I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on.
Collapse book interview on the Rob Schilling Show
I'm scheduled to be interviewed about my book on Tuesday, 28th June from 1:15 pm EDT until 2:00 pm EDT (That's 12:15 pm CDT to 1:00 pm CDT). Also on the show will be Chet Nagle, author of The Iran Covenant and a former Naval Aviator and former CIA Agent. The show originates from Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia and streams live on the internet. You can get it on the "Listen Live" link at www.SchillingShow.com They welcome callers at (434) 977-1070 on their 'comment line.'Please feel free call in to discuss the book or ask questions.
How Does It Feel
Good advice from a blog reader who contributes many of the article links you see here. ~Bob
Must read: There Are No Socialists
Excerpt: The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted. Greece is the locus classicus. Why are the Greeks protesting? Against whom? They obtained long ago the promised bloated sector and high taxes that all schemed to avoid. Their alma mater EU is hardly a demonic capitalist-run plutocracy, but a kindred socialist state. Is Greece an oil producer, industrial powerhouse, high-tech innovator — anything that might explain the sort of upscale life, modern infrastructure, legions of Mercedeses, and plush second homes that one began to see in Greece after 1985? (…) Indeed, statism is not a desired outcome, but rather more a strategy for obtaining power or winning acclaim as one of the caring, by offering the narcotic of promising millions something free at the expense of others who must be seen as culpable and obligated to fund it — entitlements fueled by someone else’s money that enfeebled the state, but in the process extended power, influence, and money to a technocratic class of overseers who are exempt from the very system that they have advocated. (Hanson hit another homerun. Ron P. This is why a collapse is coming. ~Bob.)
Blagojevich guilty on 17 counts
Excerpt: A federal jury today convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of corruption.
Blogojevich showed no reaction as the jury found him guilty on 17 of 20 counts against him. He then sat back in his chair with his lips pursed and looked toward his wife Patti and whispered, "I love you." with disappointment on face. The jury deadlocked on two counts and found him not guilty of one count. (Most of the crooks got away. ~Bob.)
GOP Jobs Plan: Getting Government Out of the Way of Small Businesses
President Obama Plays Politics in Afghanistan
Excerpt: The nation’s two highest-ranking military commanders have gone on record raising serious concerns about President Obama’s flawed plan to bring 33,000 troops home from Afghanistan by September 2012. The outgoing Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, said during Senate hearings last week that the troop withdrawal was “a more aggressive formulation…than what we had recommended.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen echoed Petraeus when he noted the danger in moving U.S. troops out of Afghanistan too quickly, saying it will “incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept.” While the President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, heeding wise counsel from his most senior military commanders is part of fulfilling that role. The President is under political pressure from his liberal base to withdraw troops and wind down the Afghan war as next year’s election inches closer. His announcement last week reveals he is basing the Afghan troop decision more on the domestic political calendar than the goal of achieving U.S. objectives there.
Excerpt: Think about everything you will pay to support Medicare: the payroll taxes while you are working, the premiums during retirement, and your share of the income taxes that subsidize the system. Then compare that to the benefits of Medicare insurance, say, from age 65 until the day you die. Are you likely to come out ahead? That depends in part on how old you are. If you are a typical 85-year-old, for example, you can expect about $55,000 of insurance benefits over and above everything you have been paying into the system. If you’re a typical 25-year-old, however, you will pay an extra $111,000 into the system, over and above any benefits you can expect to receive. By the way, this is not the sort of calculations you want to try at home on a pocket calculator. It’s too complicated. Fortunately the heavy lifting has already been done by Andrew Rettenmaier and Courtney Collins in a report for the National Center for Policy Analysis. See the table.
State Economic Competitive Index
Excerpt: In this year's edition, the top 10 states on economic performance were (from one to 10, in order): Utah, South Dakota, Virginia, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, North Dakota, Tennessee, Missouri and Florida. Rounding out the bottom of the list were: Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, California, Maine, Vermont and New York.
