Monthly Archives: November 2012

Two Sides Of The Story

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A friend at the post office told me today that the U. S. Post Office was actually doing ok, but that they are being crippled by a requirement of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 which states

Title VIII: Postal Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding – Postal Civil Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding Amendments of 2006 – (Sec. 802) Relieves the Postal Service of an obligation to contribute matching amounts to its employees’ civil service retirement. Provides for a mechanism and an amortization schedule regarding the handling of any surplus or supplemental liability of the Postal Service regarding the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Transfers from the Postal Service to the Treasury certain retirement obligations related to military service of former Postal Service employees. Makes Office of Personnel Management (OPM) determinations on surplus or supplemental liability subject to PRC review if the Postal Service so requests.

(Sec. 803) Transfers responsibility for paying the government’s contribution of the health benefits of postal annuitants, effective in FY2017, from the Postal Service to the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund (established by this section) up to the amount contained in the Fund, with any remaining amount to be paid by the United States Postal Service.

Establishes in the Treasury the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, to be administered by OPM. Requires the Postal Service, beginning in 2007, to compute the net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year, along with a schedule if annual installments which provides for the liquidation of any liability or surplus by 2056. Directs the Postal Service, for each year, to pay into the above Fund such net present value and the annual installment due under the amortization schedule. Makes OPM actuarial computations subject to PRC review.

(Sec. 804) Repeals a provision of the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003 related to the disposition of savings accruing to the Postal Service.

In English this states that the Post Office is forced to pay $5 billion a year of its revenue into federal accounts in order to cover future healthcare expenses for retirees.

In September 2011, PolitiFact posted a response to a union ad which repeated the charge that the $5 billion payment to the government was bankrupting the Post Office.

The article at PolitiFact points out:

In recent years, as Internet communication has increased, the number of pieces mailed has been in decline. For a few years, postal revenues were nevertheless stable, but then they too started to decline. Patrick Donahoe, the U.S. Postmaster, said recently that first-class mail is dropping at a rate of 7.5 percent a year. While the post office has made up for some losses through productivity increases, it hasn’t been able to make up enough.

PolitiFact concludes:

The postal unions’ ad blames financial problems on “a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue, while the Postal Service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts.” The ad is right that the law did require payments of approximately that amount and that those payments have had a significant effect on the post office’s bottom line. The additional overpayments are subject to debate. Even so, the law is hardly the only challenge the post office faces; it’s also facing continuing declines in first-class mail. So we rate the ad’s claim Half True.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… On November 16, the Courier Express and Postal Observer posted a story saying that Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representative Darrell Issa are negotiating a postal reform bill. That bill would include the re-amortization of the remaining payment schedule for health care benefits. There are some other things included in the bill that would help the Post Office’s bottom line.

Again, funding healthcare expenses for retirees ahead of time is a good idea. Not funding them results in unfunded liabilities, which have become the downfall of many cities and towns in America. However, such funding needs to be done in a way that does not put the people doing the funding out of business. Hopefully a compromise will be reached that will keep the Post Office going.

I realize that email and other electronic gadgetry have had a negative impact on the Post Office, but some of us are still old-fashioned enough to enjoy a short walk to the mailbox to see what has arrived. I am also partial to real Christmas cards–not electronic ones!

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Some Truth From One Of My Favorite Liberals

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Susan Estrich is one of my favorite liberals. Although I probably disagree with her on most things, there are times when she hits the nail on the head squarely. Her recent article at Creators.com was one of those times.

The article was entitled, “The Mandate To Raise Taxes on the “Rich.””

She reports:

Within days of winning the election, President Obama announced that his victory gave him a mandate to raise taxes on the “rich.”

Come again? This was a two-and-a-half-point election. It reflected a painfully divided electorate. The only mandate I saw was to unite a divided country.

Ms. Estrich explains that she voted for Obama and lists many of the reasons for her vote. She clearly states that she does not think she is paying too little in taxes in spite of the fact that she falls into the group of people President Obama describes as “rich.”

