Saturday, November 17, 2012

Obama Admin Gave Electric Car Battery Maker A123 Systems $1 Million The Day It Filed For Bankruptcy…

Nov. 17, 2012


Only in Obamaland.

(Reuters) – The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant.

The company, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after a rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group fell apart.

That same day, October 16, A123 received a $946,830 payment as part of its $249 million clean energy grant from the Energy Department, the company said in a letter, obtained by Reuters, to Republican Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley.

In the letter, dated November 14, A123 said the October payment was the most recent disbursement it had received from the government, with an additional $115.8 million still outstanding on the grant.

Thune and Grassley have pressed the Energy Department for more details about its funding of A123 as the company has faltered.

“The Department of Energy needs to answer for why it appears to put federal grants on auto-pilot to the detriment of U.S. taxpayers,” Senators Thune and Grassley said in a statement. “This can’t stand.”

source: weasel zippers

Bad news: Turns out it’s sexist and racist to criticize Susan Rice, who just happens to be a black woman, for giving bad information to the public

Instead of silence we'll just ramp it up tenfold. Suckers!

Nov 17, 2012

by Allahpundit


Hot Air:

Here’s the most cynical thing you’ll see on the Internet today. I’m tempted to call it stupid, but it’s not: The charge is stupid but it’s leveled in service to a clever goal, framing Rice’s prospective nomination as Secretary of State as a referendum on racism and sexism. McCain is the target for daring to suggest that she’s unqualified and maybe “not … very bright” for buying the White House’s early line on Benghazi, which required her to feed the public ridiculous disinformation about how “substantial” our nearly nonexistent security presence in Benghazi was. If you vote no at her confirmation hearing, it’s not because you want to send a message to O about not lying to Americans. It’s because you hate women and minorities. Republicans, in fact, have already started to tone down the attacks on her, whether because they don’t want to have to deal with this nonsense or because, more likely, they realize that Rice is a footnote to the larger Benghazi inquiry and they don’t want to get bogged down with her.

Two clips for you here, one of today’s press conference by House Democrats and one of Kirsten Powers (via the Daily Caller) demonstrating that not every liberal is willing to give the White House and its diplomatic corps a free pass to lie in the name of tolerance. She makes a good point in her op-ed today too: Why are liberals ignoring how badly Obama has treated Rice here? She had nothing to do with Benghazi, yet he plucked her from her post as ambassador to the UN, briefed her with defective intel, and then sent her out to do damage control as the face of the administration. Like I said yesterday, he could have sent Carney or Robert Gibbs or some other full-time flack but he chose Rice, I assume, because he wanted to leverage the extra gravitas of her position. She’s worked in diplomacy for years, yet now she’s famous chiefly for being the White House’s designated stooge in its biggest counterterrorism failure. Way to do right by a loyal deputy, champ. You’re a real feminist hero. Click here to watch.


HELP WANTED: Even More Useful Idiots Willing to Lose Their Jobs a Month Before Christmas Because of Unions Secret Plan

Hey union pawn: Think your picket lines won't be crossed? Try your luck!


Union scum will not control the family finances of the average American. Only that of the useful idiots who follow their direction.


Fox News: Walmart walkout: Workers mount Black Friday job action
Walmart employees began walking off the job this week in advance of Black Friday, when three-union backed groups expect thousands of protests nationwide.   MORE>


Twitchy: Walmart employees threaten Black Friday walkout; Others anxious to snatch up jobs, not bargains    More>


AP Issues ‘Correction’ After Calling Jerusalem ‘Israel’s Capital’

Nov. 17, 2012
The Blaze:

After initially referring to Jerusalem as “Israel’s capital,” The Associated Press on Friday issued a “correction” and called Jerusalem “Israel’s self-declared capital.”

The bizarre incident occurred on Twitter Friday morning. The AP first posted the following tweet from its official Twitter account:

“Air raid sirens wail in Jerusalem, signaling a possible rocket attack aimed at Israel’s capital: http://apne.ws/U3UaeK -KH.”



Then roughly a half hour later, the AP issued the “correction” tweet:

“Air raid sirens in Jerusalem signal a possible rocket attack aimed at Israel’s self-declared capital: http://apne.ws/ZXOoMR -KH (correction).”



In response to inquiries by Politico, AP spokesperson Paul Colford provided the following explanation:

The air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem after the start of the Jewish Sabbath in the holy city, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital and located about 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Gaza. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rocket landed in an open area southeast of the city.

From Politico:

Colford wrote that “it appears the alternate reference in copy (‘self-declared capital’) was viewed as a correction of an earlier reference (‘capital’), contained in a tweet based on a different writethru.”

