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September 2012

Disengaged President Takes the Wrong View by PETER BROOKES

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/disengaged-president-takes-the-wrong-view?f=puball The high-flying rhetoric in his speech aside, the most troubling part of President Barack Obama’s visit to the United Nations yesterday was his decision to forego meetings with other heads of state gathering at the General Assembly meeting. What a missed opportunity for tackling a wide array of world problems. For instance, it was […]

Lying Fool and Amen Media by TOM MCLAUGHLIN

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/lying-fool-and-amen-media?f=puball Our president is either a liar or a fool – or both. When our Ambassador to Libya was murdered with three other Americans, his administration said it was because of a Youtube movie that sparked a demonstration which got out of hand – a completely bogus story for which there was absolutely no evidence. […]

EDWARD CLINE: HOWLS OF ANGER, MEWLINGS OF SUBMISSION ****

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/howls-of-anger-mewlings-of-submission

It’s the classic routine of Good Cop, Bad Cop. And Bad Cop. Their names are President Barack Obama, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

There you are, having been brought into the station to be “interviewed” by the thought police for having “offended” Muslims by “defaming,” “denigrating,” “mocking,” “dis-respecting” Islam. They’ve not arrested you – they want you to understand that, and you’re free to go any time you wish, except that the interrogation room door is locked and there are cops in riot gear guarding it outside – they’ve only manhandled you into the police car and driven you to the station so you can offer your point of view so they can better understand “where you’re coming from.” They wouldn’t have done that if they hadn’t received complaints and warnings from the offended parties that you are hovering close to “inciting violence” by bad-mouthing Islam.

The world-weary, jaded-looking guys just want you to admit responsibility for having caused recent riots. They want to go home and get some sleep, even though they have roused you from a deep sleep at 1 a.m. They commiserate with you about exhaustion and working odd hours. Then you can go, once you recant and sign a lengthy letter of apology to the rioters and to the dead and maimed the rioters have caused and to all Muslims for having “insulted” their faith. They want you to distance yourself from other “offenders.” They want you to repudiate your convictions. After all, what’s a conviction worth. You can’t eat one, or deposit it in the bank. What are you, obsessed or something? Get with the program.

The offended parties wish to see justice done. They keep shouting that they “don’t get no respect,” except they’re not trying to be funny like Rodney Dangerfield and wouldn’t emulate him if they could, because Dangerfield was Jewish. They want “respect” and they want restitution. They wish to silence you on the matter of Islam while not restricting your First Amendment rights. You’ll be allowed to denigrate Jews and Christians and atheists and Buddhists and other non-believers to your heart’s content, as they do. Muslims are a protected “minority” and have been granted dispensation and a variety of legal indulgences. But the offended parties have warned the authorities that they cannot calm their collect for too much longer, as their outrage is real and cannot be contained indefinitely. They might begin to riot and harm the police sent to preserve the peace, and it’ll be all your fault.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: DAN BONGINO FOR SENATE IN MARYLAND

An Excellent Republican Candidate You May Not Know: Dan Bongino By Ron Radosh

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2012/09/24/a-republican-candidate-you-may-not-have-heard-of-and-who-deserves-to-win-his-name-is-dan-bongino/

http://www.bongino.com/

A few weeks ago, I moved from West Virginia back to Montgomery County in Maryland, where I had previously lived from 1992 through 2006. Maryland is a solid Democratic state, and therefore Republicans have written it off and the president has no need to campaign in it. So what conservative would even bother to run for Senate in such a liberal state, one in which Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor in the state, lost to current Senator Ben Cardin by 54 percent to 44 percent?

The answer is Dan Bongino [1], whom I was privileged to hear speak before a packed meeting today in Silver Spring, Maryland. I predict Bongino will be another one of those rising stars in the Republican Party, a man who is able to produce in an audience the kind of passion and enthusiasm that we have seen for stars like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. Like both of these men, Bongino has the knack for explaining and defending conservative policies and programs in a way that people can understand without demonizing his opponents — he makes clear it is their policies, not them, that he opposes.

