Reliapundit at Astute Bloggers Says It's Over, Barry

God I hope he is right.

I will not be able to rest until that bastard is on the helicopter and flying off into the distance.

From Astute Bloggers:

AMONG VOTERS WHO HAVE DECIDED, ROMNEY LEADS BY 4%

YUP, THEMS THE NUMBERS.

SO, IF THOSE FOLKS WHO ARE CLAIMING THAT THEY ARE UNDECIDED DON'T BOTHER TO DECIDE OR VOTE, THAT MEANS ROMNEY SHOULD WIN BY 53% TO 47%.

THE REMAINING UNDECIDEDS HAVE HAD 4 YEARS TO MAKE UP THEIR MINDS ABOUT OBAMA, AND IF THEY'RE NOT SURE AT THIS  POINT, THEN THEY WILL NEVER BE SURE.

THEREFORE - IMHO - THEY ARE REALLY DECIDING ON WHETHER TO VOTE ROMNEY OR STAY HOME.

SO ROMNEY IS GUARANTEED AT LEAST 53% OF THE VOTE - OR MORE.

I THINK IT WILL BE MORE AS A BANDWAGON EFFECT BEGINS TO SET IN AFTER THE THIRD DEBATE.

THERE'S NOTHING OBAMA CAN DO AT THIS POINT TO STOP ROMNEY - NOT EVEN BOMBING LIBYA OR SYRIA OR IRAN WILL HELP. NOT EVEN KILLING ZAWAHIRI.

IT'S OVER.

TOUCH WOOD.

File under ‘How the USA ends up OUT of the UN’

THE HILL:

International election monitors to be at US polling places

United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

So all they can do is either nothing or say votes were suppressed in favor of Romney.

Collect the parking fines and send them ALL on their way.

The observers, from countries such as Germany, France, Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, will observe voting at polling places and other political activity.

“They [will] observe the overall election process, not just the ballot casting,” said Giovanna Maiola, spokeswoman for OSCE. “They are focusing on a number of areas on the state level, including the legal system, election administration, the campaign, the campaign financing [and] new voting technologies used in the different states.”

SERBIA AND BELARUS?

KAZAKHSTAN?

“State law does not generally provide for international observers,” Maiola said. “However, through our contacts at state and county level in certain states, we managed to secure invitations at local level and we have taken up the offer to observe. Where this is not possible, we will respect the state regulation on this matter and will not observe in precincts on Election Day.”

I know a polling place in Philadelphia they can observe.

French intel stopped surveillance of Merah months before his rampage

It's been revealed now that the jihad savage who murdered 4 Jews and 2 French soldiers was not being tracked properly by authorities at all:

French intelligence services downgraded an investigation of Mohamed Merah just five months before he opened fire at a crowd of parents and children outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, killing four, AFP reported Friday citing leaked intelligence documents.

According to the French DCRI domestic intelligence service reports, seen by AFP, Merah had been under surveillance since 2006, and was identified as a "privileged target" at the beginning of 2011 upon his return to France in from a trip to Afghanistan.

DCRI agents intercepted Merah in 2011 after the Frenchman returned from a trip to Pakistan. Despite evidence that Merah had been in regular contact with "the radical Islamist movement in Toulouse," was displaying "paranoid behavior," and that he was receiving funds from extremists, the French agency concluded that Merah's surveillance could be curtailed.

Merah killed Rabbi Yonatan Sandler, his two children and the daughter of the school’s principal in the attack outside the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school. The French gunman died after police stormed his apartment two days after the attack.

First arrested at 17, Merah had a number of run-ins with police as a teenager for stone-throwing and shoplifting, before being sentenced to 18 months in jail in 2007 for a robbery. Merah had since ratcheted up at least 15 criminal convictions, and according to DCRI reports was "an individual with a heavy criminal past who is in the process of radicalizing."

I don't know if Nicholas Sarkozy has any responsibility to bear here, but the intel service most definitely does, and has a lot of explaining to do. Their irresponsibility is what's led to tragedy. It's just like the California authorities who turned their backs on Phillip Garrido, the monster who kidnapped Jaycee Dugard in 1991. This failure to enforce the law is just what leads to these kind of horrors.

Report: U.S. Had Predator Drone Over Benghazi As Attack Happened, “They Stood And They Watched And Our People Died”

From CBS News:

The closer we get to the election, the harder Republicans in Congress are pushing for answers to a big question: What really happened in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya last month that killed the U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans? 

Some lawmakers are asking why U.S. military help from outside Libya didn’t arrive as terrorists battered more than 30 Americans over the course of more than seven hours. The assault was launched by an armed mob of dozens that torched buildings and used rocket propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles. 

