Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Saturday, 23 June 2012
Memo to NBC: What the hell is wrong with you?
June 19, 2012 By
Seriously.
First, there was the Trayvon Martin boondoggle a few months ago.
Then yesterday, evidence of some creative editing regarding Mitt Romney’s visit to a Wawa in Pennsylvania.
Today, we have Andrea Mitchell’s spectacularly lame followup to “criticism of the Romney clip edit” — which amounted to Ms. Mitchell saying, with a sigh and a frown, “Oh, bother. Fine. Here’s what we left out.” She failed to acknowledge what the “criticism” entailed; she neglected to point out how the editing misrepresented the event being covered; and she offered nothing resembling an apology or an admission of responsibility for something that was, as a matter of fact, irresponsible.
I’m tired. Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no. Calm down. They meant well. It was just a misunderstanding. A mistake. These things happen.” I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.
But now?
Forget it. I’m done. You deserve what they’re saying about you. It’s earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.
Good job.
I just have one question:
What the hell is wrong with you guys?
"Hey, America, did I ever tell you the one about…"
The bald-faced lies of the prevaricator in chief continue to pile up. That story he told during the presidential debate with McCain, and then re-floated earlier this year in his campaign film, about how his cancer-stricken mother had to battle the private insurance company who wouldn't pony up because they said it was a preexisting condition? Turns out he not only made it all up, but he "knew (his) account was false because he served as his mother's attorney in all her dealings with the insurance company."The one about his step-grandfather Soewarno Martogihardjo being killed fighting the Dutch in Indonesia? A "concocted myth in almost all respects" -- Martogihardjo actually died while hanging drapes.
As for the one about Grandpa Onyango being jailed and tortured by the colonial bastards,
Zablon Okatch, who worked with Mr Onyango as a servant for American diplomats after his supposed detention, told (David) Maraniss: "Hussein was never jailed. I know that for a fact. It would have been difficult for him to get a job with a white family, let alone a diplomat, if he once served in jail." Dick Opar, a former senior Kenyan police official, said he "would have known" if Mr Onyango had been detained. "People make up stories," said Mr Opar…(Onyango's daughter) told Maraniss: "He was not detained"...Maraniss also notes that no records exist of the detention and that within a year of his supposed imprisonment, Mr Onyango's son, Barack Obama senior, was accepted into a prestigious boarding school in western Kenya.
Gosh, who could ever have possibly guessed that Obama would be a jive-ass president?
Posted by EBD at 9:44 PM| Comments (12)
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
‘Here’s the Proof!’: Rep. Gowdy Raises Voice, Invokes Stephen Colbert in 6-Minute Diatribe Blasting Holder, Obama
- Posted on June 20, 2012 at 2:05pm by
Jason Howerton
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) Source: C-SPAN
Gowdy — who raised his voice several times — argued the documents that have been made available indicate that senior level officials at the Department of Justice in Washington were aware about Fast and Furious before the death of Border Agent Brian Terry.
“Senior level DOJ officials were briefed, they discussed press conference opportunities, they discussed the unsealing of indictments , they traded emails about the status of the case, they approved wire tap applications and most significantly, Mr. Chairman, they actively discussed the tactic of gun-walking well in advance of special agent brian terry’s murder… and here’s the proof,” Gowdy said.
He continued, with passion: “So we have a fundamentally flawed federal investigation, we have a dead Border Patrol agent, we have hundreds of dead Mexican citizens, thousands of weapons with America’s fingerprints on both sides of the border unaccounted for and a demonstrably false letter being written to a committee of Congress and yet we are being asked for more time.”
“It has been over a year Mr. Chairman. If Congress has time to look into Major League Baseball, the BCS and invite Stephen Colbert to come to a committee hearing, surely to goodness we have time to get answers on a fundamentally flawed, lethal investigation like Fast and Furious,” Gowdy added.
“And with respect to executive privilege, Mr. Chairman, I am going to resist the temptation to contrast Senator Obama‘s position on executive privilege with President Obama’s position on executive privilege,” Gowdy started.
“If (Obama) was not part of the drafting of the February 4 letter, if he did not know about Fast and Furious before Brian Terry was murdered, if he did not approve of the wiretap applications then what in the world is he asserting executive privilege for?” he asked
Before concluding his memorable rant, Gowdy said about the president: “He is either part of it or he’s not. If he’s part of it, then we’ve had a series of witnesses that have misled this committee. If he’s not part of it, then he’s got no business asserting executive privilege.”
Operation Fast and Furious
Transparency!President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House.The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expected to forge ahead with its meeting on the contempt resolution anyway.
