Why did no one object to the “Pentagon mosque”?
[Salon.com]
Muslims have been praying inside the Pentagon since Sept. 11 but right-wingers have been strangely silent
[Separation of Church and State in a Military Complex like the Pentagon? What's wrong with this picture?]
Navy imam Chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam lifted his voice to God as he called to prayer more than 100 Department of Defense employees Monday at a celebration of Ramadan at the Pentagon.
God is most great, sang the lieutenant commander and Islamic leader, in Arabic, as iftar — the end of the daily fast began.
Uniformed military personnel, civilians and family members faced Mecca and knelt on adorned prayer rugs chanting their prayers in quiet invocation to Allah.
The “ground zero mosque” story seems to be dying down, but nothing lays bare the absurdity of what we’ve just lived through quite so much as this Washington Times story, quoted above, from 2007.
Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes — daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven’t even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.
The “desecration” began shockingly soon after the attacks. Cox reported in October 2001:
Justin Elliott is a reporter for ProPublica. You can follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott.
Vladimir Putin rolls out the red carpet for visit of President Xi Jinping
[UK Independent]
Russian premier gives unprecedented welcome to new Chinese leader as relations thaw
Friday 22 March 2013
China’s new leader began his first overseas trip as president with a much anticipated visit to Russia today – a symbolic trip that underlines China’s desire to ensure its energy supply while showing defiance in the face of US influence in Asia.
A grand reception was held to welcome President Xi Jinping upon his arrival in Moscow, with guards riding on horseback brought out to greet a foreign leader for the first time. Kremlin guards snapped to attention as Mr Xi and his long retinue walked into the gilded, chandeliered Grand Kremlin Palace, where they met members of official delegations in the ornate St George Hall before sitting down for talks.
“China and Russia are the main and most important strategic partners,” Mr Xi told Russian media upon his arrival. He said he was eagerly anticipating his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “In many ways we speak a common language,” he said.
The grand welcome was a clear indication of the importance placed on the visit by Moscow. Russia is one of the world’s biggest energy producers, and China is the top energy consumer. These realities tend to outweigh the traditionally tense relations between the two neighbouring giants, who were bitter rivals during the Soviet era despite their ideological links.
Russia has watched China’s rise with concern, anxious that it might someday threaten its dominance on its eastern borders. But a bigger concern for the Kremlin, one that it shares with China, is blunting US influence in the region. At the start of talks, Mr Putin described the ties between the two countries as an “extremely important factor of global politics.”
Ahead of Mr Xi’s arrival, he said: “We are working together, helping to shape a new, more just world order, ensure peace and security, defend basic principles of international law.”
Mr Xi said that the relations between the two countries are the best ever.
In recent years, the need to counterbalance the growing might of the US has led to the two to set aside some differences. Strong trade links have also smoothed some of the wrinkles in the interim, with bilateral trade soaring to a record £58bn last year.
Beijing and Moscow have taken similar stances on some of the biggest geopolitical issues of recent years, from North Korea to Iran to Syria, often voting in concert to veto punitive sanctions by the UN Security Council.
Many analysts believe their relationship is likely to strengthen, especially as the United States tries to expand its influence in Asia, and both countries are firm in rejecting Western criticism of their human rights records.
The two leaders are expected to discuss Syria and North Korea, but the economy is likely to dominate.
Shortly before Mr Xi arrived in Russia with first lady Peng Liyuan, a £1.3bn deal was announced by Russian and Chinese companies to develop coal resources in eastern Siberia. Russia also sees China as a way to diversify its energy markets away from Europe and it is keen to tie up a potentially enormous gas deal which could eventually see almost 70 billion cubic metres of gas pumped to China annually for the next 30 years.
Mr Xi’s tour continues until March 30 and he will also visit Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo. In South Africa he will attend the fifth BRICS summit.
The five key emerging economies that make up BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have become an increasingly important channel for China and Russia to counter growing US influence.
BRICS countries hold reserves totalling £3 trillion, most of them held by China, and China now accounts for 20 per cent of Africa’s exports.
China surpassed the US and Europe as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009 and has maintained its leading place in the years since.
