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.
Limited posts on weekend due to family commitments.
Debt Limit Debate
Boy, do I wish we had about five more RINOs like Mike Castle in the Senate, giving us a Republican Majority and putting conservatives in control of the committees. Conservatives are now sharply divided, ripping each other over should we take the best deal we can get on the debt and try to win in 2012, or do we hold out until for everything, take the risk the media will allow the left to blame a crash on the GOP, killing chances for conservative control in 2013. When conservatives are blasting each other, Obama has to be smiling. ~Bob.
Quote from the Founder of the Democrat Party
"[W]ith respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age." --Thomas Jefferson
From The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/
Economy grew only 1.3 pct. in the spring, after nearly stalling out in the winter
So borrow, spend, grow government and print money hasn’t fixed the economy? Who would have guessed? ~Bob. Excerpt: The economy expanded at meager rate of 1.3 percent annual rate in the spring after scarcely growing at all in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Friday. The combined growth for the first six months of the year was the weakest since the recession ended. The government revised the January-March figures to show just 0.4 percent growth — down sharply from its previous estimate of 1.9 percent. High gas prices and scant income gains have forced consumers to pull back sharply on spending in the spring. Stock futures fell after the report was released. “These numbers are extremely bad,” said Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight. “The momentum in the economy is clearly very weak.”
The Debt Ceiling and 2012
Excerpt: [T]he first responsibility of members of Congress as well as grassroots activists should be to do nothing that will impede the election of a Republican president and Republican majority Senate in 2012. If Republicans control the Congress and the presidency after 2012, they will have unlimited opportunities to cut the budget, decrease the debt, change the rules that permit government spending to increase on autopilot, and (one hopes) adopt the kind of pro-business policies that will encourage rather than impede economic growth. Bill Buckley famously (Did he say anything that wasn't famous?) declared that he would always support the most right-leaning candidate who could win. Similarly, we should support those policies and tactics (not a dirty word) that are most likely to lead to good outcomes for the country.
From NRO Newsletters . . .Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty (free subscription)
I think a lot of the discussion among conservatives on Thursday can be summarized in one Twitter exchange: Guy Benson: It would be awesome if people on our side would stop angrily questioning each other's motives. John Tabin: WHO'S PAYING YOU TO SAY THAT? (John's kidding.)
Worth reading: The Great Divide
Excerpt: We're in the midst of a great four-year national debate on the size and reach of government, the future of the welfare state, indeed, the nature of the social contract between citizen and state. The distinctive visions of the two parties -- social-democratic versus limited-government -- have underlain every debate on every issue since Barack Obama's inauguration: the stimulus, the auto bailouts, health care reform, financial regulation, deficit spending. Everything. The debt ceiling is but the latest focus of this fundamental divide. The sausage-making may be unsightly, but the problem is not that Washington is broken, that ridiculous ubiquitous cliche. The problem is that these two visions are in competition, and the definitive popular verdict has not yet been rendered. … Given this reality, trying to force the issue -- turn a blocking minority into a governing authority -- is not just counter-constitutional in spirit but self-destructive in practice. Consider the Boehner Plan for debt reduction. The Heritage Foundation's advocacy arm calls it "regrettably insufficient." Of course it is. That's what happens when you control only half a branch. But the plan's achievements are significant. It is all cuts, no taxes. It establishes the precedent that debt-ceiling increases must be accompanied by equal spending cuts. And it provides half a year to both negotiate more fundamental reform (tax and entitlement) and keep the issue of debt reduction constantly in the public eye. I am somewhat biased about the Boehner Plan because for weeks I've been arguing (in this column and elsewhere) for precisely such a solution: a two-stage debt-ceiling hike consisting of a half-year extension with dollar-for-dollar spending cuts, followed by intensive negotiations on entitlement and tax reform. It's clean. It's understandable. It's veto proof. (Obama won't dare.) The Republican House should have passed it weeks ago. After all, what is the alternative? The Reid Plan with its purported $2 trillion of debt reduction?
