Friday, April 12, 2013

Story of American Diplomat’s Death in Afghanistan Changes


Dancing Czars

 
 
 
 
 
 
1 Votes

jc4Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.
This happened now six days ago. There is no “fog of war” situation surround Anne Smeldingoff’s death.
62077-anne-smedinghoff
For more background on Ann see the NY Post article here.
What is it about the State Department of the United States that they can’t tell the truth or get their story straight?
Just asking, That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and I approve this message.
By DANIEL HALPER
The Weekly Standard
State Department employee Anne Smedinghoff was killed in Afghanistan last weekend. At first reports suggested the young diplomat was part of an armed convoy that was bombed, but new reports say that she was actually on foot. And that the group she was with got lost on its way to deliver books.
ABC reported earlier in the week:
Afghan security officials told ABC News that the State Department convoy had just left its headquarters in Qalat and joined the convoy of the local provincial governor who was also headed to the school book giveaway.





In honor of Israel’s 65th birthday


65+1 new reasons why I love Israel 2013... in no particular order


1. Young aboriginal leaders of the Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba, Canada, came to Israel to learn “how an ancient people can maintain their heritage while embracing the modern world, and in so doing achieve selfdetermination.”

2. We Israelis talk with our hands, so a start-up called Pointgrab is developing technology so our computers understand our hand gestures.

3. We like to talk, period. Six heads of the hush-hush Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) star in a movie that reveals secrets of their careers. Even the director said he was startled that they agreed.

4. Intensity. We’re ranked first by Bloomberg in “research and development intensity.”

5. While researching, we each drink about 4.5 kilos of coffee per year. The new Cups Tel Aviv app will make that easier, offering all the coffee you can drink at a fixed price.

6. Mobileye Inside: Luxury European BMWs and Volvos will now protect themselves with Israeli anti-crash technology.

7. We still surprise the pundits. The famous, foreign Israel experts wrongly predicted our election results.

8. Whenever we have a few weeks of relative peace, our minds and hearts shift quickly from security to social issues.

9. We are the first to arrive to help at a foreign catastrophe, yet it took us 50 days to form a government and no one seemed in a rush.

10. The first decision our new government made was to help Holocaust survivors.

11. Our government coalition is made up of two parties with “home” in their names. There’s also one with future, and one with movement.

12. The critically acclaimed US TV series based on an Israeli series is called Homeland.

13. An Academy Award-winning director is about to film his first TV pilot here. It’s called Tyrant.

14. The Syrian leader is also called “tyrant.” We’re taking in medical patients from his country, even though they’re officially the enemy.

15. Kibbutz Dan is exporting caviar in a market once dominated by Iran.

16. Overheard recently: “Meet me at the corner of the Palmah and the Hebrew Brigade.”

17. Don’t try to outsmart Israel-developed WatchLock. It sends an “I’m being picked” text message to the owner anywhere in the world.

18. When an Israeli won the gold medal for disabled rowers in Italy, no recording of “Hatikva” had been prepared for the ceremony. So she took the mike and sang the song (beautifully) herself.

19. Prize-winning Kharta the cow produced 18,208 liters of milk after getting post-traumatic stress treatment. She lives on a kibbutz near the border with Gaza.

20. The illegal foreign workers come mostly from countries that prohibit them from traveling to Israel. They don’t believe the propaganda. Neither do we! 21. Despite the ban, Iranians find ways to listen to Rita, the Israeli star singing in Persian.

22. Israel is exporting sugar to Holland for Dutch chocolate, and to Morocco for sweet tea.

23. We don’t beat them on the field, but we send the architectural simulation system to build soccer stadiums in Brazil.

24. Israeli Boris Gelfand is among the top world chess champions. He was born in Minsk, Belarus.

25. Four sixth-graders from the Ma’aleh Hatorah school in Ma’aleh Adumim took first place at the seventh annual MindLab Olympics international championships, a “thinking games” competition for children from 10 countries.

They’re also good at Torah.

26. Israel has won first prize in the Mindlab competition for seven years.

27. Bank of Israel chief Stanley Fischer turned down a raise.

28. A sign on a moving truck: Hamovil Ha’artzi, the National (water) Carrier.

29. Says the international advisory committee from MSNBC: Israel is a paradise for prisoners.

30. Despite the threat from Iran, 2012 was the best year ever for tourists.

31. Even our most biting satirical show is called A Wonderful Country.

32. Yes, we care. Israeli scientists have brought the aptly named Yarkon bleak fish back from the brink of extinction.

33. Autumn signs on the city buses say “Shana tova” – “Have a good year.”

34. Our president carries an organ donor card.

35. Flying high. A skirt-wearing religious woman passed the elite pilot’s course and became a navigator despite pressure that “a religious girl couldn’t do this.”

