Friday Afternoon Roundup - Steal their Thunder

LIBERAL CORPORATE TAXATION

Liberals whine incessantly about Citizens United and corporate personhood-- yet the signature achievement of their first administration in almost a decade, was to force everyone to pay taxes to corporations.

What's worse exactly? Corporate Personhood or Corporate Taxation?

When liberals whine about corporate control of politics, remind them that it was their party that created a tax to be collected directly by corporations for the profit of corporations.

No Republican president ever authorized corporations to collect taxes and use those taxes for their own profits, their own bonuses and their own golden parachutes.

It took a Democrat to do that. Forget corporate control of politics. Obama outsourced the functions of the IRS to his corporate donors. Call it the real Warren Buffet Tax.

Truly a signature achievement.




APPRECIATION

This week Rush Limbaugh dedicated about a half hour of his show to reading and discussing my article, "Why the Newsroom is Good for Republicans". It's a great honor and I would like to thank him and any new readers who have come here that way and hope they will stick around.

I have had major conservative media personalities use my work before. One nationally known figure adapted an article into an entire video episode, without ever mentioning my name or giving credit in any way, shape or form. But I don't choose to dwell on the negative, but to appreciate the positive.

Bloggers often get shortchanged and it's important to recognize a class act like Rush Limbaugh who does the right thing and helps the people who produce the material that drives the debate.




THAT WHICH IS CROOKED

"That which is crooked cannot be made straight." (Kohelet 1:15)

The problem with government is... government. Not just its existence, but the culture of government.

What Roberts didn't shouldn't be that much of a surprise, because it's what Republicans have been doing for ages. Liberals enact or propose a drastic expansion of government. Republicans modify it to a compromise solution. A version that isn't quite as awful. The ball goes further left.

The only politics of the Republican Party are Bismarck's "Steal the Socialists' Thunder" politics. Pass a modified version of the same laws that meets similar social goals, but isn't as drastic or disruptive.

Democrats are proposing a DREAM Act in a bid for Mexican votes? Let's propose a more reasonable version of it. Democrats passed a mandate requiring everyone to buy health insurance? Reject it under the Commerce Clause, call it a tax, ignore that taxes are raised by the Federal government and apportioned by it to the states, not paid to private companies. Then wait for Romney to come into office with another modified version of national health care. Thunder stolen. Socialism wins.

The Steal their Thunder mindset is a socialist mindset. It says that the left is right, but too left, so we'll take their crazy ideas and make them workable. In the minds of Republican officials, it's probably something like running a corporation where the boys downstairs come up with a solution and the boys upstairs turn it into something more in line with the business model.

This twisted partnership is how we got here. It's not just the Democrats, it's the Republicans. It's the whole culture of government, where most of the participants agree on 90 percent of the problems, but differ on how to best implement solutions. And very few of them think that the solution to a problem might be to just leave it alone.

The culture of government is the belief that all problems have legislative solutions. And that's a recipe for tyranny.

Change is only going to come from outside. It is going to come from grass-roots movements, from the rise of organizations and movements that are dedicated to fundamentally changing the impact of government power on us. Electing politicians opposed to the current model is important, but it's even more important to build defenses outside the system. The left very successfully dismantled policies and laws that they opposed in that way. The right is catching up.




FAST AND FURIOUS II: SYRIA EDITION

Remember the CIA helping the Muslim Brotherhood smuggle weapons into Syria. There's a bit more to the story...

The weapons and intelligence pipeline being routed through the Brotherhood is only half the story. The other half involves the true purpose of those weapons. Officially the weapons are needed to fight Assad, unofficially they are meant to give the Brotherhood military parity with the Free Syrian Army, which has done the bulk of the fighting, and has remained outside the SNC.

There is a major gap between the Free Syrian Army, which conducts the actual rebellion, and the SNC, which claims to be the true provisional government of the rebel groups. The Muslim Brotherhood isn’t in this to overthrow Assad just to hand over power to a group of army officers. The Brotherhood’s chief foes have been Middle-Eastern regimes run by groups of army officers who took power. The Brotherhood and its backers in the Obama Administration are determined not to allow another secularist officer like Husni al-Za’im to undo all their plans for Syria.

While the administration and its media mouthpieces praise the “Brave Syrian people” fighting against Assad, they are determined not to allow the soldiers and officers doing the fighting to determine the post-Assad future of Syria. Instead the game plan calls for a provisional SNC government followed by another “Democratic election” that will allow the Brotherhood to reap all the benefits of the rebellion.