The Subprime Lending Debacle: Competitive Private Markets Are the Solution, Not the Problem
Excerpt: The United States' market-government hybrid mortgage system is unique in the world. No other nation has such heavy government intervention in housing finance. This hybrid system nurtured the excessively risky loans, financed with too much leverage, that fueled the U.S. housing bubble of the last decade and resulted in the systemic collapse of the global financial system. The responsibility for the massive failures of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at the center of American housing finance and the private securitization system that supports housing finance, falls directly on regulators and indirectly on their political overseers. Private and GSE prudential regulators were given politically determined social lending goals that ultimately trumped prudential regulation, forcing the GSEs to fund subprime lending in competition with private label securitizers. The result was the extension of lower and lower quality loans, creating a race-to-the-bottom between the GSEs and private mortgage providers, all while regulators and politicians looked on approvingly. The financial crisis resulted when many of those loans turned sour in the latter part of the last decade. We find no evidence that the United States housing market has unique characteristics requiring a hybrid GSE system, thus we conclude that the system and the political risks it is subject to are unnecessary.
Hybrid cars' share of sales stalls
Excerpt: Despite months of high gas prices, a bevy of new fuel-stingy cars with conventional gas engines may be eating into sales of pricier gas-electric hybrids. Sales of high-mileage, high-value conventional compacts such as the Hyundai Elantra, Ford Focus and Chevrolet Cruze are hot, while hybrid sales have stagnated. The hybrid share of U.S. auto sales peaked at 3.6% in July 2009, Edmunds.com says. Last month, it was 1.6%, depressed also by production cuts for some models due to the Japan disaster, but not enough to account for all the drop.
The Jobless Insurance Mess
Excerpt: Meanwhile, more evidence has arrived that jobless subsidies are a disincentive work. A recent report by Chicago Federal Reserve economists Luojia Hu and Shani Schechter indicates that benefit extensions account for a roughly 1% increase in the unemployment rate. They calculate that between 10% and 25% of the recent decline in unemployment is due to people exhausting their benefits. Allowing the extended emergency benefits to expire, they conclude, could help reverse their adverse effects on employment.
With Michele Bachmann’s surge comes fresh scrutiny
Excerpt: In the race for the White House, Michele Bachmann is surging. A new Iowa poll, the first snapshot in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, found Bachmann statistically tied with front-runner Mitt Romney among likely Republican caucus-goers there. Yet on Sunday, a day before Bachmann was to formally launch her campaign in her birthplace of Waterloo, Iowa, the Minnesota congresswoman faced the kind of scrutiny that comes to any leading presidential contender. On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace quizzed Bachmann on a series of apparent inconsistencies in her legislative record and personal background — from Medicare to government subsidies and earmarks to her opposition to same-sex marriage. Then, as he wrapped up the interview, Wallace asked her: “Are you a flake?”
Why Michele Bachmann is the Iowa frontrunner
Excerpt: While the topline numbers are impressive for Bachmann, they reveal only some of her Iowa strength. The other piece of it comes from the passion that the Minnesota Republican engenders in her supporters. In the Register poll, 65 percent said they had a favorable impression of Bachmann, with 31 percent saying they felt very favorably toward her. (Just 12 percent felt unfavorably about Bachmann.) Excitement and passion are organic and can’t be created no matter how strong a political organization a candidate puts together. One need only look back to the 2008 Iowa caucus results for evidence of that phenomenon.
Survey seeks data on Camp Lejeune illnesses
Excerpt: Hundreds of thousands of people who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina more than 25 years ago are being asked to complete a detailed health survey to determine what diseases may be linked to contaminated water they drank and bathed in at the largest Marine base on the East Coast. As many as 1 million people over three decades may have been exposed to well water that was contaminated by toxins, officials have said. Some of the toxins may have been present at levels as much as 40 times higher than current safety standards.
Obama’s America in Black & White: Black political segregation, nurtured by the policies of the 1960s, has only hardened in the Obama years.
Excerpt: So it wasn’t for them to point out what the pundits ignored: Obama is and always has been a hardened, bare-knuckled veteran of the culture wars, who not only pursues racial divisions among Americans for political gain but personifies the stark differences in political attitudes between whites and blacks. It was as obvious in 2008 as it is now that electing a man who describes a sermon containing the passage “white people’s greed runs a world in need” as the formative moment in his spiritual life would guarantee a period of unusual social bitterness and resentment. And that is, in fact, where we are. A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that non-college-educated whites are the most alienated of racial groups. Only 44 percent of this demographic said they expected their economic situation to be better ten years from now, compared to two-thirds of minorities (and 55 percent of college-educated whites).