[...]

“The decision was clearly made that explanatory language is best,” he wrote:

However, he did later admit that “labeling it a ‘correction’ was unnecessary.”

Twitter suspends American Orthodox Jew for tweeting anti-Obama cartoon about Israel

Nov. 17, 2012

The DC

Twitter.gov???



Without warning, Twitter suspended a series of three accounts owned by an Orthodox Jew from New York City Wednesday and Thursday, after one of them tweeted a cartoon depicting the Obama administration stabbing Israel in the back. The social media company refused to tell The Daily Caller if the cartoon was the reason it shut the accounts down.

Twitter also wouldn’t say why it hasn’t taken similar action against the terror group Hamas and its supporters for tweeting “Death to the Jews” and other threats of violence.

The suspended accounts, named @RealGazaPeace, @RealGazaPeace1 and @GazaRealStory, were all operated by 25-year-old Benjamin Reisman. “Social media sites have an awesome responsibility to keep to our right of free speech,” he told TheDC via email Friday.


He began tweeting this week with a single account, he said, adding a second and a third as Twitter canceled each one.

Only Reisman’s first account, however, tweeted the anti-Obama cartoon.


“Don’t worry Israel, Obama has your back,” Reisman tweeted Tuesday, linking to the image.

Many conservative American Jews have been critical of Obama for his positions on Israel, although the president captured roughly 70 percent of the overall Jewish vote on Nov. 6. His low-water mark may have come in November 2011 when an open microphone caught an exchange between Obama and France’s then-President Nicolas Sarkozy.


After Sarkozy was heard on the audio feed telling Obama that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is a liar,” Obama replied: “You’re fed up, but I have to deal with him every day.”

Still, Reismann told TheDC that he “should not have sent” the cartoon. But he added that he worries Twitter is applying its rules unevenly in a way that favors Hamas.

Archival records from Topsy.com show that at least 12 other Twitter users tweeted the same message with the same cartoon. None of the 12 TheDC identified has been suspended.

Twitter refused to tell TheDC why it suspended Reisman’s accounts, or whether they will be restored. “We don’t comment on individual accounts,” Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser said.

Under the heading “Violence and Threats,” Twitter’s published rules advise users that they “may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.”


The double standard for anti-Semitism


Reisman, however, doesn’t believe Twitter is serious about applying that rule to supporters of Hamas or other pro-Palestinian forces.

“Enter ‘Hitler,’ ‘Death to Jews’ or any similar search” on Twitter, Reisman told TheDC, “and the volume of tweets, hate-filled and promoting death and violence, is quite shocking. I would just hope this rule is equally enforced to both sides.”

As Hamas launches its weapons from Gaza into Israel, and the Israelis prepare what looks like a formidable ground force on its border, social media accounts have become a key communications tool that both sides in the conflict — and their advocates — are using to rally support.


The Israeli Defense Force and Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, engage their Twitter followers regularly with hyperbolic and aggressive language, but the tweets generally fall short of making specific threats because neither side wants to telegraph its moves to the other ahead of time.

In one notable exception Wednesday, the IDF warned Hamas operatives to stay out of harm’s way. Al-Qassam responded with a threat that its missile strikes and other military operations “reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are.”

We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) November 14, 2012]

@idfspokesperson Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are (You Opened Hell Gates on Yourselves)

— Alqassam Brigades (@AlqassamBrigade) November 14, 2012


The al-Qassam Brigades appear to have violated Twitter’s published Terms of Service on many occasions, including one example from April 2011 in which it called for a “New Holocaust” against Jews.

One Nation For New Holocaust, God willing. check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETt2FHdy8Kc&feature=player_embedded#at=55


— Alqassam Brigades (@AlqassamBrigade) April 7, 2011

Reisman told TheDC that three of his four grandparents were taken to concentration camps during World War II, “including stays in Auschwitz, Siberia and other camps.”

“I believe any threat to Jews, or areas with high Jewish population is never something to be taken lightly,” he said.

“When seeing all the baseless hate towards Israel, and calls for Hitler to come back and finish the job on Twitter, Twitter does not do anything (as perhaps they shouldn’t). However, when I try to support my people, and consistently get shut down[,] it makes me wonder if this is happening on a larger scale.”


additional editing: mine

A Lesson To Gaza

Play with fire, get burned!


See more results of Gaza's stupidity>>

Did Obama Cheat? How to Answer the Question

Nov. 17, 2012

There are 15 states with photo ID requirements for voting. Mr. Obama lost in all of them. In places with the weakest controls, specifically counties in Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, he generally drew turnouts in the 90% or greater range and won by better than 95% of the vote.