Conservatives, Let's Remember Who Our Political Enemy Is
Excerpt: I hope that as we conservatives traverse these very difficult roads, we will always remember who the political enemy is. Our internecine fighting of late has given President Obama a bit of needed cover for his primary culpability in our nation's budget crisis. Conservatives seem to be evenly divided on whether or not to support House Speaker John Boehner's budgetary plan to avoid a debt ceiling impasse. But the level of vitriol back and forth is increasing, with one side calling the other "crazy" and the other shouting back "RINOs," or Republicans in name only. I believe both sides are acting honorably; they mostly agree on goals and disagree on tactics. But it's a bit more complicated than that. They also differ somewhat in their operating assumptions.
They've Lost That Lovin' Feeling -Obama still has supporters, but theirs is a grim support
Excerpt: The Republican establishment reasserted itself this week, and good thing, too, because the establishment was right. It said Republicans in the House should back and pass the Boehner bill on the debt ceiling because it goes in the right directions, contains spending cuts but not taxes, and is viable. So accept victory, avert crisis, and get it to the Senate. The establishment was being conservative in the Burkean sense: acknowledges reality, respect it, and make the most progress possible within it. This has not always been true of them. They spent the first decade of this century backing things a truly conservative party would not have dreamed of—careless wars, huge spending and, most scandalously, a dreamy and unconservative assumption that it would all work out because life is sweet and the best thing always happens. They were mostly led by men and women who had never been foreclosed on and who assumed good luck, especially unearned good luck, would continue. They were fools, and they lost control of their party when the tea party rose up, rebuking and embarrassing them. Then the tea party saved them by not going third party in 2009-10. And now the establishment has come forward to save the tea party, by inching it away from the cliff and reminding it the true battles are in 2012, and after. Let's hope the tea party takes the opportunity. … But that actually is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national politics. It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy."
Boehner's Moment of Truth
Excerpt: The speaker has positioned his party to take credit for a bill that averts a crisis.
It isn't easy to turn Washington around on a dime. If nothing else, give Republican House Speaker John Boehner marks for trying. It wasn't a week ago that Mr. Boehner was plodding through White House deliberations, grasping for GOP support, facing the growing likelihood his party would be saddled with either a flawed debt bargain or blame for causing a default. By last night, Mr. Boehner was on the precipice of passing the only workable debt plan in town and shifting responsibility for further debt fallout across the aisle. Whatever the final result, Mr. Boehner's week-long struggle to pull his party behind him is worthy of some study.
Nation’s Health Care Bill To Nearly Double By 2020
So the Government, which is beyond broke, is paying an increasing share of increasing health care costs. Wasn’t it a guy named Obama who said we had to pass “Healthcare Reform” to “bend the cost curve down”? How’s that working out for you? Before costs double, the system will collapse. ~Bob. Excerpt: The federal health law, which will expand coverage to 30 million currently uninsured Americans, will have little effect on the nation's rising health spending in the next decade, a government report said today. The report by the Medicare Office of the Actuary estimated that health spending will grow by an average of 5.8 percent a year through 2020, compared to 5.7 percent without the health overhaul. With that growth, the nation is expected to spend $4.6 trillion on health care in 2020, nearly double the $2.6 trillion spent last year. Health law critics said the report confirmed their concerns. "Most of us understood the health reform law was about expanding coverage not cutting costs," said Joseph Antos, a health policy expert at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. But White House Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle said the report showed Americans were getting a good deal. "The bottom line from the report is clear: more Americans will get coverage and save money and health expenditure growth will remain virtually the same," she said on the White House blog.
Fort Hood Targeted for Second Terrorist Attack
Killing Muslims? No. Killing kuffer? Apparently okay under “The religion of Peace.” ~Bob. Excerpt: A U.S. Army private was arrested Wednesday in possession of explosive material which officials fear may have been part of a plan to launch another attack on the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. The serviceman, identified by the FBI as Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo, 21, was taken into custody by the Killeen Police Department near Fort Hood after the owners of a local ammunition store, Guns Galore, alerted the police to Abdo's "suspicious" behavior in the store. Abdo reportedly told law enforcement that the goal of his planned attack was to "get even." "I would classify it as a terror plot," Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin told reporters in an afternoon briefing. After only one year in the army, Abdo reportedly realized he could not kill fellow Muslims and applied for conscientious objector status, preventing deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan. "A Muslim is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war," he said in an interview with ABC News last August. In a separate statement he said that he did not "believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don't believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of a Muslim…" Similar sentiments were expressed by Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in November 2009. Hasan had told classmates that he considered himself to be "a Muslim first and an American second" and he was found to have had email interaction with American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.