36. The world junior tennis champ is a 12-year-old from Ramle, who learned the game in a center for kids from the periphery.

37. Miss Israel came to Israel from Ethiopia when she was 12. She’s an orphan, brought up by her grandparents.

38. Said beauty queen served as an officer in the IDF.

39. The winner of the first season of The Voice Israel singing competition made aliya from Canada a few days before competing. The winner of the second season is an Israeli Arab from Acre.

40. How’s this for popular fall offerings on the Jerusalem calendar? Ten different lectures on repentance.

41. For sale at my supermarket: special washing powder for tzizit. For sale at the tourist shops: sky-blue tzizit with authentic snail dye.

42. For sale at fine jewelers: a Star of David made from ancient rubble from the City of David’s archeological site.

43. For sale in Jerusalem: bathing suits for modest women. The manufacturer has Jewish and Arab customers, and received an order recently from Qatar.

44. Archeologists recently found the 2,700-year-old temple of a community that lived in Motza, west of Jerusalem.

45. A property developer recently advertised for an entire community to move into a housing development west of Jerusalem: Motza.

46. In a country where many citizens grew up without democracy, we get a holiday on Election Day (and deserve it).

47. An Arab friend and I are swapping Hebrew and Arabic Dora the Explorer DVDs to improve our family language proficiency.

48. The light rail stops are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

49. Patient arriving from Moscow at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem instead of the US: “The care is good and everyone speaks Russian.”

50. Land of opportunity: The new head of the emergency room at Hadassah is the oldest of 11 children and grew up in a Galilee village here. His father only finished fourth grade and his mother never learned to read or write. He and three of his siblings are doctors. (He speaks Russian, too.) 51. The cook-off in MasterChef Israel involved a German immigrant who converted from Catholicism to Judaism, a hijab-wearing Israeli Arab nurse and a very religious Jew from a family with 14 children. It was the most popular show of the year.

52. No tempter of Eve, this serpent: The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Snake Robot crawls under wreckage to find trapped people.

53. When locusts arrived before Passover, it wasn’t just an agriculture problem as in other countries. Here everyone connects them to the Ten Plagues in the Bible.

54. Israel’s submission to the Academy Awards, the film Fill the Void, was made by an Orthodox, head-covering woman, and offers an insider’s view of the dilemmas facing people who don’t have TVs or go to the movies.

55. Celeb chef Shaul Ben-Aderet learned to cook when his Iraqi grandmother babysat for him. She didn’t have a TV, so she kept him busy cooking.

56. You might not find Borat in Kazakhstan, but you will find a branch of the Israeli café Aroma. There are 10 Israeli Castro shops in Thailand. Go figure.

57. American immigrant and cryptography expert Prof. Shafi Goldwasser won the Turing Prize, the “Nobel Prize” for computing. In addition to her work on complexity, she’s a co-inventor of the theory of zero-knowledge proofs.

Go figure.

58. Who would have guessed all that heat and unrelenting sun would be a benefit? Kibbutz Ketura is turning its sunshine into microalgae antioxidants and fields of energy.

59. Tel Aviv Greeters – offering a free tour of the Tel Aviv they love – include hip youngsters and cultured senior citizens.

All for free.

60. On US President Barack Obama’s recent visit, he saw robots carrying matza. Do they also seek out hametz? 61. When the presidential car broke down, Moti Towing Service came to the rescue.

62. Even a missile-weary, skeptical population like ours can enjoy a feel-good presidential visit.

63. We’re still honoring the Righteous Among the Nations. Yad Vashem recently recognized a Wehrmacht soldier who saved Jews in Poland.

64. I keep getting this message on email, and it’s not code: The irises are blooming in the Galilee.

65. Fifty thousand Israelis reputedly live in India, but the lost tribe of Bnei Menashe Jews from northeastern India are coming home. They trace their Jewish roots back 2,700 years.

66. When explaining the Holocaust to a kindergarten-age grandchild, I could end with, “... and now we have a country of our own.”

