Public Airwaves? Some Are More "Public" Than Others

“CBS Standards & Practices has determined the Ad you submitted is not within CBS Broadcast Standards.”




Crossposted at The Dougout

Egregiastes

1. Insanity, insanity saith the blogger. All is insanity.

2. For what doth it profit a political party, to gain power, only to lose donors by laying upon them heavy taxes? It then must needs extract its lucre by means of force, and thus risk the wrath of its former supporters, who then turn to other parties and give of their means to vote out them whom they formerly supported.

3. Insanity, insanity, mocketh the blogger. All is insanity.

4. How great and imminent is the fall of that nation, where once she traveled the stars, and to the moon, and gazed in awesome wonder at the Vast and Beauteous Creation, yet now she groveleth in the dust before the ignorant and rash sons of Allah, the scions of their prophet's backwardness and savagery.

5. Insanity, insanity, rageth the blogger. All is insanity!

6. For one generation smiteth its progeny, when they are inconvenient, and then, in the fullness of age, waxeth old and demandeth of the young who are fewer, to support them in their dotage, and find it is now their turn to be inconvenient.

The Obama Administration Protected Black Panther Who Advocates Killing White Babies

BUMPED TO THE TOP - SCROLL DOWN FOR NEWER POSTS

I have long maintained that Barack Obama is a racist, that he simply does not like white people. I know it's hard to believe. One can look at his administration and see that he is surrounded by white people.

But, if the Van Jones appointment didn't let you know which way the wind was blowing, then this ought to.





Barack Obama goes back a way with the New Black Panther Party. Remember, they had a page on his campaign website; MyBarackObama.com

For all you Infidels laying low in the East Coast Broiler

What Retraction? Harry Potter Star's Attempted Honor Killers, Her father and Brother, Lie About Fabricated "Retraction" to Discredit the Badly Beaten Victim

The media wants, so badly, for this story to just go away.

From Atlas Shrugs:

 

There have been myriad news reports of late that the badly beaten Afshan Azad (Muslim star of the Harry Potter movie) wanted to retract the honor killing charges against her father and her brother (who attempted to kill her for dating a non-Muslim young man). The thing is, the "retraction" did not come from her or her lawyer. The source is her would-be paternal and fraternal killers. They are would-be murderers for Islam, so what's a lie -- it's righteous, right?

Attorney John Wolfson, who is defending the pair, insists that Afshan has tried to retract her statement, regretting the outcome of the investigation. He states that she never wanted for her father and brother to be arrested.

Their spin is that "she  tried on three occasions to retract her statement and has pleaded with the Crown Prosecution Service not to arrest" them. Is that so? So why was the restraining order against them issued after the arrest? And why are they prohibited from traveling to London, where she is staying? It is still unsafe for her there. She is not only a target for her family, but she is seen as an enemy  of the Muslimcommunity. After the father and brother were arrested, they expressed fear of reprisals from the Muslim community for failing to uphold their "family honor." Here is that admission.

Speaking at the family’s semi-detached home, her brother Ashraf, a customer services adviser, said: ‘We are going to get trouble from the community now. It is bad news for our safety, her safety.

‘My younger brother is going to get harassed at college. All our family is going to be harassed by the community because of this.

What's most galling is how the media and various columnists took it on its face without so much as a cursory inquiry. This young woman needs protection, real protection. Instead, the media is working to protect her attempted killers in the name of Islam.

Click on the title above to get the whole story at Atlas.

Adnan Shukrijumah to be charged in bomb plot

Adnan Shukrijumah to be charged in bomb plot

AP: Federal prosecutors are expected to announce terrorism charges against an al-Qaida leader with ties to last year’s thwarted plot to bomb the New York City subway system.

Law enforcement officials say Adnan Shukrijumah (ahd-NAHN’ el SHOOK’-ree joohm-HAH’) will be named in an indictment in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday.

Shukrijumah has eluded the FBI for years and remains at large. He is among the top candidates to be al-Qaida’s next head of external operations, the man in charge of planning attacks worldwide.

Authorities believe Shukrijumah met with a would-be suicide bomber in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since 9/11.

Adnan Shukrijumah, the most dangerous Jihadist in the world; charged by Bin Laden with bringing a nuclear strike against the USA.

We're talking tough, but of course, we have no fucking idea where he is.

A Personal Note

It's hot here.

Reading Eagle:
102 degrees sets new record

A record-setting 102 degrees was recorded at Reading Regional Airport on Tuesday, marking only the 10th time that the mercury has gone that high at an official site in Berks County.

It was also the second day in a row for at least 100 degrees, and that marked only the sixth time for back-to-back 100s.

Another 100 is in the forecast for today. Only one other time has there been back-to-back-to-back 100s: July 2-4, 1966.

Records date to 1898. For most of those years, the measurements were taken in the city. The airport became the official site in 1999.

Former Lebanese Minister: “I Support the Germans Because They Burned the Jews”

From Weasel Zippers:

Interviewer: Who do you support [in the World Cup]?