Fort Hood, again
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/fort_hood_again_rbuwWf0hoCV9TMoW1vfFNM#ixzz1TUfs6rs2
Guess he didn’t get the “Islam is a Religion of Peace” memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: Thanks to a tip from a Texas gun- dealer, Army Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo never had the chance to re-enact the kind of slaughter that wreaked bloody havoc at Fort Hood in 2009. But he came close, officials say. Yesterday, they announced that Abdo, who'd gone AWOL, had been arrested in Killeen, Texas, after being found in possession of firearms, bomb-making materials and extremist Islamic literature. They said he admitted planning an attack on Fort Hood. Shades of 2009, when another Muslim soldier with jihadist material, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, succeeded in murdering 13 people, and wounding 29 others, in a mad shooting spree on the base. Abdo reportedly planned to plant shrapnel-packed bombs at an eatery popular with soldiers -- and shoot any survivors of the blasts.
New Muslim Ft. Hood Suspect Was Recently Featured on…Al Jazeera
Excerpt: Then, he claims he began to question whether Allah would want him taking part in war and whether such an action would be going against “the peace that Islam preaches.”
Chaffetz grills ATF Special Agent on gunwalking
Excerpt: Trying to get honest and consistent answers out ATF Special Agent William Newell is difficult at best, but Chaffetz goes after him lock, stock, and barrel with his own admissions on the fact that he was not only aware of the gunwalking, but wrote in a memo that it was intentional at the time. Now he denies it:
Evaluating Federal Social Programs: Finding Out What Works and What Does Not
Actually, all federal social programs accomplish their intended purpose. You just have to understand the goal is to employ more government union workers to vote Democrat and pay dues to contribute to Democrats. They work great for that goal. The stated purpose of the program is only a selling point. ~Bob. Abstract: Federal social programs are rarely evaluated to determine whether they are actually accomplishing their intended purposes. As part of its obligation to spend taxpayers’ dollars wisely, Congress should mandate that experimental evaluations of every federal social program be conducted. The evaluations should be large-scale, multisite studies to guard against mistakenly assuming that a program that works in one location or with one population will automatically work in other situations. Congress should place substantially less emphasis on funding evaluations based on less rigorous types of research designs, because their conclusions are much less reliable. Finally, Congress should exercise strict oversight to ensure that the evaluations are conducted and the results reported in a timely manner.
Spencer and Braswell on Slashdot
Excerpt: “Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere than is assumed in current models. ‘There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,’ said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama.” Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top. (If you have the time and patience to chase through the links, you’ll find the IPCC’s models can’t produce data that match the real world because their assumptions are incorrect. It’s as if you convinced your pocket calculator that 2 X 2 = 5, then used it to calculate the interest on your bank account; your result will be greater than the bank’s calculator will allow you to be paid. Ron P.)
The Forgotten War
Excerpt: Meanwhile, in the real world, after nearly a decade at war, young Americans still are being killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq. We now are engaged in "kinetic military operations" in Libya, Yemen and Pakistan and against pirates off the coast of Somalia. The so-called "Green Revolution" has left in its wake unstable "transitional" governments in Egypt and Tunisia that are vulnerable to radical Islamists. And the portent for trouble doesn't end there. (…) The Obama administration's surreal response to all of this? Ignore what is actually happening on the ground -- particularly Iran's insidious role in these places and events -- and instead talk of nothing but domestic political concerns while making plans to slash U.S. defense spending dramatically. A government official, speaking on background, describes the proposed cuts as "Draconian" and "totally devoid of any strategic reality." Though the O-Team has yet to identify specific reductions in defense and intelligence programs, "the target is to reduce national security expenditures by more than $600 billion." For the record, that is more than one-third larger than the "savings" advocated by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and includes cuts in "every branch of the armed forces and every current and proposed weapons system."