By BARBARA SOFER    -  April 11, 2013     The Jerusalem Post

The author is a Jerusalem writer who focuses on the wondrous stories of modern Israel. She serves as the Israel director of public relations for Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. The views in her columns are her own.


Note:  Barbara Sofer's list, first posted in The Jerusalem Post, is being shared by thousands of friends on Facebook - where I first noticed "In honor of Israel's 65 birthday".  







The deconstruction of Israel: Has the countdown begun?

OPINION: THE JERUSALEM POST
BY Martin Sherman
\04/11/2013 22:42

Into the fray: Last week I warned of the sinister subtext of Obama’s visit. This week, that subtext is emerging as headline news.
US President Barack Obama lays wreath at Yad Vashem Photo: Screenshot Channel 10

I am opposed to an independent Palestinian state, because in my own judgment and in the judgment of many leaders in the Middle East, including Arab leaders, this would be a destabilizing factor... and would certainly not serve the United States interests.

Jimmy Carter, February 25, 1980 
The only way for Israel to endure... as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.

Barack ObamaMarch 21, 2013 
We oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state.... Nothing will deflect us from these fundamental... commitments.

– Jimmy CarterMarch 23, 1980
We continue to believe in the two-state solution on the 1967 borders.

– Barack ObamaMarch 21, 2013 
Being a proverbial – and some would say, perennial – “prophet of doom” is neither easy nor fashionable in Israel today. After all, there is so much evidence of burgeoning power and prosperity that pessimism seems positively perverse: Surging GDP per capita, amazing advances in science and technology, massive gas finds and the prospect of soon-to-be-attained energy independence...

Like “Chicken-Licken”? 
Unless you happen to be warning about the starkly incontrovertible dangers, immanent in Iranian nuclear ambitions, you tend to be dismissed as a paranoid “Chicken- Licken,” mongering irrational fears as to the imminent fall of the firmament.

This is particularly true for anyone who keeps harping on the perils entailed in what is misleadingly dubbed “the peace process,” and in the doctrine of political appeasement/territorial retreat on which it is based. But these perils can be just as pernicious – indeed, perhaps even more so – than distinctly discernible dangers, however daunting, such as those emanating from Tehran.

It is precisely because the mechanism by which they inflict damage is surreptitious, incremental and gradual that the accumulated level of menace grows almost imperceptibly, until it reaches potentially devastating levels. At any given point, it is easy to misperceive them as innocuous, and denigrate calls for caution as alarmist.

“The death of a frog” revisited 
Several years ago I published an article, titled “The death of frog” (November 29, 2010), in which I cited an excerpt from Daniel Quinn’s novel The Story of B, describing how if a frog is placed “in a pot of tepid water..., it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor...

and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.”

I warned that this was eerily reminiscent of the unfolding political realities in Israel: “Given the ongoing attrition in Israeli position... its continual acquiescence to expose itself to ever-escalating risks, and the accumulating string of concessions agreed to, the trenchant question that must be raised is: When will the lethal boiling point be reached?” 

Should anyone feel that this is overstating matters, the staggering transformation in the US positions regarding Israel and the Palestinian issue –from Carter’s total rejection of Palestinian statehood and a return to the 1967 Green Line, to Obama’s total endorsement thereof – should suffice to persuade them of the disturbing dimensions of the phenomenon. 

Looked at over time, the transformation of attitudes adopted on the Palestinian question reveals a deeply disconcerting picture of Israeli retreat and capitulation. Potential scenarios that were once rightly deemed dire threats to Israel’s survival are not only treated with sublime indifference – but have now miraculously metamorphosed into preconditions for that survival.

This is true not only for the sea-change in US positions that Israel has to face, but also for the massive mutations in its own positions on this issue.

Amphibians in hot water? 
Thus, just prior to the Carter presidency, Amnon Rubinstein wrote an article in Haaretz titled “The pitfall of a third state,” in which he rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, warning that it would be “an arrow-head directed at the very heart of Israel with all the force of the Arab world behind it.”

Rubinstein later become a Knesset member for the far-left Meretz faction, whose principal political banner was precisely the establishment of such a state.

For at least two decades, these views dominated the political mainstream in Israel.