Wiam Wahhab: My children and I supported Brazil.

Interviewer: Me too.

Wiam Wahhab: Brasil lost. My wife supports Germany. We drive the kids mad. Now I am supporting Argentina.

Interviewer: You have become subordinate to your wife when it comes to soccer?

Wiam Wahhab: No. I support Germany in politics and Brazil in soccer. I like the way Brazil plays. But I like the Germans because they hate the Jews and they burned them.

Mubarak has Cancer

Debka:

Egyptian President Mubarak has cancer of the esophagus

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak , 83, was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, the muscular tube through which food passes from the mouth to the stomach, eight months ago, although his illness was kept a state secret, debkafile's intelligence sources report. The diagnosis was confirmed on March 6, when the president underwent surgery at a hospital in Germany. It was first reported by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 437 on March 19 in a report captioned "Mubarak Has Cancer - Presidential Powers are in Process of Transfer."

Since returning home, the president is rarely seen in Cairo and spends most of his time at the Sharm el-Sheikh Sinai resort. There, he enjoys the rest recommended for him and his medical advisers, some from abroad, can come and go unnoticed.

Most recently, the doctors told him the cancerous cells are spreading.

Monday, July 5, the Egyptian president arrived in Paris - officially for meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri. But our sources say he traveled for medical tests at the exclusive Percy Military Hospital at Clamart, outside Paris, where senior French politicians and the president's important friends are treated in great privacy.

Incidentally, it was there that Yasser Arafat was hospitalized and died in 2004.

Mubarak has spent the last two years carefully managing the transition of power so that his passing will not leave a vacuum or cause political earthquakes. According to debkafile's Middle East sources, the transfer of the presidency to his son Gemal (Jimmy) Mubarak, 52, was set in train in the winter of 2009 with the help of military and political bodies connected with the ruling National Democratic Party-NPD.

Gemal was groomed as successor and currently holds the post of General Secretary of the NPD's Policy Committee.

Deals were struck with the top Egyptian military and intelligence echelons to support the candidacy of Mubarak Jr. and not put up their own candidates for president. There is no truth therefore in the rumors that intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman is the favored candidate of Egypt's military.

The president-in-waiting still faces two tests. One is how he handles the expansion of his executive powers so as to fill his father's shoes as clear frontrunner in advance of the 2011 presidential election. The younger Mubarak will also be watched to see if opens the election to international monitors, thereby giving his country its first comparatively free election - or leave Egyptian supervisory mechanisms in place and assure himself of victory.

Many Egyptians are asking if Gemal Mubarak will let partial democracy be introduced after his father's long years of suppressing opposition.

Rusty Sez Anna Chapman's Nude Photos May Win Her Freedom

Update: Anna's Maxim Photo Shoot Video Here

Dissent in the IRGC poses a mortal threat to the regime, and a former member that spied for the CIA tells FrontPage that they can no longer by relied upon. The regime is finding itself unable to trust even its top operatives as one of the pillars holding it together starts to crumble.

Mexican Cartel Threatens to Blow Up Texas Dam; Generates "Plenty of Concern"

Spain: Gang of Immigrants Rape Women To Get Revenge For Colonialism

From Minuto Digital:

The violations occurred between August 15 and September 20, 2007, and always against girls who were then accompanied by their boyfriends or a friend in Madrid's Parque del Oeste.

César U.Q. even attacked a total of six couples. the defendant forced to lie face down to the kids and walked away with the girls, "with a clear mind lewd" to a park area with many trees and savagely raped them there. He came to rape one of the victims lying on her back and keep up with her boyfriend.
According to the victims, immigrants came to tell any of them that he did "to exact revenge on the Spanish for all that the Spanish had done to the Latinos."

"The United States may be able to live with it, we can't."

Washington Times:

U.A.E. diplomat mulls hit on Iran's nukes
Prefers strike to armed foe
By Eli Lake

ASPEN, Colo. The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that the benefits of bombing Iran's nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose.

In unusually blunt remarks, Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba publicly endorsed the use of the military option for countering Iran's nuclear program, if sanctions fail to stop the country's quest for nuclear weapons.

"I think it's a cost-benefit analysis," Mr. al-Otaiba said. "I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion … there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what."

"If you are asking me, 'Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?,' my answer is still the same: 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the U.A.E."

Mr. al-Otaiba made his comments in response to a question after a public interview session with the Atlantic magazine at the Aspen Ideas Festival here. They echo those of some Arab diplomats who have said similar things in private to their American counterparts but never this bluntly in public.

The remarks surprised many in the audience.

Rep. Jane Harman of California, a former ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, told The Washington Times after the session that "I have never heard an Arab government official say that before. He was stunningly candid."
Read more »

The Rout of Obamanomics

American Spectator:

By Peter Ferrara on 7.7.10 @ 6:08AM

In February 2009, I published a commentary in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Reaganomics v. Obamanomics," which pointed out that President Obama's economic policies were exactly the opposite of President Reagan's. I predicted that as a result they would produce exactly the opposite results. Art Laffer has produced a far more sophisticated argument advancing a similar analysis.