She points out:

I am all for closing loopholes. I am all for ending deductions for things I don’t even understand. But I am not for putting a low cap on deductions that would make it all but impossible for the charities I support to raise funds. I am not for putting a limit on the mortgage deduction that would mean, as a practical matter, that “middle class” (not rich) people in California would be priced out of the housing market, and the charities I support would not be able to raise what they need to survive.

That makes total sense. Ms. Estrich, would you please run for office.

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Miracles Among The Rockets

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As an American, it’s easy to forget what life in Israel is like. Incoming rockets have been a way of life in Israel since Gaza was turned over to the Palestinians.

Sderot, Israel is one of the cities that has been subject to ongoing rocket attacks for years. The city has a unique way to protect its children.

YouTube posted the video and the commentary below:

Sderot, Israel is located less than a mile from Hamas controlled Gaza. It averages about two rocket attacks a day and sometimes as many as 40 or 50. When sirens go off, residents have an average of less than 15 seconds to get to shelter before the rockets hit. In an attempt to keep their children safe, playground equipment serves as bomb shelters.

Today Arutz Sheva reported on a missile attack Tuesday night near Be’er Sheva. Thanks to a bus driver who kept calm and knew what to do, there were no fatalities.

The article reported:

A Hamas terrorist missile hit next to a bus in Be’er Sheva shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday, but passengers escaped serious injuries except for shock. The bus driver person suffered light shrapnel wounds and was rushed to Soroka Medical center.

He was cited as hero by following instructions and urging passengers to get off the bus when he heard the early warning siren. Thirty seconds later, the missile hit next to the bus, leaving it a heap of shredded metal and broken glass. Another rocket hit a building, causing extensive damage, and one parked vehicle also was damaged.

Peace between Israel and Gaza is elusive. One reason for that might be the fact that Hamas (which currently controls Gaza) states in its charter that its goal is to eliminate the State of Israel. Until that changes, there will be no peace in the region.

 

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From A Friend On Facebook

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The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejewelled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crib, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her: “How could God let something like this happen?” (regarding Hurricane Katrina). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said: “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbour as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it…. no one will know you did. But if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

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They Are Here

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Today’s Washington Post is reporting that four men have been arrested in California plotting to bomb military bases and government facilities in Afghanistan. The men had planned to join Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and wage violent jihad.

The article reports:

A federal complaint unsealed Monday says 34-year-old Sohiel Omar Kabir of Pomona introduced two of the other men to the radical Islamist doctrine of Anwar al-Awlaki, a deceased al-Qaida leader. Kabir served in the Air Force from 2000 to 2001.

The other two — 23-year-old Ralph Deleon of Ontario and 21-year-old Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales of Upland — converted to Islam in 2010 and began engaging with Kabir and others online in discussions about jihad, including posting radical content to Facebook and expressing extremist views in comments.

They later recruited 21-year-old Arifeen David Gojali of Riverside.

The men had planned to depart for Afghanistan in mid-November. Their cover story stated that they were going to Afghanistan to attend Kabir’s wedding.

The article further reports:

Authorities allege that in Skype calls from Afghanistan, Kabir told the trio he would arrange their meetings with terrorists. Kabir added the would-be jihadists could sleep in mosques or the homes of fellow jihadists once they arrived in Afghanistan.

We need to be thankful that the FBI is doing its job very well.

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Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your People Looking For A Free Lunch

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about some changes made to the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Website and the information packets given to new immigrants. The website (and the packets) now promote federal welfare benefits.

The article reports:

Rather than ensuring that immigrants will not become liabilities to the public purse, the Obama administration explicitly lures them to the U.S. with promises of lavish welfare benefits–a policy that is both illegal and perverse. This web site promoting federal welfare benefits, now the largest item in the federal budget, mirrors information that is included in packets given to new arrivals in the U.S.

Senator Jeff Sessions released the following statement yesterday calling for the removal of the welfare information from the website:

“The Department of Homeland Security’s effort to enroll immigrants in welfare raises serious legal, social, and financial issues.

 Federal law prohibits the granting of visas to those likely to be welfare reliant, yet DHS actively promotes these benefits to millions of new arrivals every year. DHS knows this, which is perhaps why they refuse to comply with an oversight request on this very issue from the Ranking Members of four Senate Committees.

