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News/Politics 12-7-12

What’s news today?

How about this from the MidEast?

I actually found something I agree with President Obama on.

From CNN

“The United States warned Syria in no uncertain terms Monday not to use chemical weapons amid intelligence reports indicating President Bashar al-Assad‘s regime could be preparing to take that step as it escalates its fight against rebel forces.

“I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command — the world is watching,” President Barack Obama said during a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.

“The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable,” he said.

Obama has previously warned that any use of chemical weapons by Syria in its civil war would be crossing a “red line” that would prompt a swift U.S. response.”

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I just hope his response to the Islamic rebels possibly using them would be the same.

CONTENT WARNING FOR THE VIDEO!

From the SyriaTribune

“While President Obama is busy talking about Syria’s chemical weapons, a troubling video appears on YouTube yesterday showing what appears to be a rebel group testing chemical weapons on lab rabbits, and threatening to use them against Syrian civilians on a sectarian basis.”

“The video (see here) starts with several scenes showing chemical containers with Tekkim labels (Tekkim is a Turkish chemicals company) and some lab equipment, while playing Jihadists chants in the background. A glass box then appears with two rabbits inside, with a poster on the wall behind it reading The Almighty Wind Brigade (Kateebat A Reeh Al Sarsar). A person wearing a lab mask then mixes chemicals in a beaker in the glass box, and we see some gas emitting from the beaker. About a minute later, the rabbits start to have random convulsions and then die. The person says: You saw what happened? This will be your fate, you infidel Alawites, I swear by ALLAH to make you die like these rabbits, one minute only after you inhale the gas.”

I just hope they blame the right party if they are used by either.

These are scary times indeed.

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Meanwhile in Israel, we have a pot, meet kettle thing going.

From YNetNews

“Hamas official Ismail al-Ashqar said Thursday that the terrorist group is seeking a lawsuit at the International Criminal Court against Major-General Eitan Dangot, coordinator of government activities in the territories, for what it sees as his responsibility for the Gaza blockade.

“The blockade is a crime against humanity,” al-Ashqar said. “The crime is directed against women and children and that is why there is no other choice but to sue him as a war criminal.”

“Dangot’s office said in response that it does not respond to claims by a terrorist organization that hurts its own population and uses it as a human shield.”

So how is firing hundreds of rockets a day at civilian areas, targeting innocent civilians, not one as well Mr. Terrorist?

🙄

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It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

From Politico

“George Zimmerman is suing NBC, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.

The former neighborhood watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money on Thursday in Seminole County, outside Orlando.”

More on Zimmerman’s suit here from TheWashingtonPost

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So what do you think of this idea from Senator Rand Paul?

From RealClearPolitics

“SEN. RAND PAUL: I have yet another thought on how we can fix this. Why don’t we let the Democrats pass whatever they want? If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise them, let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes, let the president sign it and then make them own the tax increase. And when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes. Let’s don’t be the party of just almost as high taxes.”

He kinda has a point.

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And this last one is just really sad.

From TampaBay.com

“Even after Marie Freyre died alone in a nursing home 250 miles from the family in North Tampa that loved her, Marie’s mother had to fight to bring her home.

In March 2011, state child protection investigators took 14-year-old Marie from her mother, Doris Freyre, claiming Doris’ own disabilities made it almost impossible for her to care for Marie, who suffered from seizures and severe cerebral palsy. But a Tampa judge signed an order that Marie be returned to her mother, with in-home nursing care around the clock.

Florida health care administrators refused to pay for it, although in-home care can be demonstrably cheaper than care in an institution. Child welfare workers ignored the order completely.

Two months later, Marie was strapped into an ambulance for a five-hour trip to a Miami Gardens nursing home, as her mother begged futilely to go with her.

Marie died 12 hours after she arrived.”

27 thoughts on “News/Politics 12-7-12”

  1. The video was quite disturbing AJ. There is some question as to how Al Qaeda would be able to perfect a delivery system to inflict a significant number of casualties since you have to mix two chemicals together to get the reaction to work. If Saw Gunner were here, I am sure he could explain the delivery system better than I. If people are concerned, you can get biological respirators from your local safety supply house. My recommendation is a NBC filter for your respirator. It will also filter out radioactive particles in the air.

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  2. I’ve gotta say, I do like the Obamas’ 2012 Christmas card which a friend posted on FB yesterday.

    Cover shot is a great photo of Bo the dog (scarf around his neck dancing in the wind) prancing through the snow in front of the White House.

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  5. New jobs numbers are out.

    The unemployment rate has fallen to 7.7%.

    Sounds good right? Yeah, not so much. To quote one of the commenters over at ZeroHedge, “Numbers are like terrorists, if you torture them long enough, you can get them to say anything.”

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-07/146000-jobs-added-november-beat-expectation-85000-unemployment-rate-lower-77

    “Looks like Sandy was not an issue at all in the November jobs report which beat in both the number of jobs added, at 146,000 on expectations of 85,000, while the unemployment rate declined to 7.7% from 7.9%, where it was expected to post as well. Watch this space next month for prio revisions: September and October saw 49K downward revisions combined. November will suffer the same fate.”

    “Confused why the unemployment rate dropped? The same, favorite BLS adjustment – a drop in the labor force participation rate which declined by 0.2% to 63.6% once again, as the number of people out of the labor increased by over 540K to 88,883,000.”

