Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken

[240 is Back]

trump is so sad.   He used to be able to command huge audiences when speaking about his cause.

now he's back to being a hair joke, screaming on his youtube channel.

[Soul Crusher]

trump is so sad.   He used to be able to command huge audiences when speaking about his cause.

now he's back to being a hair joke, screaming on his youtube channel.

Obama is going to entirely gridlock the city today for another fundraiser and everyone is pissed off.

He is beyond disgusting as are those who pklan on voting for him.  They need to be shit on daily.   

[Soul Crusher]

Anything but govern for Bam
By MICHAEL GOODWIN

Last Updated: 3:29 AM, November 30, 2011

Posted: 3:23 AM, November 30, 2011

The words cut like a knife. “What the hell are we paying you for?” Gov. Chris Christie asked of President Obama.

The New Jersey Republican has a gift for getting to the heart of things, and his broadside against the president over the debt bomb is Exhibit A. His assertion, framed as a question, makes the case against Obama better than anything heard from the actual candidates.

Christie’s decision not to run remains a disappointment, but he is a valuable player who can help sharpen the fuzzy aim of Mitt Romney, the man he supports. Christie’s consistent theme is that Obama has defaulted on the responsibility to provide presidential leadership during a national crisis.

On Monday, the GOP heavyweight called Obama “a bystander in the Oval Office” for ducking the congressional committee charged with finding $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years.

“I was angry this weekend, listening to the spin coming out of the administration about the failure of the super committee, and that the president knew it was doomed for failure, so he didn’t get involved,” Christie said. “Well, then, what the hell are we paying you for? ‘It’s doomed for failure so I’m not getting involved?’ Well, what have you been doing, exactly?”

The questions are rhetorical in that we know what the president has been doing and why. He plays golf and campaigns. Governing is beneath him.

He doesn’t talk much to members of Congress or his own Cabinet. They’re beneath him.

His connection to the public consists of speeches before large crowds, and he ducks behind the curtain and into the security bubble as soon as he finishes. The people are beneath him.

Warped by a sense of entitlement and self-aggrandizement, Obama refuses to take responsibility for finding practical solutions to problems. He prefers the glory of transformation rather than the roll-the-sleeves-up work of reform.

When he can’t get his way, he appoints a czar and ignores Congress. Democracy is beneath him.

He could have brokered a deficit deal, but doing so would have demolished his campaign slogan that Republicans are to blame for everything. Any deal would give him ownership of the results, and end the fiction that politics are beneath him.

In fact, he’s all politics, all the time. His idea of bipartisanship is that everybody agrees with him.

He’s so bad at the job that the frequent comparisons to Jimmy Carter are unfair to Carter. The former peanut farmer was a terrible president, but he was at least sincere in his starchy disdain for the country.

Obama professes to really, really like America. He just wants to change everything about it.

And when the country says no thanks, he goes off script and the smears come out. We’re “soft” and “lazy” and “bitter” and “cling” to God and guns.

Much ink has been spilled trying to figure out what went wrong after such a brilliant, history-making campaign got him to the White House. Obama smashed the Clinton machine and dispatched John McCain without breaking a sweat. Mount Rushmore was waiting.

But his first day in office marked the peak, and it’s been all downhill since. Deadenders, after blaming George W. Bush, Senate Republicans and the Tea Party, were forced to turn on their own, especially the economic advisers who are gone, Larry Summers and Peter Orszag. They were the problems.

But there are no hiding places in the Oval Office and, after three years, it’s clear who the problem is.

The campaign of 2008 looked brilliant because campaigns showcase Obama’s one real talent — blaming someone else for blocking the way to Utopia.

On that basis, he got the job. But now we know the terrible truth: Actually being president is beneath him, too.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/anything_but_govern_for_bam_jNXbQt7gkOMjQ7EZcOUbtK#ixzz1fCRwdtn2

[Soul Crusher]

0bama 101 [VDH]
National Review ^ | 11/30/2011 | Victor Davis Hanson



In the last three years, the president has taught us a great deal about America, the world, and himself.


Before Obama, many Americans still believed in massive deficit spending, whether as an article of fairness, a means to economic growth, or just a lazy fallback position to justify an out-of-control federal government. But after the failure of a nearly $800 billion “stimulus” program — intended to keep unemployment under 8 percent — no one believes any more that an already indebted government will foster economic growth by taking on another $4 trillion in debt. In other words, “stimulus” is mostly a dead concept. The president — much as he advised a barnstorming President Bush in 2005 to cease pushing Social Security reform on a reluctant population — should give it up and junk the new $500 billion program euphemistically designated as a “jobs bill.” The U.S. government is already borrowing every three days what all of America spent on Black Friday.


Obama has also taught us that prominent government intervention into the private sector often makes things worse, and invites crony-capitalist corruption. Nearly three years into this administration, it is striking how seldom Barack Obama brags about Cash for Clunkers, the Chrysler and GM bailouts, or Solyndra. He either is quiet about them or sort of shrugs, as if to say, “Stuff happens.” Even creative bookkeeping cannot mask the fact that the auto-company bailouts (begun, to be sure, by the Bush administration, but made worse under Obama) will prove a huge drain on the Treasury. No one even attempts any more to convince us that we will like Obamacare once we read the legislation, or that it will save us costs in the long run, or that it will cheer up businesses so that they will invest and hire. All that was dreamland, 2009, and this is reality, 2011, when we hear only “It could have been worse.”


Obama has also taught us that a president’s name, his father’s religion, his ethnic background, loud denunciations of his predecessor, discomforting efforts to apologize, bow, and contextualize past American actions — none of that does anything to lead to greater peace in the world or security for the United States. And by the same token, George Bush’s drawl, Texas identification, and Christianity did not magically turn allies into neutrals and neutrals into enemies.


Israel, Britain, and Eastern Europe are not closer allies now than they were in 2008. Iran is still Iran — and may be even a more dangerous adversary after the failed Obama outreach. Putin’s Russia, despite “reset” (a word we no longer much hear), is still Putin’s Russia. China still despises the U.S., and feels in 2011 that it is in a far better position to act on its contempt than it was in 2009. North Korea never got the “hope and change” message. Europe is collapsing, reminding the world where the United States is headed if it does not change course. Outreach didn’t seem to do much for the Castro brothers, Hugo Chávez, or Daniel Ortega. We are helping Mexico to sue our own states, but that does not seem to persuade its leaders to keep their citizens home. Muslim Pakistan went from a duplicitous ally to a veritable enemy. The more we bragged about Turkey, the more we could feel it holds us in contempt. We hope that the Libyan rebels and the Cairo protesters are headed toward democracy, but we privately admit that they seem to have no more interest in establishing it than we have in promoting it. In other words, Professor Obama reminds future presidents that the world will transcend their rhetoric, their pretensions, and their heritage. Other nations always calibrate their relations with the United States either by their own perceived self-interest, or by centuries-old American values and power, or both.