 It is a long-held principle of immigration that those seeking a life in America are expected to be able to care for themselves financially and contribute to the financial health of the nation. The Administration’s actions show this principle is no longer in effect. Encouraging self-sufficiency must be a bedrock for our immigration policy, with the goal of reducing poverty, strengthening the family, and promoting our economic values. But Administration officials and their policies are working actively against this goal. At the same time, those who would be self-sufficient are denied or delayed in their admittance.

 This is of course a financial issue as well. America spends enough each year on welfare to equal $60,000 for every household beneath the poverty line. Welfare is now the largest item in the budget and is projected to grow another 30 percent in the next four years. We should not pursue an immigration policy that places even more strain on the funding for domestic programs.

 DHS should remove any sections of its website, and any portions of its materials for new arrivals, that promote or encourage welfare reliance. And DHS should respond, at once, to the outstanding oversight request on its failure to enforce legally mandated welfare restrictions. The American people deserve to know the hidden truth about how our immigration system is being run.”

It is illegal to grant visas to people who are likely to become dependent on welfare. The obvious question is. “Why is the Obama Administration choosing to break the law, and what did they hope to gain by changing the website and the information brochure given to new immigrants?”

 

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How We Got Where We Are In The Middle East

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Dr. Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School. He posted an article at CNN on Friday entitled, “Why Land For Peace Is Dead.”

The article reminds us that September 18, 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the so-called Camp David Accords.This agreement set up the idea that Israel could trade land and receive peace in exchange. In 1979, a peace treaty was signed between Israel and Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat for signing that treaty. Despite the loss of Anwar Sadat, the idea that the Sinal Peninsula had been successfully traded to bring peace brought hope.

Dr. Rubin reminds us:

It was this example that Bill Clinton sought to capitalize upon in the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed to recognize Israel and work toward peace in exchange for land in historical Palestine. I was in Bahrain in 1994 when PLO chairman Yasser Arafat entered the Gaza Strip to establish the Palestinian Authority. Enthusiasm was palpable across the region. Within weeks, Jordan had signed its own peace accord with Israel, and Persian Gulf emirates, Tunisia, and Morocco looked like they might follow suit.

The concept of land for peace was also the reason Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.

Dr. Rubin further reminds us:

The logic of land for peace became the basis for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000. The formula of trading land for peace had already begun to unravel. Israel expected if not peace, then quiet. They had removed the last remaining dispute between Israel and Lebanon. Alas, Israel’s withdrawal foreshadowed greater conflict. Even though the United Nations certified Israel’s withdrawal as complete, Hezbollah laid claim not only to the Shebaa Farms – an Israeli occupied area which historically is part of Syria – but also seven villages in the Galilee, a region well within Israel’s recognized borders.

It sounds as if the concept of land for peace was being exploited early on. From there, things go downhill quickly.

The article reports:

Peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority was also rapidly deteriorating. Certainly, when it comes to the Arab-Israel conflict, there are always mutual recriminations. What is clear, however, is that Arafat had voided his pledge to resolve future conflict with Israel at the negotiating table. Many commentators mark the beginning of the “Second Intifada” as Likud leader Ariel Sharon’s September 28, 2000 visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. But this is dishonest. On August 24, 2000, several weeks before Sharon’s visit, Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein threatened, “Violence is near, and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties.” Communications Minister Imad al-Faluji reportedly admitted to Palestinian radio that “Arafat ordered preparations for the current intifada immediately after the Camp David summit, as part of the negotiating process with Israel.” The Oslo Process and the land-for-peace formula that underlay it had begun to breakdown.

There are two very telling quotes in the conclusion of the article:

Most Israelis view their experience of land-for-peace in the same fashion that Native Americans consider their experience with the concept.

...Hamas’ decision to turn Gaza into a forward missile base rather than the engine for an independent Palestine condemns 35 years of peacemaking to history’s garbage bin and sets the stage for a conflict far more disruptive than anyone in the region has seen in a half century.

Israel has been seeking peace since 1948. They are not the problem. Until Hamas seeks peace and acknowledges Israel’s right to exist, there will be no peace.