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle. 

The State Department, White House and Pentagon declined to say what military options were available. 

A White House official told CBS News that, at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.” 

Retired CIA officer Gary Berntsen believes help could have come much sooner. He commanded CIA counter-terrorism missions targeting Osama bin Laden and led the team that responded after bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa. 

“You find a way to make this happen,” Berntsen says. “There isn’t a plan for every single engagement. Sometimes you have to be able to make adjustments. They made zero adjustments in this. They stood and they watched and our people died.” 

The Pentagon says it did move a team of special operators from central Europe to the large Naval Air Station in Sigonella, Italy, but gave no other details. Sigonella is just an hour’s flight from Libya. Other nearby bases include Aviano and Souda Bay. Military sources tell CBS News that resources at the three bases include fighter jets and Specter AC-130 gunships, which the sources say can be extremely effective in flying in and buzzing a crowd to disperse it.

How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-syria-heavy-weapons-jihadists-2012-10#ixzz29rQjdRSj

From Business Insider:
The official position is that the US has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria.

But there's growing evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens' life.

In November 2011 The Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, "met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey" in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.

Last month The Times of London reported that a Libyan ship "carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria … has docked in Turkey." The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. 

Those heavy weapons are most likely from Muammar Gaddafi's stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles—the bulk of them SA-7s—that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc. Reuters reports that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.

The ship's captain was "a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organization called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support," which was presumably established by the new government.

That means that Ambassador Stevens had only one person—Belhadj—between himself and the Benghazi man who brought heavy weapons to Syria.

Furthermore, we know that jihadists are the best fighters in the Syrian opposition, but where did they come from?

Last week The Telegraph reported that a FSA commander called them "Libyans" when he explained that the FSA doesn't "want these extremist people here."

And if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey—a deal brokered by Stevens' primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution—then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.

Furthermore there was a CIA post in Benghazi, located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as "a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles" ... and that its security features "were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died." 

And we know that the CIA has been funneling weapons to the rebels in southern Turkey. The question is whether the CIA has been involved in handing out the heavy weapons from Libya.

In any case, the connection between Benghazi and the rise of jihadists in Syria is stronger than has been 
officially acknowledged.

HERE IS A DAMNING REPORT FROM BRET BAIER AT FOX NEWS:

THE OLD TEMPLATE IS JUST NOT WORKING FOR LEFTIES ANYMORE

It will take them a couple years to thoroughly realize this fact, and formulate a new incursion, uh, I mean strategy.

But, until then, it is fun to watch. And, remember, this is in Liberal New Hampshire.

From Debra Burlingame:

Love this: Burns writes this ignorant emotional gobbledygook piece grounded in a beloved Capra movie--comparing the Community Organizer to this classic American hero--and his New Hampshire readers nail him for it.

Ken Burns: Why I am voting for Barack Obama

saul grayson said:

Obama's record proves otherwise. We are in worse shape internationally than we were four years ago. We are in worst shape economically than we were four years ago. To think otherwise is untrue. To even compare our Country under Mitt Romney as an eventual Potterville, is naive. I would have expected more from a man of the stature of Ken Burns.
(Report Abuse) 

October 19, 2012 5:30 am

Leo Paradis said:

Has Burns been in a coma for four years?
(Report Abuse) 

October 19, 2012 5:42 am

Spike said:

What disgusting opinions cloaked in the author's usual eloquence! Mr. Burns is voting for Mr. Obama: Because of a stereotype--grounded in a movie--about the character of wealthy people, a superficial model of good-versus-evil. Because he believes that Mr. Obama is hostile to the same Americans that Mr. Burns is hostile to, an enemy of his enemies. Because of a dippy vision of a collective identity, to be enforced at federal gunpoint. Because Mr. Burns has bought the Democrat myth that FDR's socialism, which magnified harsh tariffs into a decade-long Depression, and Mr. Obama's socialism, where the government spends money we don't have to con us into thinking we are well off, was better than some alternative, that the 2008 crisis was caused by "Bush deregulation" and not by hyper-regulation forcing banks to make an avalanche of bad loans. Because of the error that the man who bulled through Obama-care embodies "compromise." Essentially because of his belief that someone else's success makes us fail, and Mr. Obama promises to get even with them. And finally, to "do it for the children." Are there still 51% of Americans who can see through a con job?
(Report Abuse) 

October 19, 2012 6:29 am

GO READ THE REST.