As of this morning, the only CBC News mention of the scandal is buried in the tenth paragraph of an April 15th report on the Roger Clemens trial.
I kid you not.
(Heh).
Posted by Kate at 9:54 AM| Comments (39)
BREAKING: House Oversight Committee Votes 23-17 To Hold Eric Holder In Contempt of Congress — Update: Boehner And Cantor Schedule House Vote For Next Week…
On to the House floor.
(CNN) — Voting on strictly partisan lines, a House committee recommended Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Holder be cited for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents relating to the botched Fast and Furious weapons sting operation.Update: Giddy up!
The measure now goes to the full House for consideration, expected next week, of what would be an unprecedented event — Congress holding a sitting attorney general in contempt.
WASHINGTON, DC — House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) issued the following statement after the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee approved a resolution holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his refusal to turn over subpoenaed documents related to the Fast & Furious operation:
“Despite being given multiple opportunities to provide the documents necessary for Congress’ investigation into Fast and Furious, Attorney General Holder continues to stonewall. Today, the Administration took the extraordinary step of exerting executive privilege over documents that the Attorney General had already agreed to provide to Congress. Fast and Furious was a reckless operation that led to the death of an American border agent, and the American people deserve to know the facts to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. While we had hoped it would not come to this, unless the Attorney General reevaluates his choice and supplies the promised documents, the House will vote to hold him in contempt next week. If, however, Attorney General Holder produces these documents prior to the scheduled vote, we will give the Oversight Committee an opportunity to review in hopes of resolving this issue.”
Family of Border Patrol Agent Killed With Fast And Furious Weapon Slams Obama For “Compounding Tragedy” With Executive Privilege Assertion…
Like Obama gives a rip.
Via ABC News:
The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was killed with guns tied to the Fast and Furious program, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon accusing President Obama of compounding their family tragedy by invoking executive privilege.
President Obama invoked executive privilege to shield the Justice Department from having to release documents sought by House Republican investigating the secret law enforcement program, wherein weapons smugglers were permitted to buy guns so law enforcement could trace them to drug cartels. Law enforcement lost track of hundreds of the guns, which began showing up at crime scenes, most tragically in December 2010, where Terry was killed.
Terry family attorney Pat McGroder on Wednesday released the following statement from Terry’s parents Josephine Terry and Kent Terry Sr.: “Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to fully disclose the documents associated with Operation Fast and Furious and President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege serves to compound this tragedy. It denies the Terry family and the American people the truth.”
The Terrys said that their son “was killed by members of a Mexican drug cartel armed with weapons from this failed Justice Department gun trafficking investigation. For more than 18 months we have been asking our federal government for justice and accountability. The documents sought by the House Oversight Committee and associated with Operation Fast and Furious should be produced and turned over to the committee. Our son lost his life protecting this nation, and it is very disappointing that we are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious.”
Keep reading…
G20 summit: Barroso's bungling blame game
José Manuel Barroso's outburst at the G20 summit in Mexico amounted to sticking his head in the Los Cabos sand
The European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, was on shaky ground when he lashed out at the G20 summit in Mexico. Photograph: Bertrand Langlois/AFP/Getty Images
Sometimes you read something in a newspaper, even the blessed Guardian, and think: "No, that can't be true." It happened this morning. But yes, I checked it in my other newspapers and then heard it on the radio. The European commission president, José Manuel Barroso of Portugal, really did throw a serious wobbly at the G20 summit in Mexico. It was awful. He was at a beach resort, but there was no need to stick his head in the sand.
Taunted by a Canadian journalist as to why North Americans should "risk their assets" to help bail out rich Europe, Barroso snapped: "Frankly, we're not here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy. By the way, this crisis was not originated in Europe. Seeing as you mention North America, this crisis originated in North America and much of our financial sector was contaminated by, how can I put it, unorthodox practices from some sectors of the financial markets."
Wow, how much self-deluding error can you pack into a 50-word temper tantrum? It's only a detail, but how hard must it have also been to choose a Canadian to pick on for your "I've completely lost it" outburst? Herman van Rompuy, the European council president (the job Tony Blair says he turned down) echoed the complaint: "We are not the ones that are so-called responsible for the economic problems all over the world."
Oh dear. Many errors have been committed in many countries since the start of the latest global economic crisis in 2007. But Canada's cautious banking system – founded by Scots Presbyterians and still run by them – and its regulators were unusual in avoiding most of the folly. They are among the world's best.
As for democracy, Canada is a conscientious and scrupulous member of the international community. Surely, even insulated Brussels statesmen must know that? No, I don't think we can blame Canadians for Greece's dilemma.