 

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Holding On To Our Twinkies

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The Business Insider is reporting that Hostess and the Bakers Union have agreed to mediation, and Hostess will not be forced to close.

The article reports:

“Moving to a liquidation is also a significant economic hit, and I think that many people, myself included, have serious questions as to the logic behind the decision to strike and a concern that it may be as a result of differences as far as information and goals,” he (Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of White Plains, N.Y.) said.

“I’m giving the union, as well as the debtors and their lenders, the last chance.”

Hang in there–there is hope for Twinkies!

English: Hostess Twinkies. Yellow snack cake w...

English: Hostess Twinkies. Yellow snack cake with cream filling. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Don’t Believe Everything You See

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One of the things that happens when there is a war in the Middle East is that the war is always fought on two fronts–the military front and the propaganda front. Unfortunately, the Muslim Brotherhood and its friends in Hamas are very skillful in manipulating the press.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that a report on CNN by Sara Sidner on the death of a child in Gaza strongly implied that Israel rocket fire was responsible for the fatality. New information shows that was probably not the case.

The article at Breitbart reports:

The dead child was paraded before the cameras during the visit of Egyptian prime minister Hisham Kandil, who kissed the dead child in the presence of Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.

The first problem with this is that Israel did not fire any rockets into Gaza during the visit of Prime Minister Kandil–the only rockets in the air were coming from Gaza going into Israel. The second problem is that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights did not list the child as a victim of an Israeli airstrike.

The article quotes a website called the Elder of Ziyon who provides further information:

Put this together with the fact that Hamas and other terror groups were firing rockets throughout Friday morning while the IDF did not, plus the fact that over 100 rockets have fallen short in Gaza (both using past performance and IDF statistics as proof), and the fact that the shrapnel in the video matches almost exactly the shrapnel damage we have seen from rocket fire into Israel, and it is very clear: this child was killed by Gaza rocket fire, not by Israel.

Unfortunately, there is a history of Hamas faking civilian deaths in an attempt to move public opinion to their side.

The article article cites one example:

Hamas has a well-established pattern of faking civilian deaths in Gaza, even as it seeks civilian deaths in Israel (and fakes that, too, pretending it is firing at military targets). Last week, Breitbart News caught Hamas using a month-old photo of a dead Syrian boy and claiming he had been killed by Israel–a double irony, since the Assad regime that killed the boy hosted Hamas for years before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

The thing to remember about the missiles from Israel that are landing in Gaza is the reason they are being fired.

CBN News reported today:

Hundreds of Israelis gathered to pray for their country as Hamas continued to launch rockets into Israel and the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes on terror targets.

The terrorist group intensified its missile barrages against southern Israel over the weekend. More than 560 rockets have slammed into Israel so far, with another 300-plus intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile batteries.

The rockets fired from Gaza are aimed at civilian targets in Israel. Those rockets are fired from civilian centers–near mosques and schools–using civilians as shields. The Israelis have to aim carefully to avoid civilian casualties–they are not always successful. Hamas is aiming at civilian targets. This will not end until Hamas stops firing missiles into Israel. Unfortunately, they may not be ready to do that.

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EPA Transparency

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Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article stating that the House of Representatives science committee has asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to turn over all information related to an email account under the name of “Richard Windsor.” The charge is that Ms. Jackson used an email alias to try to hide correspondence from open-government requests and her agency’s own internal watchdog.

The article reports:

The researcher who uncovered the “Richard Windsor” alias email, Christopher Horner, has repeatedly battled the administration over its global warming efforts.

Earlier this year he his colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued to demand the release of emails from “secondary” accounts from EPA, and cited a memo saying the practice began during the Clinton administration under then-administrator Carol Browner.

Mr. Horner uncovered the existence of the secret emails while researching a book, “The Liberal War on Transparency,” published last month. Mr. Horner said after the book came out, two former EPA officials told him about the “Richard Windsor” email and said it was “one of the alternate email addresses she used.”

Using an alternate email address is contrary to the federal open-records laws. These laws are designed to make information available in the present time and in the future for the National Archives.