But the June unemployment report released last Friday shows an economy doing much worse at this point than even I expected. More than 30 months after the official start of the recession, the economy is still losing jobs, with non-farm payroll employment declining by 125,000 jobs in June. A total of 652,000 workers fled the workforce in June, and therefore were no longer counted as unemployed, which is why the unemployment rate fell from 9.7% to 9.5%. That follows 322,000 who dropped out of the workforce in May, for a total of nearly a million workers dropping out of the labor force in the last two months alone. If those million workers had remained in the workforce looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 10.1%.

Moreover, average hours worked per week dropped for all workers, as did average hourly earnings.
Read more »

Newsmax:

TSA Drops Policy Blocking Controversial Sites
Wednesday, 07 Jul 2010 08:48 AM
By: Joseph Weber and David R. Sands

After an uproar from conservative bloggers and free-speech activists, the Transportation Security Administration late Tuesday rescinded a new policy that would have prevented employees from accessing websites with "controversial opinions" on TSA computers at work.

The ban on "controversial opinion" sites, issued late last week, was included as part of a more general TSA Internet-usage policy blocking employee access to gambling and chat sites, as well as sites that dealt with extreme violence or criminal activity.

But the policy itself became controversial as the Drudge Report and a number of conservative bloggers highlighted the possibility that the policy could be used to censor websites critical of the agency or of the Obama administration in general. The American Civil Liberties Union also questioned the language.

TSA spokeswoman Lauren Gaches said the agency's revised "acceptable use" policy for Internet access on the agency's network was designed to block sites "that promote destructive behavior to one's self or others."

"After further review, TSA determined the 'controversial opinion' category may contain some sites that do not violate TSA's policy and therefore has concluded that the category is no longer being considered for implementation," she said in an e-mail to The Washington Times.
Read more »

Bolton - 'Arab Countries Would Support Attack On Iran'

A Human Events interview with John Bolton:

by Jason Mattera
07/07/2010

In a HUMAN EVENTS exclusive, former UN Ambassador John Bolton argued that a preemptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would privately have the full backing of many Middle East countries. "The Obama Administration does not manifestly understand," noted Bolton, that "an Israeli attack against the Iranian nuclear program would be supported in the Arab world. It would be supported by the Arab states in the Persian Gulf region. It would be supported by Egypt and others who don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons any more than the Israelis do."



Although, in Mr. Bolton's view, such an attack should be led by the United States because "we could do it a lot better." Instead, when countries look at the Obama Administration, Bolton maintained, they see the "contemporary version of George McGovern saying 'come home America,' withdrawing from Iraq regardless of the strategic situation on the ground; withdrawing from Afghanistan beginning of the summer of 2011, whether or not we've achieved our strategic objectives."

To the former ambassador, Obama's spiritless attitude toward Iran is because the President views "external challenges to the United States" as a diversion from what he wants to do, "which is restructure our domestic healthcare system, restructure our financial system, restructure our energy system--restructure much of American life."

"That's a real failure of Obama leadership," said Bolton.

NASA's actual space ambitions

"...the United States is not going to travel beyond low-Earth orbit on its own... " NASA ADMINISTRATOR CHARLES BOLDEN

No doubt this administration infects everything with the unspoken ideal ...

"A man more able than his brothers insults them by implication" Ellsworth Toohey

We wouldn't want to risk such insult to others, would we?

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CNN:

Death by stoning imminent for Iranian woman, attorney says
By Moni Basu, CNN
July 1, 2010 8:43 p.m. EDT
Sakineh Ashtiani was sentenced to death on adultery charges
Mother of two will be killed using a "barbaric" method, says her Tehran lawyer
He says she was forced to confess under duress

(CNN) -- Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, a mother of two, is waiting to die in Iran by a method of execution described by her lawyer as "barbaric" -- stoning.

She will be buried up to her chest, deeper than a man would be, and the stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately, according to an Amnesty International report that cited the Iranian penal code.

The 42-year-old woman from the northern city of Tabriz was convicted of adultery in 2006, and her execution is imminent, said prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei.

Ashtiani was forced to confess after being subjected to 99 lashes, Mostafaei said Thursday in a telephone interview from Tehran.

She later retracted that confession and has denied wrongdoing. Her conviction was based not on evidence but on the determination of three out of five judges, Mostafaei said. She has asked forgiveness from the court but the judges refused to grant clemency.

Iran's supreme court upheld the conviction in 2007.

Mostafaei believes a language barrier prevented his client from fully comprehending court proceedings. Ashtiani is of Azerbaijani descent and speaks Turkish, not Farsi.

The circumstances of Ashtiani's case make it not an exception but the rule in Iran, according to Amnesty International, which tracks death penalty cases around the world.

"The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women, who suffer disproportionately from such punishment," the human rights group said in a 2008 report.