Unlike banks and regulators in Britain and the US – yes, we all know that – where the combination of cheap credit and cheap Asian imports fooled too many people, including bankers and New Labour ministers, into thinking we'd cracked "boom and bust" at last. Also unlike governments, central bankers and retail bankers across much of the eurozone, including Portugal – where Barroso was prime minister from 2002 to 2004.
When the wider drama – starting in Greece and then Ireland – caught up with Lisbon in 2010, its excessive, under-funded public spending since the carnation revolution of 1974 overthrew the dictatorship, and its high deficit and debt levels, exposed the weakness of the economy. As PM before being lured to Brussels in mid-term (a reward for supporting the Iraq war?) Barroso had promised to halve the deficit. It doubled.
That's his domestic problem. I visited Lisbon myself last year, and concluded that the country hadn't suffered a crazy property bubble like Spain or Ireland, but had merely borrowed too much from abroad during the deluded boom years when the euro was deemed a safe refuge, and had been caught short in the liquidity crisis like so many companies and individuals.
But the wider implication of Barroso's outburst should concern us all. Four years on – five if you count the first panic in French, German and British banks (the run on Northern Rock) in the late summer of 2007 – the commission president still believes the crisis was caused by speculative banking habits and what one Spanish minister once darkly called "Anglo-Saxon accounting" – imperfect accounting perhaps, but better than the Greek, Spanish or Irish varieties.
Yes, the excesses of the US and British banking systems, the failures of their regulators – under New Labour, the Bush administration and (let's not forget this bit) the "me too" Tory opposition of the boom years – were grim. As the banking crisis morphed into a sovereign debt crisis we have all paid, and are paying, the price of excesses which many shared at different levels of society, though not all realised it as they maxed out mortgages or credit cards. The end is not yet in sight.
Barroso seems to cling to the EU's glib assertion that the wider crisis was both caused by US/UK banking excesses and Washington's failure to rescue Lehman Brothers from collapse in September 2008 as the crazy American property boom collapsed, exposing all those repackaged junk bonds (rated AAA by the dopey agencies until the end). It was glib when eurozone bankers asserted it in 2008, and it is unbelievably glib given the current near-paralysis of the zone's political and economic leadership.
To summarise, the creation of the eurozone in 1999, notes and coins arriving in circulation two years later, created an illusion that the credit-worthiness of Greece – or Portugal – was now as good as Germany's. In the boom years when Chinese savings, the profits of cheap, currency-rigged exports and suppressed domestic demand (a bit like Germany itself), were recycled to foolish borrowers, the eurozone periphery countries (remember the Celtic Tiger?) looked pretty good.
German and French banks loaned them a lot of money, which is what makes the prospect of a Greek default so scary. It's not that Greece is more than 2% of the eurozone economy, but that its debts could destabilise more important banking systems and economies, Main Street as well as Wall Street, as the Americans put it. There have been rumours about the real worth of debts held by major eurozone banks from day one. At least the Anglo-Saxons took the banking bull by the horns and recapitalised theirs.
Britain stayed out of the eurozone (Blair tried his best to lumber us with it, Alastair Campbell's latest version of his Diaries confirm) but it made many of the same mistakes. At least they were ours and we retain a self-governing banking, fiscal and political system in which to sort it out. Interestingly enough, our austerity package now emulates the German-led eurozone's mistakes too. Remember: if we all behave like Germany, we all go bust, including Germany.
Everyone is in a mess and the G20 – created out of the increasingly marginalised G8 only a few years ago to reflect new global realities – looks as feeble as its predecessor did. Do not expect much from the Mexican summit except Canadian-style exhortation of the eurozone states to fix their own crisis. The Greek election calmed the febrile financial markets for an hour or two on Monday. Can the next Spanish debt funding crisis (interest rates above 7%!) be staved off until the EU's latest "last chance" summit on 28 and 29 June? The Guardian's Nils Pratley thinks it's touch and go.
So Barroso's panicky attack, redolent of deluded complacency, is scary in a new way. On the financial pages and in parliaments, assorted experts thrash around, no one sure of the best way forward – Tory austerity, Keynesian pump-priming or a cunning mix of both – and David Cameron's overnight remarks reflect those uncertainties.
François Hollande says there should be no eurozone political union until there is a banking union which includes a Brussels-based regulator and mutual support across all 17 member states (or does he mean all 27?) The mighty German Bundesbank says there can be no banking union without a fiscal union which would allow Brussels to supervise budgets everywhere, not just in Athens or Dublin. Angela Merkel says there can be no fiscal union until there is political union which puts Brussels (do I really mean Berlin?) in the driving seat.