Fast & Furious Hearing Sending Shockwaves towards White House & Eric Holder
excerpt: Thursday, 28 July 2011 20:36The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducted another hearing this week on Fast and Furious -- the operation spearheaded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) which knowingly put thousands of guns into criminals’ hands. Tuesday’s hearing exposed the anti-gun animus of several people within the Obama Administration, and their answers continued to beg the question: Was Operation Fast and Furious all about drumming up more support for gun control? Gun Owners of America met with three persons from the House committee prior to the hearing. The meeting was “off the record,” so we can’t report on the details. Only to say, GOA brought up a hard-and-fast link between the White House and “Fast and Furious” -- and encouraged committee members to pursue a line of questioning that would publicly expose this connection.
NHS delays operations 'as it waits for patients to die or go private'
Excerpt: Health service trusts are “imposing pain and inconvenience” by making patients wait longer than necessary, in some cases as long as four months, the study found. Executives believe the delays mean some people will remove themselves from lists “either by dying or by paying for their own treatment” claims the report, by an independent watchdog that advises the NHS. (This is the system the Obots worship. ~Bob.)
U.S. accuses Iran of ‘secret deal’ with al Qaeda
Ah, what happened to “resetting” our relationships with the Muslim world? With meeting without preconditions? How’s all that working out for you? ~Bob. Excerpt: The Obama administration accused Iran on Thursday of entering into a "secret deal" with an al Qaeda offshoot that provides money and recruits for attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Treasury Department designated six members of the unit as terrorists subject to U.S. sanctions. The announcement was made despite disagreements in the U.S. intelligence community about the extent of direct links between the Iranian government and al Qaeda, officials said. Most analysts agree there is a murky relationship between the two and at least some cooperation. But Thursday's allegations go further. Treasury said its exposure of the clandestine agreement would disrupt al Qaeda operations by shedding light on Iran's role as a "critical transit point" for money and extremists reaching Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Lawyer Jokes are Hate Speech?
Excerpt: When you criticize lawyers or the legal system, thin-skinned lawyers get indignant. The head of the State Bar of California, Harvey Saferstein, called for a crackdown on jokes at lawyers’ expense: “Comparing jokes against attorneys to hate speech against African-Americans and women, Saferstein said he favors classifying such comments as hate crimes.” Saferstein, a leading liberal lawyer, said that “Crimes against attorneys should rate special penalties — similar to crimes against police, judges and political officeholders — because lawyers are representatives of the court and their work is essential to the country’s justice system.” (His comments came less than a year after the Supreme Court struck down a hate-speech ordinance as a violation of free speech in R.A.V. v. St. Paul.)
Group reports on city litigation costs, urges constraint
Gee, I wonder why government is broke? ~Bob. Excerpt: The city of Chicago may be known as "The City That Works," but one legal group released a study today that said "The City That Settles" would be a more fitting nickname based on the amount of money Chicago spent on litigation last year. Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch (I-LAW), which was formed in 2002 with the mission of being the state's legal watchdog group, examined Chicago's lawsuit- related expenses over the past few years and today released its results, as well as a few recommendations, in a study titled, "Chicago: The City That Settles." The 17-page study shows that the city has been hit with 900 lawsuits in the past three years and spent $85 million in 2010 to defend itself against lawsuits. That dollar amount figure, which combines judgments, settlements and costs associated with hiring outside legal counsel, is something I-LAW focused on in its study to bolster its stance that if the city didn't spend so much fighting and settling lawsuits, it could save taxpayer dollars, help the city to close its budget deficit and avoid personnel cuts.
How Los Angeles Lost Its Mojo http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303365804576434391802284886.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Excerpt: Los Angeles today is a city in secular decline. Its current political leadership seems determined to turn the sprawling capitalist dynamo into a faux New York. But they are more likely to leave behind a dense, government-dominated, bankrupt, dysfunctional, Athens by the Pacific. … The machine that now controls Los Angeles by default consists of an alliance between labor and the political leadership of the Latino community, the area's largest ethnic population. But since politicians serve at the whim of labor interests, they seldom speak up for homeowners and small businesses.