That's part of my article on F&F II the Syria Edition.



LOSING OUR SONS

About a year ago I had the privilege of becoming involved with an important documentary project that brings home the very personal toll of the War on Terror through the story of two fathers.

One father whose son was killed by a Muslim terrorist and one father whose son became that Muslim terrorist.

The film is Losing Our Sons and it is an intimate look at the destructive power of Islam over the lives of two ordinary men, one white, one black, both Christians, neither of them fanatics, whose sons each lost what they might have been through the power of the Koran.



This is a close-up ground-level view of the impact that Islam is having on America. And the words to take away from this are those of Carlos' father. "This was not Carlos, this was Abdul."

Abdul in Arabic means slave of Allah. There is something chilling in an African-American man seeing his son become a willing slave of the enemy.

This is a powerful film and it is being screened now in parts of the country. It was a privilege being involved with it and it's worth seeing and bringing to your church, synagogue or community.




DEEP IN DENIAL

No matter how many times Congressman King emphasized that most Muslims are good people, or as he put it, “outstanding Americas”, the accusations of McCarthyism kept coming. By now King has been accused of McCarthyism more often than the actual McCarthy. And for the same reason.

Accusations of McCarthyism were a convenient way for the left to avoid addressing their affinity for an ideology that had killed millions of people and kept hundreds of millions of people as virtual slaves. It was a way of placing debate on the entire topic of Communism off limits by denigrating it as “Red-Baiting”. Today accusations of “Islamophobia” serve the same purpose.

That's an excerpt from my piece on Dem sabotage of King's Islamic Radicalization hearings.



MARS NEEDS LIBERAL JEWS

A more heavily Orthodox American Jewish population spells the end of a long love affair with liberalism and the Democratic Party. Numerous polls indicate that Orthodox Jews are more politically conservative, and more supportive of the Republican Party, than non-Orthodox Jews. On a host of controversial social issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage and parochial schooling, they think more like Evangelical Christians than liberal Jews. This provides a huge opportunity for the Republican Party to do what it has tried and largely failed to do for the past three decades - prize American Jewish voters away from their historic attachment to the Democrats.

If the American-Jewish community becomes more right-wing and abandons its traditional support for liberalism, this will only further alienate the already shrinking number of non-Orthodox, liberal Jews in its midst. Rather than remain within the community, they could well become completely estranged from it, further cementing the religious and right-wing orientation of the organized Jewish community.

And if the Jewish liberals trying to destroy the Jewish community are alienated from the community because of their successful destruction of existing liberal Jewish communities... that will be...bad?

To escape Right-Wing American Jews, liberal Jews will have to flee somewhere. Israel? No good. It's subject to the same demographic trends. What about Europe?

The gradual demographic transformation of New York's Jewish community is merely a microcosm of what is happening across the Jewish world. The Orthodox proportion of the European Jewish population is also growing. Haredim, for example, now make up an estimated 17 percent of Britain's Jewish population and account for three-quarters of all British Jewish births. It has been predicted that by 2050, half of all British Jews will be Haredi. 

What about Mars? I hear Mars needs Liberal Jews. It hardly has any social justice activism at all and a major inequality of oxygen distribution.






IT'S CALLED THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN...

More than $140 million dollars were spent by the US government in 2010 to make sure Pakistanis, Kenyans, Indonesians, and others, got relevant, targeted news and information, according to a report published by the Center for International Media Assistance.

They have to know what to say when they're manning the phone banks once again.




MAIS SA'LAAMA: AN EPITAPH FOR THE WEST

Two brief excerpts from the blog of British student journalist Natasha Smith describing her assault in Tahrir Square.

I shouted “salam! Salam! Allah! Allah!”. In my desperate state I also shouted “ma’is salaama!” which actually means “goodbye” – just about the worst possible thing to say to a horde of men trying to ruin me. I might as well have yelled “goodbye cruel world! Down I go!”

...

The women told me the attack was motivated by rumours spread by trouble-making thugs that I was a foreign spy, following a national advertising campaign warning of the dangers of foreigners. But if that was the cause, it was only really used as a pretext, an excuse.

The men outside remained thirsty for blood; their prey had been cruelly snatched from their grasp. They peered in, so I had to duck down and hide. They attempted to attack the tent, and those inside began making a barricade out of chairs. They wanted my blood.

Women were crying and telling me “this is not Egypt! This is not Islam! Please, please do not think this is what Egypt is!” I reassured her that I knew that was the case, that I loved Egypt and its culture and people, and the innate peacefulness of moderate Islam. She appeared stunned. But I’m not really a vengeful person and I could see through the situation. This vicious act was not representative of the place I had come to know and love.

