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Conservatives lost their way thinking that by out bidding progressives they would win elections and political power. The fact they have returned to their roots leaves many disbelieving the veracity of their rhetoric.That is understandable.
However, as one begins to look at who is rising among the Republican Party it should become evident the division and divergence between the two major parties is for real.
American voters have a choice they can now depend upon as real - fiscal and social conservatism versus fiscal irresponsibility and dependency. Reality versus ethereal dreams. A renewed America versus an America in decline. An American future based on a solid foundation versus one based on economic quicksand. Opportunities unburdened by crippling government versus bigger and more stifling government. The list of versuses is endless yet, clear cut. In November you get to decide whether you believe in American exceptionalism or believe America was always destined to be only an historical blip.
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More thinking from Sowell! (See 1 below.)
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Between the incompetency of Obama and the long term threat of radical Muslims, aspirin won't do the job. (See 2 below.)
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Being an art lover and collector, serving on the Board of the State Museum and believing a great nation must preserve and display its culture and having once served as a Board Member of The Woodrow Wilson Center. Nevertheless, I still favor eliminating government subsidies in order to get government spending under control.
Obviously eliminating gravy will have consequences but the tone it would set would be worth the temporary pain. We cannot sustain our appetite for wants that have become needs. (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
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More campaign thoughts:
We better get some change because we are running low on hope.
As for Romney and likability. Let him percolate over the next 70 days and he will be fine.
The nation will feel comfortable with someone who is genuine , comfortable within his own skin knows who he is and can simply be himself.
Romney does not need to become a hop on the stage guy trying to project how cool he is. A little stolid will prove refreshing.
It is Romney's mind, accomplishments and integrity we are electing not his smile.
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Now here is a twist for you.
Steve Oppenheimer is a Democrat from Atlanta, running for the Ga. Public Service Commission and I would urge you consider his candidacy. You can learn more about him by going to: SteveforGeorgia.Com
Based on his own comment he has an uphill battle. Steve is pro consumer and thus has less funding than his opponent who is a captive of the power companies and more prone to do their bidding.
Steve is rational and has integrity.
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Is Russia backing away from its support of Syria? (See 4 below.)
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'Obamascare' has a lot to do with paving the road for increased unionization so that Democrats have an increasingly loyal constituency to line their coffers and grease their palms. (See 5 below.)
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Debbie Wasserman is a willing prostitute for the Obama machine of lies and deception and even a liberal commentator seems to have had enough.
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| WHAT'S NEW ON PJTV | |
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CNN's Anderson Cooper caught Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz lying about the GOP’s abortion platform. Has it gotten so bad for the Democrats and the Obama political machine that even the mainstream media are calling them out on their lies and distortion?
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Time for more humor:
Dick
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)Entitlement Reforms
By Thomas Sowell
For those of us who like to believe that human beings are rational, trying to explain what happens in politics can be a real challenge.
For example, that segment of the population that has the least to fear from a reform of Medicare or Social Security is the most fearful -- namely, those already receiving Medicare or Social Security benefits.
It is understandable that people heavily dependent on these programs would fear losing their benefits, especially after a lifetime of paying into these programs. But nobody in his right mind has even proposed taking away the benefits of those who are already receiving them.
Yet opponents of reforming these programs have managed repeatedly to scare the daylights out of seniors with wild claims and television ads such as one showing someone -- who looks somewhat like Paul Ryan -- pushing an elderly lady in a wheelchair toward a cliff and then dumping her over.
There are people who take seriously such statements as those by President Barack Obama that Republicans want to "end Medicare as we know it."
Let's stop and think, if only for the novelty of it. If you make any change in anything, you are ending it "as we know it." Does that mean that everything in the status quo should be considered to be set in concrete forever?
If there were not a single Republican, or none who got elected to any office, arithmetic would still end "Medicare as we know it," for the simple reason that the money in the till is not enough to keep paying for it. The same is true of Social Security.
The same has been true of welfare state programs in European countries that are currently struggling with both financial crises and riots in the streets from people who feel betrayed by their governments. They have in fact been betrayed by their politicians, who have promised them things that there was not enough money to pay for. That is the basic problem in the United States as well.