Barack Obama has taught us a great deal about dealing with radical Islam, an ideology not predicated on what presidents do or say. There will be no shutting down of Guantanamo as promised, and no end to either renditions or preventive detentions and tribunals. Khalid Sheik Mohammed will never be tried, as promised, in a New York courtroom not far from the scene of his mass murdering. The so-called Ground Zero mosque — once so dear to sanctimonious members of the Obama administration — will never be built; either liberal New Yorkers will quietly prevent it, or the architects of the scheme will be exposed as financial as well as cultural con artists. Obama will never again give an interview to Al-Arabiya expanding on how his own heritage will ameliorate relations with Arabs. The Cairo speech will go down in history not as a landmark creative effort to win over Muslims, but, to the extent it is remembered, as one of the most ahistorical constructs in presidential history. The Obama legacy in the War on Terror is as Predator-in-Chief — boldly increasing targeted assassinations tenfold from the Bush era, on the theory that we more or less kill the right suspected terrorists; few civil libertarians care much, apparently because one of their own is doing it.


We have learned from Obama that the messianic presidency is a myth. Obama’s attempt to recreate Camelot has only reminded us that JFK’s presidency — tax cuts, Cold War saber-rattling, Vietnam intervention — was never Camelot. We shall see no more Latinate presidential sloganeering (“Vero Possumus”), no more rainbow posters. Gone are the faux-Greek columns, the speeches about seas receding and the planet cooling — now sources of embarrassment rather than nostalgia. Chancellor Merkel won’t want another Victory Column address from someone who ducked out on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Obama himself will not lecture crowds any longer about the dangers of their fainting when he speaks; Michelle will cease all the nonsense about “deign[ing] to enter the messy thing called politics” and finally acquiring pride in the U.S. when it nominated her husband. Even Chris Matthews’s leg has stopped tingling. There will be no more Newsweek comparisons of Obama to a god. Even the Nobel Prize committee will soon grasp that it tarnished its brand by equating fleeting celebrity with lasting achievement.


“Green” will never be quite the same after Obama. When Solyndra and its affiliated scandals are at last fully brought into the light of day, we will see the logical reification of Climategate I & II, Al Gore’s hucksterism, and Van Jones’s lunacy. How ironic that the more Obama tried to stop drilling in the West, offshore, and in Alaska, as well as stopping the Canadian pipeline, the more the American private sector kept finding oil and gas despite rather than because of the U.S. government. How further ironic that the one area that Obama felt was unnecessary for, or indeed antithetical to, America’s economic recovery — vast new gas and oil finds — will soon turn out to be America’s greatest boon in the last 20 years. While Obama and Energy Secretary Chu still insist on subsidizing money-losing wind and solar concerns, we are in the midst of a revolution that, within 20 years, will reduce or even end the trade deficit, help pay off the national debt, create millions of new jobs, and turn the Western Hemisphere into the new Persian Gulf. The American petroleum revolution can be delayed by Obama, but it cannot be stopped.


One lesson, however, has not fully sunk in and awaits final elucidation in the 2012 election: that of the Chicago style of Barack Obama’s politicking. In 2008 few of the true believers accepted that, in his first political race, in 1996, Barack Obama sued successfully to remove his opponents from the ballot. Or that in his race for the U.S. Senate eight years later, sealed divorced records for both his primary- and general-election opponents were mysteriously leaked by unnamed Chicagoans, leading to the implosions of both candidates’ campaigns. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in the history of public campaign financing to reject it, or that he was also the largest recipient of cash from Wall Street in general, and from BP and Goldman Sachs in particular. Or that Obama was the first presidential candidate in recent memory not to disclose either undergraduate records or even partial medical. Or that remarks like “typical white person,” the clingers speech, and the spread-the-wealth quip would soon prove to be characteristic rather than anomalous.


Few American presidents have dashed so many popular, deeply embedded illusions as has Barack Obama. And for that, we owe him a strange sort of thanks.

[Soul Crusher]

Need for Brazil Debt Kills US Defense Company
Townhall.com ^ | November 30, 2011 | Political Calcululations



How dependent has the United States government under President Barack Obama become upon borrowing money from foreign sources to support its spending?

Would you believe the answer is: "enough to exclude a long-time U.S. manufacturer from consideration for a defense contract in favor of a foreign-based manufacturer, despite the U.S. manufacturer having invested considerable time and profits earned from their other products to develop a product that specifically satisfies the government's needs?"

AINonline's Chris Pocock reports:

The U.S. Air Force has apparently chosen the Embraer Super Tucano to meet the Light Air Support (LAS) requirement. Hawker Beechcraft's AT-6 was the other contender. No official announcement has yet been made, but Hawker Beechcraft said it received a letter from the USAF that excluded the AT-6 from the hotly contested competition. The company is protesting the decision to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).


The LAS competition was designed to produce an alternative to jet combat aircraft for counter-insurgency operations. The Air Force planned to buy 15 aircraft for a training school at Eglin AFB, Fla., but had not confirmed plans to equip any of its own squadrons.

However, the U.S. was expected to supply or sell LAS aircraft to various countries, starting with 20 for Afghanistan. It was this potential that led Hawker Beechcraft and partners to spend “more than $100 million to meet the Air Force's specific requirements,” the company said.

Last month, Hawker Beechcraft completed weapons drop tests with the AT-6, a modification of the successful T-6 primary trainer on which all U.S. military pilots graduate.

Meanwhile, Embraer teamed with Sierra Nevada Corp to offer the EMB-314 Super Tucano, and said it would assemble the aircraft in a new facility at Jacksonville, Fla.

Manufacturing.net carries the Associated Press' article, which describes the size of the contract, as well as the Hawker Beechcraft's investment in its AT-6 program (emphasis ours):

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- The Air Force has notified Hawker Beechcraft Corp. that its Beechcraft AT-6 has been excluded from competition to build a light attack aircraft, a contract worth nearly $1 billion, the company said.


The company had hoped to its AT-6, an armed version of its T-6 trainer, would be chosen for the Light AirSupport Counter Insurgency aircraft for the Afghanistan National Army Corps. The chosen aircraft also would be used as a light attack armed reconnaissance aircraft for the U.S. Air Force.

The piston planes are designed for counterinsurgency, close air support, armed overwatch and homeland security, The Wichita Eagle reported (http://bit.ly/ud7FDM).

Hawker Beechcraft officials said in a news release that they were "confounded and troubled" by the Air Force's decision. The company said it is asking the Air Force for an explanation and will explore all options.

Hawker Beechcraft said it had been working with the Air Force for two years and had invested more than $100 million to meet the Air Force's requirements for the plane. It noted that the Beechcraft AT-6 had been found capable of meeting the requirements in a demonstration program led by the Air National Guard.

It's all the more remarkable because the U.S. company has been laying off its workers given the current economic climate.


By contrast, Hawker Beechcraft's competition for the defense contract, Brazil's Embraer, is under investigation by the SEC into possible corrupt practices. The Wall Street Journal's Paulo Winterstein reports:

Brazil's Embraer SA, the world's No. 4 aircraft maker, said Friday that an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into possible corrupt practices shouldn't hurt the company's chances of selling planes to the U.S. military.

The company said Thursday that it was subpoenaed by the SEC, but Chief Executive Frederico Curado said Friday the investigation in itself shouldn't affect its ongoing bid to sell Super Tucano aircraft to the U.S. Air Force. Mr. Curado said he expects the government to announce a decision within "weeks" on a contract reportedly valued at $1.5 billion.