UN agency funded with Saudi money wants to edit worldwide textbooks

From Fox News via Will at THE OTHER NEWS:

The UN agency that promotes education wants a say in how future textbooks are written, and Saudi Arabia -- a nation whose own school books have been criticized for promoting hatred of Christians and Jews -- is helping to bankroll the effort. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is currently working with member states to revise its strategy for the publication of textbooks and learning materials.  

According to UNESCO's website, experts from 21 countries met in Paris last month at a meeting financed by a $29,000 Saudi donation and focused in part on "ways to ensure that content aimed at students systematically reflects cultural and religious diversity, and avoids gender stereotypes."  

Then, last week, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah cut a $20 million check to UNESCO's emergency fund.Critics warn that the funding will come at a price, and predict the Saudis will want input into what goes into rewritten textbooks.
 "Saudi textbooks are extremely hateful and full of xenophobic texts," said Ali AlAhmed, author of the upcoming book "Saudi School Books: Objective Education or Extremist Indoctrination?" and director of the Gulf Institute in Washington, D.C. According to AlAhmed, the Saudi funding "shows how xenophobic governments like [that of] the Saudis are able to buy influence."
He said UNESCO was betraying its mandate to uphold "value and standards of education and tolerance" as he warned UNESCO and the UN system as a whole were "susceptible to financial buyouts from countries like Saudi Arabia." 

Drawing from research in his upcoming book, which assessed Saudi school textbooks for the last academic year 

AlAhmed gave examples of what Saudi children are taught. He said a guidebook says first-grade teachers should tell students that: "Adhering to Islam is the only path to enter heaven, and escape hellfire." "It is from Islam to love Muslims, and to hate the unbelievers and not to imitate them." "Examples of false religions [include] Judaism, Christianity."  

AlAhmed says a ninth-grade book teaches that, "The Jews and the Christians are enemies of the believers. He says an 11th-grade book states, "The cursed are: The Christians and all those who have erred from the true path, and worshipped God with other than his orders." 

While the Saudi Embassy press spokesperson in Washington D.C. failed to respond to a request for comment, a UNESCO official signaled that the financial support of members was welcomed. But Brooke Goldstein, director of The Lawfare Project, a non-profit legal think tank based in New York, challenged that position.
"Posturing as though Saudi Arabia's contribution to UNESCO is somehow going to better reflect cultural and religious diversity and avoid gender stereotypes is an outright lie," Goldstein said.

"By working with Saudi Arabia to revise its children's curriculum, UNESCO is not only legitimizing the Kingdom's hate-education system, but abetting the premeditated murder of innocent Muslim children and fomenting educational conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism."

Goldstein added, "It should be no surprise, but is nonetheless of utmost concern, that the Saudis are actively working to influence UNESCO's education curriculum."
The Obama administration cut funding to UNESCO in October 2011 after a majority of its members voted to grant the Palestinians full membership. U.S. law mandated the cut.Read the full story here.

One World Dreams

With thanks to Will from THE OTHER NEWS:

Open Mosque Day In Southern California

Here is a tremendously detailed report by Kelly Williams at Front Page Magazine.

Well done, Kelly. I admire you.

"A poll of Egyptians conducted last month shows that they have increasingly positive views of Iran, believe that both Iran and Egypt should obtain nuclear weapons”

Foreign Policy.

Tell me again why we send billions to Egypt?

New poll: Egyptians turning toward Iran, want nuclear weapons

A poll of Egyptians conducted last month shows that they have increasingly positive views of Iran, believe that both Iran and Egypt should obtain nuclear weapons, and still trust their own military more than any other institution in Egypt.

The poll of 812 Egyptians, half of them women, was conducted in a series of in-person interviews by the firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and sponsored by the Israel Project, a pro-Israel advocacy organization with offices in Washington and Jerusalem. According to the poll, Iran is viewed favorably in Egypt, with 65 percent of those surveyed expressing support of the decision to renew Egypt-Iran relations and 61 percent expressing support of the Iranian nuclear project, versus 41 percent in August 2009.

Sixty-two percent of those polled agreed that “Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are friends of Egypt,” though 68 percent held unfavorable views of Shiite Muslims.

Iran’s deputy defense minister said recently that the Iranian regime is seeking more military cooperation with Egypt. “We are ready to help Egypt to build nuclear reactors and satellites,”he saidon the occasion or Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy’s meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month. Morsy’s officehas saidthe two didn’t discuss military cooperation.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents want Egypt to have its own nuclear bomb.

Israel Project CEOJosh BlocktoldThe Cablethat the statistics show the effect of Morsy’s outreach to Iran and the danger of regional proliferation of nuclear weapons if Iran is successful in obtaining a nuclear bomb.