On Wednesday, Amnesty made a new call to the Iranian government to immediately halt all executions and commute all death sentences. The group has recorded 126 executions in Iran from the start of this year to June 6.

"The organization is also urging the authorities to review and repeal death penalty laws, to disclose full details of all death sentences and executions and to join the growing international trend towards abolition," the statement said.

In Washington, the State Department criticized the scheduled stoning, saying it raised serious concerns about human rights violations by the Iranian government.

"We have grave concerns that the punishment does not fit the alleged crime, " Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley said Thursday. "For a modern society such as Iran, we think this raises significant human rights concerns."

Calling Iran's judicial system "disproportionate" in its treatment of women, Crowley said, "From the United States' standpoint, we don't think putting women to death for adultery is an appropriate punishment."

Human rights activists have been pushing the Islamic government to abolish stoning, arguing that women are not treated equally before the law in Iran and are especially vulnerable in the judicial system. A woman's testimony is worth half that of a man.

Article 74 of the Iranian penal code requires at least four witnesses -- four men or three men and two women -- for an adulterer to receive a stoning sentence, said Mina Ahadi, coordinator for the International Committee Against Stoning. But there were no witnesses in Ashtiani's case. Often, said Ahadi, husbands turn wives in to get out of a marriage.

Mostafaei said he could not understand how such a savage method of death could exist in the year 2010 or how an innocent woman could be taken from her son and daughter, who have written to the court pleading for their mother's life.

The public won't be allowed to witness the stoning, Mostafaei said, for fear of condemnation of such a brutal method. He is hoping there won't be an execution.

Mostafaei, who himself did jail time in the aftermath of the disputed presidential elections in June 2009, said he realizes the risk of speaking out for Ashtiani, for fighting for human rights. But he doesn't let that deter him.

He last saw Ashtiani five months ago behind bars in Tabriz. Since then, he said, he has been searching for a way to save her from the stones.

Just a Little Off The Top

ABC:

Iran Launches Holy War on Haircuts
New Regulations Ban 'Decadent' Hairstyles For Men

by LARA SETRAKIAN

It's something like a holy war on haircuts . Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has issued a directive banning 'decadent' hairstyles for men, restricting barber shops to only certain kinds of cuts. The primary target: spiky, gelled hairdos associated with rebellious youths, corrupted by Western influence. It's a style that was commonly seen on the front line of last year's post-election protests.

The faces and bodies of young Iranians have long been part of the political arena, an extension of Islam's role in governing public life. By law women must cover their heads and bodies; men are encouraged to grow beards (a sign of faith), discouraged from wearing neckties (too foreign), and now, banned from getting hip hairstyles (too subversive).

Iran launched a crackdown on so-called 'Western' hairstyles in 2007, yet the streets of Iran remain a mix: some men bearded and in conservative clothing – a way to wear their faith - and others in blue jeans, ponytails and long hair, or sporting the spiky style. At times police have cracked down on what has been deemed illegal hair or dress, just as they have clamped down on women whose head scarves reveal too much scalp.
Read more »

Two months ago, north of Monterrey, the Mexican military discovered a huge weapons cache that should send a shiver down the spine of any U.S. law enforcement official. The arms cache was located roughly 50 miles away from the Texas border.

Newsmax:

French Parliament Debates Ban On Burqa-Style Veils
Tuesday, 06 Jul 2010 06:48 PM

France's justice minister went before parliament Tuesday to defend a hotly debated bill that would ban burqa-style Islamic veils in public, arguing that hiding your face from your neighbors is a violation of French values.

Michele Alliot-Marie's speech at the National Assembly marked the start of parliamentary debate on the bill. It is widely expected to become law, despite the concerns of many French Muslims, who fear it will stigmatize them. Many law scholars also argue it would violate the constitution.

The government has used various strategies to sell the proposal, casting it at times as a way to promote equality between the sexes, to protect oppressed women or to ensure security in public places.

Alliot-Marie argued that it has nothing to do with religion or security — she argued simply that life in the French Republic "is carried out with a bare face."

"It is a question of dignity, equality and transparency," she said in a speech that made scant mention of Muslim veils. Officials have taken pains to craft language that does not single out Muslims: While the proposed legislation is colloquially referred to as the "anti-burqa law," it is officially called "the bill to forbid covering one's face in public."
Read more »

Newsmax:

Obama Backs Israel on Nuclear Conference
Tuesday, 06 Jul 2010 09:10 PM

WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama warned Tuesday that attempts to single out Israel over its undeclared nuclear program could scupper a Middle East regional nuclear conference planned for 2012.

Obama delivered the warning in a statement about his talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he gave Israel a veiled, but public assurance over its strategic nuclear ambiguity.

"The President emphasized that the conference will only take place if all countries feel confident that they can attend, and that any efforts to single out Israel will make the prospects of convening such a conference unlikely," the statement said.

Obama also agreed to work with Israel to oppose any efforts to single out the Jewish state at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference in September.

After a decade of deadlock, the Non-Proliferation Treaty's 189 nations proposed new steps in May towards nuclear disarmament and making the Middle East free of atomic weapons.