    More fuzzy math. And another 1/2 million plus just joined the ranks of the uncounted, but still unemployed. It’s like magic, or something.

    🙄

    A look at the job breakdown by age is even worse.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-07/chart-day-jobs-additions-age-group-reveals-scariest-picture

    “While the GETCO algos care only about one thing: the headline NFP number derived by the establishment survey, the reality is that in November this number was strictly a divination of seasonal adjustments (which resulted in the typical for November 1.2 million “gain” in jobs), as well as who knows what other Sandy-related adjustments which the BLS has not broken down, the reality is that a more granular dig through the jobs data reveals a far uglier picture, especially for those in the prime working demographic between 25-54. This has been a sensitive issue for the pundits as ever since the arrival of the Obama administration, all the job gains have gone in the 55 and older job category as we now see age outsourcing, while jobs in the 55 and lower age group have imploded. Sure enough, the November data, when seen through the prism of the Household Survey’s age distribution, is frankly horrendous.

    First, what that granular data shows is that instead of a 146K gain in November, there was actually a drop of 114K jobs when broken down by worker “vintage.” But where it gets simply stupid, is that of the 4 age group buckets (16-19, 20-24, 25-54, and 55-69), the biggest gainer continued to be America geriatric work force, which added 177 jobs. As for that key segment of the workforce, the 25-54? Jobs here declined by a whopping 359K in November. And this is good news?”

    And lastly, what kind of jobs were they? Well, again, reality sucks.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-07/job-quality-vs-quantity-number-jobs-vs-average-hourly-earnings

    “In light of the composition of today’s NFP pickup, driven by retail, waste and administrative and hospitality and leisure, all low-wage jobs, even as Construction jobs posted their first decline in many months on the “housing recovery” and on Hurricane Sandy rebuilding, we refreshed the chart showing that there is a quality not just quantity component to the jobs number. Sadly, the quality, in the form of Y/Y change of average hourly earnings, continues to be non-existent.”

    So when you watch the network news later, and they tell you it’s all sunshine and roses, you’ll know better.

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  7. Question is Al Qaeda part of the groups fighting against Syrian Troops? If so why are we considering funding these rebels with ties to the very groups we are fighting against?
    “So how is firing hundreds of rockets a day at civilian areas, targeting innocent civilians, not one as well Mr. Terrorist?” Because the UN does not view their actions as terrorist nor does Mr. Obama, that is why they are trying to force Israel to surrender East Jerusalem to the terrorist.

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  10. Where did those “chemical weapons” come from? Saddam Hussein didn’t have them and didn’t ship them to Syria before the Americans got to Iraq.

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  12. I am not a lawyer so I don’t know the law, but, how can the US Government tax our tithes and gifts to our religion when that pesky old Bill of Rights is still the law? “The Congress shall make no….”

    I realize it is really convoluted but our tithes and gifts should come out of our income BEFORE we are taxed. We should be taxed on our income AFTER those are deducted.

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  13. Pastor Roy,

    The MSM will never figure out that Syria’s chemical weapons might have come from Iraq.

    “There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See:
    • According to the ‘Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings’ this proverb has been traced back to 1546 (John Heywood), and resembles the Biblical verse Jeremiah 5:21 (‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not’). In 1738 it was used by Jonathan Swift in his ‘Polite Conversation’ and is first attested in the United States in the 1713 ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’.

    The full saying is: ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know’ “

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  14. Michelle, granted, the picture has nothing to do with the holiday. But that’s exactly what would be expected, isn’t it? No news there. I wouldn’t expect a Christian themed Christmas card from the White House. 😉

    Perhaps President Bush (W) had more of an appropriate theme on their cards, I don’t remember. But I’d be stunned to see anything much different coming from the WH in 2012.

    So, assuming all that, it’s still a nice scene. 🙂 And I’m guessing the inside message is appropriately fluffy and vague and means next to nothing.

    But again, that’s exactly what I’d expect so I’m not really upset.

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  16. We’ve got to suffer through four more years of Obama, and then it will be eight years of Hillary. However, one way or another I intend to have a new home before Kanye West and Lindsay Lohan take office.

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  18. I doubt that the charity deduction will be eliminated. Too many powerful systems involved. From Planned Parenthood to Salvation Army; from Liberty University to Harvard. Almost everybody, Christian and atheist, contributes to some 401c3 organization. I doubt that they will get four congressional votes on that. Maybe some who are retiring.

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  22. the fun thing about the 2 cases, was one aruged that the States do not have the right to determine what marriage should look like, and the the other case aruged that the Federal Government does not have the right to determine what marriage should look like that it is up to the States.

    What I find strang is that the CA case was decided by a gay judge ruling on his own rights.

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  25. Assuming the end result of this debate is inevitable at this stage (and I suspect it is), it might be a relief to have it off the political radar altogether as a campaign issue, to be honest.

    Sorry (but not surprised) to see it go this way so quickly; I’ve been thinking for a few years now that this is a lost battle. I think by 2016 it’ll have long since been (politically/legally) decided in the courts. The fight, in that sense, then will simply be over with for now.

    (Although then you’ll have the ripple effect of religious rights butting heads with the new marriage “rights,” so that will be ongoing probably forever.)

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