....everything you need to know about the future of the free world is right here in those words.

The horde will rape Europe, Israel and America and we will go on shouting "Salam! Salam! Allah! Allah!" and assuring the few Muslims who do the decent thing that we are not vengeful people and we know better than to assume that what we are experiencing is representative of the people and their culture.



BLACK MAGIC

The Saudis, our allies against the terrorism funded by Saudi Arabia and consisting of Saudis, are beheading witches. (This is in no way representative of the people and their culture.)

In modern Zimbabwe, witches undergo psychiatric examinations. In backward Saudi Arabia, they get beheaded.

While America fights a war on terror... the Saudis fight a war on sorcery. Harry Potter look out.

Saudi Arabia has decided to bolster its religious police unit specialized in arresting magicians within an ongoing war on sorcery which is punishable by execution in the Gulf Kingdom.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the influential law enforcement authority in the world’s oil powerhouse, reported that it had created a “field unit” charged with fighting sorcerers, who it described as “key causers of religious and social instability in the country.”

The Commission’s president, Sheikh Abdul Latif Al Shaikh, ordered the creation of that unit which the statement said is designed to “activate field action to fight sorcerers and charlatans in all parts of the Kingdom.”

Sure it's funny. What's even funnier is that a backward dictatorship which blames all the problems on sorcerers (this is what happens when you drive out all the Jews, you have to blame all your problems on evil wizards) also controls much of our foreign policy and is colonizing America and Europe.

Hilarious.

But one Kemal Argon, a self-proclaimed "Specialist on Islam in the Modern World" has written an article at the Huffington Post which claims that Muslims are just like witches.

American Muslims are increasingly concerned about persecutions of Muslims in American society. I would urge more of them who can do so to make their way to the Salem Witch Museum. However, taking a short tour of the Salem Witch Museum is to be recommended as an important educational experience for anyone concerned about fear-driven persecution of any group or individual in our society today.

We can recognize that this hysterical witch hunting and persecution that we sometimes see in America is nothing new. At the very least, we can recognize any pattern of intolerance and persecution recycling itself in American history for what it really is and refuse to be part of it. In the case of Islamophobia manifesting as witch-hunting and persecution, although we cannot oppose this persecution with our hands in our current situation, we can oppose it with our voices and with our hearts. Such nonviolence in opposition to unjust persecution is legitimate.

In case you missed it, let me draw your attention to three particular words. "although we cannot oppose this persecution WITH OUR HANDS in our current situation..."

Should the situation change... yadda yadda. In the meantime let's troop down to the Salem Witch Museum as a metaphor for American Islamophobia, even though it's Muslims, not Americans, who kill witches these days.

But if you're wondering just how the Saudis would go about beheading Harry Potter, there's an extensive feature at American Digest which showcases the man on the front lines of Saudi Arabia's War on Sorcery.

While looking through it, I would urge you to remember that this is not at all representative of anything, nor does it have any long-term implications for an America and Europe where Islam is defined by Saudi mosques.

It's just one of those things that has nothing to do with us... in our current situation.



I FOR ONE WOULD LOVE TO SEE BARACK'S BACK

Hours before the ruling, the Obama for America campaign sent out an email titled “Today’s decision” to potential donors.

“We don’t know what will happen this morning,” campaign manager Jim Messina says in the email. “But no matter what, today is an important day to have Barack Obama’s back.”

via Boker Tov Boulder




WHO SAYS THE PALESTINIANS DON'T PRODUCE ANYTHING WORTHWHILE?

Israeli scientists find new strain of MRSA bacteria spreading in Gaza City

But don't worry, according to Hamas there is no bacteria in Gaza.

Gaza's Ministry of Health on Monday denied reports of a new strain of bacteria found by medical researchers in the Gaza Strip.

Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qedreh told Ma'an there was no deadly bacteria or virus in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli reports to the contrary were designed to destroy health security in Gaza.

Not that Ashraf al-Qedreh would be likely to recognize a deadly bacteria or virus if he encountered one. Past history seems to suggest that his sole function is denouncing Israel. But he missed a golden opportunity here. Unlike spiders in chewing gum or remote controlled sharks or spy eagles, the virus actually exists. Time to blame Israel for it.