Excellent satire: The Real Story of America’s Founding
Excerpt: Back before the Unites States was an independent nation, people lived in horrific conditions under British rule. The British weren’t providing very good free health care (wait time for a poor person to get an MRI was over 200 years), they were refusing to increase taxes on the rich, and they had very few laws dictating what colonists were allowed to eat, causing many to become obese on the high-fructose maize syrup the Indians taught them to make. So the colonists kept demanding that the British give them big government to regulate their lives and provide for their basic needs while confiscating all their wealth. “We’re stupid,” they’d cry out to the British. “Please rule us and make us do what you think is best!” But the British kept refusing, saying, “No, you guys are doing okay by yourselves. We want you to have the freedom to run your own lives.” It was this laissez-faire attitude that led to the Boston Massacre, in which five people died of heart attacks in Boston from eating fatty foods a proper government would never have let them eat in the first place. Finally the colonists had enough of not being bossed around and decided if the British weren’t going to provide them the all-encompassing government they wanted, they had to make it themselves. They started by throwing tea into the Boston Harbor since they determined it had too much caffeine and people shouldn’t have been allowed to drink it. Then they formed militias to collect more taxes from the colonists to spend on welfare and government works projects. The British tried to strike back by ending regulations and giving tax rebates, but the colonists were now ready to fight to make sure some large entity would tell them what to do. And many were rallied to the cause by Patrick Henry’s cry of “Give me a large government telling me what I can and can’t do while spending most of my money, or give me death!”
Good conservative political humor blog
Their gun safety tee shirt:
Why Your New Car Doesn't Have a Spare Tire
Excerpt: That may be what's in store for drivers under the federal government's spiraling fuel economy mandates (known as CAFE, for Corporate Average Fuel Economy). The Department of Transportation is floating 62 mpg as a possible standard for 2025, more than double the current 27.5 mpg standard. How the industry can meet that target, and at what cost, is anyone's guess. A new study in mid-June by the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. put the tab at about $10,000 extra per new vehicle, while admitting that even this estimate might be far too low. And that's not the only bad news; in the past few weeks there have been two other unwelcome developments. First, GM announced that several versions of its compact Chevy Cruze would no longer have spare tires; instead, they'll have vehicle-powered sealant repair kits. This is a major jump in the trend toward eliminating spare tires, a trend due largely to CAFE's drive to shed every possible ounce of car weight.
Lost in Afghanistan?
Excerpt: A Yale University law professor argues that Obama would rather not talk about military victory. And that choice is as telling as it is troubling. Did we win? The question came to mind after President Obama, in a prime-time address, announced a plan to draw down American forces from Afghanistan from 100,000 today to 90,000 at the end of the year and about 70,000 by the summer of 2012. He confirmed his earlier insistence that the combat mission will be completed by 2014. The president promised to bring the troops home, and he is carrying out that promise. But did we win? Are they coming home because they did the job? Or has the enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure been for naught? The president spoke not of victory but of goals achieved and commitments fulfilled. That is the language of contemporary diplomacy and scholarship. Among sophisticates, the concept of winning wars seems so 1980s; perhaps even 1940s.
In Egypt, stealthy campaign underway for big Islamist wins in parliamentary elections later this year
The media and leftist dreamers prating about the flowering of democracy in the “Arab Spring” are in for a sad awakening. ~Bob. An Islamist-dominated Egyptian government is a nightmare scenario for the U.S., which plied Mubarak with billions of dollars to keep regional stability and uphold the peace treaty with Israel. Egyptian liberals, moderates and Coptic Christians are likewise terrified that Islamist parties would use elected office to reverse the revolution's efforts to improve human rights, the status of women, and provide freedom of religion and expression.
As Gaza flotilla plans suffer setbacks organizers vow to go ahead
Excerpt: Six ships that were scheduled to take part in the Gaza-bound flotilla have been detained by Greek port authorities, the Israeli news website ‘Ynet’ reported. Senior officials in Jerusalem confirmed the report, which followed a decision by Greece on Sunday to stop the American vessel ‘Audacity of Hope from participating in the convoy. While the organizers claim that more than 1,500 activists are set to take part in this year’s flotilla, it now appears that no more than seven ships, carrying between 200 and 500 passengers, will set sail next week. (Perfect name for a ship helping Jihadist terrorists efforts to exterminate Jews. ~Bob.)