"This is a new process for us but as far as we understand it, the investigation won't have an impact," he said in a conference call with journalists. "Restrictions in dealings with the U.S. government would come only after a conviction."

Embraer said that the SEC and U.S. Justice Department are investigating possible breaches of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits company officials from making payments to government officers to get or keep business. The company declined to give details beyond saying that the investigation is related to Embraer business dealings in three countries.

So how does the United States' federal government's need to borrow large amounts of money from foreign sources perhaps come into play in stacking the deck against of a mid-size U.S. manufacturer against the fourth-largest maker of aircraft in the world for a U.S. defense contract?


As the fifth largest major foreign holder of U.S. debt, one whose share of that debt has been growing consistently for several years, the Obama administration may well have made a strategic decision to favor Brazil's Embraer company as a reward for Brazil's growing ranking among all foreign holders of U.S. government-issued debt.

With a good portion of Embraer's Super Tucano aircraft being manufactured outside the United States, the move will increase the U.S.' trade deficit in goods and services with Brazil, which in turn, will be balanced by the U.S. government's "export" of U.S. Treasury securities to Brazil.

The move is strategic because developing Brazil as a major holder of U.S. government-issued debt would offset China's outsize influence over the United States given its status as the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities. Since China has previously flexed its muscles with respect to its interests through the markets for U.S. Treasuries, the Obama administration is likely seeking to reduce its potential influence.

That influence is substantial. Through the end of September 2011, the U.S. Treasury reports that China holds $1.15 trillion in U.S. government-issued securities directly, and another $109 billion indirectly through Hong Kong. Meanwhile, a very large portion of the United Kingdom's reported U.S. government debt holdings of $421.6 billion are actually controlled by Chinese interests. The figure currently recorded for the U.K. is largely a consequence of the nation's position as a major international banking center, which will be revised in several months time to reflect actual holdings by nation.

The bottom line is that if a comparatively small U.S. manufacturer of airplanes with a major investment in its future to develop an aircraft that can do what the U.S. government wants and can demonstrate that's the case needs to be pushed aside in favor of a foreign manufacturer with considerable ethical issues regarding its business practices, and if doing so will help it borrow more money to spend, then that's what the Obama administration will do.





________________________ ___________


Awesome fucking job obamabots!!!!   

[Soul Crusher]

Obama’s Labor Department Looks To Take The ‘Family’ Out of Family Farms
Red State ^ | 11/29/2011 | Labor Union Report Staff



Let’s establish this right out of the gate so as not to confuse issues: It is wrong when corporations use child labor. Forgetting the law for a moment, whether it is here in the U.S. or overseas, children are children, and corporations should not exploit children. Got it? With that said, this is not about corporations, this is about families and farms. More specifically, family farms and the overreach of the federal government.

For centuries, even before there was Willie Nelson and FarmAid, farming throughout the world (including here in the United States) has largely been a family affair. That is, parents and their children (when not in school) work from dawn until dusk to put food on the family table, and the tables of others.

Recognizing this, when child labor laws were developed in the last century, there was an exemption built in for family farms. Now, however, the concept of the family farm may be getting gutted if the Obama Labor Department has its way.

Under a proposed “dramatic updating” of the nation’s child labor regulations, the Department of Labor is considering eliminating many of the tasks that children and young adults do on their family’s farm.

Although the DOL’s website specifically states, “The proposed regulations would not apply to children working on farms owned by their parents,” the regulations would (presumably) apply to farms owned by grandparents and other, non-parental family members.

Moreover, as the Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel notes, many family farms are legally structured, which could remove it from the parental farm exemption:

Under the proposed rules, according to the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, someone under 18 would not be allowed to do many chores for a neighbor or even their own family’s farm if it’s set up as a corporation or a business partnership.

Today, many family farms are legally structured as corporations or partnerships.

Under the DOL’s proposal [emphasis added], the following tasks would be outlawed :

Strengthening current child labor prohibitions regarding agricultural work with animals in timber operations, manure pits, storage bins and pesticide handling. Prohibiting hired farm workers under the age of 16 from employment in the cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco. Prohibiting youth in both agricultural and nonagricultural employment from using electronic devices, including communication devices, while operating power-driven equipment.

Prohibiting hired farm workers under the age of 16 from operating almost all power-driven equipment. A similar prohibition has existed as part of the nonagricultural child labor provisions for more than 50 years. A limited exemption would permit some student-learners to operate certain farm implements and tractors (when equipped with proper rollover protection structures and seat belts) under specified conditions.

Preventing children under 18 years of age from being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm-product raw materials. Prohibited places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.

While many might view this as merely a simple example of bureaucratic overreach, diminishing a family’s ability to actually tend to their farm as a family could put many of them out of business since they could be forced to hire workers to fulfill the chores that their children are doing.

Of course, for those farms that can afford to hire employees and stay in business, this could be what the Department of Labor is counting on—especially in states like Hilda Solis’ home state of California, where farm workers can be unionized.

There are, according to the Department of Labor’s website, a couple of days left for the public to comment:

On October 31, 2011, the Department published a notice to extend the comment period to December 1, 2011, because of requests received to extend the period for filing public comments and the Department’s desire to obtain as much information about its proposals as possible. Interested parties are invited to submit written comments on the proposed rule at www.regulations.gov.

Note: Neither Willie Nelson, nor FarmAid returned a request for a statement.

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776






It never ends with this pofs.    One and done!!!!

[Soul Crusher]

Surgeon Says Obamacare Will Nix Brain Operations for Elderly
Life News ^ | 11/30/11 | Warner Todd Huston/Steven Ertelt
Posted on November 30, 2011 7:23:15 PM EST by wagglebee

Are you an elderly American? Well get ready to be determined a non-essential medical expenditure if Obamacare has any say in the matter — which it will if its allowed to become fully implemented.

A caller to the nationally syndicated Mark Levin talk radio show last week gave us an appalling sneak peak at the death panels that are about to be unleashed on the country once Obamacare is fully implemented (God forbid).

The caller said that he was a neurosurgeon and told talker Levin that the advance briefing that he got from government representatives informed him that anyone over 70 years of age would be denied lifesaving (and expensive) brain operations because they were too old to bother with.

The caller said that instead of healthcare, older patients with aneurysms or strokes would get “comfort care” — care that would just “comfort” them while they die — instead of care that would cure them of their ills.

Sounds like death panels to me!

So, do you want a government perfunctory deciding if you are worth saving? As the caller said, with the nation aging rapidly and with so many of use living vital lives into our nineties, is this what we want, government officials that will decide you aren’t worth the effort once you hit your seventies?

Doug Ross has the full transcript of the call. Read it. It’s quite frightening:

Jeff [The surgeon]:  I heard you talk earlier about the government not knowing how to make pencils and you talked about brain surgeons. And I happen to be a brain surgeon, so I found your topic quite interesting.

I just returned from Washington, DC, where we were reading over what the Obama health care plan would be for advanced neurosurgery for patients over 70, which we all found quite disturbing. As our population gets older, the majority of our patients are getting over 70. They’ll require stroke therapy, aneurysm therapy, and basically what the document stated is that if you’re over 70 and you come into an emergency room… if you’re on government-supported health care, you’ll get “comfort care”.