Losers tend to look for external explanations, and a lot of conservatives looking at numbers like those from Florida's St. Lucie County (where Mr. Obama got 247,713 votes from only 175,554 registered voters) are starting to question the legitimacy of the electoral results as reported. That's not good news for democracy, because the system works only if we trust it -- and having a majority in the GOP write off a minority who think the results were rigged serves nobody. Not even Democrats.

So what we need is an independent means of testing the electoral result.

The traditional way of doing this is, of course, to assume legitimacy, then gather anecdotal evidence of vote-cheating, promote that to sworn testimony through court proceedings, and hope for a conclusion from the adversarial process this generates. That's how we now know, for example, that Stevens was falsely prosecuted and Coleman beat Franken.

Great. Except that both Franken and Begich hold office, both voted for ObamaCare, and both will get generous federal pensions. Basically, the traditional approach may be effective, but it's also politically pointless...and inappropriate in today's context anyway, given that we need something a whole lot quicker. We need something, in fact, that can give us a clear result in time to decide whether there's a case to be made for asking the college of electors to overturn the nominal result when they vote on December 17.

One idea that might work would be to compare the results of an honest poll to the nominal results obtained in the election and then decide what the odds are that the differences, if any, reflect electoral fraud.

Given that there have been hundreds of polls, the most public of which roughly predicted the reported electoral outcomes, this may seem like a dumb idea. But it may not be so dumb -- and for two main reasons:

First: internal GOP polling based on face-to-face voter contact consistently contradicted the D+7 or more results predicted by the major media polls and subsequently demonstrated in the nominal electoral outcome.

This shouldn't happen; theory predicts that internal polls based on face-to-face interviews should produce better results than panel studies or public media polls -- and until the 2008 presidential election, they generally did.

Second: The major media pollsters face non-response problems that render their results indefensible in terms of normal statistical practices and standards. In consequence, those in charge of analyzing and reporting the data typically use complicated, but ultimately guesstimated, formulas, giving a kind of scientific patina to what are ultimately intuitive judgments about sub-sample weights -- and the closer the population proportions they're trying to estimate get to 50:50, the more these judgments affect the outcome, and the more risk the people involved take when they make those judgments.

As a result, the closer the contest is in reality, the more pressure these guys are under to follow the leader -- for competing pollsters to recursively adjust their weightings to invisibly move their results toward a consensus position.

Notice that this isn't conspiracy; it's a natural consequence of the costs and complexities of public polling in today's business environment. But it is an exploitable consequence, because someone who wants to drive the public media polling consensus toward a predetermined outcome need only lean on one of the market leaders to cause all of them to drift toward the intended conclusion.

Gallup published a poll close to what the GOP internals showed, found the DOJ joining what should have been a nuisance lawsuit against them, and adjusted its weightings to bring its results into line. We know these events happened; we do not know if they're related.

A public, national, face-to-face voter poll, using a simple set of questions and academically defensible statistical methods, would go a long way in clearing up the questions here. If the results strongly support the nominal electoral outcomes, we can be fairly confident, for example, that the election was broadly fair, that the GOP internal polls were wrong, and that the major media pollsters behaved honorably and correctly throughout.

If, on the other hand, our hypothetical national poll produces results that differ significantly from the nominal election results, it will largely rehabilitate the GOP internal results, cast significant doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Obama's claimed victory, and probably cause at least one of the major media pollsters to rethink its methods.

Notice, however, that this type of audit survey is a first cut at the problem -- more to see whether there is a real problem than to address it. Ultimately, only the more traditional methods will let us deal with issues like those raised by the disenfranchisement of (mostly GOP) service personnel and the enfranchisement of (mostly Democrat) illegals.

With that in mind, let's look at the mechanics of actually doing it -- but bear in mind, please, that there are many different ways of doing this, and what I'm suggesting here is intended to be illustrative, not prescriptive.

First we need to establish the universe: the target group whose population proportions we want to estimate. Since we're interested only in people whose votes were counted and we often don't know who they are, we'll start with the list of all registered voters -- a list we make by combining lists from all jurisdictions and not eliminating duplicates.

Next we need to establish the question. Since we want to know what percentage of registered voters voted for each presidential slate, the two core questions are:

1. Did you vote?

2. For which presidential slate?

If the nominal election results are broadly correct:
all of our respondents should be reachable at the addresses listed for them,
about 58% of our sample should report having voted;
about 30% of our sample should claim to have voted for Mr. Obama, and
about 28% of our sample should claim to have voted for Mr. Romney.