Diplomats at an NPT review conference approved by consensus a 28-page final document that for the first time laid out action plans on disarmament, non-proliferation and promoting peaceful atomic energy.
Read more »

Islam Continues to Infect Europe

A great post from Bernie at Planck's Constant:

In my article Why Too Many Muslims in a Country is Dangerous we viewed a video of French Muslim thugs physically preventing shoppers from buying products from Israel.

I pointed out if France did not have so many Muslims the owner of the Supermarket would have called the police to stop them. Sadly, France has too many Muslims and so the police will not come: they are afraid.
It is no accident that antisemitism in Europe is on the rise and matched precisely with the rise of Muslim immigration. For example, Jews are leaving the Swedish city of Malmo after a surge in anti-Semitic hate crimes.(1)

Take a guess which city in Sweden contains the largest number of Muslim thugs?

Go read the whole thing.

Gov. Brewer on Twitter: “I will not stop fighting. I will defend AZ and continue to do the job Obama refuses to do.”

The Obama Regime is suing the state of Arizona on behalf of “The United States of America” — that is, the citizens of the US — and they are using our tax dollars to finance this lawsuit.

The Justice Department’s suit against Arizona does not charge “discrimination”

It doesn’t even mention the word. It doesn’t mention the word “Nazi” either. Perhaps the racists in the White House actually read the law.

ABC News — As widely anticipated, Attorney General Eric Holder today filed a lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer over the state’s immigration law. The suit seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the law from being implemented.
The court filing states that Arizona law is pre-empted by federal law and therefore violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The filing makes no assertion that the law is discriminatory or risks being applied in a discriminatory fashion, as the president and other officials said they feared would be the case. Interestingly, this suit makes no civil rights charges against the Arizona law. . . .
“The State of Arizona has crossed this constitutional line,” write Assistant Attorney General Tony West, United States Attorney Dennis K. Burke and others. “In acknowledged disagreement with the manner in which the federal government has regulated immigration and in contravention of these constitutional principles. . . The states are not permitted to set their own independent immigration policies, with varying and potentially conflicting enforcement systems and priorities. Were a number of states to act as Arizona has and strike out on their own, federal immigration policy and enforcement efforts would be crippled.”
The suit states that the Arizona law pursues only the goal of “attrition” while ignoring other objectives Congress has established for the federal immigration system.

What do we mean by the political class?

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has handed out raises--some of more than 20 percent--to his staff while proclaiming a message of "shared sacrifice" and planning spending cuts of $1.4 billion because the state is awash in debt.

The Democrat has given 43 salary increases averaging 11.4 percent to 35 staffers in the past 15 months, according to an Associated Press analysis of records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

They include a $24,000-a-year bump for the man promoted to shepherd the state through the fiscal storm. Budget Director David Vaught got a 20 percent raise to bring his pay to $144,000 in October when he moved to his new position from Quinn's staff, where he was a senior adviser.

Blago and now this guy.

Why is there tea?

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Bonnie Raitt
Silver Lining

White House Defends NASA Chief’s Comments Regarding Outreach to Muslims

The absurd defending the absurder…


Awesome graphic and byline from Weasel Zippers.


Click here to read the whole thing.

Obama Has Pissed Off Some Big Donors

From the front page of the July 6, 2010 edition of the Washington Post:

A revolt among big donors on Wall Street is hurting fundraising for the Democrats' two congressional campaign committees, with contributions from the world's financial capital down 65 percent from two years ago.

Honestly, what did BHO expect?

And are we witnessing the coming demise of the Democratic Party?

On the other hand, the GOP isn't doing too well either with collecting donations. Read the article for more details.

Obama's Foreign Policy Mistakes

I'm not a great fan of Mitt Romney. But check out the first paragraph of his opinion piece in the July 6, 2010 edition of the WaPo:

Given President Obama's glaring domestic policy missteps, it is understandable that the public has largely been blinded to his foreign policy failings. In fact, these may have been even more damaging to America's future. He fought to reinstate Honduras's pro-Chávez president while stalling Colombia's favored-trade status. He castigated Israel at the United Nations but was silent about Hamas having launched 7,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip. His policy of "engagement" with rogue nations has been met with North Korean nuclear tests, missile launches and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, while Iran has accelerated its nuclear program, funded terrorists and armed Hezbollah with long-range missiles. He acceded to Russia's No. 1 foreign policy objective, the abandonment of our Europe-based missile defense program, and obtained nothing whatsoever in return.

Spot on, in my view. Damning, in fact.

The next paragraph reads as follows as Romney goes on to discuss BHO's worst foreign-policy mistake:

Despite all of this, the president's New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia could be his worst foreign policy mistake yet. The treaty as submitted to the Senate should not be ratified....

[...]

By all indications, the Obama administration has been badly out-negotiated....

Read the whole thing HERE.