China’s First Lady: A new role model
In China, the big news about Xi Jinping’s first trip as president has not been about energy, investment or BRICS, but rather about his wife Peng Liyuan’s first public appearance as first lady.
Ms Peng is a hugely popular figure in China, indeed, she was probably better known than him until recently, and adored by millions for her stirring renditions of folk tunes in army uniform or ethnic costume.
“Peng Liyuan has a very positive meaning for China. China needs a female role-model. Imagine what would it be like if China had a First Lady like Michelle Obama?” wrote one online fashion commentator.
Since the cult of personality that built up around Chairman Mao Zedong, the Communist Party has sought to avoid making its leaders too personal. Solid, dull technocrats have run the show, and their wives have been even less visible.
Related articles
US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email
[Reuters.com]
Joseph Menn and Deborah Charles
Posted: March 21, 2013
The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.
As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.
Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.
The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.
DHS as the middleman
By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency’s eavesdropping.
The telecom companies will not report back to the government on what they see, except in aggregate statistics, a senior DHS official said in an interview granted on condition he not be identified.
“That allows us to provide more sensitive information,” the official said. “We will provide the information to the security service providers that they need to perform this function.” Procedures are to be established within six months of the order.
The administration is separately seeking legislation that would give incentives to private companies, including communications carriers, to disclose more to the government. NSA Director General Keith Alexander said last week that NSA did not want personal data but Internet service providers could inform the government about malicious software they find and the Internet Protocol addresses they were sent to and from.
“There is a way to do this that ensures civil liberties and privacy and does ensure the protection of the country,” Alexander told a congressional hearing.
Fears grow of destructive attack
In the past, Internet traffic-scanning efforts were mainly limited to government networks and Defense Department contractors, which have long been targets of foreign espionage.
But as fears grow of a destructive cyber attack on core, non-military assets, and more sweeping security legislation remained stalled, the Obama administration opted to widen the program.
Last month’s presidential order calls for commercial providers of “enhanced cybersecurity services” to extend their offerings to critical infrastructure companies. What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.
Under the program, critical infrastructure companies will pay the providers, which will use the classified information to block attacks before they reach the customers. The classified information involves suspect Web addresses, strings of characters, email sender names and the like.
Not all the cybersecurity providers will be telecom companies, though AT&T is one. Raytheon said this month it had agreed with DHS to become a provider, and a spokesman said that customers could route their traffic to Raytheon after receiving it from their communications company.
As the new set-up takes shape, DHS officials and industry executives said some security equipment makers were working on hardware that could take classified rules about blocking traffic and act on them without the operator being able to reverse-engineer the codes. That way, people wouldn’t need a security clearance to use the equipment.
Civil liberties implications
The issue of scanning everything headed to a utility or a bank still has civil liberties implications, even if each company is a voluntary participant.
Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the executive order did not weaken existing privacy laws, but any time a machine acting on classified information is processing private communications, it raises questions about the possibility of secret extra functions that are unlikely to be answered definitively.
“You have to wonder what else that box does,” Tien said.
One technique for examining email and other electronic packets en route, called deep packet inspection, has stirred controversy for years, and some cybersecurity providers said they would not be using that. In deep packet inspection, communication companies or others with network access can examine all the elements of a transmission, including the content of emails.
“The signatures provided by DHS do not require deep packet inspection,” said Steve Hawkins, vice president at Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division, referring further questions to DHS.
The DHS official said the government is still in conversations with the telecom operators on the issue.
The official said the government had no plans to roll out any such form of government-guided close examination of Internet traffic into the communications companies serving the general public.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.
FBI asked to probe Obama ‘vote-changing’ machines
[WND.com] EXCLUSIVE
State lawmaker says she has concerns over election tampering
Posted: November 28, 2012
Subscribe to author feedA state lawmaker in Maryland has asked the FBI to impound two voting machines used in the 2012 election to determine whether there was a malfunction or something nefarious going on.
“I just feel it is my duty to try to get to the bottom of this,” state Delegate Kathryn Afzali told WND today. “We’re not making any accusations. The Board of Elections are good people. They have checks and balances … but we want to make sure everything is fair.”
She said a number of people contacted her after the Nov. 6 election to report that they pressed a touch-screen button for GOP candidate Mitt Romney, but the vote registered for Barack Obama.