The article points out:

There are strict rules on the use of email addresses, and the rules prohibit using private emails to try to circumvent open-records laws.

There are differing opinions as to whether or not global warming is being confused with normal global climate cycles. The emails of the EPA regarding global warming should be part of the public record.

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The Week After

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Investors.com posted an article yesterday listing the things we have learned about the economy since last week’s election. It’s not a pretty list.

This is a chart from the article:

Some of the highlights are lower earnings, increased poverty, jobless claims increasing, inflation creeping up, coal plants closing, food stamp enrollment climbing rapidly and small banks going out of business.

What a mess President Obama has inherited from his predecessor.

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The Gift Of Distraction

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Up until the sex scandal broke, the media had been doing a pretty good job of ignoring the death of four Americans in Benghazi. When the sex scandal broke, the media had something to write about related to Benghazi that didn’t relate in any way to the fact that these Americans were put in harms way and then abandoned. Most of the media (there are one or two exceptions) is continuing to ignore the real story. Every now and then, though, they have to work at it, and were it not for the seriousness of the situation, their efforts would be comical.

The Daily Caller posted a story yesterday with the headline, “Sure, our ambassador was murdered and the Obama administration is lying about it, but the real story is that McCain is a grouch.” Unfortunately, that pretty much sums up the approach taken on Benghazi by most of the major media.

An article at CNN reported this week that Senator McCain skipped a classified briefing by administration officials on the Benghazi attack Wednesday and then got testy when asked about it. What in the world does this really have to do with the attack on Benghazi? How many classified briefings has the President missed?

The article at the Daily Caller reminds us:

Meanwhile, four Americans who fell in service of their country are still dead, a guy who made a stupid YouTube video is still sitting in jail, and the Obama administration is still lying about it. But hey, what is all that compared to Wolf Blitzer’s hurt feelings?

This kind of reporting by CNN is one of the main reasons the alternative media has grown. Unless the Obama Administration seriously limits the First Amendment, Americans looking for real news will continue to turn to the alternative media rather than those sources who have forgotten the concept of actually reporting the news.

 

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We Now Know Who Receives E-Mail From The Taliban

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ABC News reported yesterday that when a Taliban spokesman sent out his routine e-mail last week he accidentally made public the names of all the people on his mailing list.

The article reports:

“Taliban have included all 4 of my email addresses on the leaked distribution list,” tweeted journalist Mustafa Kazemi, a prolific Kabul-based tweeter with more than 9,500 followers. “Quite reassuring to my safety.”

The list, made up of more than 400 recipients, consists mostly of journalists, but also includes an address appearing to belong to a provincial governor, an Afghan legislator, several academics and activists, an l Afghan consultative committee, and a representative of Gulbuddein Hekmatar, an Afghan warlord whose outlawed group Hezb-i-Islami is believed to be behind several attacks against coalition troops.

I hope someone in the CIA has taken a good look at this list. It might be interesting.

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The Cost Of The Arab Spring

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This is not another post about Benghazi, although I suspect that there will be one by the end of the day–it is a post about Egypt. President Morsi visited Gaza this week to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. While he was there, the Palestinian people fired rockets on Israel from Gaza. No problem. The fact that Egypt supposedly has a peace treaty with Israel was evidently not important to either President Morsi or the Palestinians. Well, it gets worse.

Yesterday the Weekly Standard reported that rockets were fired from the Sinai Peninsula into Israel on Friday night. Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula during the six-day war of 1967. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in a treaty signed in 1979 between Israel and Egypt.  That treaty was the reason the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat. The Muslim Brotherhood is now in charge of Egypt.

The article reports:

This new front comes a day after a rocket landed near Tel Aviv and on the same day Israel’s capital Jerusalem was the target of rocket fire. Those attacks were courtesy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“After Tel Aviv metropolitan area, capital under fire too: An air raid siren was sounded in Jerusalem and surrounding communities early Friday evening. After residents reported hearing blast sounds, security forces confirmed that one rocket had landed in the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village,” Ynet reports.

“There were no reports of injuries or damage. This was the first air raid siren sounded in the area since the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens were sounded in southern communities throughout the day and a barrage of missiles hit the area.”