White Castle, IHOP Both Say Their Businesses Are Going to be Threatened by ObamaCare

From Weasel Zippers:

(Cleveland Plain Dealer)- The White Castle hamburger chain fears that a health insurance reform law adopted earlier this year will put its profits on a downward slide.

The Columbus-based family owned restaurant chain – known for serving small square hamburgers called “sliders” – says a single provision in the bill will eat up roughly 55 percent of its yearly net income after 2014.
Starting that year, the bill levies a $3,000-per-employee penalty on companies whose workers pay more than 9.5 percent of household income in premiums for company-provided insurance.

White Castle, which currently provides insurance to all of its full-time workers and picks up 70 to 89 percent of their premium costs, believes it will likely end up paying those penalties. The financial hit will make it hard for the company to maintain its 421 restaurants, let alone create new jobs, says company spokesman Jamie Richardson. White Castle employs more than 10,000 people nationwide, and more than 1,200 in Ohio.

Though advocates of the health insurance bill say its reforms will boost employment, House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, a vocal foe of the changes, says White Castle’s analysis shows how the law’s “job-crushing” impact will be most severe in lower-income areas, where jobs like those at White Castle are most needed.

“The irony is that in the name of expanding health care coverage, the administration is making it harder than ever for unskilled workers to get started in the workforce,” Boehner said in a missive on White Castle’s plight.

George Ebinger of New Jersey, who owns several International House of Pancakes restaurants, says the penalties for not insuring his 140 workers will cost roughly half as much as insuring them. He figures he will have to raise prices and possibly lay off workers to come up with the $220,000 he anticipates the penalties will cost.

REAPEAL!

So you say you're sick of it, bunky?

EVERY DAY IS ANOTHER HOWARD BEALE MOMENT

Who Says The IDF Doesn't Have a Sense of Humor

Let The White Men Can't Dance Jokes Begin

BBC:

Israeli soldiers escape 'dance routine' penalty

Six Israeli soldiers have escaped being penalised after a video of them doing a dance routine while on duty in the West Bank went viral in Israel.

The video shows the troops breaking into a choreographed dance routine, set to US singer Kesha's dance hit Tik Tok.

It was originally removed from YouTube, but has since reappeared.

Initial reports said the six were facing disciplinary action, but the army later said the soldiers were just fooling around and no harm was done.

The YouTube user who originally posted the clip identified it as "Battalion 50 Rock the Hebron Casbah", the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

It shows the six - armed with assault rifles and kitted out in bulletproof vests - doing a combination of the Macarena and the chicken dance to the catchy dance track, before twirling in pairs and skipping out of camera shot while holding hands.

After it was taken down, it was re-posted by a user who added the title: "It's easy to laugh at the occupation when you're the oppressor (and a douchebag)."

Hebron is home to about 160,000 Muslims, but some 500 Israeli settlers live in the centre of the city with a heavy Israeli security detail.

On Monday, Israeli TV stations picked up the clip and aired it repeatedly.

The military called the video a "stunt" and said the troops' commanders had been informed.

Is Harry Potter Actress a Potential Honor Killing Victim?

Afshan Azad, “Harry Potter” Actress, Tries to Reverse Course
When a woman’s batterer is finally arrested, she is often the first to plead with authorities to let him go. He is her provider, perhaps the father of her children; she “loves” him. More to the point: she is now really afraid that he will kill her because his abuse has been publicly exposed and he has been arrested for it.

When a woman turns to the law — which is there to protect her — she may be endangering herself even further. As powerful as the law may be, criminals do not obey it and police officers cannot be everywhere and at all times. When the law is not looking, the further outraged abuser will exact vengeance. He will kill the woman who turned to the law, who publicly shamed her husband and family.

This is what Muzzammil (“Mo”) Hassan did in Buffalo when his wife Aasiya finally got an order of protection against his savage beatings and verbal and psychological abuse. He beheaded her. This is what husband-batterers of every ethnicity tend to do — not behead, but murder battered wives when they leave or turn to the law. This is one reason that so many battered women stay.

Interestingly,  according to my most recent study in Middle East Quarterly, only among Muslim batterer-murderers do the woman’s family of origin and/or the husband’s family of origin sometimes collaborate in her honor killing. This never happens in western cases of domestically violent femicide.

We must keep all this in mind as we contemplate the most recent news out of England: Bangladeshi British-Muslim Afshan Azad, the Harry Potter actress whose father and brother threatened to kill her and “badly bruised” her over her relationship with a Hindu man, has been begging the court to release her brother and father who have now been jailed for five weeks. According to the Daily Mail:

“The actress has tried on three occasions to retract her statement and has pleaded with the Crown Prosecution Service not to proceed with the matter. … This is a desperately sad situation. She never wanted her father or brother locked up.”

Afshan Azad

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The Clattering Train quakes towards Nov, and onwards to it's destiny

Image via Wikipedia

Mort Zuckerman, liberal, Obama supporter, editor/publisher of US News and World Reports:

The hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again. Hope may have been a quick breakfast, but it has proved a poor supper. A year and a half ago Obama was walking on water. Today he is barely treading water. Then, his soaring rhetoric enraptured the nation. Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.