Thus, Yitzhak Rabin in his last address to the Knesset (October 5, 1995), seeking the ratification of the Oslo II agreements, for which he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In laying out his vision for a permanent settlement, he resolutely resisted any return to the Green Line; endorsed retention of a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty as the nation’s capital; stipulated that the Jordan Valley would remain Israel’s security border; called for the inclusion of numerous “settlements” in the “West Bank” within Israel’s future final frontiers and even urged setting up new settlements “like those in Gush Katif” – later razed by Ariel Sharon in the 2005 disengagement from Gaza.

Israel has long abandoned most – if not all – these tenets set out in the ultimate articulation of Rabin’s heritage. Today, if Israel were to adhere to Nobel Peace laureate Rabin’s prescription, this would be summarily dismissed and denigrated as unreasonable, unrealistic extremism.

How then can this not invoke our parable of the luckless amphibian that relaxed when the waters were tepid, adapted when they became hotter, and died when they began to boil? 

What would Sun Tzu say? Oy vey? 

As I have alluded elsewhere (Intellectual warriors, not slicker diplomats, February 14), David Horowitz correctly identified that in the post-modern era, Carl von Clausewitz’s famous dictum that “war is a continuation of politics by other means” has been inverted, and nowadays, “Politics is war conducted by other means.”

In a seminal manual, titled “Warfighting,” which sets out the US Marine Corps’ basic philosophy of warfare, the underlying rationale of war is defined as follows: “... the object of war is to impose our will on [the] enemy.”

This has been an enduring principle of military doctrine. Two and half millennia ago, Sun Tzu, the Chinese strategist, wrote in his classic treatise The Art of War: “... the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him.”

Bearing this in mind, the political portrait that emerges from a survey of recent decades is one of ongoing erosion of Israeli positions and adoption of Arab ones – i.e.

continual success of the Arabs to impose their will on their Israeli enemy – and on its US ally.

So if politics is the extension of war and the objective of war is to impose one’s will on the enemy, can there be any doubt that if a 21st-century Sun Tzu were to review the constant Israeli submission to the will of its foes, his only comment would be an appalled: Oy vey – or whatever the Chinese version of that is? 

From sinister subtext to breaking headlines 
Last week, I warned that despite the euphoric feel-good sensation that the smiles and embraces that characterized Obama’s visit engendered, it was premature to celebrate a substantive and durable pro-Israel shift in the US administration’s sentiments. I cautioned that notwithstanding the more amicable appearance, there were clear signs of a sinister subtext and ominous undertones that accompanied what took place during the presidential trip to the region.

It did not take long for that subtext to surface and become breaking-news headlines.

In the context of the preceding discussion, it is likely that, with the benefit of hindsight, Obama’s visit will be perceived as a point of inflection, marking disconcerting acceleration in the degradation of long-held Israeli positions, once considered linchpins holding the fabric of the nation together.

For once the fanfare fades, three deeply disturbing elements will remain to define the memory – and significance – of the Obama visit, all of which reinforce the propensity of Jewish submission to Muslim demands: 
(a) The humiliating Israeli apology to Turkey and the consequent damage to Israel’s stature and credibility on the one hand, and the boosting of its enemies’ morale and resolve on the other; 
(b) An apparent softening on the settlement- freeze issue as a sine qua non for resumption of negotiations, and its replacement with an even more onerous condition – an emerging demand for Israel to produce a map delineating the borders of a future Palestinian state; and 
(c) Stark reaffirmation that the point of departure for the delineation of those borders should be the indefensible pre-1967 Green Line – with minor modifications involving wildly implausible “agreed land swaps.”

Subtext to headlines (cont.) 
The impact of these elements soon became headline news.

The Turks immediately began to swagger around the globe, boasting that they had coerced Israel to bend to its will, refusing to drop trumped-up legal proceedings against IDF personnel, and proclaiming that any improvement of relations with Israel will depend on whether Ankara approves of its future behavior.

The message was not lost on Israel’s enemies.

The Iranian reaction was inevitable as it was instructive. Tehran’s ambassador to Ankara commented that “in the past three years, Turkey, with its constant resistance, showed us we can take what we want...

from Israel,” indicating that Israel’s abject behavior is hardly likely to induce greater pliancy in Iran’s position on its nuclear program.

No less disturbing were the prominent media reports that Secretary of State Kerry was pushing for Turkey to act as mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, including Hamas.