“Very scary to people opposed to proliferation of nuclear weapons, let alone to unstable countries in the world’s most turbulent part of the world, is the 87 percent who want Egypt to build nuclear weapons,” he said. “Morsy’s dangerous embrace of Iran is leading a surprising shift in favor support for Tehran, which has for decades been seen by Egyptians as their top threat, as well as for their work on nuclear weapons.”

Egyptians are overwhelmingly focused on the dire state of their domestic economy. Only 2 percent of those polled said that “strengthening relations with other Muslim countries” should be one of Morsy’s top two priorities, and 45 percent agreed with the statement that “Egypt needs to focus on things at home and should be less involved in regional politics.”

Nevertheless, 74 percent of those polled said that disapprove of Egypt having diplomatic relations with Israel — an increase from 26 percent in August 2009 — and support for a two-state solution to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at only 30 percent. Seventy-seven percent agreed that “The peace treaty with Israel is no longer useful and should be dissolved.”

Here’s the rest of the article

If Romney’s people don’t cue this up, and recent Pew Polls showing the USA more disliked now than when ‘W’ was prez, and more disliked than before the ‘Arab Spring’, as evidence of TOTAL FAILURE of active support for the so called ‘Arab Spring’ then they will have missed another unbelievably exposed carotid. This is inarguable evidence that Barack Obama, and those around him haven’t got ANY IDEA of the consequences of their actions, and are too naive to imagine what those consequences can be, and what the next level in a chain of events can possibly be.

Obama has GOT to be removed.

The Largest Single Budget Item in the USA is …?

From Budget.Senate.gov comes the answer.

WELFARE

More here.

This is important to know not because Mean Mitt will undertake a program to destroy the Lincoln Continental Driving, La Jolla living, laughing at us welfare queens, but because if it is true that welfare is the number one line in the budget, then what is the priority?

GROWTH

Nothing else counts.

Whatever is practical to achieve growth we do.

Period.

We do all we can to make energy less strangling in day to day life.

We do all we can to make it easier to start and grow small business, and ENSURE banks can easily finance this, AND ensure that the results of quantitative easing do not sit in capital reserve accounts at Goldman Sachs.

We do all we can to ensure that federal moneys go to original R&D and not to crony manufacturers.

We do all we can to ensure that those who use cheap labor which would be ILLEGAL in the USA are compelled to charge fair prices in the USA,.

We do all we can to enable a national set of policies to ensure that fair labor practices overseas become the norm, so that the american economy competes on the basis of american worker competition, not the low wages of a grinding poverty inflicted on others by failed systems and failing dictators, and if that means that one of the CIA’s chief programs becomes aiding unions overseas, GOOD.

These items are how we remove welfare from the top line of the US budget.

These items are why Obama himself is unacceptable and has never been up to his current level of incompetent achievement.

A further thought, Obama has said over and over that this is the worst recession since the 1930’s, but we didn’t have the safety system then that we do now. If the number one item we spend money on is welfare, isn’t this the worst depression the history of the nation? Doesn’t that mean we need to unleash business growth to enable disposable income for the american consumers? Isn’t that the ONLY practical answer?

The govt using its resources to keep Americans from starving BECAUSE IT HAS TO doesn’t sound to me like what the founders had in mind. Or what I do.

Once unemployment drops to below 5% (full employment) we can search out people who would rather work the system than work. I don’t care about that now.

Obama's 36 Green Energy Failures

From Heritage:

It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case.

The truth is that the problem is widespread. The government’s picking winners and losers in the energy market has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and the rate of failure, cronyism, and corruption at the companies receiving the subsidies is substantial. The fact that some companies are not under financial duress does not make the policy a success. It simply means that our taxpayer dollars subsidized companies that would’ve found the financial support in the private market.

So far, 36 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
17. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
18. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
19. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
20. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
21. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
22. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
23. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
24. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
25. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
26. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
27. GreenVolts ($500,000)
28. Vestas ($50 million)
29. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
30. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
31. Navistar ($39 million)
32. Satcon ($3 million)*
33. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
34. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

The problem begins with the issue of government picking winners and losers in the first place. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding if they are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it sounds nice to “invest” in green energy.

The 2009 stimulus set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically preferred energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investigations have been opened to look into stimulus waste, fraud, and abuse (although not all are linked to the green-energy funds), and nearly 600 convictions have been made. Of that $80 billion in clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, at least 10 percent has gone to companies that have since either gone bankrupt or are circling the drain.