Operation Fast and Furious: Designed to Promote Gun Control
Excerpt: "Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced yesterday [Monday]." Townhall has obtained the email which states "Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations."
50% Give Obama Poor Marks On Economy
Excerpt: With the debate over the nation’s debt ceiling dragging on and consumer confidence near two-year lows, voters are souring even more on President Obama's handling of economic issues. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 36% of Likely U.S. Voters give the president good or excellent marks when it comes to the economy. But 50% say the president is doing a poor job, up seven points from 43% two weeks ago. (The other 50% are government employees. ~bob.)
Lethal fiasco
Excerpt: Operation Fast and Furious -- the Obama administration's lethal gun-running fiasco -- keeps getting uglier and uglier. In a series of hearings, Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley have been systematically dismantling the administration's preposterous claim that no one in the Justice Department -- which oversees the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- knew anything about the so-called gun-tracking operation. In Fast and Furious, ATF officials encouraged "straw buyers" in Arizona -- including two convicted felons who should have been stopped by the FBI -- to purchase more than 2,000 heavy-duty firearms, including AK-47 variants and .50-caliber sniper rifles, and then resell them to the Mexican drug cartels, allegedly to trace and stop crossborder arms trafficking. At least two dead American agents later, the scheme looks set to blow up in Attorney General Eric Holder's face -- and now there's evidence that it might reach all the way to the White House.
Wall St. hypocrites
Excerpt: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his fellow Wall Street travelers yesterday released a letter warning that unless Congress and the president agree on a budget deal and raise the debt ceiling, the apocalypse will befall us next Tuesday -- when the country, according to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is scheduled to run out of money. Funny -- anybody recall the last time Wall Street's head honchos were warning about "grave" consequences? It came nearly three years ago, when the heads of the big Wall Street firms were running around Washington begging for a taxpayer bailout of their massive losses from risky trades gone bad -- or else the country would go into something close to a depression. As we're all painfully aware, Washington did indeed bail them out -- saving the likes of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and JP Morgan from imminent collapse. But the country wasn't quite saved from serious economic pain. Even though many of the banks have gone back to making sizable profits, unemployment remains sky high, housing prices severely depressed and economic growth chronically anemic. With that in mind, it's hard to take seriously just about any thing uttered by Blankfein & Co. -- particularly yesterday's noise.
Son's sleep restive
This is an older piece that just came to my inbox. If you wonder why there is no forgiveness in many of us for the left, this is why. ~Bob. Excerpt: "Dear Mr. Dewlen, I'm glad your son was killed. So he was a good soldier, so what? So are many Viet Cong. If he had been a good person, he would have stayed home, gone to school and experienced the joys of youth, but he lacked the courage to stand up for humanity. He was a machine, not a man. ..." Forty years ago today - June 11, 1968 - Al Dewlen's life changed forever. It hurt him in ways that go even beyond the death of an only child. He felt bitterness, frustration, emptiness - an unspeakable pain magnified when strangers mocked his son's death and acquaintances almost ignored it. Forty years ago today, Marine Lt. Michael Dewlen, 24, was killed in Vietnam. His outnumbered battery of the 1st Battalion fought the Viet Cong in hand-to-hand combat in the darkness southeast of Khe Sanh. Before Mike was cut down by a submachine gun, he and four others killed 28 of the enemy, bought enough time for arriving American troops to quell the offensive, and prevented the Viet Cong from capturing some large weapons. … Forty years ago, he was called a baby-killer. "... Just brood on this. Your son is being gored and gouged on by ugly worms, while the rest of us enjoy the beauties of marijuana, sex and alcohol," Sincerely, One Who Gloats … "It let me have my say," said Al Dewlen, 86. "We were being tortured by all circumstances, but I had to do something. I wrote the piece in one afternoon." What Dewlen, a former novelist, wrote was "Report To A Sleeping Son," a poignant piece in which a father figuratively cradles a son in his arm to tell him his death was not in vain among the civil hate of the times. A father who wonders in his own words if his love for country and rigid definition of duty that he passed to his son did not indirectly lead to his death. Ultimately, he told his son, no, that "this country had pledged itself was sufficient for you." The piece was printed in Reader's Digest in early 1969 as well as many newspapers across the country. The Marines warned Dewlen, former city editor and reporter at the Amarillo Times and Globe, that he, as with many families of slain soldiers, would be showered with hate mail.