ML: Wait a minute… what’s the source for this?

Jeff: This is Obama’s new health care plan for advanced neurosurgical care.

ML: And who issued this? HHS?

Jeff: Yes. And basically they don’t call them patients, they call them units. And instead of, they call it “ethics panels” or “ethics committees”, would get together and meet and decide where the money would go for hospitals, and basically for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated.

ML: So it’s generally going to be denied?

Jeff: Yes, absolutely… If someone comes in at 70 years of age with a bleed in their brain, I can promise you I’m not going to get a bunch of administrators together on an ethics panel at 2 in the morning to decide that I’m OK to do surgery.

ML: Is this published somewhere where the general public could get a hold of it?

Jeff: Not yet.

ML: So this was just discussed with your community of neurosurgeons?

Jeff: Yes, the AANS [Ed: the American Association of Neurological Surgeons] and the Congress of Neurosurgeons, because everybody knows that cuts are coming in Medicare and medical reimbursement. And we’re the most expensive out of all the fields in medicine. And we’re the smallest field. But at two, three, four in the morning, we’re the ones in the operating room. And we have to wait for an ethics panel to convene, which are not made of physicians — they’re made of administrators. To decide whether a patient should receive our care.

ML: So Sarah Palin was right. We’re going to have these “death panels”, aren’t we?

Jeff: Oh, absolutely. I’m German by heritage, and I’ve read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and — basically, they don’t call them patients, they call them units. And if you’re a unit above a certain age, you get comfort care instead of advanced neurosurgical intervention.

ML: You went to a seminar in Washington, DC?

Jeff: Yes. Where a few of my former partners, two of them, have gone to work… one for the Veteran’s Administration and one for the Congress of Neurosurgeons out of DC.

ML: And this information is based, you’re certain, on representations and information provided by HHS and other government officials?

Jeff: Yep.

ML: And when will the rest of us become aware of it? After the [presidential] election?

Jeff: Probably. I mean, there’s so many things that the government keeps under control that are used — things called H.U.D. devices — humanitarian use devices that we’re allowed to use now because they haven’t undergone full FDA approval. And they’re used in surgery because people know it’s the right thing to do. But the government can step in at any time, like they did two months ago with a device, and say, ‘this device hasn’t met what we want’ and there’s no exact criteria, and can therefore take it away from us.

ML: And the people telling you what to do — they don’t know how to make a pencil, do they?

Jeff: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. You know, we always joke around — ‘it’s not brain surgery’ — but I did nine years after medical school, I’ve been in training ten years, and now I have people who don’t know a thing about what I’m doing telling me when I can and can’t operate.

LifeNews.com Note: Warner Todd Huston is an editorial columnist whose work is featured on numerous web sites. He has also written for several history magazines, and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture.”

[240 is Back]

Most Getbiggers Agree 333386 Hates Obama With All His Heart
Political Board News ^ | 11/30/11 | Ann Coulter/Chris Matthews
Posted on November 30, 2011 7:23:15 PM EST by 240 is back

[Soul Crusher]

Online soap opera cleans up with stimulus broadband cash
Nearly $1M in federal funds for ‘Diary of a Single Mom’
93 Comments and 2 Reactions|ShareTweet|Email|Print|By Jim McElhatton
-
The Washington Times


You may not have seen the show "Diary of a Single Mom" co-starring Billy Dee Williams, but your tax dollars helped pay for it.

Through the federal economic stimulus program, a company owned by actor-director Robert Townsend was paid more than $230,000 to produce and direct the Web-based show, records show. Other production costs on the show paid to different vendors total more than $700,000.

The money came through an award by the Department of Commerce to One Economy Corp. for more than $28 million last year to help boost broadband Internet service in underserved areas across the country.

One Economy is using more than $1.5 million of that money to create programming such as "Diary of a Single Mom," which the group says will help provide an incentive for people to connect to the Internet.

But taxpayer watchdogs say the government doesn't belong in show business.

"The point of broadband was to create access and create the infrastructure for communities that do not have access," said Ryan Alexander, president of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense. "Creating content wouldn't be what people in Congress thought of when voting on this."

Even if the show is well-liked and delivers a good message, she said, the question is whether it could have happened without stimulus money. "Certainly, Robert Townsend is successful," Ms. Alexander said. "Not that successful people shouldn't be working; they should be. But they have access to capital."

Phone calls to the agent for Mr. Townsend's company, Townsend Entertainment Corp., which is based in Beverly Hills, Calif., were not returned this week. According to the federal grant reports, his company was paid for his services as producer and director.

In August 2009, about eight months before the One Economy grant was awarded, Mr. Townsend wrote about both the broadband program and his work producing the show.

"The Obama administration believes in the Internet's power to restore the economy," he wrote. "In fact, more than $7 billion of stimulus funds [have] been allocated to help bring broadband to low-income and 'underserved' populations. But the truth of the matter is, without relevant, engaging content, Internet access won't deliver to its full potential."

Mr. Townsend went on to say that the need for relevant online content became apparent when he teamed up with One Economy. Together, he wrote, they were producing a series called "Diary of a Single Mom."

150,000 new subscribers

The president of One Economy, David Saunier, said Thursday that the group spends most of the money from the $28.5 million grant on wiring people to the Internet and on educating them on broadband access. In grant documents, One Economy says overall the money will help train 235,000 people and result in 150,000 new subscribers in unserved and underserved communities.

Mr. Saunier said a portion of the grant, which he estimated at between $1.5 million and $2 million, helps produce the sort of programming not available in mainstream media. He said a Pew Research Center study showed that many people who don't use the Internet also don't find online content relevant to their lives.

"It's about maximizing the incentives to go online," he said.

Mr. Saunier said programming also helps tell important stories about topics such as single mothers struggling to get by, and giving a "good and real look at the ramifications of teen pregnancy."

The show appears on the website pic.tv, which is produced by One Economy. The site includes information for viewers on topics such as health care, tax help and employment. In 2009, it was voted Best Indie Soap by the Indie Soap Awards.

Mr. Saunier also said the Commerce Department closely scrutinized the group's plans. The grant was awarded in 2010 to the group through the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

"We went through a long due-diligence process with them," he said.

Increase access and adoption

Asked how producing shows squares with the goals of the federal stimulus, Moira Vahey, a spokeswoman for the Commerce Department's NTIA, said the broadband program "was created by the Recovery Act to increase broadband access and adoption."

"As responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, we are constantly working with each of our grantees to ensure their project expenses are reasonable, necessary and allowable under the grant," Ms. Vahey said. "Additionally, NTIA's oversight includes making sure that the money being spent is delivering on the goals laid out by the program."

Tom Schatz, president of the Citizens Against Government Waste, said so many billions of dollars have been poured into broadband by the government that "now they're in the production business."

He also questioned whether a Web-based show will drive people to the Internet, saying the suggestion reminds him of the now-deceased Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, who angered taxpayer watchdogs by earmarking federal money for pet projects his home state.

"It's the same argument Sen. Byrd used when building all those roads in West Virginia," Mr. Schatz said. "If we build the roads, then people will come."