We are not yet Greece, but we are not exempt from the same rules of arithmetic that eventually caught up with Greece. We just have a little more time. The only question is whether we will use that time to make politically difficult changes or whether we will just kick the can down the road, and keep pretending that "Medicare as we know it" would continue on indefinitely, if it were not for people who just want to be mean to the elderly.
In both Europe and America, there are many people who get angry at those who tell them the truth that the money is just not there to sustain huge welfare state programs indefinitely. But that anger might be better directed at those who lied to them by promising them benefits that were inherently unsustainable.
Neither Social Security nor Medicare has ever had enough assets to cover its liabilities. Very simply, there has never been enough money put aside to do what the government promised to do.
These systems operate on what their advocates like to call a "pay as you go" basis. That is, the younger generation pays in money that is used to cover the cost of benefits for the older generation. This is the kind of financial pyramid scheme that got Charles Ponzi put in prison in the 1920s and got Bernie Madoff put in prison in our times.
A private annuity cannot play these financial games without its executives risking the fate of Ponzi and Madoff. That is why proposed Social Security and Medicare reforms would allow young people to put their money somewhere where the money they pay in would be put aside specifically for them, not used as at present to pay older people's pensions, with anything left over being used for whatever else politicians feel like spending the money on.
It is today's young people who are going to be left holding the bag when they reach retirement age and discover that all the money they paid in is long gone. It is today's young people who are going to be dumped over a cliff when they reach retirement age, if nothing is done to reform entitlements.
Yet the young seem not to be nearly as alarmed as the elderly, who have no real reason to fear. Try reconciling that with the belief that human beings are rational.
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2)Why Revolutionary Sunni Islamism is the World's Greatest Strategic Threat and None of it is Moderate
By Barry Rubin
No, it sure isn’t the age of Aquarius or of Multicultural, Politically Correct love-ins. It’s the age of revolutionary Islamism, especially Sunni Islamism. And you better learn to understand what this is all about real fast.
(Shia Islamism, important mainly because of Iran and especially because of its nuclear ambitions, is number two on the threat list. But that’s not our topic today.)
Focusing on the Sunni revolutionary Islamist tidal wave, the foundation of knowledge is that there are three types and they are all bad, very bad. A lot of people are going to be misinforming you about this and getting others—never themselves, of course—killed.
Sometimes people ask me why I use the phrase “revolutionary” Sunni Islamism. The reason is to remind everyone that this is a revolutionary movement like those of the past that seek to use a variety of strategies and tactics–of which violence might be only one–to seize, hold, and use state power to transform societies.
Some ask why I use the word “Islamism” and the reason is because this is a specific, conscious set of organized political movements. However theology is related to this issue the problem is political, not theological. Anyone who watched over decades as I have how the radicals had to sell the idea that “jihad” today meant picking up guns, cutting off people’s heads, overthrowing governments, and assembling mobs of thousands screaming for death and destruction, would have no illusion that they had an easy time of it.
This didn’t happen because somebody just pointed to some verses in the Koran and everyone said: Oh, now I get it! We must seize control of the world and kill everyone else. They murdered or intimidated into silence Muslims who disagreed with them. Even today hundreds of millions of Muslims oppose revolutionary Islamism. And if you don’t play it smart to have those people as allies–some out of mutually cynical self-interest and some as true brothers who want to live in freedom just like you do–and help them save their lives and countries you will never achieve anything.
The three types are the al-Qaida style groups; the Salafists, and the Muslim Brotherhood. They are all equally dangerous and some are more dangerous in different ways. Have no illusions.
To understand al-Qaida, which of course goes under many names and regional local groups, is simple. It has one strategy: kill! Its only tactic is terrorism. It is like those nineteenth-century revolutionary movements that always failed and for which the Marxists had so much contempt.
These small groups were always persuaded that if the workers would only be roused to a general strike or that enough officials would be assassinated the revolution would come like a nuclear explosion. Now, these movements always failed but sometimes they laid the basis for others to succeed. Remember, the People’s Will helped launch the Russian revolutionary movement; an anarchist assassinated an American president; the Serbian state-sponsored terrorist cell set off World War One in 1914, and of course al-Qaida created September 11.