There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn't work, that it is incapable of solving America's problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress, and by the Republicans.

The American people wanted change, and who could blame them? But now there is no change they can believe in. Sixty-two percent believe we are headed in the wrong direction --a record during this administration. All the polls indicate that anti-Washington, anti-incumbent sentiment is greater than it has been in many years. For the first time, Obama's disapproval rating has topped his approval rating. In a recent CBS News poll, there is a meager 15 percent approval rating for Congress. In all polls, voters who call themselves independents have swung against the administration and against incumbents.

And from there he REALLY let's on how upset he is

Eugene Robinson, WaPo, pulitzer, total supporter, and in the last few months chief complainer on the left that Obama is NOT about jobs, and if you read recognize he is NOT a member of the 'political class':

The Unemployment Emergency

By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON -- The good news is that unemployment has fallen to "only" 9.5 percent. The bad news is that the jobless rate is down only because so many people have given up hope of finding work. Perversely, the jobless who aren't actively looking for jobs are not counted as "unemployed."

Perhaps there should be a new category titled "mired in existential despair."

If anyone in Washington wants to know why people in the hinterlands are angry, one simple answer is that our political leaders seem to be so calculating and unmoved about the parlous state of the economy.

The disheartening employment figures released last Friday quickly became fodder for the kind of political to-and-fro that has become standard operating procedure. President Obama quickly put his spin on the numbers, noting that the private sector added 83,000 jobs in the month of June. The president's Republican opponents noted that overall, the economy lost 125,000 jobs -- taking into account not just the private-sector gain, but the end of 225,000 temporary jobs for census workers.

WSJ:

The Government Pay Bonus

Private employees toil 13½ months to earn what federal workers do in 12.

By ANDREW G. BIGGS AND JASON RICHWINE

Pay cuts, layoffs and the highest unemployment rates in decades have reignited a debate over the relative treatment of public and private workers. USA Today reported in March that federal workers earn substantially higher wages than private sector employees who work the same types of jobs.

White House budget chief Peter Orszag responded that these pay differences merely reflect the superior skills of federal workers, not government largess. Adjusting for education and experience, he said, federal workers make about the same salaries as private workers. Mr. Orszag also correctly pointed out that public and private job categories aren't directly comparable, so we shouldn't necessarily expect them to have the same pay.

Nevertheless, salaries are only one part of total compensation. Government employees may also receive more generous health and pension benefits than Americans working for private enterprise. So are federal employees overpaid? Data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) suggest they are.

Deroy Murdock:

All-American Light Bulb Dims as Freedom Flickers

By Deroy Murdock

As the U.S.A. celebrates its 234th birthday, the plight of a quintessentially American innovation says volumes about the state of the union.

As American as the grand slam, the Mustang convertible, and the constitutional republic, Thomas Alva Edison's incandescent light bulb is among this nation's most enduring gifts to mankind. Granted U.S. Patent No. 223,898 on January 27, 1880 (after some 1,200 experiments), Edison's "Electric-Lamp" essentially made night optional for most Earthlings. Days stopped ending at sunset. Simple, convenient, and cheap, Edison's greatest invention also was far safer than the flammable kerosene lamps they replaced.

Today's federal government, naturally, had to hammer something that has hummed along nicely for 130 years. In one of his most shameful moments, former president George W. Bush foolishly signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. EISA establishes performance criteria that Edisonian bulbs cannot meet. As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) explains: "These standards, which begin in 2012, will eliminate low efficiency incandescent light bulbs from the market."

According to an April 14 fact sheet from General Electric, which Edison founded in 1876, 276 versions of its incandescent bulbs will start to vanish just 18 months from now. Few Americans realize that federal busybodies plan to snatch their traditional bulbs. Sylvania's December 2009 survey of 302 adults found that "awareness of the 2012 100-watt bulb phase-out" is just 18 percent (error margin: +/- 5.7 percent).

EISA has made more common compact fluorescent lights, those swirly bulbs with distinct pros and cons. Costlier up front, energy-efficient CFLs eventually save money. They also require less frequent replacement than do traditional bulbs.

To discover CFLs' negatives, try setting a romantic mood with a dimmer switch. This is, at best, a hit or miss proposition. Scarier still, just drop one onto your kitchen floor. Its internal mercury is highly toxic. If spilled, it requires something approximating a Superfund cleanup. The Environmental Protection Agencywarns that if a CFL breaks on one's apparel or bedspread, "Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage" (emphasis added).

As we wathc the pontless, delayed actions, the apologies, attempts to restrict freedoms, end businesses, punish businessmen, demonize profit, reward govt power, ..... wonder

Who is in charge of the clattering train?

The axles creak and the couplings strain,

and the pace is hot and the points are near,

and sleep hath deadened the driver's ear,

and the signals flash through the night in vain,

for death is in charge of the clattering train

Religion of Sado-Masochism

Pakistan “Honor” Whipping: Two Women Stripped Naked, Thrashed in Public Over Alleged Affair

Allah says, "You've been a bad girl."