Mobs Attack US Embassies in Egypt, Libya; 4 Americans Dead
[Newsmax.com]
Tuesday, 11 Sep 2012 08:18 PM
Protesters in Egypt and Libya attacked U.S. diplomatic missions on Tuesday, leading to the death of an American staffer at the consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi after fierce clashes at the compound, a Libyan official said. “One American staff member has died and a number have been injured in the clashes,” Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya’s Supreme Security Committee, said, adding he did not know the exact number of injured or what the cause of death was.
The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt where protesters scaled the walls of the Cairo embassy and tore down the American flag and burned it during protests over what demonstrators said was a U.S. film that insulted the Prophet Mohammad. On Tuesday, Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and seat of Sunni learning condemned a symbolic “trial” of the Prophet organized by a U.S. group including Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who triggered riots in Afghanistan in 2010 by threatening to burn the Koran.
Spanish Company, Owned By George Soros, Will “Count” American Votes Overseas In November
[WesternJournalism.com]
When the Spanish online voting company SCYTL bought the largest vote processing corporation in the United States, it also acquired the means of manufacturing the outcome of the 2012 election. For SOE, the Tampa based corporation purchased by SCYTL in January, supplies the election software which records, counts, and reports the votes of Americans in 26 states–900 total jurisdictions–across the nation.
As the largest election results reporting company in the US, SOE provides reports right down to the precinct level. But before going anywhere else, those election returns are routed to individual, company servers where the people who run them “…get ‘first look’ at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA.” In short, “this redirects results …to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global.”
TSA Let 25 Illegal Aliens Attend Flight School Owned by Illegal Alien
[CNSNews.com]
ARE WE IN FOR ANOTHER 9/11 STYLE ATTACK?
(AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved flight training for 25 illegal aliens at a Boston-area flight school that was owned by yet another illegal alien, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The illegal-alien flight-school attendees included eight who had entered the country illegally and 17 who had overstayed their allowed period of admission into the United States, according to an audit by the GAO.
Six of the illegal aliens were actually able to get pilot’s licenses.
Discovery of the trouble at the flight school began when local police–not federal authorities–pulled over the owner of the school on a traffic violation and were able to determine that he was an illegal alien.
(more…)
Cocky, Condescending Journalists Declared ObamaCare Would Be Upheld, Maybe by a 8-1 Vote
[Newsbusters.org]
By Scott Whitlock | June 27, 2012 | 22:48
Although no one knows how the Supreme Court will rule, Thursday, on ObamaCare, journalists over the past few months have dismissed and derided the concept that the President’s signature legislation could be declared unconstitutional. CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin predicted an eight-to-one vote upholding the law. Former New York Times Court reporter Linda Greenhouse said that Americans who think the law is unconstitutional are “wrong.”
Appearing on the March 23 Situation Room, Toobin hyped, “I actually think that Chief Justice Roberts and perhaps even Justice Scalia and Justice Alito might join Justice Kennedy in upholding the law.” He added, “In striking this law down, it would really be a big change in constitutional law, and I’m not sure this court is ready to do it.”
On March 19, Toobin appeared on Starting Point and rejected the anti-ObamaCare argument as “weak”:
ANCHOR SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: So the bottom line is, is making people buy health insurance a legitimate use of the power of Congress?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Correct, and the challengers in these laws have said, ‘No, this is not something Congress can do.’ What I wrote in The New Yorker this week, what I think is that basically that is a really weak argument, in that the United States Congress has been regulating health care for years, has been involved in this market for years, and this is a perfectly ordinary use of Congress’s power.
(Once he heard oral arguments, Toobin reversed himself. The journalist declared the Obama position a “train wreck” and suggested it would be shot down.)
Obama Campaign E-Mail: ‘We’re Falling Behind’
[Breitbart.com]
June 24, 2012 – by William Bigelow
Obama’s latest e-mail shows the panic
The Obama campaign is so frightened at this point that they have taken an unprecedented step.
They’re telling the truth.