Al-Qaida and its various versions in Morocco, Gaza (the Palestinian Resistance Committees), Iraq, Somalia, Europe, Yemen, and a dozen other places is dangerous because it can stage terrorist attacks. In a place where no government exists—like Somalia—it might conceivably seize power. But al-Qaida is not the great threat of the twenty-first century. It is a problem for counter-terrorism and relatively lightweight counterinsurgency.
They may be the worst guys but they are not the West’s main global strategic problem. Everybody who isn’t basically a supporter of an al-Qaida group hates al-Qaida except for the Taliban which is really sort of a similar version. Why? Simple. Because al-Qaida wants to overthrow every regime (they do play a little footsy with Iran but even that’s limited). Oh, and they also loathe Shia Muslims which makes for even more enemies and fewer potential allies.
It is “stupid” to have no friends because that means everyone has a motive to get you and nobody has a reason to help you or give you safe haven. Doesn’t sound like brilliant strategy, right? But there’s more.
Al-Qaida, although the name means in Arabic “base,” ironically, has no political base. It sets up no real mass organizations; it doesn’t do social welfare work capable of rallying whole countries behind it. There is no way that hundreds of thousands or millions of people will rally to its cause. Imagine someone in 1917 saying in Moscow, “Forget about those moderate Bolsheviks. It’s the anarchists we have to fear.” In other words, they are in a distant third place.
But even al-Qaida can be used by the Brotherhood. Look at what happened: an al-Qaida group stormed into an Egyptian base, killed lots of soldiers, stole a couple of vehicles, and attacked the border with Israel.
True, the Egyptian regime (that is, the Brotherhood) attacked and killed some of the al-Qaida people. After all, these terrorists had murdered Egyptian soldiers. But what did the regime tell its people? That Israel was behind the attack. Israel had murdered Egyptians. And therefore there is more reason than ever to hate and wage war against Israel. This is how Middle Eastern politics works. And that’s one reason why the Brotherhood—as it incites to hatred and violence even as it kills the even more hateful and violent—will never be moderate.
Then there are the Salafists, a word coined only recently in part as a pretense to pretend that the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate. But this also does describe a distinct set of groups, for example the Palestinian groups Jaish al-Islam and Jaish al-Umma. Egypt is the place where the Salafists developed in a most sophisticated fashion. But it’s important to understand why that happened. Indeed, that point is central to comprehending what’s going on now.
In the 1970s, when President Anwar al-Sadat made the mistake of letting the Brotherhood return to public life in practice, he threw fear into them. Advocate violence in Egypt; come out too openly against the regime; even become too successful and back to the concentration camps you go!
So the Brotherhood leadership, elderly and many of whom had been tortured and seen their colleagues hung, played it cool. They had no illusions about underestimating the strength of the regime. Yes, they said, the day of revolution will come but meanwhile we are in a long-term stage of da’wa, organize and educate. Patience is essential. Don’t make the regime too mad. Yes, hooray for killing Israelis and Americans! But at home keep the murders to a few too boldly open secularists.
There were, of course, young men who were too impatient. “Our leaders are cowards. They have betrayed the true word of Islam! Let us organize for a more imminent revolution, maybe even take up arms right now and shoot down the evil regime’s officials.” And they even gunned down Sadat himself. There were many such groups—one, Islamic Jihad, joined up with al-Qaida—but they had different views, mixes of strategies, and leaders. Some were almost sects with charismatic shaykhs.
Now they have blossomed forth, eager for violence and instant revolution. Their al-Nour party—which only represents part of this complex mix of groups that may or may not cooperate—got about 20 percent of the parliamentary vote.
Is the Brotherhood their friend or enemy? Should they raid police stations and blow up pipelines or not? Should they set up morality patrols and beat up young men walking with women and also women who aren’t dressed as the Salafists wish? There are many different views.