In other words, the key players all know the logic of their situation requires them to integrate further and faster, but they can't agree on how to go about it or in which order. Integration? A catastrophic collapse of the eurozone? Or muddling along, as Cameron implied might continue to be the soft third option. None is easy. Little wonder the PM said Britain must work harder to put its own house in order and sell more to faster-growing parts of the world.
That isn't easy either as the latest figures on the UK's shaky trade balance remind us all.
Taunted by a Canadian journalist as to why North Americans should "risk their assets" to help bail out rich Europe, Barroso snapped: "Frankly, we're not here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy. By the way, this crisis was not originated in Europe. Seeing as you mention North America, this crisis originated in North America and much of our financial sector was contaminated by, how can I put it, unorthodox practices from some sectors of the financial markets."
Wow, how much self-deluding error can you pack into a 50-word temper tantrum? It's only a detail, but how hard must it have also been to choose a Canadian to pick on for your "I've completely lost it" outburst? Herman van Rompuy, the European council president (the job Tony Blair says he turned down) echoed the complaint: "We are not the ones that are so-called responsible for the economic problems all over the world."
Oh dear. Many errors have been committed in many countries since the start of the latest global economic crisis in 2007. But Canada's cautious banking system – founded by Scots Presbyterians and still run by them – and its regulators were unusual in avoiding most of the folly. They are among the world's best.
As for democracy, Canada is a conscientious and scrupulous member of the international community. Surely, even insulated Brussels statesmen must know that? No, I don't think we can blame Canadians for Greece's dilemma.
Unlike banks and regulators in Britain and the US – yes, we all know that – where the combination of cheap credit and cheap Asian imports fooled too many people, including bankers and New Labour ministers, into thinking we'd cracked "boom and bust" at last. Also unlike governments, central bankers and retail bankers across much of the eurozone, including Portugal – where Barroso was prime minister from 2002 to 2004.
When the wider drama – starting in Greece and then Ireland – caught up with Lisbon in 2010, its excessive, under-funded public spending since the carnation revolution of 1974 overthrew the dictatorship, and its high deficit and debt levels, exposed the weakness of the economy. As PM before being lured to Brussels in mid-term (a reward for supporting the Iraq war?) Barroso had promised to halve the deficit. It doubled.
That's his domestic problem. I visited Lisbon myself last year, and concluded that the country hadn't suffered a crazy property bubble like Spain or Ireland, but had merely borrowed too much from abroad during the deluded boom years when the euro was deemed a safe refuge, and had been caught short in the liquidity crisis like so many companies and individuals.
But the wider implication of Barroso's outburst should concern us all. Four years on – five if you count the first panic in French, German and British banks (the run on Northern Rock) in the late summer of 2007 – the commission president still believes the crisis was caused by speculative banking habits and what one Spanish minister once darkly called "Anglo-Saxon accounting" – imperfect accounting perhaps, but better than the Greek, Spanish or Irish varieties.
Yes, the excesses of the US and British banking systems, the failures of their regulators – under New Labour, the Bush administration and (let's not forget this bit) the "me too" Tory opposition of the boom years – were grim. As the banking crisis morphed into a sovereign debt crisis we have all paid, and are paying, the price of excesses which many shared at different levels of society, though not all realised it as they maxed out mortgages or credit cards. The end is not yet in sight.
Barroso seems to cling to the EU's glib assertion that the wider crisis was both caused by US/UK banking excesses and Washington's failure to rescue Lehman Brothers from collapse in September 2008 as the crazy American property boom collapsed, exposing all those repackaged junk bonds (rated AAA by the dopey agencies until the end). It was glib when eurozone bankers asserted it in 2008, and it is unbelievably glib given the current near-paralysis of the zone's political and economic leadership.
To summarise, the creation of the eurozone in 1999, notes and coins arriving in circulation two years later, created an illusion that the credit-worthiness of Greece – or Portugal – was now as good as Germany's. In the boom years when Chinese savings, the profits of cheap, currency-rigged exports and suppressed domestic demand (a bit like Germany itself), were recycled to foolish borrowers, the eurozone periphery countries (remember the Celtic Tiger?) looked pretty good.
German and French banks loaned them a lot of money, which is what makes the prospect of a Greek default so scary. It's not that Greece is more than 2% of the eurozone economy, but that its debts could destabilise more important banking systems and economies, Main Street as well as Wall Street, as the Americans put it. There have been rumours about the real worth of debts held by major eurozone banks from day one. At least the Anglo-Saxons took the banking bull by the horns and recapitalised theirs.