Israel needs to defend herself, and she needs to defend herself in a way that makes it a bad idea to launch rockets against her in the future. Unfortunately, when Israel fights back, most of the world community chooses to blame her for the violence.

 

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A Scary Video

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My husband posted this on Facebook. It can be found on YouTube. Please watch the video until the end–there is a surprise twist in the last few seconds. It is scary to know what is happening with our tax dollars. Keep in mind that the man speaking is in his third year of college. Notice how well he has mastered the English language. This is a disgrace.

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The Spin Continues

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Fox News posted a story today about the testimony of General Petraeus before Congress. Unfortunately, unless things change in this investigation, politics will be more important than the fact that four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi.

The article reports:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed. 

Needless to say, there were a few people at the hearings who did not want to hear that testimony.

The story continues:

(Representative Peter) King said a CIA analyst specifically told lawmakers that the Al Qaeda affiliates line “was taken out.” 

A congressional source familiar with this week’s testimony also told Fox News that the language in the CIA talking points about Benghazi was changed from “Al Qaeda-affiliated individuals to extremist organizations” — which had the effect of minimizing the role of terrorists in the attack. 

The Democrats on the Committee accused the Republicans of taking the issue out of context.

The article further reports:

California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff also came to Rice’s defense Thursday, saying after a House intelligence committee hearing that Rice was given the intelligence community’s “best assessment” at the time. 

It was pointed out today that up until September 11, the YouTube video in question had 200 hits. It is amazing that a video with only 200 hits is being credited in some circles with causing the death of four Americans.

Everything the Obama Administration has done on and since September 11th appears to be a cover-up. The goal of the cover-up was to keep the truth under wraps long enough to get President Obama re-elected. Now the election is over, and I am not sure we have seen any noteworthy percentage of the truth. Were there prisoners at Benghazi and was there a gun running operation operating out of Benghazi? Until these two questions are answered in a convincing way, we are simply running around in circles.

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When National Security Takes A Backseat To Politics

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Today was the day General Petraeus testified before Congress on the Benghazi attack of September 11. MRC.TV is reporting on a statement made by Representative Peter King after the General testified.

This is the video:

The article reports Representative King’s statement:

Representative Peter King stated that former CIA Director David Petraeus stated that he knew the Benghazi attack was terrorism and that the talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice were different from the ones prepared by the CIA. Petraeus stated Rice’s talking points were edited to demphasized the possibility of terrorism. 

The reason behind this is simple. The Democrat Convention was all about killing Osama Bin Laden and the end of Al Qaeda. The attack on Benghazi showed that Al Qaeda was alive and quite capable of attacking American assets. Therefore, the fact that the attack at Benghazi was Al Qaeda needed to be covered up–at least until after the election.

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Now That Israel Is Defending Itself Egypt Is Calling For A Truce

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Reuters is reported today:

(Egyptian) Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited the Gaza Strip officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end militant rocket fire at Israel.

You need to pay attention to the last part of that statement. Prime Minister Kandil wants to show solidarity with the Palestinian people because they had been attacked for two days by Israeli warplanes. The warplanes were sent to end the constant rocket fire at Israel that has been going on for much longer than two days. So where was the concern when the rockets were coming down on Israeli civilians?

The article reports:

Israel’s military strongly denied carrying out any attack from the time Kandil entered Gaza, and accused Hamas of violating the three-hour deal.

“Even though about 50 rockets have fallen in Israel over the past two hours, we chose not to attack in Gaza due to the visit of the Egyptian prime minister. Hamas is lying and reporting otherwise,” the army said in a Twitter message.

Kandil said: “Egypt will spare no effort … to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce.”

If you look at the history of the Middle East wars, you will see a pattern. Any time Israel comes close to putting an end to the groups that constantly attack her, someone (usually the United Nations) steps in and demands a cease fire and a truce. It is fine when Israel is being attacked, but when Israel strikes back, there is outrage. I cannot think of another country in the world that would exercise the sort of restraint under fire that Israel has shown.