Saboteur Groups Target Oil Pipline in Tal Kalakh, Homs
Excerpt: HOMS, (SANA) – Saboteur groups targeted on Friday's dawn an oil pipeline near Tal Hosh Dam in Tal Kalakh with an explosive bomb, leaving a hole of 15-meter in diameter and causing oil leak. "At 04:00 am on Friday, some citizens heard an explosion near a pipeline for transporting crude oil to Baniyas", Governor of Homs, Ghassan Abdul-Aal said in a statement to SANA Correspondent. The Governor added that the terrorist and sabotage act targets two vital sectors at the same time as the saboteurs chose a point near Tal Hosh Dam which irrigates large areas of the agricultural lands.
Come Fly the Union Skies --Ray LaHood shuts down the FAA to preserve a Big Labor advantage..
Excerpt: Americans may be wondering what this week's partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration is all about, given that it doesn't have anything to do with the debt ceiling. We wondered too, but mystery solved: Democrats have furloughed nearly 4,000 FAA employees and 70,000 workers at airport construction projects to preserve a White House indulgence for Big Labor. This episode is another lesson in Washington intrigue. The FAA was last reauthorized in 2007, and it has since been strung along with 20 separate temporary funding measures. Senate Democrats and House Transportation Chairman John Mica, Republican of Florida, have been trying to negotiate a long-term agreement, but the talks stalemated this month. The major jams are over how much to subsidize flights to rural areas and a political favor the Obama Administration did two years ago for airline and railway unions. Labor organizers in those industries used to have to persuade a majority of employees to form a union, a standard that had prevailed since 1934. But in 2010, the National Mediation Board that governs these elections suddenly changed the rules. President Obama assisted this change by appointing to the board the president of a pilot's union and the former president of the Association of Flight Attendants. Now aviation and railway workers who don't vote in a union election are no longer counted as part of the overall work force from which unions must build a majority. In effect, the board counts a nonexistent ballot as a pro-labor vote to organize.
The Media, Absurdity and Knee-Jerk Analysis; Equating the Norway bombing and the Latest Fort Hood Incident.
Excerpt: The latest attempt by a self described, pious member of Islam has brought out the usual bevy of experts not only in psychology, but in religion as well. Typically, these "experts" have little to no actual experience in any religion and show a general distrust, if not disdain for those who do practice one form of religion or another. I have been chided, on occasion for sharing my faith in these kinds of venues and have made attempts to keep this element of my life out of the conversation. But it is difficult at times to investigate what is clearly evil without the ability to contrast. What I can tell you is that it requires an actual study of the specific doctrines of specific belief systems in order to be able to legitimately make claims of any kind about them. Those who would arbitrarily lump all religions together and claim them to be equally motivating for ideological murders, destroy their own credibility.
Breivik and totalitarian democrats
Excerpt: There's an increasingly popular tendency by many to pick and choose which sorts of terrorism are acceptable and which are unacceptable in accordance with the ideological justifications the terrorists give for their actions.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/07/california-small-businesses-we.html#ixzz1TVzQfO1Y
Not a fair comparison. Texas has a huge advantage—Republicans in government. ~Bob. Excerpt: California's smallest businesses - those without employees - were clobbered by the first two years of recession, a new Census Bureau report shows, with more than 80,000 ceasing operations and the survivors' annual incomes dropping by more than $20 billion. The number of California's non-employee businesses hit a high mark of 2.76 million in 2007 but by 2009 had dropped by 82,878, the Census Bureau report, based on Internal Revenue Service data, found. Business receipts declined from $145 billion to $121 billion during the two-year period. … Not all states suffered declines, however,with Texas adding 8,260 small firms between 2008 and 2009. The full report, with state-by-state interactive data, is available here.