Britain stayed out of the eurozone (Blair tried his best to lumber us with it, Alastair Campbell's latest version of his Diaries confirm) but it made many of the same mistakes. At least they were ours and we retain a self-governing banking, fiscal and political system in which to sort it out. Interestingly enough, our austerity package now emulates the German-led eurozone's mistakes too. Remember: if we all behave like Germany, we all go bust, including Germany.
Everyone is in a mess and the G20 – created out of the increasingly marginalised G8 only a few years ago to reflect new global realities – looks as feeble as its predecessor did. Do not expect much from the Mexican summit except Canadian-style exhortation of the eurozone states to fix their own crisis. The Greek election calmed the febrile financial markets for an hour or two on Monday. Can the next Spanish debt funding crisis (interest rates above 7%!) be staved off until the EU's latest "last chance" summit on 28 and 29 June? The Guardian's Nils Pratley thinks it's touch and go.
So Barroso's panicky attack, redolent of deluded complacency, is scary in a new way. On the financial pages and in parliaments, assorted experts thrash around, no one sure of the best way forward – Tory austerity, Keynesian pump-priming or a cunning mix of both – and David Cameron's overnight remarks reflect those uncertainties.
François Hollande says there should be no eurozone political union until there is a banking union which includes a Brussels-based regulator and mutual support across all 17 member states (or does he mean all 27?) The mighty German Bundesbank says there can be no banking union without a fiscal union which would allow Brussels to supervise budgets everywhere, not just in Athens or Dublin. Angela Merkel says there can be no fiscal union until there is political union which puts Brussels (do I really mean Berlin?) in the driving seat.
In other words, the key players all know the logic of their situation requires them to integrate further and faster, but they can't agree on how to go about it or in which order. Integration? A catastrophic collapse of the eurozone? Or muddling along, as Cameron implied might continue to be the soft third option. None is easy. Little wonder the PM said Britain must work harder to put its own house in order and sell more to faster-growing parts of the world.
That isn't easy either as the latest figures on the UK's shaky trade balance remind us all.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
MILLER: Gun ownership up, crime down
FBI violent-crime rates show safer nation with more gun owners
Gun-control advocates are noticeably silent when crime rates decline. Their multimillion-dollar lobbying efforts are designed to manufacture mass anxiety that every gun owner is a potential killer. The statistics show otherwise.
“This is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline in the FBI’s violent-crime rates,” said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association. “It would be disingenuous for anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to account for this decline.”
Mr. Arulanandam pointed out that only a handful of states had concealed-carry programs 25 years ago, when the violent-crime rate peaked. Today, 41 states either allow carrying without a permit or have “shall issue” laws that make it easy for just about any noncriminal to get a permit. Illinois and Washington, D.C., are the only places that refuse to recognize the right to bear arms. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence did not respond to requests for comment.
If the gun grabbers were right, we’d be in the middle of a crime wave, considering how many guns are on the streets. “Firearms sales have increased substantially since right after the 2008 election,” said Bill Brassard, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents the $4 billion firearms and ammunition industry. “There was a leveling off in 2010, but now we’re seeing a surge again.”
The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) serves as one of the best indicators of gun sales because it counts each time someone buys a gun. Checks hit an all-time high of 16.5 million last year. In the first five months of this year, the numbers have gone up 10 percent over the same period last year as Americans rush to the gun store in case President Obama decides to exercise “more flexibility” in restricting guns in a second term.
Gun manufacturing is the one private-sector industry “doing fine” on Mr. Obama’s watch. Sturm, Ruger & Co. sold 1 million firearms in the first quarter of 2012 - an amazing 50 percent increase from the first quarter of 2011. The jump was so steep that the company stopped accepting orders from March to May to catch up with demand for its products.
Last month, Smith & Wesson announced a firearm-order backlog of approximately $439 million by the end of April, up 135 percent from the same quarter in 2011. Sales in that period were up 28 percent from 2011 and 14 percent over its own predictions to investors. NSSF estimates the industry is responsible for approximately 180,000 jobs and has an annual impact on the U.S. economy of $28 billion.
Mr. Obama could honestly take credit for this jobs program, economic boost and the reduction in violent crime that has followed the spike in gun ownership on his watch. Instead, he’s silent about his greatest positive accomplishment.
Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.
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One man was heard saying: ‘This is a grave of a Christian.’
Of the latest attacks, a council spokesman said: ‘We don’t know yet who did this. We have spoken to the security committee about investigating.’
A gravestone is seen damaged by an Islamist group in protest at the burning of the Koran by U.S.
‘This cemetery has been here for decades and nothing like this has ever happened before.’
Benghazi is now a hot spot for violence with arms readily available and state security forces struggling to assert their authority.