JEW, ACCEPT THE MESSAGE OF ISLAM

Unlike the 100 odd Jews still living in Yemen — who in recent years began hiding their traditional earlocks under hats for fear of being singled out — Aharon was trusting of his Arab environment. A popular mechanic, he would exit the gated compound where Jews have been living under government protection for the past four years, undaunted, with his traditional headgear. He went shopping in the market every day.

But on May 22, a man jumped him as he was returning to his car, stabbing him in the neck. Aharon’s son Yahya, who stood nearby, rushed him to the hospital where he died four hours later. Yahya says the assailant was an Al-Qaeda terrorist who drove four hours from the city of Hadhramaut in search of Jews to kill.

Zandani is the third Jew to be murdered in Yemen over the past decade. In December 2008 Moshe Yaish-Nahari was gunned down in the northern city of Raidah — home to the country’s second Jewish community — by a man who reportedly shouted at him “Jew, accept the message of Islam."

Isn't it about time that Jews accepted the message of Islam? The message that Islam is a cruel murderous cult?

We'll have a saner world when more people accept that the message inflicted on the few remaining Jews of Yemen, on the World Trade Center and on millions of people throughout history is indeed the message of Islam.




WILL OF THE PEOPLE, WHAT'S THAT?

Almost 100 Conservative MPs this week wrote to Mr Cameron demanding a legal commitment to hold a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU after the next election. Several ministers privately believe that leaving the union should not be ruled out.

Mr Cameron did not rule out some sort of vote on European issues eventually, but insisted that he would not give the British people the option of leaving the EU outright. "I completely understand why some people want an in/out referendum, why they wanted it yesterday, why they want it today, Some people just want to get out: I completely understand that but I don't share that view, I don't think that's the right thing to do.”

And if Cameron doesn't think that's the right thing to do, why bother consulting the people on it?

The Justice Secretary launched a sustained attack on advocates of a popular vote on Europe, which he described as “a total irrelevance” that would create turmoil and undermine Britain’s economic credibility.

"In the middle of a global financial crisis to start asking a yes/no question about whether or not we should stay in the biggest trading bloc in the global economy, I think would be a slightly foolish thing to do," Mr Clarke said.  

Some people might think that's the exact right time to ask the question, but that would just undermine confidence in the EUtanic, which is unsinkable, so long as people go on believing in it.

Also referendums are a very silly thing.

"I cannot think of anything sillier to do than hold a referendum. I’m not keen on referendums, I see no case for this referendum.” 

And we're bound to win a referendum anyway, so there's no need to actually hold one.

Voters have little interest in the issue, Mr Clarke suggested.

“If you ask the public what are their priorities at this difficult time, what would they like to see us turn our attention to for three weeks and campaign about, the idea that they’re all demanding a referendum on the European Union would be regarded as ridiculous; it’d be out of sight as a public demand, as a priority,” he said.

There's growing referendum madness in Germany too, which is bearing the cost of this disaster.

The leader of Merkel's Bavarian allies in the CSU, Horst Seehofer, wrote in business daily Handelsblatt: "Politicians cannot simply impose more Europe on us from the top down ... That's why I'm pleading for our constitution to allow us to have referendums on all important European matters."

German voters will no doubt be thrilled by scenes such as this.

An acrimonious summit dragged on late into the night as Italian and Spanish leaders threatened to delay approval of a €120bn "compact for jobs and growth" unless they secured immediate help on their borrowing costs.

In a welfare state, the welfare recipients have to be talked into accepting their welfare.




IRAN FINALLY NAILS DOWN SOURCE OF DRUG TRADE, WORLD'S EVIL

The Islamic Republic is the source of the meth trade across half of Europe and Asia. But finally at an international drug conference it announced that it has determined what the source of all those drugs is (no, not all the meth labs in Iran or the poppy fields of Afghanistan.)... it's the Jews.

The teachings of the Jewish book of law, the Talmud, are a driving force behind the international drugs trade, Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said

"The spread of narcotics in the world emanates from the teachings of the Talmud... whose objective is the destruction of the world," Rahimi said in comments published by the official website of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as state media.

"If one seeks what lies behind all forms of corruption, there is the repugnant face of Zionists. This is the same case for the narcotics trade ... whose primary operator is the Zionist regime," he said.

And since Iran is actually the nexus of much of the drug traffic in the region and its affiliated groups actually make money from the drug trade... we must conclude that Iran is Zionist.

Anyway keep in mind that Iran is Anti-Zionist, not Anti-Semitic, as every media outlet covering this story will tell you.

The VP of Iran displayed the usual good sense and logic that we have come to expect from Islamist leaders.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict,” Mr. Rahmini said. “They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade.” 