Pete Sepp, vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, said the question of trying to increase interest and connectivity to broadband has been an issue in Washington for years.

"It comes down to the basic question of whether the public or private sector has a better grasp, not only to develop broadband, but to deliver content that would appeal to people," he said. "In most cases, the private sector wins.

"The quality of the programming may no doubt be outstanding, but the question is whether this will be a catalyst that allows privately funded ventures to take over, or will it be an ongoing repository of tax dollars?" he said.

Mr. Saunier said it's still early to tell how much impact shows such as "Diary of a Single Mom" have on the overall goals of the broadband program.

"The programming is still ongoing, and we're just getting started in the evaluations," he said.

According to grant reports, One Economy so far has invoiced the government $18.9 million of the $28.5 million awarded under the grant, with 142.47 jobs created. The jobs include field supervisors, sales representatives and program managers, as well as numerous production-related positions, such as producers, cast members, casting director and an executive assistant to Mr. Townsend.

Officials at One Economy said the grant wasn't primarily about creating jobs. Instead, they said, the primary purpose was to increase broadband access and adoption, as well as to increase the number of people interacting with content "local and relevant to their lives."

The group said it has spent around $825,000 in the last quarter from the grant on salaries and fringe benefits for the jobs they have created through the stimulus.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

[Soul Crusher]

OBAMA OFF TO HAWAII FOR 17-DAY VACAY... (Drudge Headline)
Drudge Report ^ | Fri Dec 2, 2011 17:52:09 ET | Drudge
Posted on December 2, 2011 7:13:21 PM EST by Las Vegas Ron

THE WHITE HOUSE TRAVEL OFFICE

Trip of the President

to

Honolulu, Hawaii

December 17th, 2011 to January 2nd, 2012

Trip Overview

On Saturday, December 17th, 2011, the President will travel to Honolulu, Hawaii. He will return to Washington, DC on Monday, January 2nd, 2012. ...

...no public events are scheduled during the trip. ...








Lazy thug. 

[Soul Crusher]

A small taste: NH samples Obamacare
EDITORIAL

Published Dec 1, 2011 at 3:00 am (Updated Dec 1, 2011)     ShareThis

http://unionleader.com/article/20111201/OPINION01/712019961/-1/opinion


 
 

Remember when President Obama said that if his health care “reform” law passed, you’d still get to keep your doctor? Medicare Advantage participants in the Granite State are finding out what a lie that was.

Medicare Advantage is a subset of Medicare in which the federal government pays private insurers a set monthly rate to provide coverage that is approved and regulated by Medicare. The private insurers can charge different rates and offer a wider variety of services than are offered in traditional Medicare. Though Medicare Advantage costs more in its startup phase, the idea is to save money in the long run by providing incentives for insurers to reduce costs. But because the plan is market-based, the Obama administration wants to kill it. Obamacare eventually defunds it.

New Hampshire has a high percentage of Medicare Advantage enrollees. Last month, 7,600 of them received notices that their coverage was being cancelled. Obamacare and another federal law passed in 2008, the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act, are killing Medicare Advantage to steer senior citizens back into regular Medicare, which offers fewer choices and is more heavily controlled from Washington.

As a result, thousands of Granite State seniors are being forced to switch doctors because they have to switch coverage.

This is just a taste of what is to come if Obamacare takes effect in full force. Its regulations will so skew the private insurance market that millions will lose the coverage they have and be forced into plans preferred by bureaucrats in Washington. They will lose access to their doctors, too. It would make a lot more sense to reform the health insurance market by working to give people more control over their own care, not less.

[Soul Crusher]

Choking on Obamacare
By George F. Will, Published: December 2
LOS ANGELES



In 1941, Carl Karcher was a 24-year-old truck driver for a bakery. Impressed by the large numbers of buns he was delivering, he scrounged up $326 to buy a hot dog cart across from a Goodyear plant. And the war came.

So did millions of defense industry workers and their cars. And, soon, Southern California’s contribution to American cuisine — fast food. Including, eventually, hundreds of Carl’s Jr. restaurants. Karcher died in 2008, but his legacy, CKE Restaurants, survives. It would thrive, says CEO Andy Puzder, but for government’s comprehensive campaign against job creation.

CKE, with more than 3,200 restaurants (Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s), has created 70,000 jobs, 21,000 directly and 49,000 with franchisees. The growth of those numbers will be inhibited by — among many government measures — Obamacare.

When CKE’s health-care advisers, citing Obamacare’s complexities, opacities and uncertainties, said that it would add between $7.3 million and $35.1 million to the company’s $12 million health-care costs in 2010, Puzder said: I need a number I can plan with. They guessed $18 million — twice what CKE spent last year building new restaurants. Obamacare must mean fewer restaurants.

And therefore fewer jobs. Each restaurant creates, on average, 25 jobs — and as much as 3.5 times that number of jobs in the community. (CKE spends about $1 billion a year on food and paper products, $175 million on advertising, $33 million on maintenance, etc.)

Puzder laughs about the liberal theory that businesses are not investing because they want to “punish Obama.” Rising health-care costs are, he says, just one uncertainty inhibiting expansion. Others are government policies raising fuel costs, which infect everything from air conditioning to the cost (including deliveries) of supplies, and the threat that the National Labor Relations Board will use regulations to impose something like “card check” in place of secret-ballot unionization elections.

CKE has about 720 California restaurants, in which 84 percent of the managers are minorities and 67 percent are women. CKE has, however, all but stopped building restaurants in this state because approvals and permits for establishing them can take up to two years, compared to as little as six weeks in Texas, and the cost to build one is $100,000 more than in Texas, where CKE is planning to open 300 new restaurants this decade.

CKE restaurants have 95 percent employee turnover in a year — not bad in this industry — and the health-care benefits under CKE’s current “mini-med” plans are capped in a way that makes them illegal under Obamacare. So CKE will have to convert many full-time employees to part-timers to limit the growth of its burdens under Obamacare.

In an economic climate of increasing uncertainties, Puzder says, one certainty is that many businesses now marginally profitable will disappear when Obamacare causes that margin to disappear. A second certainty is that “employers everywhere will be looking to reduce labor content in their business models as Obamacare makes employees unambiguously more expensive.”

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, by 2008 the cost of federal regulations had reached $1.75 trillion. That was 14 percent of national income unavailable for job-creating investments. And that was more than 11,000 regulations ago.

Seventy years ago, the local health department complained that Karcher’s hot dog cart had no restroom facilities. He got help from a nearby gas station. A state agency made him pay $15 for workers’ compensation insurance. Another agency said that he owed more than the $326 cost of the cart in back sales taxes. For $100, a lawyer successfully argued that Karcher did not because his customers ate their hot dogs off the premises.

Time was, American businesses could surmount such regulatory officiousness. But government’s metabolic urge to boss people around has grown exponentially and today CKE’s California restaurants are governed by 57 categories of regulations. One compels employees and even managers to take breaks during the busiest hours, lest one of California’s 200,000 lawyers comes trolling for business at the expense of business.