A convoy carrying Britain’s ambassador to Libya was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on Monday, wounding two of his bodyguards.
Five days before that, an explosive device was dropped from a passing car outside the offices of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.
The blast that followed slightly damaged the gate in front of the building.
Earlier attacks targeted the International Committee of the Red Cross and a convoy carrying the United Nations envoy to Libya.
Security experts say the area around the city is host to a number of Islamist militant groups opposed to any Western presence in Muslim countries.
More here.
Monday, 11 June 2012
VDH: The Liberal Super Nova
"Instead, the tsunami did it. No, it was the Republican Congress that after 2011 stopped all the good things he did between 2009-2010. No, it was automation like ATM machines. No, of course, George W. Bush damaged Obama’s economy in the manner that Reagan could not do anything because of Carter’s legacy. No, it was the EU and its failure to spend and “grow” more. No, the private sector is “fine”; the problem is cutting back like Walker is doing in Wisconsin."As they say, read the whole thing.
Posted by lance at 3:30 PM| Comments (7)
Education School Hangs Student Drawing Showing Jesus Saying: ‘I Want You to Kill all Infidels’
Children show their creative imaginations in some intriguing ways. The artwork and storytelling they engage in often illustrates the ideas that are bopping around inside of their heads. Take, for instance, a student-drawn picture at Hamilton Elementary School in Fresno, California. The image, which has become intensely controversial, portrays Jesus Christ, with a caption that reads, ”I want you to kill all infidels.”Under this shocking line are two others: “meet me in Jerusalem” and “get a free ticket to heaven.” Obviously, the picture, which is hanging prominently in the school’s lobby along with others, is causing a stir. While some claim it‘s merely a creative work spawned by a child’s imagination, others see anti-Christian sentiment at play. A 7th-grade student, who has not been named in media, created the drawing as part of a history assignment.
But, despite the educational elements associated with its creation, at least some parents have voiced their concern over its prominent display. One couple claims that school officials have done little to listen to their qualms — that is, until media began reporting on the story.
“I do believe common sense tells you, hey this may not be appropriate for a k through 8 school, right in the main lobby where each child passes on their way to school and home.” said Chris Alfaro, who is a parent of a second-grade student at Hamilton and a Christian.
Hamilton elementary has been quiet in terms of handing the criticism. A spokesperson for the Fresno Unified School District issued a statement to ABC30, telling the outlet the following about the picture’s creation:
“Students at Hamilton were assigned to create a help wanted poster for soldiers needed to fight in the crusades and write a poem about Joan of arc, the Black Death, or the Magna Carta and create a visual background for it. This was one of several posters displayed.”Anti-Christian bias or merely a drawing created for a specified assignment? You decide. Watch more about the controversy from KSFN-TV
U.S. SEC-STATE CLINTON REMOVES MENTION PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS FROM REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS…….
Life’s a blast for the worst Sec-State in recent history.
Covering for Muslim fundamentalist persecution of Christians and other minorities in the M.E. and elsewhere is an outrage. Removing any mention of their persecution of Christians from a report on human rights, is an indicator of how she loves ”slumming it” with OIC reps (when she’s not “slamming it” that is.)
NOTE: November 2nd can’t come soon enough.
CLINTON SHOULD EXPLAIN WHERE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WENT
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be grilled about why her department has removed the sections on religious freedom from its Country Reports on Human Rights, which are statutorily required. Pete Winn of CNS News notes:
“The new human rights reports–purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered–are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath.
“Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role.”
SYRIAN REBELS BEHIND HOULA MASSACRE OF 90 PEOPLE…….
All sides are busy slaughtering the other. Aiding just one side in this dog fight is not an act of humanitarianism.
Report: Rebels Responsible for Houla Massacre
By John Rosenthal
It was, in the words of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, the “tipping point” in the Syria conflict: a savage massacre of over 90 people, predominantly women and children, for which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad was immediately blamed by virtually the entirety of the Western media. Within days of the first reports of the Houla massacre, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, and several other Western countries announced that they were expelling Syria’s ambassadors in protest.
But according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. For its account of the massacre, the report cites opponents of Assad, who, however, declined to have their names appear in print out of fear of reprisals from armed opposition groups.
According to the article’s sources, the massacre occurred after rebel forces attacked three army-controlled roadblocks outside of Houla. The roadblocks had been set up to protect nearby Alawi majority villages from attacks by Sunni militias. The rebel attacks provoked a call for reinforcements by the besieged army units. Syrian army and rebel forces are reported to have engaged in battle for some 90 minutes, during which time “dozens of soldiers and rebels” were killed.
“According to eyewitness accounts,” the FAZ report continues,
the massacre occurred during this time. Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population are Sunnis. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet.