Go to his website and watch the video of him in action, and you’ll catch a glimpse of how he talks to people. In his speech today, Bongino stressed how different this election is than previous ones. He mentioned that while he voted for Bob Dole, he did not think it was a catastrophe that Bill Clinton won a second term. After all, he said, Clinton did some good things with Republican support, and some things he opposed. But the republic lasted, and the country continued to thrive. This election, he said, was something different: the choice is between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, who, he posited, is an “ideologue” who sees things differently than most people.

A former Secret Service officer in the elite Presidential Protection Division during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Bongino said he would have given his life for Obama if need be, and that he considers himself a decent person and a good family man. But he said he entered the race for one reason alone: he believes the policies of the Obama administration are wrong for the country he loves, and he felt compelled to not leave it to others to put America back on the right course. So this former Secret Service officer, who was the lead agent coordinating Obama’s trips to Prague, Jakarta, and the war zone in Afghanistan, has decided to enter the race against the president he served with distinction.

Bongino has a background not just in active police and security work — he has a B.A. and master’s degree in psychology, with a concentration in neuro-psychology and behavioral learning, and a second master’s degree in business administration. He describes himself, as he did today, as a man who is not rich, but a member of the middle class — the very group that polls show is gaining Mitt Romney the most votes. With his wife, he started three small businesses and left his work with her for this campaign.

Bongino is particularly interested in what he calls the main civil rights issue today — that of education for minorities and the poor in central cities. He spoke about his own work on that behalf in those sections of Maryland where poor and minority residents are forced to attend bad schools and have no choice for anything else. As a young boy growing up in Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, only a scholarship from a Catholic school in his borough allowed him to gain the advantage of a solid education denied his friends, who attended poor public schools in his own community.

Listening to Bongino speak, it occurred to me that it is possible he will receive more votes on the Republican line in Maryland than Mitt Romney. There is even a real chance that he could win against his opponent Ben Cardin. Like the presidential candidates, Cardin and Bongino have two or three debates coming up, one of which will be broadcast on one of the three major networks, and another on the local Maryland PBS station. I have not heard Cardin speak, but Bongino is up on both domestic and foreign policy, and can handle anything thrown at him. Like Paul Ryan, he has studied economics and he regularly cites works that have influenced him, like the writings of Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and others.

At today’s talk, many of the seniors present were concerned about what their fate might be should Obamacare not be defeated. Explaining the stakes, Bongino answered that the IPAB boards set up to judge what Medicare will or will not cover would result eventually in a two-tier health system: good medical care for the wealthy who can afford concierge service and pay their own way, and poor and diminished medical care for everyone else forced to go into the government-run program without the ability to make a choice of what they want.

So, even if Mitt Romney does not win — and at this point he can pull it out and become our next president — there are local races where good candidates have emerged, and where they can have the ability to reach people, change their way of thinking, and possibly even win. Dan Bongino is one of these candidates, and I hope that this column has served to introduce him to those who until now have not heard about him. And if you live in Maryland like I do, don’t despair. Get out there and do your part.

Article printed from Ron Radosh: http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh

DAVID P. GOLDMAN: AN ECONOMIC PRIMER

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/09/27/an-economic-primer/?singlepage=true

Consider these Americans:

Our first case is one of five million Americans unemployed for more than 27 weeks:

A second American is part owner of a $20 trillion investment fund.

A third American is terrified that her pension fund will go bust (as the Illinois teachers’ fund will some time during the next ten years, among many others).

The $20 trillion fund squirrels away its money in safe, low-yielding assets. It won’t invest in the kind of risky investments that put bricks on top of mortar and hires workers.