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What Happens When The Press Tells Only Part Of The Truth

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Recently we heard that the FBI Agent investigating the threatening e-mails sent to Jill Kelley was taken off the case because he had become enamored of Ms. Kelley and sent her a shirtless photograph of himself. There was some truth in that lie, but the story behind the lie is just now beginning to come out. Did anyone wonder why threatening e-mails got the attention of the FBI rather than local law enforcement? Well, it seems as if the Kelley family and the family of Frederick Humphries (the FBI agent taken off the case) had a social relationship. It would not have been odd for Ms. Kelley to ask his opinion of the e-mails as he was a family friend. Now, about the shirtless picture…

Today’s New York Daily News posted the picture in question. This is the picture: This undated photograph obtained by The Seattle Times shows FBI Special Agent Frederick W. Humphries posing with target dummies following a SWAT practice in an unknown location. The Times says Humphries sent the photograph to friend and Florida socialite Jill Kelley and others, including one of the paper's own reporters, in an email Sept. 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Special to The Seattle Times)

It should be noted that the picture was sent in 2010 by Agent Humphries to dozens of his friends. Smile, we have all been snookered.

So what was really going on here? The New York Times posted an article on Tuesday detailing some of Agent Humphries past work:

Two former law enforcement colleagues said Mr. Humphries was a solid agent with experience in counterterrorism. He has conservative political views and a reputation for being aggressive, they said.

Colleagues and news reports described the role of Mr. Humphries, who in 1999 was in his third year at the F.B.I., in building the case against Ahmed Ressam, who was detained as he tried to enter the United States from Canada with a plan to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport.

In May 2010, after he had moved to the Tampa field office, Mr. Humphries fatally shot a knife-wielding man near a gate of MacDill Air Force base. A state prosecutor declined to prosecute the case, and the Justice Department’s civil rights division and an internal F.B.I. review board each also found that the use of force had been justified, according to bureau records.

So why were two-year old joke pictures dragged out and made to be something they weren’t?

The New York Times further reports:

The subsequent cyberstalking investigation uncovered an extramarital affair between Mr. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, his biographer, who agents determined had sent the anonymous e-mails. It also ensnared Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, after F.B.I. agents discovered what a law enforcement official said on Wednesday were sexually explicit e-mail exchanges between him and Ms. Kelley.

When Agent Humphries suspected that the FBI was stalling the investigation possibly due to political reasons, he took his concerns to Congressional Republicans. That was when things began to get complicated.

So what probably happened here? The assumption can be made that the Eric Holder and the Justice knew about the Petraeus affair as far back as last summer. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether or not Eric Holder chose to share this information with President Obama. Remember, President Obama claims he did not know about the affair until the day after the election. Had Agent Humphries continued his investigation, he might have upset the Administration’s plans to use the affair as leverage against General Petraeus (which I believe they did).

There is nothing about the attack on Benghazi that does not reek of cover-up, lies, and misinformation. The shame is that the four men who died in the attack are innocent victims not only of an Al Qaeda attack, but of a totally dishonest administration.

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Curiouser and Curiouser…

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This story is based on two sources–an article by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and an article by Eli Lake at the Daily Beast.

Both articles deal with the testimony of Michael Morell, who became acting Director of Central Intelligence following the surprise resignation of David Petraeus, who will be appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Director Morell is expected to testify that the CIA never requested military assistance during the attack on Benghazi.

The article at the Daily Beast reports:

The CIA, however, requested none of that assistance. Neither did the State Department. None of those teams ever arrived in Benghazi.

On the evening of the attack, the military provided two kinds of support to the CIA security officers who tried to fend off an attack at the U.S. diplomatic mission and then later stood guard at a CIA base less than a mile away, which was hit in a second wave at about 5 a.m. (A U.S. military team working for the CIA was sent that evening from Tripoli, but that team did not arrive at the CIA annex until after the U.S. diplomatic mission was overrun.)

The military support included an unarmed predator drone that recorded the dramatic rescue of U.S. personnel from the diplomatic mission to the CIA base at about midnight. (Timelines differ between the Pentagon and the CIA.) The U.S. military also provided medevac support to survivors of the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department communications specialist Sean Smith, and two retired Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty.