Was Vandalism Of Pride Parade Floats A Hate Crime?
Conservatives complain when the left uses these tactics against, say, vans to take Republican voters to the polls in WI. If you can't obey the laws, you cannot demand your opponents do so, and we descend into chaos. ~Bob. Excerpt: But the tire-slashing put a damper on the event before it started. Late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, the floats were vandalized in the warehouse for Associated Attractions Enterprises Inc., a parade float business at 4834 S. Halsted St.
Genocide In Sudan – Again
But it’s not PC to criticize anything Muslims do—you might get called “Islamophobic” which is now worse than being racist or homophobic. ~Bob. Excerpt: Imagine the outcry if the American government was suddenly to engage in a campaign of extermination against the Navajos, one of America’s aboriginal peoples. The protests, especially from the Left, would be deafening. But what would be unimaginable in America today is currently taking place in Sudan, whose rulers are no strangers to genocide. Sudan’s original people, the African Nuba tribes inhabiting central Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, are currently facing a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Arab and Islamist central government, whose leader, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is currently under indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Darfur. “The Sudanese Army and its allied militias have gone on an unsparing rampage to crush rebel fighters in the Nuba Mountains …, bombing thatch-roofed villages, executing elders, burning churches…,” stated the New York Times, citing United Nations officials and “villagers who have escaped.”
Worth reading: Being Honest about the “Partisan Divide”
Excerpt: Those who lament the “partisan divide” in Congress are missing the point. This is not about partisanship, it is about, to borrow Thomas Sowell’s phrase, a “conflict of visions.” Proof of this is that those who have no reason to be partisan – my favorite cousin, for example – falls right into line with Democrat Party policies on quite literally every issue. In fact, tell me but a single belief of one of my friends or neighbors (people with no reason to go against their own beliefs for the sake of the party) and I can tell you every other policy he supports or opposes. If, for example, you were to tell me that you believe that global warming is real and manmade, I can predict to perfection that you support Obama’s healthcare scheme, opposes the immigration bill in Arizona and elsewhere and perceive across-the-board tax cuts as “tax cuts for the rich.” On the other hand, tell me that you recognize manmade global warming to be the hoax that it is, and I can predict to perfection that you supported the liberation of the Iraqi people, are a strong supporter of Israel and understand that raising taxes on the most successful is a recipe for disaster. What seems like a “partisan divide” is really a fundamental and unbridgeable difference in how the two sides see the world, their understanding of mankind and of human nature. Most fundamental to this difference is how one understands the condition of the human being at the moment of his birth.
Israel’s Fate?
Excerpt: How, then, shall the State of Israel survive? From their very beginnings, and even long before the United Nations conferral of statehood in 1948, Jews in Israel have faced war, terror and extinction. Now, Israel faces existential destruction from two main and mutually reinforcing sources: (1) the fully constituted state of Iran; and (2) the still-aspiring state of “Palestine.” Together, largely in various unrecognized and unimagined synergies, the interactive effects of these two mega-threats portend incontestable reason for concern. The situation is made more worrisome by President Obama’s persistent support of a “Two-State Solution,” and by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reciprocal acceptance of a Palestinian state that has allegedly been “demilitarized.” This is because the Palestinian side (Hamas, Fatah, it makes little difference) seeks only a One-State solution (on their maps, Israel is already drawn as a part of “Palestine”), and because a demilitarized Palestine would never actually “happen.” After all, any post-independence abrogation of earlier pre-state agreements to demilitarize by a now-sovereign Palestinian state could be permissible under international law. Iran is an established state with an expanding near-term potential to inflict nuclear harms upon Israel. The so-called “international community” has effectively done nothing to stop Iranian nuclearization. Indisputably, the “sanctions” have represented little more than a mildly pestering fly on an elephant’s back.
McCarthy: NRA, Palin a part of 'government-sponsored racism'
Excerpt: Chicago's new top cop says the accessibility to firearms in America is an extension "of government-sponsored racism" that goes back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow.
Is 'global cooling' happening?