Because American #2 at the $20 trillion investment fund won’t take risks, American #1 can’t find a job. And because low-risk investments now pay very little — investment-grade corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities with federal backing yield barely 3% — pension funds can’t earn enough to meet their obligations to prospective retirees, and American #3 won’t have enough retirement income to live on.

All these Americans could well be the same individual, and probably are members of the same family.

Pension and retirement funds in the United States control $16 trillion in assets. That’s more than double the total assets of the whole U.S. banking system, and more than five times the total assets of hedge funds world-wide. The retirement savings of ordinary Americans dominate the capital markets, not the sort of fat-cats caricatured in the press. Add another $4 trillion in life insurance assets, which mainly reflect the retirement savings of the middle class, and the middle class investment fund now stands at $20 trillion.

Americans won’t take risks on each other. That’s our problem. A decade ago, at the peak of China’s investment in American securities, I quipped that a rich Chinese won’t lend money to a poor Chinese, unless the poor Chinese moves to America. That’s starting to change. China’s huge trade surplus has shrunk to nearly zero as the Chinese consume more at home. The problem now is that middle-class Americans won’t invest in themselves.

WESTERN COURTS BEND TO ISLAMIC PRACTICES (AKA SHARIA): DAVID RUSIN

http://pjmedia.com/blog/western-courts-bend-to-islamic-practices/ Judges’ consideration of Shari‘a [1] when deciding cases may be the most alarming avenue by which Islam influences Western legal systems, but it is not the only one. With increasing regularity, Islamic practices sway the administration of courtrooms, affecting when sessions are held, who must rise, and what attire is permissible. This trend should […]

J. Robert Smith: The Silly Advice for Romney from Some Conservatives….see note please

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/advice_for_romney_from_national_reviews_editors.html

Hooray for J.Robert Smith…..Romney should just shut out the cacophony of whining from his erstwhile supporters….the vapors of Peggy Noonan, the sob sister, and the Weekly Standard bearers who used to root for the Arab “spring”…..rsk

On Thursday morning, National Review’s editors offered a surefire way of putting Mitt Romney over the top with “swing” voters. Call it a circular firing squad. Or just mush.

The NR editors’ advice: ladle out a share of blame to George W. Bush for the nation’s economic mess. No. Wait. Don’t blame the former president. Instead, indict Republican governance before Barack Obama assumed the presidency.

But no, come to think of it, don’t do that.

Of course, you know swing voters — that 5% to 8% of the electorate that Romney and the Republicans are handling gingerly like porcelain figurines. Establishment Republicans and their conservative cohorts have tied themselves into pretzels to convince everyone and his brother that Romney needs to run a non-campaign campaign lest the former governor turn off undecideds. So the Romney campaign serves out heaping-helping spoonfuls of Gerry Ford tapioca, George H. Bush cream puffs, and Bob Dole pabulum. Not always, but alarmingly, all too routinely.

Wake Up, Jews! By Rabbi Aryeh Spero

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/09/wake-up_jews.html No doubt, it’s hard for people to give up their lifelong attachments and identity. But there are moments in history when a turning point arrives, and those with eyes to see and ears to hear recognize it. Many Jews have made political liberalism their religion and personal identity and the Democrat Party their unexamined […]

EVAN BAYH (D. FORMER GOVERNOR AND SENATOR FROM INDIANA):ObamaCare’s Tax Raid on Medical Devices ****

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444620104578012281306687070.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop The industry that gave us stents, replacement joints and defibrillators will get a dose of bad fiscal medicine. The Supreme Court decision in June upholding the Affordable Care Act leaves in place a tax on medical devices that threatens thousands of American jobs and our global competitiveness. It will also stifle critical medical innovation […]

FRANK SALVATO: AMERICA’S LAST STAND?

http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/6960 While many concerns face those on the Right side of the aisle who are politically aware – concerns like the misapplication of voter demographics in the polling used to score the presidential race, the exploding deficit, the enflamed tensions in the Middle East, and/or the honesty deficit displayed by the Obama Administration, among many […]