Barack Obama has written that during his very brief sojourn in the private sector he felt like “a spy behind enemy lines.” Puzder knows what it feels like when gargantuan government is composed of multitudes of regulators who regard business as the enemy. And 22.9 million Americans who are unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to look for employment know what it feels like to be collateral damage in the regulatory state’s war on business.

georgewill@washpost.com



________________________ ________________________ ___________



And meanwhile - the Ghetto Looter in Chief and his fat thug of a wife are going on a 17 day lavish vacation in Hawaii.   Fuck you pieces of garbage who support obama.   

[240 is Back]

As of August...

How does the number of vacation days the president has spent compare to his predecessors? CBS Radio's Mark Knoller has kept track of presidential vacations for years and supplied the data.
 
So far, President Obama has taken 61 vacation days after 31 months in office. At this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush had spent 180 days at his ranch where his staff often joined him for meetings. And Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days at his ranch. Among recent presidents, Bill Clinton took the least time off — 28 days.

[Soul Crusher]

As of August...

How does the number of vacation days the president has spent compare to his predecessors? CBS Radio's Mark Knoller has kept track of presidential vacations for years and supplied the data.
 
So far, President Obama has taken 61 vacation days after 31 months in office. At this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush had spent 180 days at his ranch where his staff often joined him for meetings. And Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days at his ranch. Among recent presidents, Bill Clinton took the least time off — 28 days.

And?   What is your point?  The fucking financial system is on the brink of collapse and you still defend this thug?


Incredible.     

[240 is Back]

the sky is always falling, homie.  and the president is always on-call.

now, when they ignore critical memos that can save 3000 lives 'while on vacation' - I do'nt like that.

But a president working on the road is no prob for me.

[Soul Crusher]

the sky is always falling, homie.  and the president is always on-call.

now, when they ignore critical memos that can save 3000 lives 'while on vacation' - I do'nt like that.

But a president working on the road is no prob for me.

  

Fuck off.  Blame bush all you want - your messiah is gone next year.   

[Soul Crusher]

Obama's Job-Killing Global-Warming Agenda Continues Under the Radar
Human Events ^ | 12/02/2011 | Sen. James Inhofe



With little attention and fanfare, the United Nations kicked off its latest global-warming conference – this time in Durban, South Africa. Their mission:  to extend the Kyoto Protocol.  But as Bloomberg reports, Japan, Russia and Canada will not renew their commitments, and, of course, the United States will never sign on without commitments from China and India.  The Kyoto process is essentially dead– and even President Obama is acknowledging it, much to the chagrin of his left-wing environmental base.

The troubling question therefore is why is President Obama still determined to implement extremely expensive, job-killing domestic global-warming regulations through his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), especially as we struggle with a weak economy?  Even Lisa Jackson, the head of the Obama EPA has admitted that the United States acting alone would have no impact on the climate.  Now with the complete collapse of the Kyoto process, there is no question that Obama’s global-warming regulations would be all pain for no climate gain.

Regulation Trickery

Over the past decade, we succeeded in defeating the global-warming cap-and-trade agenda in Congress, which would have destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs and caused electricity prices to “skyrocket.”  President Obama understands that the American people have caught on to the economic damage that his agenda would cause, so he is trying to implement it under the radar.  Therefore, our mission now must be to stop him from achieving through regulation what he could not achieve through legislation.

Look no farther than Capitol Hill for evidence of the Democrats’ new plan to keep quiet on global warming.  When Sen. Boxer was asked if she would attend the climate conference in Durban she said, “It hasn't been brought to my attention," and she wouldn’t be making the trip because, “I'm too busy here.” Sen. Boxer isn’t alone. Congressman Henry Waxman also told Greenwire, “I don't know, I haven't thought about it."  But perhaps Sen. Lieberman put it best when he explained that the international climate talks are “basically happening through the administration now.”

'Extreme Weather'

With the Durban conference receiving little attention, you likely haven’t heard much about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest global-warming report either.  That’s because after the Climategate scandal, when hundreds of e-mails displaying the manipulation of data by climate scientists were released, and over 100 errors in the science came to light, the IPCC has been thoroughly discredited.  Their latest report is a typical attempt to scare the public into action, but they clearly understand that global warming no longer sells.  According to Time magazine, it seems that their goal is to “retire” the phrase “global warming” and replace it with “extreme weather.”  Remember when Al Gore and the alarmist movement sought to use the image of Hurricane Katrina as the future of global warming?  Well, a closer look at the report reveals that the IPCC actually has very low confidence that increased hurricanes are or will be a result of global warming.

Climategate 2.0

If the first Climategate scandal, and the errors in the IPCC science, were not enough to display the IPCC’s political agenda, another batch of Climategate e-mails, now known as Climategate 2.0, has surfaced just before the Durban conference.  But as Joe Romm of “Climate Progress” said about the timing of their release, “It’s so refreshing that anybody thinks those climate talks actually matter.”

Why should Americans be concerned about this crisis of confidence in the IPCC?  Because EPA Administrator Jackson has admitted that EPA never engaged in an independent analysis of the science underpinning their forthcoming global-warming regulations, but instead relied primarily on the discredited IPCC.  Now, a recent report by the EPA Inspector General has found that EPA cut corners on what is called an “endangerment finding,” which is the basis for these regulations.  So not only will these rules be all pain for no gain, their foundation is the flawed science of the IPCC, implemented through a flawed scientific process at the EPA.

Now that the Kyoto process has completely collapsed, the IPCC has made itself utterly irrelevant, and the global-warming hoax has been thoroughly exposed, many have left the issue for dead.  The American people may no longer be worried about the global-warming hoax, but they should be very worried about what the Obama EPA’s global-warming regulations will do to their jobs and their pocketbooks.

President Obama has already abandoned the possibility of an international treaty.  Now it’s time for him to halt his job-killing global-warming agenda.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Inhofe, a Republican, is ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-is-about-to-double-down-on-class-warfare-and-echo-a-republican-president-at-the-same-time-2011-12


Oh great - more divise bullshit from this asshole.

[Soul Crusher]

Obama's DoJ Strong Arms, Sues Business to Impose Sharia: Company Forced to Pay $50,000
Atlas Shrugs blog ^ | Thursday, December 01, 2011 | Pamela Geller
Posted on December 4, 2011 10:51:36 PM EST by FreeKeys

Obama's Department of Justice has is on a tear. Holder has sued, yet again, another company for lack of sharia compliance. Few companies to afford to go up against the US Department of Justice. It's a form of blackmail, extortion, that companies are forced to pay. The sharia protection racket.

America, snap out of it. Pass this on to your email lists. Get the word out. Four more years of this federally imposed surpemacism and this country will be ir recognizable.

Imperial Security to pay EEOC $50K to settle religious discrimination lawsuit Business Insurance.com

PHILADELPHIA—Imperial Security Inc. has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a federal religious discrimination lawsuit involving a Muslim employee's religious head covering, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Monday.

The EEOC said Julie Holloway-Russell had worn a khimar—a cloth that covers her hair, ears and neck, as required by her religious beliefs—when she interviewed for a job as a security guard at the Philadelphia-based firm in November 2009. However, she was told to remove the khimar when she reported to her first work assignment. After she refused to do so, she was terminated, said EEOC regional attorney Debra Lawrence.