Excerpt: While we do live in the warmest decade since proper measurements began our temperatures do not seem to be unprecedented. There is good evidence that 1,000 years ago the medieval climatic optimum was just as warm, if not warmer. Before that the Roman warm period, and the Bronze Age warm period might have been just as hot. (…) Then there is the interplay of short-term natural climatic cycles called decadal variations - that are atmospheric, oceanic and solar cycles. Finally there are longer, millennial effects to account for as well. Climate scientists take a long view of things. Thirty years is enough, they say, to get away from the effects of weather variations and see what long term changes are happening. Over the past 30 years, the world has warmed. But it has not warmed at all since 2001. Although only a decade in length, scientists are puzzled why - as greenhouse gasses increase - the temperature has not. It may be a temporary blip, or possibly an indication that we do not fully understand what is going on. (The fact that there has been no warming for ten years doesn’t stop the media from blaming everything on it. I’m pretty worried about the sun, and the possible connection with a decrease in sun spots with cooling. A few degrees colder will be much worse for people than a couple degrees warmer. ~Bob.)
US: The myth of killer mercury
Excerpt: The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued 946 pages of new rules, requiring that U.S. power plants sharply reduce (already low) emissions of mercury and 83 other air pollutants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that, while the regulations will cost electricity producers $10.9 billion annually, they will save 17,000 lives and generate up to $140 billion in health benefits. There is no factual basis for these assertions. To build its case, EPA systematically cherry-picked supportive studies (many of them dated) and ignored extensive evidence and clinical studies that contradict its regulatory agenda, which is to punish hydrocarbon use and close down coal-fired power plants. Mercury (Hg) has always existed naturally in Earth’s environment. A 2009 study found numerous spikes (and drops) in mercury deposition in Antarctic ice over the past 650,000-years. Mercury is found in air, water, rocks, soil and trees (which absorb it from the environment). This is why our bodies evolved with proteins and antioxidants that help protect us from this and other potential contaminants.
Nigeria Boko Haram Islamists 'bomb Maiduguri drinkers'
I think they didn’t get the memo, unless this is the Muslim version of AA. ~Bob. Excerpt: A bomb attack in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri has killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens, security sources say. They say they believe the attack, which occurred in a beer garden, was carried out by the Islamist sect Boko Haram. The group wants to establish an Islamic government in Nigeria.
Hundreds of Muslim youth in Senegal burn a church, destroy bar in capital neighbourhood
Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: Hundreds of Muslim protesters descended on a Jehovah's Witness temple and a bar in a conservative Muslim neighbourhood of the Senegalese capital on Sunday, setting the buildings on fire in a rare instance of religious extremism in the predominantly Muslim nation.
Seattle Jihadi's Personal Ad: Seeks "Second Wife" who "want[s] to make a life from the most oppressive place on this earth 'America,'" First wife sobs for her "Perfect Muslim"
Excerpt: The wife of suspected terror plotter Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif spoke out about the charges against her husband and tried to paint the picture that he was a “perfect Muslim.” But when the reporter questioning her asked about the possibility of spending life behind bars, she collapsed to the ground in a flood of emotions.
Where is the outrage? After earlier failure, jihadists succeed in using eight-year-old girl to carry remote-controlled bomb to police, killing her
Excerpt: The world breathed a sigh of relief that Pakistani jihadists had failed in their attempt to use nine-year-old Sohana Jawed to carry a bomb in an attack that would have killed her. Now, Afghan jihadists tried, and this time, it worked. Perhaps this was a copycat attack; in any event, Sohana's case is no longer an anomaly, but part of the jihadist playbook in the region. Where is the outrage? As with yesterday's hospital bombing -- which reportedly hit a maternity ward the hardest -- all of Afghanistan, and indeed all of the Muslim world ought to be furious. If there ever were a time for righteous indignation, this would be it. But if protests over the Muhammad cartoons and the Florida Qur'an burning have shown us the ferocity of anger that something said to be "against Islam" can provoke, the relative silence in the face of these acts is deafening.
Pakistan Taliban use husband, wife suicide bombers
Didn’t get the “Islam is a Religion of Peace” memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: The Pakistani Taliban said Sunday the group had sent a husband and wife suicide squad to carry out an attack on a police station in northwestern Pakistan that killed 10 people, a rare instance of militants using a woman as a bomber. The pair entered the police station in Kolachi on Saturday and said they were there to lodge a complaint, said Imtiaz Shah, a senior police official. Once inside, the two attacked with grenades and machine guns, triggering a five-hour standoff with police. Both attackers, including the woman wearing an all-covering robe known as a burqa, eventually blew themselves up. They killed eight police officers and two civilians, said Mohammad Hussain, another police official.