In the latest of the “personal” e-mails that the Obama campaign is sending out, they don’t sugarcoat their appeal for money with saccharine stories about Obama shoveling snow for his wife, or working hard late into the night. They panic:
For the first time in modern American history, the incumbent (that’s us) will get outspent in a re-election campaign — by some estimates as much as 3-to-1.
Over the last 10 days of this month alone, GOP outside groups will spend $20 million attacking President Obama on TV.
Think about that, then think about what they’ll spend over the last 10 days in October.
We have to take this seriously. Four months to go in this election, and we have a huge fundraising deadline coming up in less than a week — any day we’re not chipping away at that disadvantage, we’re falling behind.
Fawning NBC Hypes Obama’s Immigration Pander: ‘Young People’ ‘Cheered’
[Newsbusters.org]
By Scott Whitlock | June 18, 2012 | 13:15
NBC’s Nightly News on Friday offered a one-sided segment touting Barack Obama’s decision to lift the threat of deportation to young people who came to America illegally. The Pete Williams report featured six clips of individuals or groups thrilled by the reaction, only two against and one nuanced response by Mitt Romney. The other networks followed a similar pattern.
Williams began by touting, “Young people covered by the new policy cheered the announcement outside the White House.” An unidentified woman enthused, “I can’t describe it. It’s so amazing. I’m so happy.” A crowd in front of the White House chanted, “Yes, we did! Yes, we did! Yes, we did! Yes, we did!”
The NBC correspondent’s segment was heavily weighted with people who applauded the decision:
JANET NAPOLITANO (Homeland Security Secretary): They’ve grown up here, they speak the language here, they’ve stayed out of trouble here. They’re getting their education here. They have wonderful talents to contribute to our country.
Feds Clearing Way for Drones over Your House
[WND.com]
“YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK” [Right to Privacy?]
Krauthammer predicts ‘rifles aimed at the sky all across America’
Posted: May 16, 2012
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after spending nearly three decades writing on a wide range of issues for several Upper Midwest newspapers and the Associated Press. Sports, tornadoes, homicidal survivalists, and legislative battles all fell within his bailiwick. His scenic photography has been used commercially, and he sometimes plays in a church worship band. More ↓
The federal government is moving quickly to open the skies over America to drones – both for commercial and government purposes – and respected Washington Post and Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer is forecasting “rifles aimed at the sky all across America.”
The comments from Krauthammer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1987 after serving as a speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale and then beginning his journalism career at The New Republic, were on “Special Report” with Bret Baier.
“I would predict, I’m not encouraging, but I predict the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that’s been hovering over his house is going to be a folk hero in this country,” Krauthammer said.The conversation arose as the federal government announced it is beginning to allow public safety agencies to fly unmanned aircraft – drones – with fewer and fewer restrictions.
According to yesterday’s report from Bloomberg, police, fire and other government agencies now are being allowed to fly drones weighing as much as 25 pounds without special approvals previously needed.
Isaiah 9:10 ‘most important discovery of decade’
[WND.com EXCLUSIVE]
‘It is a wakeup call that we can only ignore at our own peril’
Posted: May 07, 2012
By Michael Bresciani
In 1970, many churches were not regularly taught the doctrine of the second coming of Christ, more commonly known as premillennial prophecy. Then along came Hal Lindsey’s blockbuster bestseller, “The Late Great Planet Earth.”
The nation and the world were catapulted into a revival of knowledge that even the Prophet Daniel proclaimed would not be well known or revealed until the last days. A few great works have been added to Lindsey’s book and those who had only Clarence Larkin’s 1918 version of “Dispensational Truth” were reinvigorated to begin again to start studying the subject of eschatology. (The last things)
Now certain signs have been fulfilled in this generation that make it impossible to miss that the generation Jesus spoke of as the one sure to precede the second coming of Christ, is as the Bible says, “at hand.”
Of all the latest signs and the greatest teachings and discoveries about Christ’s imminent return in power that have graced this generation, none is more specific to America than the parallel Israel and America share in the passages of Isaiah 9: 10 and following.
Obama’s Incompetence May Fuel Racial Violence
[PersonalLiberty.com]
April 25, 2012 by John Myers
The election of Barack Obama was seen as a pivotal moment of the 21st century: an opportunity for America to be healed by a black President who embraced the ideals needed for a new America.