Israel has quite a few drug addicts so I'm sure there will be a line of people asking the Islamic Republic to pay up.

The Vice President then began aggressively competing for the position of Joe Biden.

Mr. Rahimi told stories of gynecologists’ killing black babies on the orders of the Zionists and claimed that the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was started by Jews, adding that mysteriously, no Jews died in that uprising.

I assume he then diverged into explaining that the Jews stole all the anchovies and invented pants.

Everyone has condemned Rahmini, from the UK to the EU to the UN

European diplomats were shocked, shocked to discover that the leaders of a Muslim country believe that Jews are the devil.

A European diplomat said afterward: “This was definitely one of the worst speeches I have heard in my life. My gut reaction was: why are we supporting any cooperation with these people?”

But the diplomat, who declined to be identified by name or country, defended his presence at the conference. “If we do not support the United Nations on helping Iran fight drugs, voices like the one of Mr. Rahimi will be the only ones out there,” he said. 

...and this way the UN helps Iran fight drugs and provide a forum for Iran to explain that they only have to deal with drugs because the Jews invented them.



THE GREAT POSTAL WORKER HUNGER STRIKE BEGINS

A small group of postal workers and supporters began a four-day hunger strike Monday to protest the U.S. Postal Service’s deteriorating finances and service and Congress’s failure to address the situation.

And if they get their way, then there will be a much bigger hunger strike when the post office goes out of business.

Public unions can go on hunger strikes, but when local and national governments start collapsing, the hunger will become real, especially for those who depend on food stamps.



AND THE WINNER FOR GAYEST PHOTO OF TWO WORLD LEADERS...

...can be found here.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, without naming the president he hopes to succeed, told the Republican Jewish Coalition Tuesday that he saw something else entirely when he met the Russian leader: “I looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes and I saw three things — a K and a G and a B.” 

...I think Obama sees the same thing as he looks into Vladimir's eyes... and he likes it.



ZOMBIE TED KENNEDY LIKES OBAMACARE TOO

Win this one for the Drowner.




TWO TYPES OF ARAB SPRING SCAMS

There's the old Jihadi Prince scam....

From Mr. Abdul Hakim Belhaj
Commander Tripoli Military Council.
commander.tripolimilitarycouncil1@hotmail.com

Assalamu alaikum warahmotullahi wabarakatuh.

I got your contact through some discreet inquiry from the chamber of commerce and industry; one has no doubt in your ability to handle a financial business transaction. My name is Abdul Hakim Belhaj, Leader of the newly formed Tripoli Military Council who ousted the repressive regime of Col Muarmar Gaddaffi.

After fighters from my Tripoli Brigade broke through the defences of the ousted leader's fortress in the heart of the city, Col Muammar Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound, we  discovered A metal save: containing (US$75.000.000:00) Seventy Five million United States of American Dollars, which we shared among ourselves, and I managed to move out my shear US$15.Million Dollars, to a financial firm with the help of a Private  Company, the deal was absolutely successfully, I am seeking your help to allow me transfer the funds into your bank account for save keeping and investing in your country,I also want you to join me in any area i want to invest the fund in your country, if you don't mind.

I am willing to offer you 25% of this fund for your assistance if you cooperate to help me receive this deposit.

Thanks and Jazakum Allah Khair

Awaiting your reply through this E-mail :< commander.tripolimilitarycouncil1@hotmail.com> >

BEST REGARD.
Mr. Abdul Hakim Belhaj
Commander Tripoli Military Council.

...and there's the scam that says putting someone like Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who was affiliated with Al-Qaeda and with the Muslim Brotherhood and who wants to turn Libya into an Emirate, will lead to an Arab Spring.

People who think that they're too smart to fall for the Jihadi Prince scam, fall for the other kind of Jihadi Prince scam instead.




A FEW NOTES

For those in LA, Caroline Glick will be speaking at a Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors event. Follow the link to learn more.

Yahoo Groups Labs is shutting down. This may wreck the Image Free email subscription, though I don't think many people use that anyway. 

A small personal note.

I'm experiencing some Repetitive Stress Injuries (turning out 12,000-13,000 words a week adds up) and I'm trying to cut back on my typing. I'm going to keep up my writing, but I'm going to cut back a bit on the emails, tweets and messages I reply to.

If you send me an email and I don't reply to you, it's nothing personal, it's just what I need to do to be able to write the next article without wearing wrist braces that make typing feel like The Incredible Hulk trying to use an ATM.

My left and right wrists thank you for your understanding.