his analysis of American institutions. Discussing the life of Thomas Jefferson with an American author, Macaulay wrote, “You are surprised to learn that I have not a high opinion of Mr. Jefferson, and I am surprised at your surprise. I am certain that I never wrote a line, and … uttered a word indicating an opinion that the supreme authority in a state ought to be entrusted to the majority of citizens [counted] by the head; in other words, to the poorest and most ignorant part of society.”

According to Macaulay the United States was becoming increasingly democratic throughout the nineteenth century. And this tendency, he argued, was dangerous to liberty and to the country’s economic well-being. As Macaulay explained, “I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.”

Macaulay pointed to the French Revolution and to the tendency of democratic movements to despoil the rich. “You may think that your country enjoys an exemption from these evils,” Macaulay wrote to his American correspondent. “I will frankly own to you that I am of a very different opinion. Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the Old World, and, while that is the case, the Jefferson politics may continue to exist without causing any fatal calamity.”

Eventually, of course, the United States must fill up with people. It must lose its economic advantages. “[T]he time will come, noted Macaulay, “when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us.” America will then be urbanized, with a large population of “artisans.” Then it will happen that large numbers of these artisans will sometimes find themselves out of work. “Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test,” wrote Macaulay. “Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million, while another cannot get a full meal.”

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

JUST PEACHY: Facebook shared personal data of users a mere 26 thousand times in the first six months of 2013

Guest post by Eric Boehm

On Facebook, you can share posts and pictures with friends.

But at Facebook, they can (and do) share your posts and pictures and personal information with government agents all around the world.

Facebook released a report Tuesday detailing their level of involvement with government requests for data. Since users willingly share so much about themselves on Facebook and other social media tools, it seems government agencies are looking to take advantage of the information – and Facebook is more than happy to comply.

“As we have said many times, we believe that while governments have an important responsibility to keep people safe, it is possible to do so while also being transparent,” said Colin Stretch, an attorney for the social networking mega-site. “Government transparency and public safety are not mutually exclusive ideals.”

Stretch assured users that Facebook scrutinizes each request and maintains a “very high legal bar” that governments must clear before users’ private information is passed along.

Even so, the numbers are startling.

In total, Facebook received more than 26,000 separate requests for information about nearly 39,000 different accounts from 72 different national governments during the first six months of 2013.

And guess which country’s government made the most requests for information from Facebook – so many, in fact, that it is more than all other requests from all other national governments in the entire world, combined.

Go ahead, guess.

Here’s the chart of the top 10:

It does raise some questions – like, if government surveillance is meant to stop terrorist attacks, are terrorists really posting “about to build a bomb” on their status updates?

Or, perhaps the government is collecting Facebook information for other reasons – particularly since we already know the Drug Enforcement Agency frequently gets “tips” from the National Security Agency and others (then lies about where those tips come from).

And Facebook’s willingness to share personal data with the governments of the world seems even stranger one week after Joe Sullivan, the company’s chief security officer, said “it is never acceptable to compromise the security or privacy of other people.

Of course in that instance he was talking about one user compromising another user’s privacy. If Facebook is going to compromise everyone’s privacy at once, that must be better – somehow.

Now we really need that “dislike” button.

 

Boehm is a reporter for Watchdog.org and can be reached at Eric@PAIndependent.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EricBoehm87. Please visit Watchdog.org for more information.

NOT A REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC: Police Barricade McCain-Flake "Public" Meeting on Amnesty

As Mark Levin has consistently observed, we no longer live in a Constitutional Republic. Our representatives do not represent us. They pass laws they haven't read. And they consistently operate without the consent of the governed.

We have what the brilliantly prescient Alexis de Tocqueville called "democratic despotism", exemplified perfectly by a "public meeting" with U.S. senators at which the public was not welcome.

As senators representing a border state, one would think that Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake would be strong proponents for demanding legal immigration as well as for securing our borders. Instead, they have been not just vocal advocates of illegal immigration, these two GOP border state senators made up ¼ of the ‘Gang of Eight’ that crafted the bill to push amnesty on the American people.