There was a comedy about ancient Rome titled “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” More recently, a funny thing happened on the way to the Oval Office. After the new President was anointed by the mass media and leading celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, America’s emperor was shown to be naked. Everyone on both sides of the racial divide has an opinion about why Obama is being attacked.
A great many African-Americans represented by the likes of the Reverend Jesse Jackson preach that white Americans refuse to show Obama the proper respect and go along with his programs simply because he is black. However, a great many white Americans, and maybe even right-minded people of all races, are angry at the President after he demonstrated his incompetence over the past three years. Tens of millions of Americans don’t like Obama not because he is black but because he has pushed America into the red.
Like the Elton John song, “I’ve Seen That Movie Too,” I saw it begin with the election of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, a francophone and constitutional lawyer who became a rock star north of America’s border in 1968.
IS PROGRESSIVISM THE NEW COMMUNISM?
[LibertyNewsOnline.com]
April 19, 2012 – by Susan Brown
In politics, truth-telling can get you into trouble, even if you stumble upon it by accident. Just ask Rep. Allen West (R-FL).
West is feeling the heat for a pregnant pause he took during a town hall meeting after he was asked “What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or International Socialists?”
“It’s a good question,” West responded, “I believe there’s [sic] about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. (Long pause) “They don’t actually hide. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.” The left became unhinged.
Obviously West touched a nerve; before long, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) drafted their response: “Calling fellow Members of Congress ‘Communists’ is reminiscent of the days when Joe McCarthy divided Americans with name-calling and modern-day witch hunts that don’t advance policies to benefit people’s lives…”
The CPC’s response is just another sign of the political times we live in. But something about their argument doesn’t pass the “smell test.”
While there may not be large numbers of card-carrying communists lining the halls of Congress, there is a clear tie between the Democratic Party’s Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
BARACK OBAMA IS NO LONGER A LAWYER – HE NEVER WAS A CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR
[LibertyNewsOnline.com] SHOCKING NEWS!
…AND APPARENTLY HE AIN’T THAT SMART EITHER! THIS IS WHY HE SEALED HIS RECORDS WITH EXECUTIVE ORDER #13233
April 11, 2012
The Reganite Republican
As the hollow Obama myth continues to unravel – although anyone asking relevant questions about Mr Obama’s past are still dismissed as ‘fringe’ kooks by the White House/MSM. Just forget for a minute the birth certificate, gangster pals, and unexplained disappearances of those who happen to get-in-the-way…
Here’s a refresher on yet another Obama background cover-up episode, the sort that makes it impossible to take his word on anything: are you aware that the former editor of the Harvard Law Revue in reality lost his license to practice law because he lied on the application…?
If that’s not bad enough, ‘lawyer’ Michelle Obama’s last place of employment -a fake, mafia/union-style ‘no work’ position as ‘legal counsel’ for the University of Chicago hospitals at an inflated salary (allegedly a payback for Barack’s obtaining them a government grant)- would also require a legal license… or so you’d think: seems Moo-chelle was taking- in $300K+/year while not qualified to practice law either. Interestingly, the job no longer even exists.
Obama’s Officious Opinions
American [Spectator.org]
By Ross Kaminsky on April 4, 2012
If he thinks they’re helping him politically, he should think again.
On Tuesday afternoon, in a stunning rebuke of President Obama, Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided he had heard enough of the president’s incessant hyper-partisan rhetoric challenging the independence of the federal judiciary. Judge Smith, who was appointed to the court by Ronald Reagan, “referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect… that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed ‘unelected judges’ to strike acts of Congress,” said that Obama’s comments “have troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts or to their authority…. And that’s not a small matter.”
Israeli Facilities in U.S., Worldwide on High Alert Against Iran
[Newsmax.com]
Friday, 03 Feb 2012 04:10 PM
By Newsmax Wires
Israeli facilities worldwide are on high alert against an attack from Iran, according to an internal security document obtained by ABC News.
“We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase … on both our guarded sites and ‘soft’ sites,” read a letter by the head of security for the Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States, ABC News reported. Guarded sites are government facilities like embassies and consulates; “soft sites” are Jewish synagogues, schools and community centers.