Sometimes the Brotherhood uses the Salafists as a convenient excuse. If Islamic Jihad lobs rockets and mortars at Israel, well—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—that isn’t the fault of Hamas is it? At times, the Salafists can furnish the Brotherhood with the needed storm troops though I would not suggest for a moment that the Brotherhood owns the Salafists. They are definitely two different groupings, but their interests can blend and the “radical” Salafists provide the “moderate” Brotherhood with a convenient excuse when one is needed.
One thing is clear though: the Salafists’ goal is the precise, exact same as that of the Brotherhood. The only question is how fast to go, how radical to talk, and how much violence to use.
And another thing is also clear: neither in Egypt, nor in Tunisia, nor in Gaza (where the Brotherhood is called Hamas) will the Salafists overthrow the Brotherhood people. We can be less sure about Syria where the balance of forces is not yet so clear.
Finally, we come to the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the Communist Party of Islamism. And you don’t have to take it from me; that was an idea expressed by the moderate, anti-Islamist brother of the Brotherhood’s founder.
The Brotherhood wants a Sharia state. It would like a caliphate (run by itself of course). It wants Israel wiped off the map and America kicked out of the Middle East. It wants women put into second-class citizenship and gays put into their graves. It wants Christians subordinated or thrown out. It wants all of these things.
And it will pursue these goals with patience and strategic cleverness. One step forward, one step back; tell the Western reporters and politicians what they want to hear. Pretend to be moderate in English while screaming death curses in Arabic.
These are the people who are coming to power. They hate their Shia counterparts generally and will kill them also at times. They will drag down their countries’ economies. Ironically, they will succeed in making Israel relatively stronger as they beat and burn and tear down; as they set back their countries economic advancement; as they kick half the population (the female) down the stairs.
They will lose. Just as the Communists did; just as the Nazis did; just as the Fascists and Japanese militarists did. But how many decades will it take? How many millions of people dead and injured? How much human potential and natural resources wasted?
And will Western policy make easier the ultimate triumph of moderation, moderation that includes millions of anti-Islamist Muslims and also includes lots of Middle Eastern Berbers, Kurds, Turks, Iranians, Druze, Christians and—yes—Israel. Or will the West make things harder, longer, and worse?
Of victory, I have no doubt. Of Western good sense, all too much uncertainty.
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3)Notice S.S.. and the military are NOT on this list
![[image]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-UI631_1growt_DV_20120828181342.jpg)
Getty Images
Russian Navy in Tartus
Russian naval vessels have unexpectedly departed the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus and Russian arms shipments to Syria have been suddenly discontinued. Military sources reveal those and other steps indicate Russians are rapidly drawing away from the Syrian arena to avoid getting caught up in the escalating hostilities expected to arise from military intervention by the US, Europe and a number of Arab states. Russian intelligence appears to have decided outside intervention is imminent and Moscow looks anxious to keep its distance for now.
According to military and Russian sources, drastic steps must have been personally ordered by President Vladimir Putin. He is believed to have acted over the objections of some of his army and naval chiefs. This would explain the mixed statements issuing from Moscow in recent days about the disposition of Russian personnel at the naval base in Tartus and Russian military personnel in Syria.
Wednesday, Aug. 22, Commander of the Russian Navy Vice Adm. Viktor Chirkov said that if the fighting in Syria reached Tartus, Moscow may decide to evacuate the base. He stressed that this decision would have to be taken on the authority of President Putin. He was the first Russian official to suggest the possibility of an evacuation.
A week later, Aug. 28, Russian chief of staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov denied anything had changed in the working procedures of Russian military personnel in Syria or that there were any plans to evacuate the Russian naval base in Tartus: "I think it's too early to draw conclusions [from the situation in Syria]," said the general. "No one is running away from there.”
When a Russian journalist pressed the general and ventured to ask whether Moscow was terminating its military involvement in Syria, Marakov retorted, “Why are you so worried about Syria?"
But he didn’t answer the question.