There has been much controversy surrounding the route which immigration reform should take in America. Some are calling for amnesty for the tens of millions of illegals in this country. Others are adamant that either we are a nation of laws or we are not and do not support amnesty. Still others are torn between what to do with those who crossed the border illegally as children due to the decision of their parents.

Wherever you stand on the spectrum of beliefs on the topic, one would think that your elected officials would welcome the voice of anyone who wants to be heard regarding this issue that would have enormous economic repercussions on America. That is not the case with Arizona Senators McCain and Flake. On the very important issue of immigration reform, they chose to hold a ‘closed door, invitation only event’, which was labeled not as a town hall, but rather as a ‘Conversation on Amnesty’...

...While the story from the Arizona Republic states that this is a public event, the event was clearly marked as a private event and those without a ticket were only allowed to go so far...


...This decision to leave the people out of this ‘conversation’ resulted in a protest organized by Riders USA outside the Mesa Arts Center, where the ‘private event’ took place. The Arizona Republic did cover the event inside as well as provide pictures of the protest outside. If you look closely, based upon my comparison of the pictures on the Arizona Republic’s website, it appears that the McCain/Flake closed door, invitation only event took place in the Virginia G. Piper Repertory theater. That portion of the facility holds 550 people and, if you look at the picture below from the Arizona Republic, there were plenty of seats still available with a near empty upper level...

But we have an antidote, my friends.

We have a gift bequeathed to us by the founders.

It is Article V of the United States Constitution.

It is an escape hatch from an all-powerful central government that has grown out of control, just as de Tocqueville predicted.

We have an antidote and now is the time to begin reestablishing the Constitution.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Monday, August 26, 2013

HOLY TOLEDO: Harvard Study Proves That Gun Control Laws Can't Work, Won't Work and Have Never Worked

Democrat Statists and professional propagandists hardest hit: it's Hahvahd, after all.

You’re going to want to read all of this (PDF).

“Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence” in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy is the stuff of gun grabber’s nightmares. Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser have compiled a heavily foot-noted academic report that is nonetheless very compelling and relatively easy to digest...

The Harvard study attempts to answer the question of whether or not banning firearms would reduce murders and suicides. Researchers looked at crime data from several European countries and found that countries with HIGHER gun ownership often had LOWER murder rates.

Russia, for example, enforces very strict gun control on its people, but its murder rate remains quite high. In fact, the murder rate in Russia is four times higher tahn in the “gun-ridden” United States, cites the study. ”Homicide results suggest that where guns are scarce other weapons are substituted in killings.” In other words, the elimination of guns does not eliminate murder, and in the case of gun-controlled Russia, murder rates are quite high.

The study revealed several European countries with significant gun ownership, like Norway, Finland, Germany and France – had remarkably low murder rates. Contrast that with Luxembourg, “where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002.

The study found no evidence to suggest that the availability of guns contributes to higher murder rates anywhere in the world. ”Of course, it may be speculated that murder rates around the world would be higher if guns were more available. But there is simply no evidence to support this.”

The authors also took a look at the effect of gun control laws in various U.S. states, gun ownership in rural and urban areas, and across racial lines. The long and short of it is that a small number of extremely active criminals with lengthy criminal records are responsible for the overwhelming super-majority of all gun crimes, and these criminals are psychopaths that ignore all laws.

The study also cited a previous report that was unable to find a single gun control law implemented in the United States that is proven to have reduced violent crime.


Perhaps someone could forward the study to Chicago Mayor Rahm "Tiny Dancer" Emanuel, not that facts ever influenced a Democrat's policy position.


Hat tip: BadBlue Gun News - Your Real-time Source for Firearms and Second Amendment News

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo

Guest post by Greg Palast

When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

To get that confirmation, I would have to fly to Geneva and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy. I did. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalization, told me,

"The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people…. We don't have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating."

Then I showed him the memo.

It begins with Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the then most powerful CEOs on the planet and get them to order their lobbyist armies to march:

"As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs…."

To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed their private lines. And here they are: