Current Events - July 28, 2013

80% of US adults facing near poverty or no work

I read this AP story and could hardly believe it. Obama is still out there talking about "income inequality" when 80% of his constituents are living on the economic edge.

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.

Hardship is particularly on the rise among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."

"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend, but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.

"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."

While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in government data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.

The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.

Record number of Americans on disability. Record number on food stamps. Record number wanting full time work but only finding part time employment.

Far more than these sad facts is the psychic cost of economic insecurity. If you aren't sure you're going to have a job next month, you are likely to put off all but the most necessary purchases. If prospects for the future appear bleak, you are more apt to try to qualify in some way for disability or some other government program that will at least give you and your family a minimal source of income.

I'm not sure income inequality is such a huge deal - except as it is used by Obama as a political club to bash the rich. The real problem is that so many of the fabulously wealthy produce nothing - they churn paper on Wall Street that marginally affects business investment, but is counterproductive because the only goal is building wealth. True, there are many entrepreneurs who build successful businesses and penalizing them for their success is stupid policy. But as the government builds regulatory and legislative barriers that prevent upward mobility, Obama's message of income inequality resonates even with those not predisposed to engage in class warfare. This also contributes to economic insecurity.

I see no policy proposals from either side that addresses most of these issues. Simply deregulating isn't the answer - no more than the redistributionist crap proposed by Democrats. What we can be sure of it won't get any better anytime soon.

 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/80_of_us_adults_facing_near_poverty_or_no_work.html#ixzz2aLt1NC8

 

Congressional Act Mandated Sharia-Compliant Jails And Prisons In America

I worked in Colorado law enforcement for twenty years.  During my nearly thirteen years with a major Denver-Metro Sheriff's Office as a Deputy and Detective, I remember only too well the annual approach of the month of Ramadan - the Muslim holy month of fasting during daylight hours. 

By policy, prisoner meal schedules were altered, to accommodate the Shariah (Muslim law).  During Ramadan, a hot breakfast was served to all inmates before sunrise.  Sack lunch dinners were brought to fasting Muslims' cells after sundown.  Year-round, an Imam came into the jail on Fridays for afternoon prayers. 

If you're wondering, as I always do, how a theo-political totalitarian ideology such as Islam, the doctrines of which are bent on the destruction of Western Civilization, has sunken its tentacles so deeply and broadly into our nation's institutions, where is the answer to the question:  How and why did our jails and prisons become legally Sharia-compliant?


Following a little research, during which I found this interesting 2010 report in the Colorado Springs Gazette about religious practices in Colorado prisons and jails, I also discovered the seminal federal law which finally cemented Shariah-compliance into our penal systems.  It's called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIP). 

Believe it or not, it was passed by a "unanimous Congress" in 2000.  Bill Clinton signed the act into law. 

Isn't it interesting that thirteen years later, Bill Clinton's wife, former Secretary of State and presumed 2016 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has Huma Abedin, a credibly alleged operative of the Muslim Brotherhood, as her long-time closest aide.

Care to guess which members of Congress sponsored the RLUIP?  They were Senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy.  Now, there's bi-partisanship at work for you.

If Islam's supremacist doctrines are so ignored or misunderstood by the vast majority of today's Congressional representatives, one must presume that this "unanimity" among the members of both legislative houses to pass the 2000 RLUIP was a farcical demonstration of America's naievete in its most abject form.  And September 11, 2001 came in its own time.

The problem is that I don't see anyone in the media or Congress awakening to reality, thirteen years into the War.  And da'wa continues in our prisons and jails.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/congressional_act_mandated_sharia-compliant_jails_and_prisons_in_america.html#ixzz2aLtObWij

 

Want Cheaper Food? End the Ethanol Mandate

Walmart has not had a good year so far. In an email leaked earlier this month, the company’s vice president of finance and logistics grumbled that "February (month to date) sales are a total disaster... the worst start to a month I have seen in my... 7 years with the company."

Why is the nation’s largest retailer struggling so much? In today’s Wall Street Journal, Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard notes the retailer’s sales problems and points to a couple of reasons why the company is having so much trouble. The expiration of the payroll tax cut, which for the last few years has reduced take home pay levels by about $80 per month for families making $50,000 annually, is probably one factor. But Karlgaard also points to the role of food price inflation:

Food prices are rising faster than overall inflation. Inflation is the great hidden tax, especially when it hits essentials like food. Core inflation is running at about 2%, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that food prices will be up 3%-4% in 2013. This will nip at Wal-Mart customers and Wal-Mart itself, which now gets half of its U.S. revenue from groceries. Will Wal-Mart eat the inflation and hurt its profit, or will it pass it onto its customers and risk driving them away? Food inflation presents no good choices.

Food price inflation is indeed complex, and there’s no simple way to prevent it. But there is a single step that government could take that would almost certainly significantly arrest the rapid rise in the cost of food: end ethanol energy mandates.

There’s very little question about whether or not ethanol subsidies and related mandates, which essentially pay farmers to grow fuel instead of food, drive up the price of food. Ethanol policy hits corn directly, but because corn is so integral to the rest of the food production process, a rise in the price of corn quickly results in a rise in the price of other farm commodities such as meat, poultry, dairy, and soy products. When the Congressional Budget Office looked at the impact of ethanol subsidies on overall food prices between April 2007 and April 2008, the nonpartisan scorekeeper found that 10-15 percent of the 5.1 percent rise in food prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, could be attributed to ethanol subsidies.

The CBO noted at the time that it was difficult to precisely estimate the impact of ethanol subsidies going forward. But in early 2011, corn prices spiked after a crop shortage, which many analysts expected to translate into higher food prices. And over the years, ethanol subsidies, along with a renewable fuel standard which pushes energy producers to include ethanol in their products, has resulted in what the Farm Foundation describes as a “persistent demand shock.” Some 40 percent of the nation’s annual corn crop is now redirected into ethanol production.

Congress allowed direct ethanol subsidies to end in 2011, but the renewables standard remains, and it’s by far the bigger factor. Even modest changes in ethanol policy could have a big impact. Last summer, three farm economists at Purdue University estimated that even if we just partially relaxed the renewables standard, corn prices could drop by as much as 20 percent. (That could also help ease the impact of rising gas prices, another factor that Karlgaard names as hurting Walmart in his oped, by increasing fuel economy.)
It’s not just American consumers who would benefit. It would also help stop the rise of food prices worldwide, which harms poor and developing nations. The global impact is big enough that last summer, the World Bank suggested that an immediate easing of the renewables mandate could prevent a world food crisis.

Whether we’re talking about America or the rest of the world, the reality is that higher food prices hit the poor the hardest — not just because they have less overall but because they spend a much larger portion of their incomes on food. The ethanol mandate is essentially a tax on the poor, in the U.S. and elsewhere. 
Ending the ethanol mandate wouldn't fix all of Walmart's problems, or put a stop to rising food prices, and its impact might not be felt immediately due to the farm production cycle. But over time, it would probably restrain the rise in food prices, helping Walmart's business and making life better for Walmart's customers. 

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/27/want-cheaper-food-end-the-ethanol-mandat

No favors needed at spectrum auction

“T-Mobile’s innovative moves are putting pressure on our competitors.” That is what the company said in its testimony before Congress. However, a closer look at the testimony suggests that T-Mobile wants that competitive pressure to come from regulatory favors, not by winning in the marketplace.

In her testimony regarding the upcoming FCC wireless broadband spectrum auctions, T-Mobile’s vice president for regulatory affairs said that the company “believes the incentive auction should be designed to maximize the amount of spectrum” and that this would provide “significant revenues” to the U.S. Treasury. On the surface, that sounds good.

However, her plan to accomplish that requires that the auctions conveniently exclude T-Mobile’s largest competitors. Now, is that promoting competition or protecting against it?

The company’s testimony asks the FCC to pick winners and losers without regard for fairness or free market forces by essentially limiting who can bid for spectrum. Rather than a fully competitive auction that gives every qualified bidder a chance to compete equally for additional spectrum, the plea for government help does little to serve consumers who benefit from competition.

Indeed, with fewer bidders in the market, the T-Mobile request would set aside spectrum below the full market price. That’s what is called a subsidy – and taxpayers are the ones who would foot the bill, and consumers the ones who would pay more from the misallocation of scarce spectrum.

Calling on the government for help instead of relying on fair competition is just a bad deal for consumers and taxpayers.

As Representative Marsha Blackburn noted at the hearing, it also takes a lot of chutzpah to ask for favors when T-Mobile’s TV ads boast that it has the fastest and least congested network in the industry, presumably because they have plenty of spectrum to deliver video streaming and other data-intensive applications and services. Such ads undermine their claim that, as an underdog, the company needs extra help in the spectrum auction.

The T-Mobile plea is cheekier still when one considers that T-Mobile did not even participate during the last FCC wireless broadband spectrum auction. During the 2008 auction when T-Mobile skipped the auction, 101 bidders competed for spectrum; ninety-nine of those were smaller local and regional competitors who successfully acquired spectrum without set asides or rigged rules.

That is how competition works in open auctions.

That prior spectrum auction resulted in these wireless providers investing billions to acquire the spectrum that is now delivering the 4G services that consumers want. Today, as more consumers embrace smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, every wireless company needs more spectrum to meet the explosive demand for wireless services.

And that is why the highest bidder should win. Period.

To its credit, T-Mobile is working hard to make up for past neglect, merging with MetroPCS to acquire its significant spectrum holdings and also buying spectrum in the secondary market when other license holders make it available. In fact, by some measures, T-Mobile is less spectrum-constrained than its two largest rivals – AT&T and Verizon – which is one more reason it doesn’t need government favoritism to exclude these rivals.

Next year’s spectrum auction presents an opportunity for T-Mobile and every other wireless provider to competitively bid in an open and free market-based auction.  History and evidence shows that unrestricted auctions work best to attain real market prices and deliver spectrum to the company that will put it to the most efficient use.

T-Mobile has the resources to make winning bids in a fully competitive auction.  It just has to lay down the chips and bid.

The fact is that having open auctions will achieve the highest bidding, which will maximize spectrum availability and maximize revenues for the US Treasury, as well as help fund a first responder broadband network.  Limiting the number of bidders will do the exact opposite.

This time, T-Mobile deserves an “A” for audacity and an “F” in favoritism.

 http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/26/no-favors-needed-at-spectrum-auction/#ixzz2aLwuN4WL

Free market groups providing real answers to the nation’s immigration problems

Immigration always has been a contentious issue. But the difference between the immigration restrictionist and the free marketer is the latter seeks to deal with immigration’s difficulties without disrupting labor markets, curbing immigration’s economic benefits, or threatening Americans’ right to associate freely with foreigners.

Nothing better reflects this approach than the Cato Institute’s new policy analysis by Alex Nowrasteh and Sophie Cole called “Building a Wall around the Welfare State Instead of the Country.” The report details many practical ways to eliminate welfare benefits for foreigners and increase the benefits of immigration for America without disrupting the flow of people.

Fears that immigrants will overwhelm the welfare state and collapse social programs are not new. Beggars “are usually foreigners,” declared Thomas Jefferson in 1787. These fears were not totally unwarranted either. The British were known to ship beggars and felons to America, prompting Ben Franklin to ask, “What good Mother ever sent Thieves and Villains to accompany her Children?”

As immigration escalated in the 19^th century, a system developed to deal with social services for immigrants. Two approaches were taken. First, private institutions developed to help poorer immigrants. Catholics created entirely separate school and health care facilities. Immigrants formed mutual aid groups to care for their poor.

Second, state governments required immigrants or their shipping companies to pay taxes to cover local services. In 1797, for example, New York created a tax for new immigrants to build a hospital for “indigent aliens.” Likewise, the shippers, enriched by foreign travelers, supplied hospitals and poorhouses in New York City as an alternative to a direct tax.

These systems weren’t perfect, but they were better than eliminating immigration. Conservatives who oppose immigration based on its impact on the social safety net should look back to history for such alternatives rather than reflexively oppose new immigrants. As Cato’s Bill Niskanen once said, “The primary solution to [the welfare] problem is to build a wall around the welfare state, not around our national borders.”

Even poor immigrants use less welfare than similarly educated natives. And over the course of a lifetime, only the poorest immigrants pay less in taxes than they receive in benefits — even then, according to the last study to look at it, the difference is quite small. Moreover, their higher fecundity will reduce Social Security’s 50-year deficit — by $4.6 trillion. Most importantly, studies show low-skilled immigrants increase GDP greatly (by up to 1 percent, or $150 billion), which expands the tax base and eliminates any fiscal losses.

Nonetheless, immigrants overall do use welfare in higher rates than natives, and that can be fiscally problematic, particularly in the short run. Still, although the economic gains are currently positive, they could be even larger if welfare use among immigrants were lowered. As an added benefit, notes Nowrasteh and Cole, “it will … reduce native-born opposition to a more open American immigration policy.”

according to polls cited in the report, is concerned about immigrant welfare use and would likely support these reforms.

The Senate reform would already restrict welfare use among legal immigrants more than at any time in U.S. history, but implementing even half of the ideas contained in Cato’s report would be a game-changer in the debate for freer immigration. Free-market conservatives could stand unequivocally behind easier immigration rules for future low-skilled immigrants.

Unlike Europe, America’s immigrants’ workforce participation rate is consistently higher — 10 percent higher — than natives, meaning they come for work, not welfare. Indeed, illegal immigration flows into states with smaller welfare states, not larger ones. Formalizing this fact — that immigrants aren’t social leaches — would make America richer and, hopefully, more welcoming.

 http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/26/free-market-groups-providing-real-answers-to-the-nations-immigration-problems/#ixzz2aLxzAb8g

Conservative Filmmakers Vow to Work Around Hollywood System

First-time filmmaker Steve Laffey knew he was in trouble when his film Fixing America got beat out for a festival slot by a documentary chronicling the gender transition of Cher's child, Chaz Bono.

Laffey shared his frustrations and triumphs Friday at the annual Western Conservative Summit in Denver, an event held by the Centennial Institute and Colorado Christian University.

Laffey appeared on the "Taking Back Hollywood" panel along with several other right-of-center filmmakers and an actress who chooses projects based on their ability to project positive moral values.

Laffey, former two-term mayor of Cranston, RI, co-produced and wrote Fixing America about the country's calamitous economic situation and what everyday Americans say are ways to mend it.

Producer Jim Leininger (Smooch) said conservatives should consider developing alternative delivery systems to work around Hollywood. Given today's technology, "it's more possible than ever," Leininger says.

The market is on the side of conservatives, he said, noting a poll in USA Today which said a large group of citizens don't go to movies today because they don't like the content.

That, he said, is simply a sign of the times.

"Years ago, moms knew they could send their kids to a Walt Disney movie," he said. "We don't have that anymore."

Actress Kelly Greyson (Alone Yet Not Alone, Return to the Hiding Place) said conservative crowds play a major role in allowing right-of-center films from getting lost in the Hollywood shuffle. If a conservative movie flops at the box office, the powers that be will dismiss such fare as box office poison and move on, Greyson says.

Ralph Avi Goldwasser, an executive producer behind the documentary Losing Our Sons, says he struggled to get technical crew members on board his film. The movie, about a Muslim convert who shot and killed a U.S. soldier in Little Rock, Ark., made some potential crew members leery.

"As soon as they heard the subject matter they're not going to touch it," Goldwasser said. "It's not going to help their careers." 

Laffey doesn't think conservatives can "take back" Hollywood in any real sense, but he does see a way around the current system, and it's one that connects to the runaway success of The Bible miniseries.
"Put out products that people will buy," he says.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/07/26/conservative-filmmakers-western-summit 

Please, Let's Have that Honest Conversation about Race

So let's have that honest discussion about race that people keep clamoring for.

Someone please explain the brainwashing of a 5^th-grade African-American girl who, when she was introduced to  Duke Ellington's music, said, "I don't wanna hear no white man's music."  She was merely echoing the implacable hatred that she learned at home.  Any way that the teacher responded would only reinforce this young child's racist predisposition.

Why in a New York City high school of 5,600 students, with 36 white students, was there only one black honor student?  While many of these students were not planning on going onto college and many did succeed in vocational jobs, it puzzled the white students that there were such disproportionate numbers among the black and Hispanic students. 

What is one to make of the "don't talk white" attitude?  It demeans those black students who aspire to a good education.  And the difference between "nigger" and "nigga" is cogently explained in this piece by Cornell Dews.

Then there is Alice Walker.  Best known for The Color Purple, Walker's latest book, The Cushion  in the Road, is "replete with an abundance of anti-Jewish rhetoric."  Will English departments ever discuss why so many literary luminaries hold anti-Jewish sentiment as they gush over Walker?  Why should whites accept the obvious contempt that a Jaimie Foxx demonstrates?  I would be aghast if a white actor made a similar comment about black people, yet Hollywood smugly smiles when Foxx says that he enjoyed "killing" whites in Django Unchained.

Of course, a white person will be wary when black Muslims repeat the hateful remarks of Farrakhan and behave in a militant manner, demonstrating their disdain for the entire white race.  Why is detestable black militancy accepted?  Is it not as bad as KKK hate speech?  Will anyone demand an explanation of the hypocrisy consistently used by Jackson, Sharpton, and Obama?  And what of the shameful  behavior of the NAACP in their shabby treatment of conservative black speakers?

Why is there no call for investigating the New Black Panthers' public display of inappropriate behavior during the 2008 and 2012 elections?  Why does it appear that illegal black behavior is given a pass?  Why the double standard?

When something does not go well, why is the race card immediately dangled?  David Dinkins was the first black mayor of New York City.  His term was an unmitigated disaster because of "his inability to understand that it was his performance rather than prejudice that [ultimately] soured many New Yorkers[.]"  And yet, even now, he trots out the racism card.  Obama appears to be a lineal descendant of this attitude.

Why, after any well-publicized trial of a black person, do neighboring communities brace themselves against possible violence by young black people?  During the 1967 Newark riots, Governor Hughes stated that "[t]his is a criminal insurrection by people who say they hate the white man but who really hate America."  Race-baiters of today benefit greatly from America while spewing their bile under the guise of a quest for racial justice.

When a verdict comes down upon a Jew or an Asian, no one expects the respective communities to burst into violence.  Why does it happen in so many of the black communities?  Instead of comprehending that such wanton violence will deter any business from establishing itself in such a community, cries of racism are immediately hurled.

How did we get to the point where a young black male is applauded by his peers when he shows an ultrasound of his girlfriend's baby during a public speaking introductory speech?  The pregnant girl is already receiving financial aid to attend college and gleefully says that she will now receive more financial aid since she is pregnant.  When asked where she thinks the money comes from, she blithely states, "The government," totally unaware that it is the hardworking American ultimately picking up this tab.  And any moral judgment is prohibited in our multicultural world.  This goes for any woman, regardless of her ethnicity.

Since the 1960s, under the guise of assisting once-oppressed groups of people, the government decided to use racism in order to counter racism.  Thus, certain groups of people would now receive preferential treatment in education and employment merely because of their race or gender or perceived oppression.  That one should find this puzzling would only incur the wrath of others who had now decided upon a new set of rules concerning what was racist and what was not.

In light of the often downgraded abilities of students who have been accepted via open enrollment or affirmative action programs, a disturbing result has emerged.  If a professor maintains a high standard of expectations, then many academically challenged students will simply not be able to fulfill the assignments.  An instructor can either dilute the coursework, ensuring that most students pass, or she can inflate grades so that the "C" becomes a "B."  Thus, I was faced with this dilemma, as evinced by the following unaltered e-mail from a student at a four-year university. 

One of my concerns are my grades, I have never received such low grade ever in my college experience  I found this to be very discouraging.  As well as the over all experience in your class. I took the class to learn not looked down up, it would appear you enjoy failing rather than promoting and encouraging corrective.  This my perception I constitute my reality until otherwise changed.  Also in my observation the differences in your allowing students to hand in late assignments, some students were allow to and other were not.  The encouragement in learning in your class environment was just not there.  The tone was condescending, board line rude curt, and to some intimating.

Sadly, this affirmative-action student cannot even fathom her deficient critical thinking and writing skills.  Is it racist to be concerned that such a person, with diploma in hand, will probably now be hired as a teacher or a nurse or an ObamaCare negotiator because, as a minority individual, she presumably has greater empathy?  Affirmative action does not stop at the college door -- it is evident in hiring practices throughout the country.  Yet, what is the caliber of many of these new hires?  And if businesses complain, they are slapped with liability issues from the federal government.

When will the black community demand accountability of its leadership?  When will good folk refuse to accept the covert racism inherent in so many government programs?  Far too many black youth are being sold a bill of goods, designed not to liberate, but rather yoke them to yet another government program.

In addition, instructors are now being threatened by a new variation of grade-grubbing, which I dub the "R" grade, by students who whip out the racist charge as a means of intimidating an instructor.  A student recently e-mailed a colleague of mine the following:

My concerns are about your unfair practices, racial discrimination, your bias, and my grades.

Consequently, a half-century later, since the inception of affirmative action, any objective evaluation of a student's work may result in being called a racist.  And this mentality is being aided and abetted at the highest levels of government.  In the age of affirmative action, diversity, and multiculturalism, and particularly under Barack Hussein Obama and Eric Holder, the term "racism" has morphed into a rather clever means of ending all conversation that does not conform, intimidating those who make educational appraisals based on once-approved assessment standards, and generating a level of contempt for excellence and high expectations.

What exactly do race-baiters like Sharpton and Jackson actually want?  When queried, these men and their followers engage in the most vacuous generalizations about coming together, becoming as one.  Never do they address the culture that permits the murder of black youths by other black youths.  The cowardice by the alleged leaders of the black community who use race-baiting in order to put themselves in the limelight is exquisitely damaging to the black community.  Shelby Steele has correctly stated that  these men "work by moral intimidation, not reason."

And since when does disagreeing with someone's ideas constitute racism?  If I disagree with the ADL's Jewish leaders, does that make me anti-Semitic?  If I disagree with John McCain, does that mean I hate whites?

Why is logic so blithely thrown aside?  During his now widely touted speech, Obama  maintained that violence against blacks in the Jim Crow era has resulted in the disproportionate numbers of black victims and black perpetrators of violence.  If this were a useful train of logic, then Chinese people should be murdering Chinese people because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  Or Jewish people should be murdering other Jews because of 1940s discriminatory practices when Ivy League universities restricted Jewish student enrollment.  Clearly none of this makes sense, so why doesn't anyone call Obama out on his logical fallacy?

The sad fact is that none of the above is about race.  It is about a coarsened culture that is afflicting  people of all backgrounds.  It is about a culture that sees unwed mothers passing on self-defeating attitudes to the next generation. 

Why are the murders of young black people being perpetrated by other young black people?  This is the core question that needs to be addressed -- and not by a vacuous assumption that because racist laws used to exist, black people maim their own.

When I look at people like Allen West, Ben Carson, Deneen Borelli, and Thomas Sowell, I stand in awe at their poise, linguistic skills, and thoughtful deliberation.  When I consider the Haitian black nurse's aide who so ably assisted my mother, I don't see her skin color; I see her compassion and common sense.

In reality, the Trayvon Martin case gave Obama another way to avoid dealing with issues of national and international importance.  Cries of racism permit Obama to deftly avoid the penetrating questions that need to be asked about the ongoing scandals that plague this country, be it the IRS, the NSA, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the Federal Data Services Hub revelation, or the "impending train wreck" of ObamaCare.

There is no dealing with an individual who changes the rules of the game and makes them up as he goes along.  When the American people understand this and liberate themselves from such race-baiting, we will be able to make some real and definitive steps to halt the ongoing assault on this country.  It is an assault that hurts blacks and whites alike by a man and a party who care for neither group, except as a means to expand their grip on power.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/07/please_lets_have_that_honest_conversation_about_race.html#ixzz2aM13DqIz

It’s Not the Economy

Obama’s speech was the first shot in great budget battle of 2013

 The idea that President Barack Obama’s speech Wednesday in Galesburg, Ill., was about the economy is nonsense. Of course the text—a series of clichés that could have been formulated by a computer—was “about” the economy in so far as economic policy was the topic at hand. But there is a difference between the content of a speech and its purpose. The content may have sounded wonky, but the object of President Obama’s remarks had nothing to do with economic hardship or income inequality. His purpose was political. And for that reason it would be a mistake to dismiss him.

Almost all of the reaction to the president’s speech has focused on its content. Conservatives and Republicans, for obvious reasons, oppose the president and ignored him. Obama’s supporters acknowledged that his remarks contained no new policies or ideas, did not break any news, and could not trumpet any drastic improvement in the economy. E.J. Dionne suggested that the purpose of the speech was “changing the terms of the national debate and leaving behind an intellectual legacy that shapes how future generations see the country and its possibilities.” Check back in 2040 to see if it was a success. The mainstream press was almost as skeptical as the Republicans. Chuck Todd of NBC said the White House seemed “stuck.” But that assumes the object of the speech was to convey something novel to the public. It was not.

The situation is less confusing when you look at it from the president’s perspective. Politico quoted an unnamed White House official who suggested the administration is adrift, out of sorts, ill at ease. President Obama’s agenda and approval ratings have been in trouble for some time. He made the mistake of assuming that defeat in 2012 would break the “fever” raging in the GOP, allowing him to fulfill the rest of his liberal wish list. But the fever has not broken. The high point of his term so far has been the first income tax increase since 1993 and the confirmation, after a tough fight, of the most controversial defense secretary in recent history. Those victories came in January and February.

In the months since, President Obama has unsuccessfully lobbied for gun control, stood by while the Republicans accepted the sequester, watched as the immigration deal reached in the Senate ran aground in the House, announced a series of environmental policies that were quickly attacked and almost as quickly forgotten, endured controversies involving the investigation of journalists, unlawful activity at the IRS, and a massive intelligence breach, and delayed a major piece of his health care law. The occasional good economic news has been counterbalanced by a slowdown in emerging markets and by the ongoing problem of long-term unemployment. Meanwhile, as one would expect, the president’s approval ratings have fallen. The prospect of what liberals might consider a successful second term grows fainter by the day.

What President Obama does do well is attack the Republicans. He excels at telling audiences that the GOP is composed of plutocrats who want nothing more than to see pensioners starve and autistic children denied care. When it comes to describing his opponents in fatuous, cartoonish, and unflattering terms that only Melissa Harris-Perry could love, when it comes to playing the reasonable moderate victimized by radical, nihilist conservatives—sorry, anarchists—Barack Obama has no equal. Hence Wednesday’s speech, and Thursday’s speech, and however many additional speeches the president delivers in the coming months. Their purpose is to improve the political economy of Barack Obama, not the fortune of the United States.

The phrase to keep in mind is “phony.” Both press secretary Jay Carney and the president used it to describe the IRS, Justice Department, and NSA scandals. After addressing each of these stories, and going so far as to say he was deeply concerned about the activities at the IRS, the president seems to have decided he is tired of answering questions. He has adopted the age-old tactic of dismissing inconvenient news as false and irrelevant. The thinking must be that forceful denials will discredit congressional investigations into the administration and lead the news media to downplay additional scoops. It’s worked before.

The second part of the president’s strategy is to bait the Republicans into shutting down the government. For years now, Obama and the Democrats have salivated at the prospect of a government shutdown, assuming the outcome would be the same as in 1995: The Republicans would lose in the court of public opinion and fold, strengthening the president’s position and improving his approval rating. But the Republicans have done an excellent job at preventing that from happening. The process has been messy, conservatives have screamed, taxes have been raised, and defense has been cut dangerously, but at each point Congress has found a way to keep the government running and American creditors paid. This is an achievement—substantively, of course, but also politically. The White House, the Democrats, and the press want nothing more than to prove to the American public and the world that the Republican Party is a group of childish wing nuts. Denying them the pleasure has saved the GOP a considerable amount of heartburn.

What the president is doing in this series of speeches on “the economy” is softening the ground for the battle over budgets and the debt ceiling that will take place in September. Beginning this fight earlier than expected allows him freely to define the Republican position in his typical, ludicrous way: The GOP, not having any ideas, is willing to shut down the government and deny you Social Security out of loyalty to their millionaire corporate backers. Obama was going to make this case anyway, but starting the campaign now provides a way to escape the scandals and capture free summer media. The economy is a pretext.

Republicans have been far too complacent in response to Obama’s challenge. It is easy to dismiss him, to ignore him, to criticize the content of his remarks, to relish in the decline of his political stature. Lord knows I’ve done it. Reckoning with what he is saying—and determining what exactly to do in the budget showdown this fall—is much harder.

Relish the late night jokes at Obama’s expense all you want, but do not assume they will persist indefinitely. Obama remains the president. There remains plenty more he can do to weaken America. Don’t pay attention to what he says. Pay attention to why he’s saying it.

http://freebeacon.com/its-not-the-economy/

Al Qaeda Is Back

Two spectacular al Qaeda prison breaks in Iraq, freeing over 500 of its members in two separate prisons simultaneously this week, demonstrate the group is back with a vengeance. Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch is also the moving force behind the jihadist success in Syria. The resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq has sobering implications for what is likely to follow the drawdown of NATO forces in Afghanistan for the al Qaeda mother ship in Pakistan.

The double jailbreaks at Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons were massive attacks. Suicide bombers, teams of attackers using mortars and small arms, and two dozen car bombs were used. The firefight killed over a hundred Iraqi guards. The attackers also had inside help within the Iraqi security forces. The attacks were the culmination of what al Qaeda in Iraq’s leadership had promised a year ago when it launched the “Breaking the Walls” offensive to free its prisoners from Iraqi jails.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as it is officially named, was created by Abu Musab al Zarqawi in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A Jordanian, Zarqawi had worked with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before 9/11 and built many connections in Iraq in the months before the war. Within months of the occupation, his terror gang was killing American troops and Iraqi Shia and taking the country to civil war. Bin Laden publicly anointed him al Qaeda’s amir for the entire region including Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and even Turkey.

Zarqawi was hunted down and killed by American forces in a brilliant operation led by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2006. His successor was killed a year later. But as McChrystal has said publicly, it was too late. By the time U.S. forces killed Zarqawi, the group had become deeply embedded in Iraqi Sunni Arab society. It was harshly repressed during the American surge, but it was never really defeated. It began to regenerate as soon as American forces left Iraq.

So far this month al Qaeda terrorist attacks have killed over 500 in Iraq. Its leader today, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, promises many more deaths.

At the same time, al Qaeda in Iraq has been the moving force behind the birth and growth of al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. One of Zarqawi’s protégés, Muhammad al Golani, was sent by al Qaeda in Iraq to set up the al Nusra Front in 2011. By mid-2012 it had become one of the most effective groups in the Syrian opposition movement to Bashar al-Assad’s government. It got considerable support in money, arms, and men from the Iraqi front.

Now al Qaeda in Syria is getting hundreds of volunteer fighters from across the Islamic world, all coming to join the struggle. This week Dutch police arrested a 19-year-old Muslim girl in The Hague who was helping to organize the recruitment and movement of Dutch Muslim citizens to Syria to join the al Nusra Front. Dutch sources say over a hundred have already gone. In Pakistan, the al Qaeda–affiliated Taliban says it is sending fighters to join the battle in Syria and support al Qaeda. Syria has become what Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Iraq were to earlier generations of jihadists: the epicenter of the global jihad. From Western Europe to Southeast Asia, the networks that shipped fighters to Iraq a decade ago are now sending them to Syria.

The al Qaeda group has also begun spreading its influence into Lebanon as well. One well-informed observer reports that “from Tripoli to Akkar, and from Sidon to the heart of Beirut, black Salafi-jihadi flags and banners have been spotted in increasing numbers, a picture unseen before in Lebanon’s history.” The Shia Hezbollah’s support for Assad is creating an all-too-predictable backlash of support for al Qaeda and other extremist Sunni groups inside Lebanon.

Over the objections of al Golani, the Iraqi al Qaeda leadership has insisted it is in charge of the entire al Qaeda movement in the Fertile Crescent states, arguing it has inherited the mandate that bin Laden gave to Zarqawi a decade ago. Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman Zawahiri, has sided with al Golani and wants the two groups kept separate, each reporting to him. Al Baghdadi is proving as independent and difficult to manage as Zarqawi was in his heyday, when he too defied Zawahiri’s injunctions to be more restrained in his attacks on Shia targets.

The regeneration of al Qaeda in Iraq and its spread into Syria and Lebanon has important lessons for dealing with al Qaeda in South Asia. In the last five years President Obama has made considerable gains in disrupting and dismantling the al Qaeda core leadership in Pakistan, as he promised he would. Bin Laden’s death, and the death of many of his key lieutenants by drones, has put the mother ship of al Qaeda on the defensive. But it too is not defeated.

Al Qaeda in Pakistan is embedded in a deep network of support groups, including the Taliban and Lashkar e Tayyiba, which help protect it and give it sanctuary, especially in cities like Karachi. It is under virtually no pressure from the Pakistani government. The government’s own secret investigation of how bin Laden lived for almost a decade inside Pakistan before the SEALs delivered justice concludes that the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, is either hopelessly incompetent or complicit in working with al Qaeda.

All of which means that if American pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan diminishes after the NATO withdrawal of combat forces next year from Afghanistan, we can expect a rapid regeneration of al Qaeda in Pakistan. The drones all fly from bases in Afghanistan, without which there is no pressure on al Qaeda next door in Pakistan. Iraq is a sobering lesson in what happens when a battered al Qaeda movement gets a second chance.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/26/al-qaeda-is-back.html