Friday, December 5, 2014


Friday, December 5, 2014

In New Interview, Assad Accuses US of Creating ISIS: 'The West Supported Them Politically'

In New Interview, Assad Accuses US of Creating ISIS: 'The West Supported Them Politically'

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was reelected this year in an election the United States government deemed a "sham," asserted the legitimacy of his government and insisted that the Obama administration is supporting the Islamic State in a wide-ranging interview with Paris Match magazine.

Abu Dhabi Burqa Stabbing Suspect Arrested, Home 'Base of Operations' for Terror Network

Abu Dhabi Burqa Stabbing Suspect Arrested, Home 'Base of Operations' for Terror Network

Authorities in Abu Dhabi arrested 38-year-old Dalal al Hashemi, an Emirati citizen, who allegedly stabbed to death American teacher Ibolya Ryan with a large knife that was hidden in her burqa. Hashemi did not act alone.

8 Questions Jonathan Gruber Refuses to Answer About His Contract With The State of Vermont

8 Questions Jonathan Gruber Refuses to Answer About His Contract With The State of Vermont

Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer is asking Governor Peter Shumlin's administration to provide his office with further information about the billing practices of controversial MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, as Breitbart News reported Thursday. 

Jobs Jump in November but Outlook Remains Guarded

Jobs Jump in November but Outlook Remains Guarded

The economy added 321,000 jobs in November—a dramatic jump from October. Overall the economy is creating many more jobs, but the outlook remains guarded.

Unemployment stayed constant at 5.8 percent because the jobs count is based on the survey of employers, whereas unemployment is based on a direct household survey. The latter indicated many fewer jobs gains, and the adult participation rate—those employed and looking for work as a share of the total adult population—stayed depressed.


Murders Spike in Popular Mexican Resort Area

Murders Spike in Popular Mexican Resort Area

Two unidentified men that were executed with AK-47’s, in the Mexican State of Baja California Sur, point to an alarming trend in violence as the once quiet resort town becomes the next battleground for drug cartels.

Is Landrieu The Last Southern Democrat?



Is Landrieu The Last Southern Democrat?

Per the Christian Science Monitor, "If Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana loses her runoff election on Saturday, there will be no more white Democrats from the Deep South in the Senate. Racial polarization of the two main parties has never been more stark".

+321k: November Jobs Report Beats Expectations

+321k: November Jobs Report Beats Expectations

U.S. Payrolls Surge by 321K as Wages Increase in November
Bloomberg

The economy added 312,000 new jobs in November, according to the monthly jobs report released Friday by the Labor Department. Economists had expected a monthly gain of 253,000 jobs. It was the largest gain in jobs since January 2012. 

Report: Illegal Immigrant Deportations Plunged Even Before Obama's Amnesty

Report: Illegal Immigrant Deportations Plunged Even Before Obama's Amnesty

Despite an increase in the rate of apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the border, the number of people the Obama administration deported last year plunged, according to data obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
The newspaper cites a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement draft report that found, for the year ending on Sept. 30, the Obama administration removed 315,943 people. That's down 14 percent from the previous year and is the fewest deported by the Obama administration to date. 


Huffington Post: Cops 'Get Away With Murder'

Huffington Post: Cops 'Get Away With Murder'

On Thursday, the Huffington Post ran one of its patented subtle headlines regarding the grand jury decision not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner. “HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER,” the website blared, featuring a picture of a police cap. The subheadlines built the sensationalistic case: “2 Non-Indictments in 8 Days…’I Can’t Breathe’…Darren Wilson Goes Free…” Huffington Post then listed other black people killed or abused by police officers: “John Crawford III…Darrien Hunt…Oscar Grant…Amadou Diallo…Ousmane Zongo…Aiyana Stanley-Jones…Many Others…”

The Nuclear Option: Media, Leftists Choose Biggest Losers for Heroes

The Nuclear Option: Media, Leftists Choose Biggest Losers for Heroes

Best case scenario for holding Michael Brown in some kind of moderate regard is that he and his buddy are walking down the middle of the street when officer Darren Wilson encounters them. Officer Wilson has no idea someone matching Brown's description roughed up a clerk at the corner store and boosted a box of Swisher Sweets.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

The Cuban question

The Cuban question

Barack Obama could ease the embargo, but Congress may slap sanctions on Venezuela

HAVING got immigration reform off his chest, will Barack Obama unsheathe his executive-order pen again to tackle another intractable subject on which Congress has blocked change for decades? The United States imposed an economic embargo on Cuba back in 1960 as Fidel Castro was forcing communism on his people. The embargo was meant to topple Mr Castro. Today he enjoys a tranquil retirement in a Havana suburb while his slightly younger brother, Raúl, runs the country.
The embargo has not just failed; it has also given the Castros a potent propaganda weapon. It still has diehard defenders in Congress, which under a law from the 1990s is the only body that can repeal it. Even so, Mr Obama has some scope to change the policy. Indeed, in his first term he lifted restrictions on travel and remittances to the island by Cuban-Americans. There are several reasons why he might now want to do more.

Another verdict, more protests

Race and law enforcement

LESS than two weeks after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer for killing an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, another grand jury—this one in New York City—ruled on a similar case, and delivered a similar verdict. In Staten Island in July Daniel Pantaleo, a New York police officer in a plain-clothes unit, placed Eric Garner in a chokehold after Garner resisted arrest. Garner’s dying words were “I can’t breathe.” His alleged crime was selling “loosies”, or untaxed cigarettes, on a street corner. The incident was recorded by bystanders on their mobile phones, and it raised questions about racial profiling and aggressive policing in the city. Today a grand jury decided not to indict Mr Pantaleo. Some see this decision as merely another example of police invincibility regardless of circumstance.


Rick Perry’s no-frills airline

The governor of Texas thinks his state’s thrifty model will appeal to America

COWBOY swagger can be a great look—until the strutting hero trips and falls flat on his face. Governor Rick Perry of Texas learned that in 2011. For a heady moment he led the field of Republicans seeking the presidential nomination. Then came the fall. An ill-prepared Mr Perry was stunned when rivals attacked him from the right, denouncing his (admirable) policy of offering subsidised university places to Texas residents, regardless of immigration status, in the interests of a skilled workforce. The end came with an “Oops” heard around the world, uttered during a TV debate in which—flustered and battling severe back-pain—Mr Perry forgot which federal departments he wanted to abolish.


Sheikhs v shale

The economics of oil have changed. Some businesses will go bust, but the market will be healthier

THE official charter of OPEC states that the group’s goal is “the stabilisation of prices in international oil markets”. It has not been doing a very good job. In June the price of a barrel of oil, then almost $115, began to slide; it now stands close to $70.
This near-40% plunge is thanks partly to the sluggish world economy, which is consuming less oil than markets had anticipated, and partly to OPEC itself, which has produced more than markets expected. But the main culprits are the oilmen of North Dakota and Texas. Over the past four years, as the price hovered around $110 a barrel, they have set about extracting oil from shale formations previously considered unviable. Their manic drilling—they have completed perhaps 20,000 new wells since 2010, more than ten times Saudi Arabia’s tally—has boosted America’s oil production by a third, to nearly 9m barrels a day (b/d). That is just 1m b/d short of Saudi Arabia’s output. The contest between the shalemen and the sheikhs has tipped the world from a shortage of oil to a surplus.

¡Justicia!

Protests in Mexico

The president proposes laws to fight crime. Mexicans want more than that


 
More enlightened than her government
AN UNUSUAL cry has rung out in recent weeks at football matches, rock concerts and protest marches in Mexico. Crowds of people chant in unison the numbers from one to 43, representing each of the students who disappeared in September in the south-western state of Guerrero. They end with a shout: “¡Justicia!”
They are not merely demanding justice for the missing 43, who the government claims were massacred by municipal authorities and drug-traffickers. The cry also appears to reflect an exhaustion of patience with a system—political, economic and legal—that exempts from the rule of law those who can buy or bargain their way around it, such as corrupt politicians, privileged businessmen and narcos.

THE HOLDER

The_Holder

Trey Gowdy slams Democrat opposition at contempt hearing for Eric Holder

Rep. Gowdy Questions AG Holder About Duty to Faithfully Execute the Law

Holder Still Doesn't Believe He Should Have Been Notified About "Fast An...

Trey Gowdy DESTROYS Marielena Hincapie At Immigration Executive Action H...

Putin’s Complaint: Is Washington a Revisionist Power?

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The idea that the United States must exercise "global leadership" is rationalized by our interventionists as a necessary perquisite for maintaining some type of "world order."Who will guard the sea lanes? Who will deter "aggression"? Who will defend the "rules" against those "rogue states" just waiting for an opportunity to wreak havoc, if not the United States of America?

We Are the Enemy: Is This the Lesson of Ferguson?

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If you dress police officers up as soldiers and you put them in military vehicles and you give them military weapons, they adopt a warrior mentality. We fight wars against enemies, and the enemies are the people who live in our cities — particularly in communities of color.
—Thomas Nolan, criminology professor and former police officer
Should police officer Darren Wilson be held accountable for the shooting death of unarmed citizen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014?

No to War, Hot or Cold, With Russia

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US-Russia relations have deteriorated severely in the past decade and they are about to get worse, if the House passes H. Res. 758.

NATO encirclement, the US-backed coup in Ukraine, an attempt to use an agreement with the European Union to bring NATO into Ukraine at the Russian border, a US nuclear first-strike policy, are all policies which attempt to substitute force for diplomacy.

Why Not Pardon Drug War Victims in Addition to Turkeys?

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Prior to Thanksgiving, President Obama continued the presidential tradition of pardoning two turkeys. Too bad he didn’t use the occasion to also pardon every single victim of the US government’s decades-long failed and destructive war on drugs.

I’m referring, of course, to all the people who have been convicted of violating federal laws against the possession or distribution of drugs, especially those people currently serving time in some federal penitentiary. Those people have no more business being in jail than people who have used, possessed, or distributed beer, liquor, wine, tobacco, fatty foods, or any other substance.

Fear is a Political Instrument, but Knowledge is Power

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Your doorbell rings in the dark of night, so you quietly approach the peephole to size up your visitor. The porch light doesn’t illuminate the person well enough to see him clearly, but he’s definitely wearing a mask. You move your eyes lower to get a better look at the tall figure. He’s standing, waiting, on the other side of the threshold. He’s holding a machete.

Who Wants to be Defense Secretary?

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It seems nobody wants to be Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration. The president’s first two Defense Secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, both complained bitterly this month about their time in the administration. The president’s National Security Council staff micro-managed the Pentagon, they said at a forum last week.

Former Secretary Gates revealed that while he was running the Defense Department, the White House established a line of communication to the Joint Special Operations Command to discuss matters of strategy and tactics, cutting the Defense Secretary out of the loop. His successor at the Pentagon, Leon Panetta, made similar complaints.

Health Reform Without Deception



MIT professor Jon Gruber is getting a lot of flak lately. As the intellectual architect of ObamaCare, he has shocked a lot of people with his video confessions that passing health reform required “deception” because the public is too “stupid” to understand what needs to be done.
I believe voters are smart. And that with three simple (and very transparent) reforms we could replace the mess that is ObamaCare with a health system the public would readily accept:


Sen. Ted Cruz: The Era of Obama Lawlessness is Over!

Baum on Money: Of Jobs and Risk

Good morning, all. Hope you are keeping warm and are ready for your Wednesday reading menu.
Biggest risks this year are geopolitical.
I suppose this qualifies as good news: For the first time since 2007, the biggest risks facing the world aren't economic, according to the Eurasia Group. Included in its list of top risks for 2014 are Iran's nuclear program, instability in the Middle East, a decentralized and more dangerous al Qaeda, risk aversion in U.S. foreign policy and an unpredictable Vladimir Putin. Given the array of geopolitical threats, it's comforting to know analysts at the Eurasia Group foresee economic stability in 2014. Then again, in 2007 few saw what the next six years would bring.


The Gruber Confession: Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies

The Gruber Confession: Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies

Charles Krauthammer

By Charles Krauthammer

  The Gruber Confession: Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies
It's not exactly the Ems Dispatch (the diplomatic cable Bismarck doctored to provoke the 1870 Franco-Prussian War). But what the just-resurfaced Gruber Confession lacks in world-historical consequence, it makes up for in world-class cynicism. This October 2013 video shows MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, a principal architect of Obamacare, admitting that, in order to get it passed, the law was made deliberately obscure and deceptive. It constitutes the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies.
"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," said Gruber. "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass." This was no open-mic gaffe. It was a clear, indeed enthusiastic, admission to an academic conference of the mendacity underlying Obamacare.


The country has had it with Obama

The country has had it with Obama

First, it seemed the wheels were coming off the bus internationally. Our people were murdered in Benghazi, Libya. Iraq crumbled. Then Libya crumbled, again. The Islamic State conquered vast stretches of territory. Russia grabbed part of Ukraine. Israel and the United States fought while Iran inched closer to getting the bomb. Our Sunni allies publicly lashed out at the administration. China pressed its advantage.
Now the wheels, which were none too secure here at home, are spinning off in every direction on the domestic side. President Obama got caught flat-footed on Ebola. His 2012 executive move on immigration set off a border crisis. The president then doubled down and created a firestorm with an immigration overreach so vast and unprecedented that it surpassed any act of executive brazenness since Watergate. (The Post’s editorial board denounces his move: “This is not a game of gotcha; facts matter — even in Washington — and so do the numbers. Under close scrutiny it is plain that the White House’s numbers are indefensible. It is similarly plain that the scale of Mr. Obama’s move goes far beyond anything his predecessors attempted. . . . Republicans’ failure to address immigration also does not justify Mr. Obama’s massive unilateral act. Unlike [President George H.W.] Bush in 1990, whose much more modest order was in step with legislation recently and subsequently enacted by Congress, Mr. Obama’s move flies in the face of congressional intent — no matter how indefensible that intent looks.”)