Legally Actionable: Lawsuit Heats Up Against US Government Promotion, Advancement of Sharia 

From Atlas Shrugs:

David Yerushalmi and the Thomas More Law Center are continuing in their landmark lawsuit against the US government's acceptance, promotion and advancement of sharia (Islamic law and finance). 

Look for breaking news on that in the next few weeks.
David Yerushalmi explains the lawsuit against the sharia (Islamic law):

Shariah is the Islamic legal doctrine and system that drives jihad against the infidel West and provides for murdering apostates—those Muslims who seek to exercise some modicum of religious liberty by leaving Islam. Shariah-compliant finance (SCF) is the application of this dangerous if not fatal religious-legal system to modern finance, business, and economics. There is no space between the Shariah that drives OBL, Qaradawi, and the Muslim Brotherhood and SCF as practiced by Dow Jones, HSBC, AIG and others. When the US government took more than $150 billion of tax payer money to bail out and take ownership and control of AIG, it had a duty to its citizens and to common sense to remove any vestige of Shariah as the enemy’s doctrine of war.
Instead, the US government embraced Shariah and provided AIG with over $1 billion to further its Shariah promotion. US taxpayer dollars used to promote the very Islamic legal doctrine that calls for our destruction as a Western constitutional republic free from tyranny and unwanted religious dogma.
Mr. Kevin Murray, a former combat Marine (Iraq) brought this suit seeking to force either AIG out of Shariah or the U.S. government out of AIG because anything less at the very least was a patent violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, not to mention an abject violation of the oath of office of every Treasury and Fed official embracing SCF.
This reply brief represents the final briefing stage before federal Judge Zatkoff of the Eastern District of Michigan rules on who wins.

What follows is their final brief before oral arguments for the Cross Motions for Summary Judgment. This reply brief is good. It boils the case down to the bare bones in 5 short pages. Yerushalmi and Thomas More law center will be filing shortly a motion asking the judge to UNSEAL the redacted documents (you’ll note some of the AIG money trail in the footnotes is redacted in this public version; the details of their AIG discovery is all under seal currently) on the grounds that the information AIG and the government claim is confidential business information is in fact no such thing, and the public has a right to these documents. The court is likely to grant this motion, so they can expose the nitty-gritty of the money trail from taxpayer pockets to AIG to funding Shariah. 

Go read the whole thing at Atlas Shrugs.

Jerusalem Post:

Report: Hizbullah on US-Mexico border
By JPOST.COM STAFF
06/07/2010

US Republican rep: terror org may be working with drug cartels.

A Hizbullah terror cell may be operating among drugs cartels around the US-Mexican border, announced US Republican National Committee Representative Sue Myrick, according to a Fox News report.

Myrick requested US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano create a special team to further investigate the potential problem and threat.

The Republican representative referenced several incidents that show evidence of Hizbullah's efforts to infiltrate the US region with the aid of Mexican drug cartel gangs.

"It is vital we know what is happening on our border, especially as crime and violence continue to rise there and as terrorist plots and threats are increasing inside the US," quoted the Fox News report.

Myrick cited the warming relationship between Iran and Venzuela as proof that Hizbullah members may be collaborating with Latin American drug cartels, who may be utilizing Hizbullah's ability to dig underground tunnels for drug smuggling and in turn, providing funding, document forging and false identities.

The Fox News report referenced Anthony Placido, assistant administrator for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration, testifying at a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee in March this year, that some drug smugglers in the US-Mexico region have had relationships with Hizbullah between the 1980s and 1990s.

"There are numerous reports of cocaine proceeds entering the coffers of Islamic Radical Groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas," Fox News quoted Placido when he testified to the subcommittee. Placido labeled the proceeds as "easy revenue" that could potentially be used to fund terrorism.

Fox News also cited a 2006 House Homeland Security Committee report which details incidents of Hizbullah operatives who were apprehended when trying to access the US through Mexico. The report mentions Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, a Hizbullah member who pleaded guilty in 2005 for supplying information to the terror organization after he was smuggled in the US through Mexico, and lived in Dearborne, Michigan.

With every step, they just can't help emulating what they idealize internally

>After all, they are pursuing the good of the people, right?

From CBS NEWS: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is blocking certain websites from the federal agency's computers, including halting access by staffers to any Internet pages that contain a "controversial opinion," according to an internal email obtained by CBS News.

The email was sent to all TSA employees from the Office of Information Technology on Friday afternoon.

It states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed "inappropriate for government access."

The categories include:

• Chat/Messaging

• Controversial opinion

• activity

• Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content

• Gaming

The email does not specify how the TSA will determine if a website expresses a "controversial opinion."

There is also no explanation as to why controversial opinions are being blocked, although the email stated that some of the restricted websites violate the Employee Responsibilities and Conduct policy.

The TSA did not return calls seeking comment by publication time.

Really?

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