Why did they hire her in the first place?
The EEOC said in its statement that in addition to the $50,000 settlement, the three-year consent decree resolving the lawsuit prohibits Imperial Security from further discriminating based on religion or engaging in unlawful retaliation.
A company spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.Charges filed with the EEOC by Muslims outweigh those filed by individuals of other identified religious groups.

Yes, because Islamic supremacists are using our courts to impose the sharia. Of course they file more lawsuits than any other group. Muslims are the first immigrant group that has ever come to this country with a ready-made model of society and government they believe to be superior to what we have here and they mean to impose it.

[Soul Crusher]

Report: Obama, UN to tax US for Green Climate Fund
by Joel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer


http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/report-un-tax-americans-green-climate-fund/237466


President Obama's team of negotiators at the United Nations Climate Change Conference may agree to a tax on foreign currency transactions, designed to pay for a "Green Climate Fund," that would fall disproportionately on American travellers and businesses, according to a group attending the conference that is skeptical of the UN position on global warming.

Negotiators at the conference are considering "a new tax on every foreign currency transaction in the world," according to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). "Every time you travel abroad, you'll have to pay a climate tax," explains CFACT, the group that released the "Climategate" emails. "More importantly, every time we import goods, every time we export our fine products (think jobs) we will do so with a climate tax skimming off the top."

European countries would evade much of the tax burden, however, because "transactions within the Eurozone won't have to pay this new tax."

CFACT suggests that Obama is open to implementing this tax and similar policies in the absence of a full climate treaty, which would require congressional approval.  "We have learned that while many have discounted this conference, knowing that a full climate treaty is difficult to achieve especially with a U.S. Senate that will not vote to ratify," CFACT says. "Obama and his fellow climate travelers are working around the Senate and planning to stick America with the bill."














Anyone voting for this NWO thug again needs a shove off the empire state building.   

[Soul Crusher]

Free Republic
Browse · Search   Pings · Mail   News/Activism
Topics · Post Article
Skip to comments.

Federal rewrite of labor laws causing a flap down on the farm (Feds, Feds, Feds, Feds..Feds, Feds..)
Washington Times ^ | December 5, 2011 | Andrea Billups
Posted on December 6, 2011 3:25:15 AM EST by Cincinatus' Wife

LANSING, Mich. — Sparking outrage across the country’s rural heartland, the Obama administration is proposing rules to curb the ability of children on farms to engage in “corn sex” for pay.

Farmers call it corn detasseling, a time-honored but physically demanding chore designed to promote cross-pollination in the field. For decades it has been a way for teens to earn extra spending money — and forge some good-natured field hand camaraderie — for a few weeks each summer.

The Obama administration is considering revisions to federal agricultural work rules that effectively would bar teens younger than 16 from engaging in a number of traditional chores for pay — including detasseling.

Opponents of the rules across the Farm Belt argue that they are in part an attack on a way of life, one foreign to Beltway bureaucrats and one that should be encouraged in an era of rising childhood obesity rates and increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

“We need more young farmers in Oklahoma, not less. We need more young people who know where their food comes from, not less,” Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and state Agriculture Secretary Jim Reese said in a Nov. 30 letter to Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis.

“Any policy that would hinder the opportunities of young Americans to experience life in our agricultural communities is misguided indeed.”

The American Farm Bureau is heading a coalition of more than 70 agriculture organizations that have petitioned the Labor Department in Washington to reconsider what would be the first major rewrite of farm labor standards since the 1970s.

......“At first I thought it was a joke,” Iowa corn farmer Henry Hemminghaus recently said....“It would eliminate 40 [percent] to 70 percent of my workforce. It would probably eliminate about 1,200 out of the 2,000 kids I hire.”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Free Republic
Browse · Search   Pings · Mail   News/Activism
Topics · Post Article
Skip to comments.

DHS drafts 'environmental justice strategy'
Washington Examiner ^ | 12/6/11 | Joel Gehrke




President Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) outlined an "environmental justice strategy" that would review how a variety of DHS activities, from interaction with local governments to granting regulatory permits, affect poor and minority populations. DHS defines environmental justice as "the commitment of the Federal Government . . . to avoid placing disproportionately high and adverse effects on the human health and environment of minority populations and low-income populations." Efforts to implement environmental justice will influence "our own operations, financial assistance to state and local governments, and [DHS'] regulatory permitting activities," DHS explained in the draft strategy.

(Excerpt) Read more at campaign2012.washingtone xaminer.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Justice Department Warns Alabama Law Enforcers On Immigration
MSNBC ^ | December 06, 2011 | Pete Williams and Kari Huus
Posted on December 6, 2011 11:15:31 PM EST by Steelfish

Justice Department Warns Alabama Law Enforcers On Immigration

By Pete Williams and Kari Huus

The Justice Department has sent a letter to dozens of local law enforcement agencies in Alabama that receive federal money, warning them that they risk losing that funding if they're not careful in how they enforce the state's tough new immigration law.

The Obama administration has already sued the state, claiming that the law is unconstitutional. Now it's keeping the pressure on by addressing how the law is carried out.

The law, HB56 passed by the Alabama Legislature in June, attempts to combat illegal immigration by establishing harsh penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers, requiring public schools to report children and parents who are not legal residents, and forbidding illegal migrants from having any transactions with the government. The law creates new immigration crimes, and puts local police in the position of enforcing immigration.

Federal justice officials were in Birmingham last week to investigate the civil rights impacts of HB56, which is designed to make it extremely uncomfortable, if not impossible, for illegal immigrants to live in the state. Among the officials was Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general of Justice Department’s civil rights division.

(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.msnbc.msn.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Obama and the Hezbollah Terrorist

In Jan. 2007, Ali Musa Daqduq helped kill five Americans in Iraq. He may soon be released into Iranian custody.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204903804577082383203542526.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop


By DAVID B. RIVKIN, JR. And CHARLES D. STIMSON




Call it the triumph of ideology over national interest and honor. Having dithered for nearly three years, the Obama administration has only a few weeks to bring to justice a Hezbollah terrorist who slaughtered five U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2007. Unfortunately, it appears more likely that Ali Musa Daqduq will instead be transferred to Iran, to a hero's welcome.

In the early evening of Jan. 20, 2007, in the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, five black SUVs approached the location of a regular meeting between U.S. and Iraqi military officers. Inside the vehicles, which mimicked U.S. transports (to avoid heightened scrutiny), were a dozen individuals dressed in U.S. military uniforms and bearing U.S. weapons. Their drivers spoke English.

Upon reaching their target, the occupants opened fire on the Americans. One U.S. soldier was killed on the spot. Four others were kidnapped, tortured and executed.

The mastermind of this brutal attack? Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese national and Hezbollah commander. U.S. forces captured him in March 2007, and, in interrogation, he allegedly provided a wealth of information on Iran's role in fomenting, training and arming Iraqi insurgents of all stripes.

With U.S. troops set to exit Iraq at the end of December, all detainees in American custody there have been transferred to the Iraqis except for Daqduq. He is set to be turned over in a matter of weeks. Based on past experience with released detainees who were in Iranian employ, U.S. officials know that Daqduq will promptly re-emerge in Iran, shaking hands with dignitaries and leading parades, before rejoining his Hezbollah colleagues.