Read it all here.Via Weasel Zippers
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Unreal: NYC School Bans Song “God Bless The USA” From Graduation For Being Too Patriotic…
Disgusting.
(NY Post) — A controversial Coney Island principal has pulled the plug on patriotism.
Her refusal to let students sing “God Bless the USA” at their graduation has sparked fireworks at a school filled with proud immigrants.
Greta Hawkins, principal of PS 90, the Edna Cohen School, won’t allow kindergartners to belt out the beloved Lee Greenwood ballad, also known as “Proud to be an American,” at their moving-up ceremony.
Five classes spent months learning the patriotic song, which skyrocketed in popularity after the 9/11 attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
It was to be the rousing finale of their musical show at the June 20 commencement. The kids, dressed up for their big day, would wave tiny American flags — which, as the lyrics proclaim, “still stand for freedom.”
But Hawkins marched in on a recent rehearsal and ordered a CD playing the anthem to be shut off, staffers said.
She told the teachers to drop the song from the program.
“We don’t want to offend other cultures,” they quoted her as explaining.
The curt edict stunned both staff and parents.
“A lot of people fought to move to America to live freely, so that song should be sung with a whole lot of pride,” said mom Luz Lozada, whose son, Daniel, is in kindergarten.
Muslims attack Australian war graves
youtube banned this as it would incite hatred against muslims , no bloody wonder , i want these low lives blood too when i was sent this , get a translator and listen to these low animal discuss how they hate kaffirs ( mon muslims) but like their women , then the reply "no they cry too much when we f### them "
download and share before the red head socialist who runs Australia get's it removed from here too
download and share before the red head socialist who runs Australia get's it removed from here too
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=b209fc7e4950" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Nigeria: Boko Haram Thanks Allah For “Victory” After Massacring Christians During Church Services…
When was the last time Christians thanked Jesus for slaughtering women and children?
BAUCHI, NIGERIA (BosNewsLife) — The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people at an evangelical church in northern Nigeria.HT: ROP
In a statement e-mailed to journalists Monday, June 4, group spokesman Abul Qaqa said Boko Haram had “successfully launched” the attack. “We thank Allah for giving us victory. We successfully carried out a suicide bombing on a church at Yelwa in Bauchi state,” he said.
The email address was the same the militants always use, but reporters cautioned there was no way to confirm its authenticity.
A suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into the church Sunday, causing the building to collapse and trapping worshipers inside, witnesses said.
The bombing reportedly occurred just as the congregation of Living Faith Church in the Yelwa Tudu area of Bauchi city was leaving a worship service. However, the casualties came primarily from the neighboring church, Harvest Field Church for Christ, which bore the brunt of the explosion, according to Christian rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
Free at last , Free at last ,thank god almighty We are Free at last
Goodbye, Section 13
The Conservative government voted late Wednesday to repeal controversial sections of the Canadian Human Rights Act banning hate speech over the telephone or Internet.In a vote of 153 to 136, the majority Harper government supported a private member’s bill from Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth that would scrap Section 13 of the human rights code, which deals with complaints regarding “the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the Internet.”
Related - Finally a MP who questions Canada belonging to the United Nations
More via JoNova
Steyn weighs in.
Posted by Kate at 10:00 AM| Comments (27)
Free Ethical Oil!
Before the Russians free theirs...It’s called The Bazhenov. It’s in Western Siberia, in Russia. And while the Bakken is big, the Bazhenov — according to a report last week by Sanford Bernstein’s lead international oil analyst Oswald Clint — “covers 2.3 million square kilometers or 570 million acres, which is the size of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined.” This is 80 times bigger than the Bakken.There you go, Suzuki & Co. - knock yourselves out.
This formation has 126 trillion barrels of oil equivalent biomass If the Bazhenov is similar to Bakken, then a year 2000 estimate of 140 to 210 billion barrels of recoverable oil could be 15 to 100 times too low. The increase would be because of the improved horizontal drilling technology enabling a higher recover rate.
Posted by Kate at 6:48 AM| Comments (14)
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
GERMANY: TURK BEHEADS WIFE IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN, TOSSES HER HEAD FROM TOP OF OWN APT. BUILDING……..
These poor kids, brutalized by their father, they will be traumatized for the rest of their lives.
H/T: Fjordman
From an Italian source:
The neighbors have seen the man on the roof of the house holding his wife’s head. Orhan S. Then he cast it into the inner courtyard of the house. Orhan had also invoked Allah, shouting “Allah is great” , while he was sharpening his knife.