Turkey? The country, whose prime minister recently branded the expression Jewish national sovereignty, Zionism, as a “crime against humanity” and whose foreign minister chided Syria for not taking military action against Israel? Hardly the epitome of a credible honest broker! Was this curious initiative the result of ignorance or naivetĂ© – or a disturbing illustration of the sinister subtext expressing itself in the headlines.

Pyrrhic victory 

There was much jubilation at Obama’s downplaying the centrality he had formerly placed on the settlements issue. As Shmuel Rosner points out in his “Please... draw me a state” (New York Times, April 3), this is very likely to be “a Pyrrhic victory.”

As Ronsner astutely points out: “Obama’s ‘major calibration’ creates more problems for the Israeli government than it solves, he replaced the contentious issue of settlements with an even more contentious matter: boundaries.”

This change of emphasis was followed, right on cue (April 3) by the incredibly imbecilic, impudent and iniquitous missive from 100 sycophantic North American Jewish Obamaphiles, calling on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to show readiness for “painful territorial sacrifices” (read “withdraw to the Green Line and redivide Jerusalem”).

The Palestinians response was almost immediate. Within two days Mahmoud Abbas demanded a map for a future Palestinian state before the resumption of any peace talks. Palestinian news agency Ma’an quoted an Abbas aide as saying “Any return to negotiations requires Netanyahu to agree on 1967 borders.”

It is difficult to overstate the gravity of this development. As Rosner points out: “For Israel, drawing a map without first solving other core issues – the status of Jerusalem, the future of Palestinian refugees – is like using your last bargaining chip halfway through making a deal.”

Descent into delusion? 

Perhaps the only thing more distressing than this ongoing process of deconstruction of the Jewish state’s foundations is the wildly delusional response from those who should be charged with arresting it – the Israeli Right.

Thus, when asked about his proposal for an alternative, Naftali Bennett, leader of the Bayit Yehudi party, outlined his “Plan B, whose principal elements reportedly are to “dramatically improve the Palestinians’ economic situation” and enhance their freedom of movement by “remov[ing] checkpoints on West Bank roads, [and] to reintegrate the Palestinians into the Israeli workforce.”

So that’s the Israeli Right’s grand strategic vision for the future? More affluent and mobile (and presumably, stateless) Palestinians? Really? One can almost envisage a dismayed Sun Tzu shaking his head in disbelief, muttering “Oy vey” – in Chinese, of course.

Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

www.martinsherman.net


Thursday, April 11, 2013

Sorry Folks – The 1st Amendment Doesn’t Protect Islamists, far from it

Note:  The following video is posted on our friend's blog - "Grumpy Opinions".  I consider this "gold" -  for true wisdom is "golden".   Few Americans know how to respond, as we watch our cities and streets being taken over by pockets of Muslims demanding Sharia Law within the United States - Muslim laws do NOT override the US Constitution.  Before America becomes like Euro-Islamic, it would be good to understand the goals of Islam, Sharia Law, and why we must not allow it to overtake America. - BeeSting

This morning I read a synagogue on Long Island had cancelled an appearance by Atlas Shrugs Editor and Publisher,  Pam Greller.  They cancelled out of fear for the safety of their member’s if she were to appear..  The synagogue had been the of pro Islamic Hate mail since they’d announced she’d be speaking — The Terrorists won..
Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center has been linked to numerous Terroist Attacks. including the 1994 and 2001 World Trade Center Attacks, the Fort Hood Terrorist Murders, Money Laundering and an attempt to kill George Bush. Supporters say it’s Protected By the  Constitution

We’re told by the political left that that Islamist are allowed to do pretty much what they want, and they’re protected by the First Amendment. Ever notice how the only time the left is concerned about the Constitution is when they think they can use it to undermine America’s foundations?
In the video Publius Huldah explains why this line of thinking is wrong, actually she goes a little beyond  wrong–

Publius Huldah shows the Act for America Chapter in Fayetteville, TN that the First Amendment does NOT give islamists the right to build mosques, proselytize, and institute sharia here.






Mark Levin - "The Second Amendment is not up for grabs!" (video)

While some may believe that the Second Amendment is not at stake with today’s scheduled vote on the Democrats’ gun control package, the term ‘shall not be infringed’ in the 2nd amendment is crystal clear.

Mark Levin: There is No Up-or-Down Vote on the 2nd Amendment!



A Day Of Reckoning For Our Political Leaders

APRIL 11, 2013 BY 
THE WESTERN CENTER FOR JOURNALISM

We already know that Congress is on a never-ending quest to meddle in our affairs.