In debt fight, Dems reject Republican compromise
Excerpt: House Speaker John Boehner has introduced two bills that would raise the nation's debt ceiling and end the current default crisis. The first, known as "Cut, Cap and Balance," was tabled by Senate Democrats without an up-or-down vote. The second, Boehner's plan to cut more than $900 billion in federal spending and raise the debt ceiling by a slightly smaller amount, could face a similar fate if it first passes the House. For the Tea Party Republicans who make up a significant part of the House GOP caucus, Boehner's proposal is a significant retreat from "Cut, Cap and Balance." Those who support the Boehner proposal, which is formally known as the Budget Control Act, consider it a major compromise -- something they are backing only after being convinced that their first choice could never pass the Senate. Throughout the debt dispute, President Obama has talked a lot about compromise. In his speech to the nation Monday, he used the word six times, saying America "has always been a grand experiment in compromise" but that in Washington lately, "compromise has become a dirty word." Obama's appearance at a University of Maryland town hall a few days before was a virtual seminar on compromise. While Obama preaches the virtues of compromise, his Democratic allies and surrogates are bashing Republicans for rejecting what the White House characterizes as earnest, good-faith efforts to find common ground.
Higher fuel standards mean higher death toll
Dead people have small carbon footprints, and the elites will still have armored limos. This isn’t a bug—it’s a feature! ~Bob. Excerpt: Much as President Obama and other liberals may think natural laws for things like physics and economics don't matter, the reality is they do and nowhere more so than on American highways. The president reportedly has secured agreements from Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, Honda and Hyundai to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy fleet average standard to 54.5 mpg by 2025. The new standard will be reviewed in 2018, but that won't change the fact that automakers will immediately have to embark on efforts to lighten and downsize all of their models. Those that can't be made sufficiently small to reach the required fleet average will go the way of the Model T. It is inescapable that more weight means lower fuel economy, so heavier vehicles will have to go. So prepare to say goodbye to sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans, the very vehicles millions of American families and businesses must rely upon every day. Even when lighter vehicle materials like aluminum and carbon fiber can be used instead of steel, the only SUVs and minivans that will survive will still have to be significantly smaller than at present, and thus far less practical for consumers.
Bing west’s Congressional Testimony on Afghanistan
Good Cartoon
Excerpt: Barack Obama just spoke to the National Council of La Raza. Aside from the fact that he was not bothered by the group’s reactionary racialist brand (imagine media reaction to a “National Council of the Race”), the president was in top demagogic form with his usual rants about the old anonymous bogeymen “they”: Let’s be honest, I need a dance partner here, and the floor is empty . . . I need you to keep building a movement for change outside of Washington, one they can’t stop, one that’s greater than this community . . . Feel free to keep the heat on me and the heat on Democrats. But here’s the thing you should know, the Democrats and your president are with you, don’t get confused about that. Of course, there is nothing to be confused about: When the president entered office, he enjoyed a supermajority in theHouse and a veto-proof Senate, and could have passed on a strict party-line vote any imaginable immigration bill he had wished, in the manner that he rammed down Obamacare. The truth was that he needed no “dance partner” then, and he knows that perfectly well now. But no matter: the crowd was pleased. So it chanted the same old mantra, “Yes, we can”— in the same manner that his “alligators and moats” and fantasies about the border fence being “basically complete” not long ago were a hit with a similarly uninformed audience that hissed “They’re racist” on cue between the president’s studied pauses.
Illegal alien advocacy group sues Texas police officers
Excerpt: A small Texas city is being sued for discrimination by dozens of Latino day laborers who claim that police are unconstitutionally targeting their free-speech right to express their availability for employment in public areas, even though a state law has long prohibited it, according to a report by a public-interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption cases in civil court. Collectively known as Jornaleros de Las Palmas, or the Day Laborers of Palmas, the men are represented by a powerful open-borders group (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund or MALDEF) that specializes in discrimination lawsuits on behalf of Latinos and illegal immigrants, stated officials at Judicial Watch.
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Robert A. Hall
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