Enlarge Image

CloseMultinational Forces Iraq
 
Multinational Forces Iraq provided the photo of Ali Musa Daqduq during the briefing in July 2007.
.This outcome would be an insult to the American servicemen who have lost many comrades to insurgents such as Daqduq, who consistently failed to comply with the laws of war. Indeed, the Iraq war is the first conflict in modern history where the U.S.—having complied with the laws of war by promptly prosecuting American troops believed to have violated those laws—did not bring to justice a single one of the hundreds of captured enemy combatants who have killed Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and contractors. Impunity for war criminals debases the laws of war, violates our international legal obligations, and is inconsistent with American values.

We have already failed to stop Iran's nuclear-weapons program. We have also failed to punish Tehran for facilitating the deaths of American soldiers, or for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Allowing Daqduq to slip through U.S. hands would further reinforce the impression of American impotence. That will have serious repercussions, measured in diplomatic defeats and lost lives.

There is an obvious solution: Transfer Daqduq from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay to be tried by a military commission there. But this is where the Obama administration's rigid ideology comes into play—beginning with flawed, self-defeating legalistic arguments.

A successful prosecution of Daqduq would be relatively easy. He killed American soldiers and, as an unprivileged belligerent, has no combatant immunity. Yet the administration purports to be troubled by our lack of an extradition treaty with Iraq. It also points out that the Iraqis have refused to accord the U.S. legal custody of Daqduq, although the U.S. has him in physical custody. The Iraqis, of course, are being pressured by the Iranians not to accommodate this legal-custody request.

Yet we don't need an extradition treaty with Iraq to transfer Daqduq, a Lebanese citizen captured by American forces in a war zone. Since his capture occurred when the U.S. and other coalition members were the occupying power in Iraq, there is ample basis in existing international law for the American exercise of legal jurisdiction over him.


A more serious obstacle is the administration's policy of eschewing military tribunals. Earlier this year, the administration considered bringing Daqduq into the U.S. to face trial in a civilian court. In response, six Republican senators wrote President Obama, warning against trying Daqduq in federal court, and urging the president to refer him to a military commission.

The administration briefly flirted with the idea of a military commission, perhaps in Charleston, S.C. or at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. That idea seems to have been dropped after a Nov. 8 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Attorney General Eric Holder that if the administration were to bring Daqduq to the U.S. for a civilian or military trial, "all hell would break loose."

The administration believes that bringing anyone new, even high-value detainees, to Guantanamo is inconsistent with the goal of eventually closing the facility. This proposition is absurd, and not only because that facility remains vital and relevant to this day. It raises the question of whether administration's detention policy is actually shaped by a crass political calculus of not antagonizing its liberal base in advance of what promises to be a difficult 2012 election.

The administration should press the Maliki government in Baghdad harder to allow the U.S. to maintain custody of Daqduq following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. If the Iraqis still refuse, the administration should unilaterally transfer Daqduq to Guantanamo to face justice.

While the Maliki government may protest publicly, it will rejoice privately, since Daqduq's rendition would demonstrate Washington's resolve in the face of Tehran's pressure. Allowing him to go unpunished is both inexcusable and dangerous.

Mr. Rivkin served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Mr. Stimson, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was a deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs at the Defense Department.

[Soul Crusher]

Lawmakers Blast Administration For Calling Fort Hood Massacre 'Workplace Violence'

Published December 07, 2011 | FoxNews.com



Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation's Armed Forces at home.

During a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, the Maine Republican referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence. She criticized the Obama administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.

Thirteen people were killed and dozens more wounded at Fort Hood in 2009, and the number of alleged plots targeting the military has grown significantly since then. Lawmakers said there have been 33 plots against the U.S. military since Sept. 11, 2001, and 70 percent of those threats have been since mid-2009.  Major Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, who is being held for the attacks, allegedly was inspired by radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September. The two men exchanged as many as 20 emails, according to U.S. officials, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero.

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the military has become a "direct target of violent Islamist extremism" within the United States.

"The stark reality is that the American service member is increasingly in the terrorists' scope and not just overseas in a traditional war setting," Lieberman told Fox News before the start of Wednesday's hearing.

In June, two men allegedly plotted to attack a Seattle, Wash., military installation using guns and grenades. In July, Army Pvt. Naser Abdo was accused of planning a second attack on Fort Hood. And in November, New York police arrested Jose Pimentel, who alleged sought to kill service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both Pimentel and Abdo also allegedly drew inspiration from al-Awlaki and the online jihadist magazine Inspire, which includes a spread on how to "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom."

Rep. Peter King of New York, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said military service members are "symbols of America's power, symbols of America's might."

"And if they (military personnel) can be killed, then that is a great propaganda victory for al Qaeda," King told Fox News.

King said there is also evidence that extremists have joined the services.

"There is a serious threat within the military from people who have enlisted who are radical jihadists," King said. "The Defense Department is very concerned about them. They feel they're a threat to the military both for what they can do within the military itself and also because of the weapons skills they acquire while they're in the military."

The witnesses testifying before the joint session include Paul N. Stockton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense; Jim Stuteville, U.S. Army senior adviser for counterintelligence operations and liaison to the FBI; Lt. Col. Reid L. Sawyer, director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and Darius Long, whose son, Army Pvt. William Andrew Long, was shot and killed at an Arkansas military recruitment center in 2009.

A second private was also injured in the Arkansas attack. Both victims had just finished basic training and had not been deployed. They were outside the Arkansas recruitment center when the shooter opened fire from a passing truck. The shooter, Carlos Bledsoe, pleaded guilty to the crime earlier this year.

In a letter to the court, Bledsoe said he carried out the attack on behalf of al Qaeda in Yemen -- the group that was behind the last two major plots targeting the U.S. airline industry.

"My faith in government is diminished. It invents euphemisms ... Little Rock is a drive by and Fort Hood is just workplace violence. The truth is denied," Long testified.

King said the web is the driver of the new digital jihad.

"It enables people -- rather than having to travel to Afghanistan to learn about jihad or to be trained, they can do it right over the Internet," he said. "And this is a growing role."

And while Awlaki and his colleague Samir Khan, who was behind the magazine Inspire, were killed in a CIA-led operation in September, King warned against overconfidence that al Qaeda in Yemen was done.

"This is a definite short-term victory for us. There's no doubt they are going to regroup, that there will be others who will be providing Internet data, inspiration to jihadists in this country, instructions on how to make bombs," he said.

While King was heavily criticized, in some quarters, for launching his hearings 10 months ago on homegrown terrorism, the congressman said the joint session shows the threat is legitimate, and recognized as such by other members of Congress.

"To me it's a validation of what I've been trying to do all year," King emphasized. "There's a definite threat from Islamic radicalization in various parts of our society, including within the military, and we can't allow political correctness to keep us from exposing this threat for what it is."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.

 Print     Close
URL

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/military-growing-terrorist-target-lawmakers-warn/



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/military-growing-terrorist-target-lawmakers-warn/print#ixzz1fsdjMMAF



















Disgusting.    Fuck Obama and every deranged commie supporting him.