Police and intelligence officials in U.S. and Canadian cities — including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Toronto — have increased patrols at Israeli government locations and Jewish institutions, ABC News reported.
The United States and Israel, meanwhile, are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, Bloomberg News reported.
“There’s a growing concern — more than a concern — that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said Friday.
Gingrich gets endorsement from Herman Cain
[FoxNews.com]
Published January 29, 2012
AP – Jan. 21, 2012: Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a South Carolina Republican presidential primary night rally in Columbia, S.C.
Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has endorsed Newt Gingrich for the GOP nomination.
“I hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt Gingrich for President of the United States,” Cain said at a dinner the two attended in Florida on Saturday night.
“I know what this sausage grinder is all about. I know he’s going through this sausage grinder because he cares about the American people,” Cain said referring to the 2012 political campaign that has so far produced three different winners in three contests.
Gingrich, a former House of Representatives speaker, is in a fierce fight for Tuesday’s Florida’s Republican primary with Mitt Romney.
Mitt Romney, the Value-Added Tax, and America’s European Future
[BigGovernment.com]
Posted Jan 4th 2012 at 7:03 am
by Dan Mitchell
My Iowa caucus predictions from yesterday were hopelessly wrong, probably because I was picking with my heart rather than my head. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Mitt Romney’s openness to a value-added tax makes him a dangerously flawed candidate, and I hoped Iowa voters shared my concern.
In a column for today’s Wall Street Journal, I elaborated on those concerns, explaining why a VAT is bad fiscal policy. I had three main points. First, I noted that the big spenders need a VAT in order to achieve a European-sized welfare state in America.
… the left needs a VAT. It is the only realistic way to collect the huge amount of revenue that will be necessary to finance the mountainous benefits promised by our entitlement programs. Which is exactly what happened in Europe, where welfare-state policies only became feasible after VATs were adopted, beginning in the late 1960s.
Second, I explained that the left favors this giant tax on the middle class because they want more money and soak-the-rich taxes don’t generate much revenue.
Prisoners May Be Preparing Your Tax Return
[PatriotUpdate.com]
January 1, 2012
A story in USA Today reports that inmates, some of them serving life sentences, have applied to the IRS to be tax preparers. Most of them did not reveal that they were incarcerated. It’s good to know that prisoners are trying to be productive members of society. It’s kind of like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption (1994) who does the books for the warden and the prison guards.
While Andy was innocent of the crime of murder that got him into prison, he used his considerable financial skills to turn the tables on the corrupt warden. He learned how to be a criminal while in prison. It’s quite a story worth watching. I suggest that you watch an edited version since the language and some of the scenes are kind of rough.
Maybe these incarcerated prisoners got their inspiration from watching Shawshank.
Prosecutors Say Hezbollah Laundered Millions of Dollars Into U.S.
[FoxNews.com]
Associated Press
Published December 15, 2011
AP Photo – NEW YORK – Federal authorities blamed Lebanese financial institutions Thursday for wiring more than $300 million into the United States in a money-laundering scheme they said used the U.S. financial system to benefit the militant group Hezbollah.
The U.S. government said in the lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court that it seeks nearly a half-billion dollars in money-laundering penalties from some Lebanese financial entities, 30 U.S. car buyers and a U.S. shipping company. It also said it’s entitled to claim their assets as forfeitable under U.S. money-laundering laws.
Panetta Says Drone Campaign Over Iran Will Continue
[FoxNews.com]
By Justin Fishel & Jennifer Griffin
Published December 13, 2011
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in an exclusive interview with Fox News, said that the stealth drone campaign along the Iran-Afghanistan border will “absolutely” continue despite the loss of a valuable and sophisticated drone to Iran.The mysterious loss of the RQ-170 Sentinel drone has revealed not only that the U.S. was spying on Iran, but also that the program was being run from Shindad Air Base in western Afghanistan.
Panetta would not comment directly on what that drone was doing over Iran, but he said the U.S. military has no plans to halt the drone operation out of western Afghanistan.
“Those operations have to be protected in order to do the job and the mission that they’re involved with,” he said.
When asked if he would continue those missions as they have been conducted out of Afghanistan, he responded with one word: “Absolutely.”
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