ICE union says Obama admin wants to ‘win votes at the expense of responsible law enforcement’
The people expected to do the dying aren’t happy. ~Bob. Excerpt: Immigration and Customs Enforcement union leaders said Thursday that a policy laid out by the agency is a “law enforcement nightmare” developed by the Obama administration to “win votes at the expense of sound and responsible law enforcement policy.” The union, AFGE National Council 118-ICE, that issued the release “represents approximately 7,600 bargaining unit employees in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, Virgin Islands, and Guam, with over 2,300 members.” The union is a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, a national affiliate of the AFL-CIO.
The Dog That Cornered Osama Bin Laden
Mohammad didn’t like dogs, so Allah, every eager to help Mo, declared them “unclean.” I suppose Obama has apologized to Muslims for using a dog against them. ~Bob. Excerpt: When U.S. President Barack Obama went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, last week for a highly publicized but very private meeting with the commando team that killed Osama bin Laden, only one of the 81 members of the super-secret SEAL DevGru unit was identified by name: Cairo, the war dog. Cairo, like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, is a Belgian Malinois. The Malinois breed is similar to German shepherds but smaller and more compact, with an adult male weighing in the 30-kilo range.
Netanyahu Orders Navy to Interdict Flotilla
Darn Jews just won’t get quietly on the trains like they used to. ~Bob. Excerpt: Prime Minister Binyamin ordered Israel's defense establishment Monday to interdict the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla 2, Voice of Israel radio reported. Netanahyu gave the order during a meeting of his Security Cabinet dedicated to preparations Israel was taking in advance of the new flotilla expected to set sail for Gaza this week. The Cabinet voted in favor of a Navy plan to prevent the upcoming flotilla from arriving in Gaza and granted the IDF authority to prevent the ships' arrival by any means necessary.
Feds Spy on Doctors: Equal Care to Those With Private & Govt Insurance?
Physician, steel thyself: The next person who calls your office seeking an appointment may just be a spy for the federal government. The New York Times has obtained documents from Obama administration officials detailing a plan to have “‘mystery shoppers’ … pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.” Unlike private-sector mystery shoppers, who are hired by businesses to help them improve their service, these phony patients will be working against the doctors they are calling, trying to catch them in the act of making a living and, possibly, of lying to the federal government. Moreover, if this “stealth survey” (as the Times headline describes it) is considered a success, it will pave the way for more such intrusions in the future. The alleged purpose of the survey is to address “the increasing shortage of primary care doctors, including specialists in internal medicine and family practice,” writes the Times. The possibility that government regulations may be a prime cause of the shortage is, of course, not being considered.
Our president thinks he's above the law
Excerpt: Taken individually, it’s easy to excuse individual episodes of executive branch overreach. But taking a step to see the broader picture exposes the stunning breadth of President Obama's lawlessness. Consider just this month's news:
U.S. is bound to lose treaty roulette
Excerpt: Regardless of what one thinks of the Vietnam War and how it was fought, no one would suggest that a Russian roulette foreign policy makes sense. Yet, that seems to be what's in store for us over the coming months. The "bullets" in this round are a variety of bad treaties that have languished in the Senate, unapproved, for years -- and with good reason. President Obama seems intent on pushing at least one them through before the election -- another "trophy" for his foreign policy wall. Pushing through treaties that farm out American sovereignty and security to international organizations and other nations goes to the core of the Obama Doctrine.
Here Comes Another Lost Tribe! (Of Israel)
Excerpt: Thousands of kilometers to the east, in the furthest reaches of northeastern India, a long-lost community continues to nourish its age-old dream of returning to its ancient homeland, the land of Israel. The Bnei Menashe, or “sons of Manasseh,” are descendants of one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, which were exiled by the Assyrian empire more than 27 centuries ago. The community, which numbers 7,232 people, resides primarily in the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, along the border with Burma and Bangladesh. Despite generations of wandering, the Bnei Menashe never forgot who they were, where they had come from, or where they aspired to return. Three times a day, every day, they turn in silent prayer toward Jerusalem, pleading with the Creator to put an end to their long exile and bring them home to Zion. That dream is now poised, at last, to become a reality.
--
Robert A. Hall
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