They control everything ­­– all for the sake of their own filthy politics.
And since the free market is no exception, the actions of these madmen often result in higher prices for the consumer (you).
It’s sick, really. And it’s been going on for decades.
Let me explain…
A classic example involves the special tax breaks and mandates for ethanol.
Every few years, Congress has a big fight over ethanol. And the real victims of the battle are our cars’ engines – and our wallets.
This isn’t exactly a new issue, either.
40 Years Dirty Politics Come to Light
It all started in 1973 when OPEC declared an oil embargo against the United States in response to our support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
Instantly, oil prices rocketed from $3 to $12 a barrel.
Soon, America’s neighborhood gas stations were saturated with cars waiting to fill up. Gas lines and rationing became the order of the day.
After the embargo ended, Congress set out to cure America’s addiction to fossil fuels – especially gasoline – and ethanol swiftly became the go-to fuel source.
In 1978, Congress passed a tax break for ethanol-blended gasoline. Following this, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments mandated the presence of an oxygenized chemical compound in gas – thus giving ethanol a huge boost.
Then in 2005, Congress upped the ethanol mandate through new renewable fuel standards (RFS). At filling stations, we now pump gasoline that is up to 10% ethanol.
The problem is that the existence of such a gigantic program in support of ethanol has distorted the market. And we’re the ones who end up suffering at the pump.
So why do these mandates still exist?
The True Price of These Mandates
Well, there’s one group that’s strongly in support of these mandates: corn farmers.
They’d have you believe that the preferential taxation of ethanol is good for consumers. And it keeps prices down when oil prices are high.
Of course, nearly all of American-made ethanol is derived from corn. So the ethanol mandates elevated the demand for corn.
As a result, corn prices climbed, and farmers benefitted.
And making corn farmers happy is a great way to win elections–it’s why we see near unanimous support for ethanol amongst presidential prospects.
I learned this when I worked on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in Iowa (which is essentially ground zero for corn politics). I was sent out right away to meet with the president of the National Corn Growers Association to ask for an endorsement. And this ultimately helped Dole win Iowa.
Indeed, the all-important caucuses in Iowa, where Barack Obama got his start, are vital to any presidential campaign.
I know. All of this political back-scratching is infuriating to say the least. Had the government never stuck its nose in and interfered with the free market by supporting ethanol, consumers would’ve been better off.
The good news is, the day of reckoning could be upon us.
I’ve heard rumors recently that the ethanol mandate is in serious trouble. And an abrupt removal of ethanol mandates could lead to a price shock in the gas market.
Take heed, Congress!
Bottom line: How this situation settles remains unclear. But it would be great for consumers – and your wallet – if Congress unleashed the free market by giving these mandates the boot.

This article originally appeared at CapitalHillDaily.com and is reprinted here with permission. 
Photo credit: Jessie Owen (Creative Commons)

6 Ways Obama’s Budget Is Worse Than Everyone Thinks

APRIL 11, 2013 BY  
The Western Center for Journalism



Fiscal Policy: Shorn of its accounting gimmicks, the president’s budget isn’t a “balanced” plan to get the debt crisis under control. It’s a monument to fiscal irresponsibility.
With much fanfare and a lot of media hype, President Obama unveiled his latest budget plan — two months late. An IBD review of Obama’s budget finds that, among other things, it:
• Boosts spending and deficits over the next two years. Obama’s own budget numbers show that he wants to hike spending over the next two years by $247 billion compared with the “baseline,” which even after his proposed new tax hikes would mean $157 billion in additional red ink.
Obama claims he’ll get tough on spending and deficits later, but every budget expert knows boosting spending today only makes it harder to cut later.
• Vastly exaggerates spending cuts. The press has widely reported that Obama’s budget would cut spending a total of $1.2 trillion over the next decade. But Obama’s own budget shows that he actually cuts spending a mere $186 billion. (The relevant tables can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/tables.pdf on Pages 187-190.)

Human Rights Watch Slamming Hamas for Ignoring Public Murders


The government in Gaza failed to make even the most elementary effort to identifying the killers.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday criticized the Hamas government in Gaza for failing to investigate the murders of seven prisoners. The victims, who were accused of collaboration with Israel, were publicly killed during two days in November, 2012, while Israel and Gazan terrorists were exchanging heavy fire.