MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Conservatives, Patriots and all other groups around the globe who are fighting the good fight for freedom against tyranny. Many thanks for taking an interest in this little blog and for doing your bit to spread a very important message. Please spare a thought this Christmas for all those around the world who are being persecuted, even in supposed 'democracies', for their beliefs and thoughts. Their fight is our fight in 2013.

Report: House Members Seeking to Oust Speaker Boehner

by Kate Hicks
Dec 22, 2012


As members prepare for the 113th Congress, several have been dissatisfied with Speaker Boehner's conduct: he's been accused of booting more conservative members off of major committees, and the abject failure that is "Plan B" seems to have been the final straw for some. Breitbart News reports that there's a plan circulating some offices intended to facilitate the election of a new Speaker of the House come January.

Several conservative House Republican members are contemplating a plan to unseat Speaker John Boehner from his position on January 3, Breitbart News has exclusively learned. Staffers have compiled a detailed action plan that, if executed, could make this a reality.
The circulated plan is a comprehensive multi-step process.
According to the plan as drafted, the first step is to re-establish the election of the Speaker of the House by secret ballot, rather than by a public roll call vote. That’s because the members who would oppose Boehner, if there ended up not being enough votes to achieve their desired result or if Boehner scared via threat or coaxed via prize some of the opposition into voting for him, would be sitting ducks for retaliation in the near future.
As one hill staffer considering this path told Breitbart News, the members involved in an unsuccessful coup d’etat would be “toast.”
To establish a secret ballot election for Speaker of the House, one Republican member will need to step forward and introduce a resolution on the House floor on the morning of January 3, 2013, before any other business takes place. Those close to this plan are convinced that a member will step forward and introduce this resolution.

These anonymous staffers note that there is no specific replacement in mind, but that one would surely emerge if a majority didn’t vote for Boehner. And, as the article makes clear, due to House rules that a true majority, and not simply a plurality, must elect the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t be able to win (unless, of course, a few Republicans voted for her).

The second step of the circulated plan would require enough GOP members to band together and vote for somebody other than Boehner as Speaker. Since Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., has resigned his position, there will be 434 voting members on January 3. For someone to win the Speaker election, they’d need to secure 217 votes – or a majority of everyone voting.
Since there are 233 Republicans heading into the next Congress, only 17 Republicans would be needed to unseat Boehner. The House would continue having multiple elections throughout the day on January 3 until it agreed upon a new Speaker.

It's clearly a plan born of extreme frustration with the way things have run in the House over the past two years, but given the lack of a clear viable alternative, and the extremely large coalition that would need to form among Republican members backing that person, at least at this point it seems unlikely. Boehner, for his part, certainly doesn't think so. In a post-cliff-vote press conference, he shrugged off any concern that his fellows would try for his ouster.

“While we may have not been able to get the votes last night to avert 99.81 percent of the tax increases, I don’t think — they weren’t taking that out on me,” he said at a press conference. Joining him was House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the man who had been seen as his chief rival, in a show of unity that seemed designed to quell any talk of a challenge to Mr. Boehner’s speakership.

Of course, it’s possible that the plan is gaining steam behind the scenes – given the anonymity, there’s not telling how many members are backing it, and they're certainly trying to keep it a secret from Boehner himself. Perhaps, come January 3, he'll have to answer to his perturbed colleagues after all.

George Soros Allies With the Muslim Brotherhood

By Raven Clabough

December 20, 2012

New reports indicate that leftist billionaire George Soros is working to forge alliances with the radical Muslim Brotherhood by means of his financial contributions through a number of shadow organizations. Those organizations include the International Crisis Group, the organization behind the Responsibility to Protect doctrine under which the United States entered into Libya.

The Blaze also indicates that Soros’ connections to the Muslim Brotherhood can also be traced through his relationship to his new spokesman Marwan Muasher, as well as Mohamed ElBaradei, Muslim Brotherhood leader who sits on the board of Soros’ ICG. Muasher oversees research for the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, funded by George Soros.The International Crisis Group has a number of questionable board members, notes World Net Daily, include Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, Samuel Berger, Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, and retired U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who in 2009 met with Hamas leaders and called for the U.S. to open ties to Hamas. Additionally, Robert Malley serves on ICG’s board. He served on President Obama’s 2008 campaign but was forced to resign after it was revealed that he engaged in communications with Hamas. All three men have appeared publicly on a number of occasions to present the Muslim Brotherhood in a more positive light, and even went so far as to encourage the Egyptian government to cooperate with the group. All men are seemingly united under the common agenda to destroy the “Great Satan” (the United States) and “Little Satan” (Israel).
The Blaze reports:
Consistently referring to Israel as the “stumbling block” to peace in the Middle East, Soros makes no bones about his hopes for the Brotherhood. He even heartily encouraged giving the Muslim Brotherhood a place at Egypt‘s table when the country’s streets erupted into flames of dissent earlier this year.
Likewise, FrontPageMag.com makes a number of notable connections:
The numerous ties of Soros and his Shadow Party cohorts have been documented; they include the master puppeteer’s own Open Society Institute and various anti-Western Islamist groups in the revolutions. It has been confirmed, for instance, that the International Crisis Group (ICG), led in part by Soros, has long petitioned for the Egyptian government to “normalize” ties with the previously banned Brotherhood — for example, in a June 2008 report called “Egypt’s Muslim Brothers: Confrontation or Integration?” And this talking point is echoed by Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress: “Any real democratic opening would lead to greater participation of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in a future Egyptian government.”
Soros has not been so subtle regarding his sympathies for the Muslim Brotherhood. In February, he prepared an opinionated piece for the Washington Post dismissing American and Israeli fears over the unrest in Egypt, and even asserted that the rebels in Egypt did not seek to advance a theocratic agenda. He then continued his editorial by praising the Muslim Brotherhood for its efforts to topple Mubarak’s regime.
What’s most ironic is that the Muslim Brotherhood would not support Soros’ vision for a one-world government.
But The Blaze ponders, “Perhaps he just sees the alliance as an opportunity to side against his enemies the U.S. and Israel.”

Bill Ayers: The Left Must Utilize Its ‘Absolute Access’ to America’s Classrooms

Jason Howerton
December 21, 2012


Bill Ayers, former domestic terrorist-turned university professor, reemerged earlier this month to explain how the Left’s access to schools and neighborhoods will help them shape the future of America. Speaking at a New York University “Change the Stakes” meeting on Dec. 4, he said the Left must utilize the existing “movements on the ground.”
In the video, obtained by EAGnews.org, Ayers also first blasts conservatives for portraying President Barack Obama as a “secret Muslim” and a “secret sociopath,” running around with “terrorists and Arabs.” He lamented the fact that many liberals felt like Obama was “winking” at them while he portrayed himself as a compromising moderate – but Obama ended up disappointing the far left, according to Ayers.
“The same people, and I’m sure some of us in this room, are saying, ‘But the second term he’ll be free,’” he said. “Forget about it. That’s not where change comes from.”
“If we want change to come, we would do well not to look at the sites of power we have no access to; the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon,” Ayers added. “We have absolute access to the community, the school, the neighborhood, the street, the classroom, the workplace, the shop, the farm.”
“Why are we ignoring that and saying, ‘I hope Obama makes peace’?” he asked. “Forget about it. He’s not going to do anything if you don’t do something.”
“So, our job is movement building, [Obama's] job is governance and sitting in a chair of empire.”
Ayers first found fame for his involvement in plots to set off explosives at the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a police station, two Army recruiting stations and a New York judge’s home while his family slept inside. He is the main founder and leader of the now-defunct radical group, The Weather Underground.
As TheBlaze’s Tiffany Gabbay previously reported: “He is also the man who happened to help launch an ambitious community organizer’s political career into the stratosphere right from his apartment on Chicago’s South Side.” His name was Barack Obama.

Benghazi Review: Systematic State Dept. Failures (video)

Photo/Caption For Dec 20th, 2012

Eric Holder says we need to "brainwash" people against guns. (video)

Obama administration, Congress quietly let school security funds lapse

By John Solomon and Kimberly Dvorak
December 14, 2012


Beneath the expressions of grief, sorrow and disbelief over the Connecticut school massacre lies an uneasy truth in Washington: over the last few years the Obama administration and Congress quietly let federal funding for several key school security programs lapse in the name of budget savings.
Government officials told the Washington Guardian on Friday night that two Justice Department programs that had provided more than $200 million to schools for training, security equipment and police resources over the last decade weren't renewed in 2011 and 2012, and that a separate program that provided $800 million to put police officers inside the schools was ended a few years earlier.
Meanwhile, the administration eliminated funding in 2011-12 for a separate Education Department program that gave money to schools to prepare for mass tragedies, the officials said.
A nationally recognized school security expert said those funds had been critical for years in helping schools continue to enhance protections against growing threats of violence. But they simply dried up with little notice as the Columbine and Virginia Tech school shooting tragedies faded from memory and many Americans and political leaders had their attentions diverted to elections, a weak economy and overseas dramas.

“I was baffled to see funds and programs cut in these areas,” said Kenneth Trump, the president of the National School Safety and Security Services firm that helps school districts and policymakers improve protections for teachers and students. “Our political and policy leaders need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk about being concerned about school safety.
“We have roller coaster public awareness, public policy, and public funding when it comes to school safety. The question isn't whether school safety is a priority today and tomorrow,” Trump added. “The question is whether it will be a priority years down the road when there isn't a crisis in the headlines.”
Leaders in both parties in Washington on Friday expressed remorse and disbelief in the tragedy in the tiny suburban Connecticut town of Newtown, where a single 20-year-old gunman walked into the school where his mother taught and killed 20 children and six others before turning the gun on himself.
"Our hearts are broken today," President Barack Obama said, wiping a tear from his eyes as he reacted to the tragedy. "As a country we have been through this too many times.
"These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," the president added.
But last year, his administration took a less muted tone as it submitted its 2012 Education Department budget to Congress that eliminated the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) funding, which for years provided between $20 million and $30 million in annual grants to help schools create emergency and crisis preparation and prevention plans for tragedies just like the one that unfolded Friday.
The Education Department’s Web site says it last made REMS grants in 2011.
The funding was cut off even though the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, warned in 2007 that many “many school district officials said that they experience challenges in planning for emergencies due to a lack of equipment, training for staff, and expertise and some school districts face difficulties in communicating and coordinating with first responders and parents.”
Likewise, the Justice Department over the last 12 years distributed nearly $1 billion in funding to help schools hire police resource officers, install metal detectors and take other countermeasures to prevent tragedies like the Columbine massacre.
The town of Newtown, Conn., in fact, took advantage of one of these programs in 2000 when it got $125,000 in funds from the COPS in Schools program, Justice Department records show.
But Justice Department officials said the key programs that provided money directly to schools in the aftermath of Columbine have been phased out as of 2012, the last after the 2011 budget year.
For instance, the Secure Our Schools program provided more than $110 million in funding to law enforcement agencies to partner with schools for the purchase of crime prevention equipment, staff and student training between 2002 and 2011, officials said. It was ended this year.
Likewise, the School Safety Initiative provided more than $53 million between 1998 and 2010 in grants to help state and local agencies with delinquency prevention, community planning and development, and school safety resources – all aimed at preventing violence. The program ended in 2011.
Justice Department spokesman Corey Ray said Friday night that the SSI and SOS programs had been funded primarily by congressional earmarks for the last decade and the administration did not seek additional funding to continue the efforts after lawmakers essentially banned most earmarks in 2010.
“They were funded through congressionally designated funding (earmarks). They ended in 2010 or 2011 when that process of funding ceased,” he said.
The biggest funding program for school violence was the COPS in Schools program, which Ray said provided $811 millions to communities to hire resource officers who worked inside the schools. The targeted funding for schools was ended in 2005 but police are still allowed to apply for broader police hiring money from the general COPS program and then use it to hire school resource officers if they want, Ray said.
“As the economy changed, we had agencies asking for all types of positions including school resource officers,” Ray explained. “So we gave our main hiring program the flexibility to include SROs and other positions. So no COPS In Schools, but still some options to hire for those positions.”
Some liberal groups have increasingly voiced concerns about the increased spending on police and security at schools. For instance, the Justice Policy Institute, a think tank, wrote a report in 2011 entitled "Education Under Arrest" that concluded that "schools do not need school resource officers to be safe."
White House officials did not return repeated calls and emails Friday night seeking comment on the administration's rationale for letting the programs lapse.
With funding for K-12 schools and law enforcement agencies evaporating, police and schools have partnered in an effort to ensure safety by creating makeshift programs that target at-risk schools.
San Diego may provide the most sunshine each year, but it’s also home to multiple K-12 school shootings. San Diego Police Department Lt. Andra Brown said funding for many effective programs succumbed to downsizing and cutbacks. Programs like SOS and DARE are “nice to have,” but aren’t necessarily a “need to have.”
The Department has opted to focus on Psychiatric Emergency Response Team or PERT. “The program pairs a health care psychiatrist with a police officer in the field to proactively stop situations from exploding.”
While San Diego Police may be working proactively to prevent psychologically unstable adults from major crime sprees, the Sheriff Department takes a different approach.
“We are not of the mindset this could not happen here; because it has,” said San Diego Sheriff Public Affairs Director Jan Caldwell.  “We work with the school superintendents, principals, staff, and school facility staff members to ensure we have access to the buildings, floor plans and keys to enter when we have to do so.”
Caldwell is also part of San Diego County Crime Stoppers and chair of the Students Speaking Out Committee.  “This sub-program is tailored to campuses and provides students an avenue to report suspicious activity at their school. This sub program has had a total of 331 cases solved since inception.  We've removed weapons from campuses, drugs, confronted bullying behavior, solved robberies, burglaries, vandalism, and drug cases.”
However, this program depends on the generous donations from large corporations like Target, Sempra Energy, Walmart and the San Diego Chargers.

Army acknowledges pedophilia part of Islam

by Jack Minor
December 16, 2012

A new Army manual that warns American soldiers in Afghanistan to avoid talking about certain topics has unwittingly acknowledged that Western taboos such as pedophilia are an inherent part of Islamic culture.
“By mentioning that pedophilia and women’s rights and saying that soldiers should not mention such things they are tacitly admitting that those things are indeed part of Islam,” said Robert Spencer, founder of Jihad Watch.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a new 75-page Army manual suggests U.S. soldiers are to blame for the large number of deadly attacks on them by Afghan security forces. The manual reportedly says the soldiers may have brought the attacks on themselves because of insensitivity towards Islamic culture.
“Many of the confrontations occur because of [coalition] ignorance of, or lack of empathy for, Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms, resulting in a violent reaction from the [Afghan security force] member,” the draft report prepared by Army researchers and obtained by the Journal said.
Clare Lopez, a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy, said the suggestion that U.S. soldiers are to blame for the attacks on them by Afghan security forces is outrageous.
“To suggest that our troops are somehow being murdered because of our insensitivity to their culture is essentially saying it’s our own fault that the troops are being killed because we weren’t nice enough to them,” Lopez said. “The fundamental refusal to acknowledge that the enemy fights because of what he says he fight for, which is Islam, is a failure by our professional leadership from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on down. Because of this, we have no strategy.”
This year alone, more than three dozen attacks have killed 63 coalition forces. In an attempt to quell the attacks the Army report has issued a list of “taboo conversational topics.”
The topics include “making derogatory comments about the Taliban,” “advocating women’s rights” and “directing any criticism towards Afghans” or “anything related to Islam.”
WND contacted the Army to request a copy of the manual. Army spokesman Ray Harp responded by saying it would not release a copy, for security reasons. He explained the Army wished to avoid detailing specific tactics, techniques and procedures outlined in the handbook.
Regarding the WSJ copy, Harp said whoever released it was not authorized to do so.
“While the handbook does contain information we do not want freely distributed into the hands of our enemies, it is labeled with the ‘For Official Use Only’ restriction,” Harp said. “While still officially unclassified, we require the information to be protected from an open distribution and it should not have been released to anyone outside of those who needed access to it for official purposes.”
Elaine Donnelly, director of the Center for Military Readiness, says while she has not seen the draft copy, she can understand how it is beneficial for the Army to help teach soldiers about cultural differences. Unfortunately, she said, Congress and military leaders often go too far.
“There is a cultural problem that the military needs to confront, but I’m not sure this manual is the best way to go about it,” Donnelly said. “If the information in it is for our soldier’s protection so as to prevent something from being provocative, it might save a life, but if as the article suggests it is calling for soldiers to be overly deferential, that’s not called for.”
Donnelly noted the example of Navy Lt. Florence Choe, who was shot by an Afghan guard in 2009 for wearing shorts while jogging along the perimeter of the base.
“I’m not saying this was her fault, but if her commanders had taken the time to acknowledge that individuals in that part of the world have a different attitude in regards to women in shorts, it might have saved her life,” she said.
However, Donnelly says there are other taboos supposedly in the report that appear to have gone too far.
The Army manual also advises soldiers to avoid “any criticism of pedophilia” or “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct.”
“In that part of the world homosexuality is condemned, and pedophilia is accepted. It’s not like our culture at all and that needs to be acknowledged. We don’t have to be subservient to be cautious,” she continued. “Unfortunately, often times our leaders want to go overboard, believing it will help our relationships with these countries, but the truth is it doesn’t.”
The Army manual has drawn sharp criticism from Marine Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan. Allen reportedly has rejected a proposed foreword written by the Army using his name.
“Gen. Allen did not author, nor does he intend to provide, a foreword,” Col. Tom Collins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said. “He does not approve of its contents.”
Spencer says the ban on criticizing pedophilia has put the military in a difficult position. By attempting to show cultural sensitivity, it is forced to acknowledge that pedophilia is an inherent part of Islamic teaching.
“This draws attention to the fact that despite denials by the U.S. government and groups like CAIR, these things are a part of official Islam,” Spencer said. “However, I don’t expect them to have the honesty to acknowledge the inconsistency.”
He said that by telling soldiers not to speak against pedophilia, the military and the U.S. government is essentially endorsing the behavior.
“We are essentially sending the message that the United States endorses pedophilia by refusing to speak out against it. I don’t see any way around this.”
Clare Lopez, also a senior fellow with the Clarion Fund, said the new manual is another example of how the military is sending the message that Western culture and values are subservient to Islam.
“It’s another step in a process of submission to the appeasement of Islam that the United States leadership including military leadership has been pursuing for quite a while,” she said. “The entire program seems to be geared to appeasing the Taliban and jihadists by giving in to their world view which says Islam should not be offended and letting them decide what is offensive.”
She said the problem is not limited to the Obama administration but began in Afghanistan under President George W. Bush.
“This actually began in 2004 when we helped Afghanistan enshrine Islamic Shariah law in the constitution. Once we did that, we no longer had any purpose being in the country because we gave the enemy everything they asked for,” she noted. “That’s what they fight for, the imposition of Shariah. All of these other measures that followed from that point on have been a further attempt to win their hearts and minds. It hasn’t worked as is evident by the fact they are still killing our soldiers.”
The Army manual is in keeping with policies by the Obama administration to deliberately scrub all training materials that criticize Islam. Earlier this year, the FBI destroyed all of its materials that taught there was an Islamic connection to terrorism.
WND previously reported the Pentagon refused to give assurances that soldiers who burned the Quran would not be turned over to Afghan authorities to face trial.
Cmdr. William Speakes, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said: “It would be premature to speculate at any potential outcomes. Any disciplinary action if deemed warranted will be taken by U.S. authorities after a thorough review of the facts pursuant to all U.S. military law and regulations and in accordance with due process. We have made no commitments beyond that.”
When asked if that meant the only commitment officials were willing to make was that the soldiers would not be tried in an Afghan court, Speakes said: “No. The only commitment we have made is that we will take any appropriate disciplinary action deemed necessary by the investigation. Any suggestions that we have made more detailed commitments beyond what I just told you is inaccurate.”
Spencer said the Army manual sends the message to Middle Easterners that despite statements by our government, they cannot expect any help from America when it comes to fighting for basic human rights.
“Anybody in these Muslim countries that wanted to see freedom of speech, a crackdown on pedophilia, or rights for women were disappointed at the time that we endorsed the Afghan constitution which enshrined these principles in Islamic law,” Spencer said. “It sends the message to advocates of human rights and freedom that the United States is not going to help them and they are on their own.”

Freedom Threatened By Plan To Federalize Local Government In Florida

By Suzanne Eovaldi

December 15, 2012 

A new initiative by the federal government called Seven50, a cousin of Agenda 21, seeks to relieve local governments nationwide of direct representation by and for local citizens in matters of education, infrastructure, and population.

 Indian River County Commissioner Bob Solari (772- 226-1442) is putting out an urgent call to attend a special Indian River County Commission meeting concerning this topic on Tuesday, December 18 at 9 a.m. in the Vero Beach County Chambers (1801 27th Street, Vero Beach, FL.)  Though Alabama already has passed legislation to curb the Seven50 agenda, seven southeastern counties along Florida’s coastline from Miami to Vero Beach threaten to place their citizens’ lives under control of HUD and other federal agencies by backing this “diversity” proposal.

Morphing the highly unpopular Security and Prosperity Partnership to Agenda 21 and finally into Seven50, our federal government  is hell-bent on removing any local control and input from average American citizens concerning what they can do with their own land, private property, local schools, and local infrastructures from bridges to meeting houses. “What we want to be when we grow up,” says  Marcelor Camblor-Cutsaimanis in a video interview with Nancy Ferre on PBS as she attempts to explain the benefits of Seven50.  Of course, the public TV host heaps praise upon this blatant attempt by the feds to exercise total control over the lives of Americans.
Whether you live near Southern Florida’s east coast or took part in Alabama’s efforts to rein in this dreadful plan, you must inform your neighbors about the dangers of Seven50.  The UN and the Obama administration have been relentless in their efforts to marginalize our freedoms. A puff piece about this fifty year, UN initiative to destroy local and county governance claims Seven50 is “good” for us given the ”…realization that local governments and civic groups can’t effectively tackle [their] problems and needs in isolation.” Well, just ask the still-suffering inhabitants of ocean front towns along the New Jersey and New York coastlines how they feel about the FEMA response to the destruction of their homes and businesses by Hurricane Sandy.
Counties across the nation are being REGIONALIZED to circumvent the structure and policies of local governance . It is an insidious program operating under the radar. Why didn’t the PBS interviewer ask activist Cutsaimanis about the FEMA performance in Staten Island, where residents are being drowned in federal red tape and frustrated by buck-passing and bureaucratic inefficiency?
If you live near the area, pleased attend the Vero Beach, FL county commission meeting on Dec. 18.  And wherever you live, find out if Seven50 threatens to supplant local governance, turning your town or county into a “protectorate” of the federal government.

Obama Caught Fake Crying - They are Coming For Our Guns (video)

Gun Control, People Control and Thought Control

by Daniel Greenfield
December 13, 2012

The gun control debate, like all debates with the left, is reducible to the question of whether we are individuals who make our own decisions or a great squishy social mass that helplessly responds to stimuli. Do people kill with guns or does the availability of guns kill people? Do bad eating habits kill people or does the availability of junk food kill people?

To the left these are distinctions without a difference. If a thing is available then it is the cause of the problem. The individual cannot be held accountable for shooting someone if there are guns for sale. Individuals have no role to play because they are not moral actors, only members of a mob responding to stimuli.

That is how the left approached this election. Instead of appealing to individual interests, they went after identity groups. They targeted low information voters and used behavioral science to find ways to manipulate people. The right treated voters like human beings. The left treated them like lab monkeys. And the lab monkey approach is triumphantly toted by progressives as proof that the left is more intelligent than the right. And what better proof of intelligence can there be than treating half the country like buttons of unthinking responses that you can push to get them to do what you want?
Would you let a lab monkey own a gun? Hell no. Would you let it choose what to eat? Only as an experiment. Would you let it vote for laws in a referendum? Not unless it’s trained to push the right button. Would you let it drive a car? Nope. Maybe a bicycle. And if it has to travel a long way, you’ll encourage it to use mass transit. Does a monkey have freedom of speech? Only until it annoys you.
The clash that will define the future of America is this collision between the individual and the state, between disorganized freedom and organized compassion, between a self-directed experiment in self-government and an experiment conducted by trained experts on a lab monkey population. And the defining idea of this conflict is accountability.

To understand the left’s position on nearly any issue, imagine a 20th Century American and then take away accountability. Assume that the individual is helpless and stupid, has little to no control over his own behavior and is only responding to stimuli and functions in a purely reactive capacity. Then use that data to come up with a response to anything from kids getting fat to a football player shooting his wife to terrorists firing rockets at Israel. The only possible answer to reactive behavior is to find the thing being reacted to and condemn it.

The final failure of accountability for the left is a failure of moral organization, while for the right it is a failure of personal character. The right asks, “Why did you kill?” The left asks, “Who let him have a gun?”, “Who didn’t provide him with a job” and “Who neglected his self-esteem?”

If you eat too much, it’s because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it’s because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem.

The defining American code is freedom. The defining liberal code is compassion. Conservatives have attempted to counter that by defining freedom as compassionate, as George W. Bush did. Liberals counter by attempting to define compassion as liberating, the way that FDR did by classing freedoms with entitlements in his Four Freedoms. On one side stands the individual with his rights and responsibilities. On the other side is the remorseless state machinery of supreme compassion. And there is no bridging this gap.

Liberal compassion is not the compassion of equals. It is a revolutionary pity that uses empathy as fuel for outrage. It is the sort of compassion practiced by people who like to be angry and who like to pretend that their anger makes them better people. It is the sort of compassion that eats like poison into the bones of a man or a society, even while swelling their egos with their own wonderfulness.
Compassion of this sort is outrage fuel. It is hatred toward people masquerading as love. And that hatred is a desire for power masquerading as outrage. Peel away the mask of compassion and all that is underneath is a terrible lust for power.

Freedom goes hand in hand with personal moral organization of the individual by the individual. Organized compassion, however, requires the moral organization of the society as a whole. A shooting is not a failure of the character of one man alone, or even his family and social circle; it is the total failure of our entire society and perhaps even the world, for not leveraging a sufficient level of moral organization that would have made such a crime impossible. No man is an island. Every man is a traffic jam.

Social accountability on this scale requires the nullification of the personhood and accountability of the individual, just as the moral organization that it mandates requires removing the freedom of choice of the individual, to assure a truly moral society. When compassion and morality are collective, then everyone and no one is moral and compassionate at the same time. And that is the society of the welfare state where compassion is administered by a salaried bureaucracy.
Choice is what makes us moral creatures and collective compassion leaves us less than human. The collective society of mass movements and mass decisions leaves us little better than lab monkeys trying to compose Shakespeare without understanding language, meaning or ideas, or anything more than the rote feel of our fingers hitting the keyboard.

This is the society that the left is creating; a place filled with as many social problems as there are people, where everyone is a lab monkey except the experts running the experiments, and where no one has any rights because freedom is the enemy of a system whose moral code derives from creating a perfect society by replacing the individual with the mass. It is a society where there is no accountability, only constant compulsion. It is a society where you are a social problem and there are highly paid experts working day and night to figure out how to solve you.

The Obama Administration has ordered changes in a new military handbook to now forbid U.S soldiers from criticizing the Taliban.

by William Bigelow
12 Dec 2012

In addition, our men in uniform are forbidden to disparage pedophilia. Even further, our soldiers are instructed not to speak of women’s rights. Or homosexuality. Or criticism of Afghans at all.

The manual, which runs 75 pages, insinuates that the reason for the insider attacks among our troops by Muslims is that we are ignorant of Afghani culture. The handbook intones: “Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [troops] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead toward green-on-blue violence.”

It’s our insensitivity that fosters the sneak attacks inside our armed services.

63 of our soldiers have been murdered in almost 40 insider attacks just this year.

U.S. Marine General John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, “does not approve of its contents,” according to a military spokesman.

This follows an Obama Administration decision in 2012 that removed any materials that portrayed Muslims negatively. The FBI was ordered by Obama to eviscerate instructional material that shows Muslims as violent or open to becoming terrorists. 

And it’s not just the FBI; almost all federal agencies are now tasked with Muslim outreach. The Justice Department has an Islamic civil rights program, Homeland Security has coffee with Muslim organizations that are radical, and even NASA was pushed on Muslim diplomacy.

Video gallery of union thuggery in Michigan

by Michelle Malkin

December 11, 2012

[ed. Too many to post. Utterly disgraceful scenes. Time to end this democrat party shakedown called "unionism"...]

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/12/11/video-gallery-of-union-thuggery-in-michigan/

Islam Is the Fastest Growing Religion in England; Christianity on the Decline, Census Data Shows

by Jason Howerton
December 12, 2012

Islam is the fastest growing religion in England and Wales, according to new census data. The number of people identifying with no religion nearly doubled over the last decade while the percentage of people who call themselves Christians has dropped to 59 percent, down from 72 percent 10 years ago, CNSNews.com reports.
The Muslim Council of Britain was pleased with the new data, saying Muslims were playing a “significant part in increasing diversity in Britain.”
Of the roughly 56.07 million people counted in the census, 33.24 million described themselves as “Christian” while 2.7 million identified as Muslims, an increase from 3.0 percent to 4.8 percent over a 10-year period. Further, the 2.7 million Muslims in England and Wales make it the second largest religion there. The next largest religions are Hinduism (817,000), Sikhism (423,000), Buddhism (248,000) and Judaism (263,000).
Religious leaders attempted to explain away the trend. “Christianity is no longer a religion of culture, but a religion of decision and commitment,” said a spokesman for the Catholic Church.
A spokesman for the Archbishop’s Council of the Church of England said “one of the reasons may well be fewer people identifying as ‘Cultural Christians’ i.e. those who have no active involvement with churches and who may previously have identified as Christian for cultural or historical reasons.”
CNSNews.com has more background:

Other mainstream and fringe faiths (including pagan, pantheist, wiccan, satanist, druid, “Jedi Knight” and others) lagged far behind, but the number of people declaring themselves to have no religion jumped to 14.4 million, from 7.7 million a decade ago. This means a full one-quarter of people in England and Wales now identify as having no faith.
In the U.S., by contrast, a 2007 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey found 16.1 percent of respondents identified as “unaffiliated” with any particular religion, while in the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey the figure was 14.9 percent. (The U.S. Census Bureau is prohibited by law from asking questions on faith affiliation on a mandatory basis.)
British secularist groups did not conceal their delight, reiterating predictions that Christians could be in the minority within five years.

Andrew Copson, of the British Humanist Association (BHA), said the new census data proves governments need to realize that religion is growing “decreasingly relevant.”
Additionally, Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society said the data “should serve as a warning to the churches that their increasingly conservative attitudes are not playing well with the public at large.”

Three Months Later: No Justice, Unanswered Questions on Benghazi

by Guy Benson
13th December, 2012

Three months ago today, President Obama woke up to the news that US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans had been murdered during a terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi.  The president had been informed that an active attack was underway the night before -- but how actively he followed the developing raid, and what (if any) orders he issued, remains a mystery.  On September 12, the president skipped his daily intelligence briefing and flew to Las Vegas for a campaign rally.  This much we know.  The Obama campaign eventually accused Republicans of "politicizing" the massacre by asking questions about it, asserting that the "entire reason" it was a major national story was due to rank exploitation of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.  Even with the president's re-election safely tucked away, the White House has continued to defend its UN Ambassador (and possible Secretary of State in waiting) against charges that she dissemminated false information to mislead the public about the true nature of the deadly attack.  The president and his top lieutenants have repeatedly dodged difficult questions, changed their stories, and hidden behind the dubious fig leaf of "ongoing investigations."  Obama has vowed to track down those responsible for the atrocities and bring them to justice.  He has also stated his desire to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi that night.  The federal investigation into the attacks got off to a stupefyingly dreadful start, and three months later, justice and accountability remain in short supply:

Three months after Ambassador Christopher Stevens, a diplomat and two CIA contractors were murdered in Benghazi, there is no sign of the killers being brought to justice by the United States. The investigation into the attacks has been hampered by the reluctance of the Libyan authorities to move against the Islamist terrorists identified by the FBI as responsible for the killing, according to American officials briefing the 'New York Times'. None of the suspects has been arrested or killed and some have fled Libya. Last month, the FBI issued a global appeal asking anyone with information about the killers to send information in an e-mail, text message or via Facebook. Stevens, the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979, diplomat Sean Smith and CIA contractors and former U.S. Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were killed in an attack on the U.S. consultate in Benghazi on September 11. The following day, President Barack Obama vowed: 'Make no mistake, justice will be done.' But that promise may remain unfulfilled if there is not more cooperation from the Libyan authorities.

The White House and its allies now insist that most questions on Benghazi have already been asked and answered -- a claim that even some members of the mainstream media are finding hard to swallow.  Here's a question: Is this report accurate?

A source with personal knowledge of the security situation in Benghazi told Breitbart News that Senators who listened to closed door testimony about the Benghazi attack were shocked to learn State Department security personnel agents were not immediately armed. Additionally, agents separated from Ambassador Chris Stevens left to retrieve their M4 weapons in a separate building. Only one returned to protect the Ambassador, while the other two hunkered down in the barracks, the source relayed. “From the accounts I read, those guys were not ready. When the attack came that night, they had to go back to the other room and grab their weapons. Then the worse part about it was they never even returned to be with the Ambassador. One returned to be with the Ambassador with his rifle ... There were no shots fired in return. On the embassy property, just the embassy property, none of those security agents blasted a single bullet from a single pistol or rifle at all in defense of the Ambassador—nothing.”

We already knew that the security situation at the consulate was woefully inadequate, but this is the first we've heard about zero shots being fired in the ambassador's defense (which is not to be confused with the subsequent, prolonged firefight at the CIA safehouse).  Jay Carney may not be able to think of a single question on Benghazi that hasn't been sufficiently addressed, but I certainly can.  Here are a dozen relevant and important inquiries, just off the top of my head:

(1) Who, specifically, denied repeated requests for increased security resources and personnel from American officials on the ground in Libya?  Why were these requests shot down?
(2) A senior State Department official testified that the US had the "correct" number of security assets in Benghazi. Amb. Susan Rice stated that our security presence at the Benghazi mission was "substantial."  Does the president stand by those assessments?  If not, why were they made in the first place?
(3)  Why were US security personnel pulled out of Libya, even as Amb. Stevens warned of heightened risks?
(4) Why was the Benghazi consulate operating below the bare minimum standards for a US diplomatic compound, especially after our government learned that at least ten known Islamist militias were operating in the city?
(5) Why wasn't security beefed up after a series of attacks on western targets in Benghazi, including previous attempted bombings at the American consulate itself?
(6) Where was the president during the raid itself?  How closely did he follow what was happening, and for how long?
(7) Was the president made aware of the numerous desperate pleas for help from two former SEALs, who battled the terrorists for seven hours before being killed?  If not, why not?  If so, what was his response?
(8) Which government officials, specifically, watched the attack unfold in real time -- hour after excruciating hour -- via footage from an American drone?  Was that drone armed?
(9) Why were American forces and resources not deployed to help defeat the enemy, particularly while several Americans were alive and urgently seeking reinforcements?  Why was a key counterterrorism task force not convened during the attack?
(10) Who, specifically, changed Susan Rice's public talking points by excising references to Al Qaeda, and why?  If there was a national security concern, what was it?  Where did the inaccurate "spontaneous protest" narrative originate?  Why was that story deemed more fit for publication than the accurate terrorism evidence?  And if Rice had little direct knowledge of the facts on the ground in Benghazi, why was she selected as the administration's spokesperson on the subject?
(11) Why was the president still publicly hedging on the terrorism question several weeks after the attack, especially if a terrorist link had been established "almost immediately."
(12) Why did it take the FBI weeks to arrive at the unsecured, bombed-out consulate after the attack?  Why were sensitive documents left in the rubble, even after they'd left?  Without jeopardizing any leads, what -- if any -- progress has been made in identifying, capturing, or killing those responsible for the assault?
Three months later, the American people and the families of the fallen still deserve answers.

[ed. The shameful role of the "mainstream" media, including Candy Crowley, who ran intereference for Obama has left plenty of questions to be answered...]

ABC chairman warns: this government will restrict your free speech like no other country

by Andrew Bolt
December 11, 2012

The Gillard Government’s assault on our free speech is a disgrace. For me, this issue alone makes this vengeful Government’s defeat critical, and it is a relief to finally hear prominent figures speak out:

ABC chairman and former top jurist Jim Spigelman has warned that a planned overhaul of discrimination law will impose unprecedented restrictions on free speech, including making it unlawful to offend people, leaving the nation isolated from international norms.
The Gillard government’s planned consolidation of all federal discrimination laws would significantly redraw the line between permissible and unlawful speech and open the way for the banning of publications, said Mr Spigelman, the immediate past chief justice of NSW.
If the government’s draft bill were enacted, discrimination in all areas would be affected by provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act that were used last year against newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt so that merely offending people would amount to unlawful discrimination.
“I am not aware of any international human rights instrument or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy that extends to conduct which is merely offensive,” Mr Spigelman said.
“We would be pretty much on our own in declaring conduct which does no more than offend to be unlawful. The freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech. There is no right not to be offended.”

So it turns out Usain isn’t the only Bolt to have set a world record. Wish I were happier about it.
From Spigelman’s speech:

However, so far as I have been able to determine, we would be pretty much on our own in declaring conduct which does no more than offend, to be unlawful. In a context where human rights protection draws on a global jurisprudence, this should give us pause when we re-enact s 18C and before we extend such protection to other contexts.
Section 19(2)(b) of the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012, introduces “offending” into the definition of discrimination for all purposes, not just for racial vilification… The new s19 defines, for the first time, discrimination by unfavourable treatment to include “conduct that offends, insults or intimidates” another person. As has always been the case with s 18C, the relevant conduct must occur “because the other person has a particular protected attribute”....
There are 18 separate “protected attributes” set out in section 17 of the draft Bill, seven of which apply only in the employment context. These are wide ranging and, in a number of respects, novel. One such attribute is “race"…
The inclusion of “religion” as a “protected attribute” in the workplace, appears to me, in effect, to make blasphemy unlawful at work, but not elsewhere. The controversial Danish cartoons could be published, but not taken to work. Similar anomalies could arise with other workplace protected attributes, eg. “political opinion”, “social origin”, “nationality"…
The new Bill proposes a significant redrawing of the line between permissible and unlawful speech. This is so, notwithstanding the ability to establish that relevant conduct falls within a statutory exception. A freedom that is contingent on proving, after the event, that it was exercised reasonably or on some other exculpatory basis, is a much reduced freedom. Further, as is well known, the chilling effect of the mere possibility of legal processes will prevent speech that could have satisfied an exception.
When rights conflict, drawing the line too far in favour of one, degrades the other right. Words such as “offend” and “insult”, impinge on freedom of speech in a way that words such as “humiliate”, “denigrate,” “intimidate”, “incite hostility” or “hatred” or “contempt”, do not. To go beyond language of the latter character, in my opinion, goes too far.
None of Australia’s international treaty obligations require us to protect any person or group from being offended. We are, however, obliged to protect freedom of speech.

All this is plainly true. It is truly astonishing that such arguments now need to be made to protect one of our most critical freedoms from this government.
The question for me is why I heard so few prominent figures mount them in response to my own ordeal. Spigelman gives a clue:

There may now have elapsed sufficient time for us to debate the issue dispassionately, and not on the basis of whether or not you like Andrew Bolt.

Spigelman seems to suggest that the principle of free speech was surrendered by those only too glad to have a conservative silenced.
Contemptible. Many of our “human rights” warriors have exposed themselves to me for what they are. As Bertrand Russell famously put it:

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

UPDATE
Chris Merritt:

JIM Spigelman’s human rights day oration marks the beginning of the end for Nicola Roxon’s botched plan to consolidate federal discrimination laws.
That scheme was already in trouble because of the growing concern about the Attorney-General’s decision to reverse the onus of proof in discrimination law - thereby destroying one of the bulwarks of liberty.
Spigelman has delivered the coup de grace by exposing the nanny-state policy that lies at the heart of this plan..
[Roxon] put forward a scheme that treats the community like naughty children… Publications could be banned. Liability for religious slights at work would be assumed - unless the accused could prove otherwise.

This Government first insults Australians as either too-tender petals and too-nasty ferals, and then insults them double by stripping them of their freedom.
I know good Labor Ministers - not least Martin Ferguson, of course - are resisting those in the Government such as Stephen Conroy who are trashing our free speech and free media.
But we cannot be sure they will win out in the end, and especially not if Gillard wins the next election. So those who value free speech have no option: throw this Labor baggage out before they do serious harm.

UPDATE:

Add Kelvin Thomson to the list of Labor MPs trying to save Australia - and Labor - from the worst excesses of Labor’s authoritarians:

Senate Democrats: Um, Let's "Postpone" Obamacare's Medical Device Tax

by Guy Benson

December 11, 2012

What a pity.  If only someone had demonstrated the foresight to warn against the destructive consequences of Obamacare's medical device tax, they might have helped turn public sentiment sharply against the law prior to passage.  Oh, that's right, conservatives did -- and the American people rose up in opposition.  Now, the very actors who are most responsible for ignoring public demands and jamming through Obamacare are trying to "delay" or repeal a major element of their law, warning that it could stifle medical innovation and kill jobs.  Welcome to the party, guys.  You're about two years too late:

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and 16 other Senate Democrats want the medical device tax - included in the 2010 healthcare reform law that they supported - postponed. The 2.3 percent excise tax that devicemakers must pay on their gross sales goes into effect on Jan. 1. It's one of the new revenues used to offset the cost of the healthcare law. The Internal Revenue Service issued Wednesday its final rules on the tax, which will impact profits on items such as high-tech burn treatments, catheters, back braces and in-home HIV tests. Casey signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this week asking that he support delaying implementation of the tax. Casey supports fully repealing it. "With this year quickly drawing to a close, the medical device industry has received little guidance about how to comply with the tax—causing significant uncertainty and confusion for businesses," the senators wrote.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that both of Minnesota's Democrat Senators are scrambling to mitigate the damage caused by the law...for which they both cast decisive votes -- a small detail that didn't make it into the story:

Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken pointed to thousands of high-paying jobs that device companies support in Minnesota, headquarters to such giant devicemakers as Medtronic and St. Jude Medical. The industry has painted the tax as a job killer that would hurt innovation. "The delay would give us the opportunity to repeal or reduce that tax," said Klobuchar, co-author of a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seeking the delay. Repeal is the ultimate goal of the letter's 18 signers, including Klobuchar, Franken and all the heavy hitters in the Senate Democratic leadership. But politically that would be virtually impossible before Jan. 1, said Norman Ornstein, a congressional expert with the American Enterprise Institute.

Here's a minor fact that did manage to sneak into the article's 14th paragraph: "The House has already voted to kill the tax, approving a bill offered by Minnesota Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen."  Low information voters may ask themselves why anyone would have gone along with such a dreadful idea in the first place.  The answer is simple.  Fake math.  Democrats needed to inject as much "revenue" -- real and phony -- into the bill in order to manufacture a bogus CBO score on the legislation's final price tag.  The more revenues were stuffed into the law, the less it would technically "cost," providing just enough fleeting political cover to cobble together the requisite number of votes. Every liberal on television in the days preceding the final House vote highlighted the bill's absurd price tag of $941 Billion, citing "the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office" as gospel. They failed to mention that Congress had deliberately employed insane gimmicks and costly tax increases to gerry-jig that score, and that the real figures would be much, much higher.  This cynical ploy has led cary-carrying Obamacare supporters in Congress and the White House to repeal and dismantle several pieces of the law, even before the bulk of implementation.  The medical device tax is merely the latest installment in a series of "nevermind" moments -- and it almost certainly won't be the last, as brand new disasters are brewing.  And while we're on the subject of Obamacare, Mary Katharine Ham mines a nasty little nugget embedded in the avalanche of newly-released regulations pertaining to the law (via the Associated Press):

Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It’s a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Obama’s health care overhaul. The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers. Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a “sleeper issue” with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers. “Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, [companies will] be hit with a multimillion-dollar assessment without getting anything back for it,” said Mr. Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary. Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.

Not to worry, we're told, this tax is only "temporary," and will be reduced over time.  MKH snarks:

The fee starts at $63 in 2014 and it gets lower every year until it’s phased out in 2017 because, obviously, people with pre-existing conditions will stop costing more money after that.

Premiums are going up, and $63 is going to look like a walk in the park before all is said and done.  This is a flagrant violation of Obama's magical "premiums will go down by $2,500!" pledge, but apparently nothing that the man says actually matters once those words become inconvenient to his latest government expansion project.  And guess who's going to get slammed the hardest by the premium hikes?  Young people, the demographic that is most supportive of the law.  Way to go, guys.

US sending 20 more F-16s to Egypt, despite turmoil in Cairo

by Maxim Lott
December 10, 2012


Instability in Egypt, where a newly-elected Islamic government teeters over an angry population, isn't enough to stop the U.S. from sending more than 20 F-16 fighter jets, as part of a $1 billion foreign aid package.
The first four jets are to be delivered to Egypt beginning Jan. 22, a source at the naval air base in Fort Worth, where the planes have been undergoing testing, told FoxNews.com. The North African nation already has a fleet of more than 200 of the planes and the latest shipment merely fulfills an order placed two years ago. But given the uncertainty in Cairo, some critics wonder if it is wise to be sending more top gun planes.
“Should an overreaction [by Egypt] spiral into a broader conflict between Egypt and Israel, such a scenario would put U.S. officials in an embarrassing position of having supplied massive amounts of military hardware … to both belligerents,” said Malou Innocent, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute. “Given Washington's fiscal woes, American taxpayers should no longer be Egypt’s major arms supplier.”

“Given Washington's fiscal woes, American taxpayers should no longer be Egypt’s major arms supplier.”

- Malou Innocent, the Cato Institute

The U.S. government ordered and paid for the fighter jets for Egypt's military as part of foreign aid for Egypt back in 2010, when Hosni Mubarak ruled. The fighter jets were supposed to be delivered in 2013, and delivery will go ahead as scheduled even though Hosni Mubarak has been removed from power and replaced by Mohamed Morsi, who led the Muslim Brotherhood before becoming Egypt's president.
Morsi was democratically elected, but last month attempted to seize dictatorial powers for himself. After widespread protests and violence in Egypt's capital of Cairo, Morsi backed off from his power grab. But he is pushing through a controversial new constitution for Egypt that would more strictly enforce Islamic Shariah law, and only recently said he reserves the right to have the military arrest protesters without charges.
"The Morsi-led Muslim Brotherhood government has not proven to be a partner for democracy as they had promised, given the recent attempted power grab," a senior Republican congressional aide told FoxNews.com.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, recently criticized U.S. military aid to Egypt:
“The Obama administration wants to simply throw money at an Egyptian government that the president cannot even clearly state is an ally of the United States,” Rep. Ros-Lehtinen said.
The $213 million order, which is paid for by U.S. taxpayers and is part of Egypt's foreign aid package from America, had to be approved by lawmakers in Washington.While the basic F-16 has been a military workhorse for top air forces for more than 25 years, the cockpit electronics are constantly updated and the models Egypt is getting are the best defense contractor Lockheed Martin makes.
"This is a great day for Lockheed Martin and a testament to the enduring partnership and commitment we have made to the government of Egypt," said John Larson, vice president, Lockheed Martin F-16 programs. "We remain committed to providing our customer with a proven, advanced 4^th Generation multirole fighter."
"In an air combat role, the F-16's maneuverability and combat radius exceed that of all potential threat fighter aircraft," the U.S. Air Force description of the plane reads.

"The F-16 can fly more than 500 miles, deliver its weapons with superior accuracy, defend itself against enemy aircraft, and return to its starting point. An all-weather capability allows it to accurately deliver ordnance during non-visual bombing conditions."
A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. and Egypt have an important alliance that is furthered by the transfer.
"The U.S.-Egypt defense relationship has served as the cornerstone of our broader strategic partnership for over thirty years," said Lt. Col. Wesley Miller. "The delivery of the first set of F-16s in January 2013 reflects the U.S. commitment to supporting the Egyptian military's modernization efforts.  Egyptian acquisition of F-16s will increase our militaries' interoperability, and enhance Egypt's capacity to contribute to regional mission sets."

5 Myths Liberals Have Created About Themselves

by John Hawkins
11th December, 2012

Liberalism is like a restaurant with ugly decor, terrible food, overflowing toilets and roaches scurrying across the floor -- that stays packed every night. Sure, liberals may be sanctimonious, mean spirited and advocate policies that don't work, but you can't help but admire the excellence of their public relations network. They can laud themselves for courage because they take a stand everyone they know agrees with, pat themselves on the back for their compassion as they maliciously insult someone that disagrees with them and congratulate themselves for their charitable behavior as they give other people's money away. Liberal mythology is one thing, but what it actually looks like is a different beast entirely.

1) Liberals love science: As Ann Coulter says, "Liberals use the word science exactly as they use the word constitutional. Both words are nothing more or less than a general statement of liberal approval, having nothing to do with either science or the Constitution." The liberal commitment to science consists entirely of talking about how important science is when they believe they can use it to further the liberal agenda. On the other hand, when science shows that adult stem cells actually work better than embryonic stem cells, millions in Africa have died because liberals needlessly insisted on banning DDT or the evidence shows AIDS is never going to take off in non-drug-using heterosexuals, liberals have about as much interest in science as they do in supporting the troops.

2) Liberals care about education: If you define "education" as doing as much as humanly possible to toss plums to the teachers’ unions who help fund and elect Democrats, liberals love education. Alternately, if you define education as the rest of us do, making sure our kids learn as much as possible and are prepared for the working world, liberals don't care about education at all. They fight merit pay, oppose firing bad teachers and try to kill even effective school choice programs. Any time there's a divergence between what's best for the teachers’ unions and what's best for the kids, the kids ALWAYS lose with liberals.

3) Liberals are tolerant: In a very real sense, liberals don't understand tolerance. To them, tolerance is promoting whatever position they happen to hold while excluding all competing views. So, if a conservative speaker shows up on a college campus, liberals try to shout him down. Liberals have tried to censor conservative talk show hosts with an Orwellian "Fairness Act." They work tirelessly to try to silence Fox News, which is the one center right network up against ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC. They block professors for their conservative views, blacklist conservative actors and lock conservatives out of almost every major newspaper in America. That's not open-minded; it's a level of dogmatic intolerance that could rival the most radical cult.

4) Liberals don't moralize: Liberals believe in allowing children to have abortions over the protests of their parents, they want to force churches to perform gay weddings that violate their Christian beliefs and they demand that the Catholic Church provide abortion and birth control over its strenuous moral objections, but then they turn around and deny that they're moralizing. Getting beyond that, they couch their arguments about tax rates, government programs and economics in distinctly moral terms. After all, what is the term "fair share" if not an appeal to morals? If liberals are going to continue to pretend that they don't moralize, at least they should admit that they’re morally inferior to conservatives.

5) Liberals love the poor: For both philosophical and practical reasons, conservatives believe in helping the poor escape poverty. We agree wholeheartedly with Ben Franklin's words of wisdom,

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

On the other hand, liberals "love" the poor like a cat loves mice. The cat gets fat off the mice and liberals get elected off of sadistically keeping as many Americans mired in poverty as they can. Then, they can give the poor just enough money to get by on while railing against those mean old conservatives who're claiming the destitute can have better lives when any "compassionate" person would realize food stamps and welfare are the best most of these people can ever do. That's not love; that's a gang of pushers trying to hook as many customers as possible.

How to Brainwash the Sheeple into Doing Anything You Want

By Mike Bundrant
December 10, 2012

A few hours ago I was cycling through an nearby neighborhood.
As I approached a mother and her two children walking down the sidewalk, the cutest little four-year-old piped up.
“Hi…!” she said.
“Hi…!” I replied.
At that point, mom jerked the little girl by the arm, bent down and whispered something hushed and intense in her ear.
As she continued to watch me ride by, I saw the girl’s expression morph from happiness and curiosity into pain, fear and confusion.
“Well, there you have it,” I said to myself. “Fear is once again hammered into an innocent child’s psyche. How sad.”
Children have no way to question their parents’ wisdom. If mom says strangers are dangerous, they are, no questions asked.
In this case mom did more than just tell her I was dangerous. She activated physical pain and fear during the child’s interaction with me. In NLP we call this “anchoring.”
By associating an intense state of mind/body – fear and pain – with strangers, the mother hopes to condition her child to avoid them.
The next time the girl finds herself in a similar situation, she will most likely experience fear, pain or confusion.
Over time, she will lose her desire to reach out and connect with people she doesn’t know. By avoiding strangers, she hopes to avoid the negative feelings associated with them. Classic Pavlovian conditioning!
Needless to say, there are other more effective, yet non-traumatizing ways to teach children about their own safety, but that is a topic for another article, coming soon.
Anchoring is remarkably effective if done well. Think about it. How many of your responses during the course of a day are preconditioned? Do you stop at red lights?
Shake someone’s hand when it is extended to you? Do you pull over when you see flashing red lights in your rear view mirror? You don’t have to think about any of these responses. They are anchored in, ready to be employed when triggered.
If you want someone to be in your herd, then find a way to condition them. Fear works best for creating sheeple.
We could do a warped experiment, for example, on a small child. Find any common object – say a red ball. Hold up the red ball and then terrorize the child into a state of intense fear by yelling or screaming at him.
Then, put the ball away and return to normalcy. Repeat this sick little ritual daily.
Before long, all you will need to do is hold up the red ball and the child will respond with anticipatory fear. Soon, the ominous red ball will haunt the child’s dreams.
If you want to expand your power over the child, the red ball is now a nifty tool. Teach the child that the only way to escape the fear inducing red ball is to do what you want.
For example, teach him that if he bends down to touch his toes, you will put the ball away immediately. Soon, all you will need to do is pull out the red ball and he will touch his toes without even thinking about it.
His fear may then generalize. When he sees other red objects, he may feel afraid and bend over for them, too. He may even start to bend over compulsively, in anticipation of any potential new red objects that might show up unexpectedly.
Yes, he is now running from the red balls in his mind!
At this point, he might develop a ritual. To prevent any and all red objects that day, he bends over 10 times every morning, noon and night. In other words, he is now a slave to fear.
To control him, all you need is a red ball (or to know how to get him to think of one) and a warped conscience.
Much of counseling is devoted to undoing unfortunate anchors that were conditioned in childhood.
If the counseling is successful, the red balls of life lose power and new, more positive anchors are put into play – intentional anchors for greater personal power, joy, confidence and so on.
Most people are raised with some version of the red ball. Do what I say or else you’re gonna get it! Do what I tell you or I will reject you, abandon you, hurt you, scare you or otherwise make you feel miserable. 
Negatively conditioning a child in this way is the perfect set up for creating sheeple. All you need to do to herd them is stimulate their fears. People do the most amazing things to avoid fear.
If I were a twisted tyrant creating a country of sheeple, here’s what I’d do:
First, I’d champion principles like conformity, consumerism, instant gratification, social status, and intolerance for personal sacrifice. All of these are wonderful “red ball” kinds of tools that can be used to induce workable positive and negative feelings.
Of course, I’d be grateful for all of the lazy, immature parents who help tremendously by enslaving their children to fear. Then, I would:
1. Scare the living hell out of everyone, probably by creating a catastrophe that could “happen again if we don’t take measures to stop it” (we want red balls floating around in people’s imagination).
2. Associate some visual symbol or keyword to the horror of the event.
3. Repeat the keyword or show the symbol at key times or whenever I want to manipulate people. Doing what I want is a way for people to escape the fear that I conditioned in them.
With this system firmly in operation, I am now free to subject my sheeple to all kinds of degrading practices that will keep them in their place, permanently.
I can do almost anything I want, given their fears. Amazingly, they will not only cooperate, but even think I am doing them a favor as I degrade and humiliate them!
“We’ve got word that someone in the vicinity may be carrying a red ball! Alright everyone, bend over and let’s inspect your junk. It’s for everyone’s safety.”
The ultimate mind bender is that people end up willingly subjecting themselves to what their parents most feared – molestation by a stranger.
Thank you for protecting me from the dreaded red ball, sir! The inspection wasn’t that bad, either.
Wait, where’s my wallet?
What an ironic mess it would be, if such a society existed!

New York Times: Arms Shipments ‘Secretly’ Approved by Obama Admin. Ended Up in Hands of Islamic Militants

10th December, 2012

The Obama administration “secretly” approved arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, however, U.S. officials quickly became concerned as evidence suggested Qatar was handing the weapons over to Islamic militants, The New York Times reports, citing a number of United States officials and foreign diplomats.
There is no evidence available that suggests the U.S.-approved weapons were involved in the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead on Sept. 11. But the revelation is sure to ignite speculation.
More from The New York Times:

But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government.
The experience in Libya has taken on new urgency as the administration considers whether to play a direct role in arming rebels in Syria, where weapons are flowing in from other countries.
The Obama administration did not initially raise objections when Qatar began shipping arms to opposition groups in Syria, even if it did not offer encouragement, according to current and former administration officials. But they said the United States has growing concerns that, just as in Libya, the Qataris are equipping some of the wrong militants.
The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers on the ground in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatar’s plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. They were “more antidemocratic, more hard-line, closer to an extreme version of Islam” than the main rebel alliance in Libya, said a former Defense Department official.

“To do this right, you have to have on-the-ground intelligence and you have to have experience…If you rely on a country that doesn’t have those things, you are really flying blind. When you have an intermediary, you are going to lose control,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser who is now dean of Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
The startling revelations raise even more concerns regarding the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East.


The secret transactions began in the early months of the Libyan rebellion that ended in Qaddafi’s death. Various officials sought to assist the rebel forces trying to oust the Libyan dictator.
It was a short time later that Mahmoud Jibril, then prime minister of the Libyan transitional government, voiced his concerns to administration officials that the U.S. government was allowing Qatar to arm Islamist militant groups that were against the new Libyan leadership, anonymous U.S. officials said.
The Obama White House has not learned where all the weapons, paid for by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, ended up in Libya, according to officials.
Qatar is accused of shipping machine guns, automatic rifles and ammunition by air and sea. Some of the weapons have since ended up in the hands of militants with ties to al-Qaeda in Mali, where radical Islamists have implemented Shariah law in the northern part of the country, according to a former Defense Department official. Other small arms have gone to Syria several American and foreign officials and arms traders told the Times.