Time to rethink Hillary Clinton 2016

Time to rethink Hillary Clinton 2016

George F. Will
 
Now that two of the last three Democratic presidencies have been emphatically judged to have been failures, the world’s oldest political party — the primary architect of this nation’s administrative state — has some thinking to do. The accumulating evidence that the Democratic Party is an exhausted volcano includes its fixation with stale ideas, such as the supreme importance of a 23rd increase in the minimum wage. Can this party be so blinkered by the modest success of the third recent presidency, Bill Clinton’s, that it will sleepwalk into the next election behind Hillary Clinton?
In 2016, she will have won just two elections in her 69 years, the last one 10 years previously. Ronald Reagan went 10 years from his second election to his presidential victory at age 69, but do Democrats want to wager their most precious possession, the presidential nomination, on the proposition that Clinton has political talents akin to Reagan’s?

Hillary Clinton has lost that ‘new car’ smell

Hillary Clinton has lost that ‘new car’ smell

Dana Milbank
  
There was something in the air before Hillary Clinton addressed Georgetown University students Wednesday, but it definitely wasn’t a new-car smell.
It was a faint but unmistakable whiff of indifference.
When the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination spoke in the same place a year ago, the room was reportedly packed. When she spoke in October, Gaston Hall again “was filled to capacity,” the campus newspaper reported; some students lined up overnight and others were turned away.


How to push back on Obama’s executive amnesty

 

 
While even “Saturday Night Live” is skewering President Obama for his executive order granting de facto amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, Obama is the one having the last laugh. His move has put the GOP into a political corner, and Obama knows Republicans have few good options for pushing back on his lawlessness.


President Obama’s unilateral action on immigration has no precedent


 
 
THE WHITE House has defended President Obama’s unilateral decision to legalize the presence of nearly 4 million undocumented immigrants as consistent, even in scope, with the executive actions of previous presidents. In fact, it is increasingly clear that the sweeping magnitude of Mr. Obama’s order is unprecedented.

Boyce Watkins: If America Turns a Blind Eye, We Will Have a Race War

Boyce Watkins: If America Turns a Blind Eye, We Will Have a Race War

Race
Breitbart Non-Syndicated

Wednesday on CNN's "Newsroom," in reacting to the breaking news that a grand jury did not indict the NYPD Officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, Your Black World's Boyce Watkins said if America "continue to turn a blind eye to these homicides," we will have a "race war on your hands."

The Actual Facts of The Eric Garner Case

The Actual Facts of The Eric Garner Case

On Wednesday, a New York grand jury refused to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner. Pantaleo is white; Garner is black. That one fact meant that the President of the United States and the Mayor of New York City took to the microphones to denounce American racism. President Obama talked about the “concern on the part of too many minority communities that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way.” De Blasio went further, of course, calling for “action” and suggesting that the incident represented the culmination of “centuries of racism.”

Lena Dunham: I Was Raped By a 'Campus Republican'

Lena Dunham: I Was Raped By a 'Campus Republican'

In her just-released memoir, 27 year-old "Girls" star Lena Dunham claims that as a 19 year-old Oberlin College student in Ohio, she was raped by a college Republican. In the first chapter that addresses the encounter, Dunham describes the "ill-fated evening of lovemaking" as awkward and hollow. The most sensational moment comes from the fact that "Barry" wasn't wearing a condom. 

Lena Dunham ‘Raped by a Republican’ Story in Bestseller Collapses Under Scrutiny

Lena Dunham ‘Raped by a Republican’ Story in Bestseller Collapses Under Scrutiny

In her just-released memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham describes her alma mater, Oberlin College, as "a liberal arts haven in the cornfields of Ohio."  After a month-long investigation that included more than a dozen interviews, a trip to the Oberlin campus, and hours spent poring through the Oberlin College archives, her description of the campus remains the only detail Breitbart News was able to verify in Dunham's story of being raped by a campus Republican named Barry.

On top of the name Barry, which Dunham does not identify as a pseudonym (more on the importance of this below), Dunham drops close to a dozen specific clues about the identity of the man she alleges raped her as a 19 year-old student. Some of the details are personality traits like his being a “poor loser” at poker. Other details are quite specific. For instance, Dunham informs us her rapist sported a flamboyant mustache, worked at the campus library, and even names the radio talk show he hosted.
To be sure we get the point, on three occasions Dunham tells her readers that her attacker is a Republican or a conservative, and a prominent one at that -- no less than the "campus's resident conservative."



THE WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME

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