Husband butchers wife in front of six children, throws her head roof of apartment building
32-year-old arrested Monday in Berlin, Germany
A man in Germany was arrested after police say he butchered his wife in front of their six children and then threw her severed head from the rooftop.
Orhan Sircasi, 32, made his children, aged between 9 months and 10 years, watch as he killed their mother Monday in the family’s Berlin apartment, MSN India reports.
Sircasi, of Turkish origin, then ran to the roof of the five-story building with his wife’s head and a knife. He tried to attack police officers, but was eventually overpowered.
Police then entered the man’s apartment, where they reportedly found his wife’s dismembered body and his children, who have since been placed under psychiatric observation.
Neighbors say they alerted police after hearing screams from the apartment.
According to local media, the man often beat his wife, especially when he was drinking.
Sircasi is due to appear in court Tuesday.
Read more: Sunday, 3 June 2012
America Gets a Wake-Up Call
June 1, 2012 - 7:35 am
But what we have may be worse than Cloward–Piven. It’s accidental Cloward-Piven. Cloward-Piven out of ineptitude.
I don’t need to see Obama’s hidden college grades. I know he’s a failure.
I don’t need to read The Amateur. I know he’s an amateur.
The sad thing is we are all paying for it — not to mention our children and our children’s children.
We’re not about to become Greece. We are Greece. Those of us who live in California are already Greece squared.
Liberalism is not only dead, it’s decomposed. We’d better inter it this November or we are all fools.
The thing about modern liberalism that most liberals don’t see is that it is so unbelievably square and conventional, so hopelessly old-fashioned. It is the most unexamined of unexamined wisdom. It’s not even an ideology. It’s a pose.
And leftism is just a massive form of social sadism that leads to the totalitarian state.
Meanwhile, according to White House Dossier, our president is off to hold six fundraisers in one day. Who are these people that are still giving money to this charlatan? What is their motivation? Cultural suicide? Or are they simply Solyndra-style gangsters looking for a billion dollar handout? Or are they waiting to hear the president’s new plan to “save health care” in his second term? (Can you imagine what that will be? Maybe someone will read it this time.)
If I were one of those people, I’d be too humiliated even to show up. And if I were Obama, I would resign.
If it sounds like I’ve had enough, I have. I love this country. I never dreamed I would see it go down the drain in such an extraordinarily rapid fashion.
Get out your pitchforks, citizens. It’s time to throw these clowns out.
I don’t need to see Obama’s hidden college grades. I know he’s a failure.
Advertisement
The sad thing is we are all paying for it — not to mention our children and our children’s children.
We’re not about to become Greece. We are Greece. Those of us who live in California are already Greece squared.
Liberalism is not only dead, it’s decomposed. We’d better inter it this November or we are all fools.
The thing about modern liberalism that most liberals don’t see is that it is so unbelievably square and conventional, so hopelessly old-fashioned. It is the most unexamined of unexamined wisdom. It’s not even an ideology. It’s a pose.
And leftism is just a massive form of social sadism that leads to the totalitarian state.
Meanwhile, according to White House Dossier, our president is off to hold six fundraisers in one day. Who are these people that are still giving money to this charlatan? What is their motivation? Cultural suicide? Or are they simply Solyndra-style gangsters looking for a billion dollar handout? Or are they waiting to hear the president’s new plan to “save health care” in his second term? (Can you imagine what that will be? Maybe someone will read it this time.)
If I were one of those people, I’d be too humiliated even to show up. And if I were Obama, I would resign.
If it sounds like I’ve had enough, I have. I love this country. I never dreamed I would see it go down the drain in such an extraordinarily rapid fashion.
Get out your pitchforks, citizens. It’s time to throw these clowns out.
Thumbnail image courtesy elements from shutterstock/nikkytok
Great Moments In Socialism
Greece’s debt crisis threatened to turn into an energy crunch on Friday, with the power regulator calling an emergency meeting next week to avert a collapse of the country’s electricity and natural gas system.Regulator RAE called the emergency meeting after receiving a letter from Greece’s natural gas company DEPA, dated May 31 and seen by Reuters, threatening to cut supplies to electricity producers if they failed to settle their arrears with the company.
[...]
Power companies have failed to pay their bills to DEPA because they, in turn, have not been reimbursed by LAGHE, a state-run clearing account for the nation’s energy transactions.
In recent months RAE has repeatedly urged the government to shore up the accounts of LAGHE, which is sitting on a deficit of more than 300-million euros.
The account went into deficit because its receipts have not matched the generous subsidies it pays out to renewable energy producers, particularly for solar panels.
Schadenfreude mine.
h/t Maz2
Posted by Kate at 12:24 AM| Comments (26)
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