Ed Morrissey points out:

But Morell’s explanation, as related by Lake, doesn’t make a lot of sense.  If the consulate and the CIA annex was under heavy and deliberate attack by forces using mortars and RPGs, why wouldn’t they ask for the military assistance that they knew was on standby for just this sort of contingency?  Why just ask for an unarmed surveillance drone rather than something that could potentially offer a diversion for the extraction of personnel from the consulate?  It’s difficult to imagine that the intelligence unit under fire off an on for seven hours would never have requested military assistance to save the lives of the people in the compound — not impossible, perhaps, but certainly implausible.

My hope is that there will be enough public hearings to make sense of this mess. Right now, this seems to have become a partisan accusation match. When questioned about the statements of Susan Rice on the Sunday news shows after the attack, the reply was that Condoleezza Rice was wrong when she testified that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Answers like that will not help anyone get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi. Answers like that will also prevent steps being taken to make sure the events of September 11, 2012, are never repeated.

 

 

 

 

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Could This Happen In America ?

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CBN News posted a story today about what is happening in Great Britain regarding Sharia Law.

The article reports:

There are reportedly some 85 Sharia courts now operating there, with Islamic judges ruling on cases ranging from financial to marital disputes among British Muslims.

“We went into some proceedings and there were a couple of Islamic judges sitting up above the rest,” said Alan Craig, who recently stepped down as leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance party. “And there was one Muslim woman who was suing for divorce.”

Craig is a former city councilor in East London, home to several Sharia courts where women face open discrimination.

“A woman’s witness value is half that of a man,” Craig told CBN News. “So [the courts] will tend, therefore, to take the man’s position in a divorce.”

The article concludes:

So could Sharia courts come to America? The idea sounds far-fetched to some.

According to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, there have been some 50 court cases in at least 23 states that have seen conflicts between Sharia law and American state law.

And four states have adopted legislation, called “American Laws for American Courts,” that would protect U.S. citizens from the use of any type of foreign law, like Sharia, in the courtroom.

In East London, Craig said the fight against Sharia is much more than a religious or legal issue.

“It’s actually a human rights thing,” he said. “And we’re working in partnership with non-Christians as well on this trying to bolster and strengthen the position for Muslim women.”

Unfortunately, if Sharia Law comes to America, American women will have much more to worry about than whether or not they can get free birth control.

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Voter Fraud Or Incompetence ?

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Unfortunately, election fraud has become a fact in America. The hope is that there is not enough of it to change the results of an election. It is time for America to institute either voter identification or the purple finger used in Iraq.

PJ Media reported yesterday that nearly 1,000 uncounted ballots have been found in a warehouse in Broward County, Florida.

The article reports:

…963 filled ballots were found in a warehouse. The supervisor of elections, Dr. Brenda Snipes, said this happens all the time, especially when dealing with paper ballots. Her department is not the only one to have seen more ballots added to the final number after the election, and they have until Nov. 18 to certify all the votes.

In accounting, there is a concept called an ‘audit trail.’ Shouldn’t ballots be treated with equal respect? We need to know who has custody of every ballot from the time that it is cast.

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America Has Rejoined The United Nations Human Rights Council

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Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon reported that the United States has been re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) and will rejoin the Council. George W.  Bush had refused to be part of the HRC because of its anti-Israel leanings.

According to a Voice of America article Monday, the new members of the HRC were put forth by their regions so that there were only enough candidates to fill the positions–there was not actual choice.

According to the Voice of America, the new members include:

Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya and Sierra Leone will fill the five vacant African seats. Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates will fill the five open Asia-Pacific seats.  Estonia and Montenegro will hold the two Eastern European seats while Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela take the three seats of the group of Latin American and Caribbean states.

Obviously, not all of the chosen countries have stellar human rights records within their own countries.

The article reports:

Rights groups have expressed doubts about whether at least seven of these countries – Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela – have adequate human rights records of their own.

Human Rights Watch’s U.N. Director Philippe Bolopion criticized the lack of competition and the questionable records of some of the council’s new members.

This is not a group that America should be a part of.

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