Military sources disclose Russians have taken five significant military steps with regard to Syria in the last two weeks:
1. They cancelled a large-scale naval exercise dubbed “Caucasus 2012” scheduled to start mid-August in the eastern Mediterranean opposite the Syrian coast;
2. Warships from three fleets - the Northern, Baltic and Black Sea – concentrated opposite Syria have dispersed and returned to their bases;
3. Syrian President Bashar Assad was notified that Moscow was halting military aid to his army - except for intelligence updates and advice on logistics from Russian military advisers;
4. Moscow has not clearly announced a freeze on arms shipments, including replacement parts for Russian weapons, which make up the bulk of the Syrian army's weaponry. Officials have only said, “There are no large Russian weapons shipments planned in the near future to Syria."
5. The only Russian naval ship left in Tartus - a floating Russian Navy PM-138 shipyard – is also under orders to depart Tartus and return to the Black Sea in September.
A Russian source disclosed all the remaining Russian personnel in Tartus have gathered on the floating shipyard, except for two officers on shore. This vessel and the remaining personnel are evidently packed up and ready to sail at any moment out of the Syrian port.
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5)OBAMA,C,GAORTECU'SHN AIO' NIZED
ONE OF THE GREAT mysteries of
modern politics was the high level of
union support for ObamaCare.
Government unions spent tens of millions
and used enormous political capital to
pass it, yet universal health care should
not be a core issue for unions because
most of their members have more than
adequate health care coverage.
So whythe overwhelming support?
Many commentators point to the
concessions President Obama gave to
the unions right before ObamaCare
passed in Congress in March 2010.
To solidify labor support, Obama
agreed to a seven-year moratorium
on taxingthe famed Cadillac health
care plans that many union members
receive-which increased the cost of
ObamaCare by $120 billion. But this
concession does not explain strong
union support that existed before the
President was even elected.
The real reason unions fell behind
ObamaCare is that the law throws
the door wide open for unionizing
most of a 2l-million-member health
care workforce. Right now only about
one and a half million ofAmerica's
health care workers are unionized,
less than 10% of the total. Many are
self-employed or work in small offices
and can't be unionized under current
plan is working great for the unionsby
nextyear, for example, only 33%;o
of doctors will be in private practice,
down from 57%in2OOO.
The second plan is to use a new
organizing model to unionize selfemployed
people like the remaining
health care workers in private practice.
Service Employees International
Union (SEIU), American Federation of
State, County & Municipal Employees
(AFSCME) and other government
employee unions have tested out this
OBAMACARE'S PASSAGE WIIL
MARK( THE BEGINNING OF
THE SECOND GREAT RISE OF
UNIONISM INAMERICA
such a simple plan, really.
unionized and forced to pay union
dues of almost a hundred dollars a
month, which are automatically deducted
by the government from their
payments.
The ObamaCare legislation dramatically
increases the number of
health care workers receiving payment
for their services under a government
program-whether from the growingnumber
of Medicaid patients or
from patients insured by governmentrun
insurance plans under the public
option. The government employee
unions can then enlist pro-union state
governments to treat these health care
workers as "government employees"
and unionize them just as they unionized
the care providers.
As we move closer to a singlepayer
system, many more health care
workers will be compensated through
government programs. Eventually
virtually all health care workers
(except perhaps Park Avenue plastic
surgeons) will receive at least part
of their compensation
from a government
payer and, using
union logic, can be
treated as "government
employees" who
can be unionized. It's
law.
But the unions have several plans organizingmodel on health care
to overcome this hurdle, with the ul- providers and in-home child care
timate goal of unionizing every health providers over the last decade. These
care worker in America. providersa rep artiallyo r fully paid
The first plan is to drive more doc- from government programs that subsitors,
nurses and other health care dize the cost oftheir clients'care. The
workers to fold their private practices unions' allies in state government use
into large hospitals. Once employed by the fact that these individuals receive
hospitals, health care workers can be payments under government pro-unionized
as private hospital workers grams to treat them as "government
or as government employees if they employees" who can be unionized. In
work for government hospitals. This ten states care providers have been
The stakes for the unions are huge.
For everymillion additional health
care workers unionized in the 27 nonright-
to-work states, the unions stand
to earn abillion dollars in dues.
When the history of the labor
movement is written, ObamaCare's
passage will mark the beginning of
the second great rise ofunionism
in America, to the detriment of the
American taxpayer.
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