Any significant differences from that distribution will indicate fraud. Normal statistical methods can then be used to quantify both the likelihood and the significance of the fraud.

Next we need a sampling methodology -- in this case, we'll number our combined lists from one to whatever and use the computer's pseudo-random number capability to pick our interviewees.

The big issue is sample size. The determinants for this are:
Population or universe size: with well over 100 million voters, the statistical rules for infinite populations sampled without replacement apply.

How confident do we want to be that the population proportion estimates we produce are in the same ballpark as the answer we would get if we talked to everybody and tabulated those results?

The traditional confidence level targeted by pollsters is 95% -- meaning that if you did the sampling 20 times, you'd expect the people drawn to correctly reflect population means 19 times.

How close do we need to get to the real proportion? I.e., how big a ballpark can we live with?

The traditional polling answer is plus or minus 5% -- largely, incidentally, because pre-computer-age pollsters rejoiced in the happy coincidence that this precision combined with a 95% confidence level let clients jump to the conclusion that their ability to add the two numbers to get 100% meant they understood something and produced an easily memorable, easily squared z-statistic that just happened to work out to an even number.

In our case, the basic 95% confidence that our estimate is within 5% of the real number, given no more than 3% non-response, requires a sample of about 400; raising that to gain 99% confidence that our estimate is correct to within 3% requires a sample of about 1,900; and going for 99% confidence that our estimates are within 1% of reality would require a sample size of about 17,000.

So what we'll do is draw 17,000 names, draw 1,900 names from that list, and finally produce an initial sub-sampling of 400. We'll then interview those first 400, decide whether it's worth continuing, and, if so, continue to at least 1,840 successful interviews from the list of 1,900 names. Finally, we will re-evaluate again before either stopping or proceeding to the full 17,000.

Our next decisions involve interview methods. Since we cannot tolerate much non-response and do not want the interviewer to bias the result, we're going to:
cold call on the doorstep,
dispatch two interviewers on each call, and
ask only two questions:
did you vote? and
if so, for which presidential slate?

Teams will not ask the respondent to say which slate was preferred but will, instead, hand the respondent two cards or other tokens with instructions to keep one while placing the other in a box or other container proffered by the interviewer.

This process will be extremely expensive -- far more so than the telephone interviews conducted by the major media pollsters. As a very rough first guesstimate: getting the infrastructure in place quickly enough for the result to be meaningful and then carrying out the first 400 interviews will run upwards of $400,000, with total costs rising to the $2 million range if it is necessary to interview the full 17,000 sample.

What we're really proposing here is a first audit of the election result, and regardless of outcome, its primary value is in reducing uncertainty.

Right now, saying Obama cheated is about as credible as saying he didn't, so a positive result will go a long way to debunking various destructive conspiracy theories and thus contribute to the smooth functioning of American democracy. Conversely, a negative result will form a strong basis for multiple legal and political actions aimed at delegitimizing an illegitimate president.

Bottom line? Knowing is better than not knowing. So who's got three million bucks?


Source: Paul Murphy is the psuedonym used by a retired IT consultant now living in beautiful Lethbridge, Alberta.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: Helpful Foreign Policy Cheat Sheet

Nov. 17, 2012

A quick review -- and a reminder that elections have consequences.

• Libya is supplying Hamas with the most advanced weaponry it's ever had

Iran's Green Revolution was crushed by the Mullahs with the tacit approval of Barack Obama

Egypt -- an ostensible ally of the U.S. and Israel -- was thrown under the bus by Barack Obama, ceding control of the country to the erstwhile Nazi-aligned Muslim Brotherhood

Algeria and Tunisia are likewise aligning with Al Qaeda

Jordan, Israel's last regional ally -- is also about to fall

• And Turkey, once a secular and stabilizing force in the Middle East, is now succumbing to a radical brand of Islamism. Even better: it's a member of NATO

Israel is surrounded.

And where is Barack Obama as the rockets fall on Jerusalem, Tel Avis and Sderot?

Who knows? If you have Beyonce or Jay-Z's cell numbers, perhaps we could find out.

Say a prayer for Israel tonight.

And remember: if Israel falls, we're next.


source: Doug Ross

Congressional Lag

Nov. 17, 2012

Congressional Report Tells Us What Many Have Known For Several Years:

Hizballah a Border Threat

The United States border with Mexico remains open to exploitation by Hizballah and other Islamic terror groups that have aligned themselves with Mexican drug cartels, a report released Wednesday by a House Homeland Security Committee subcommittee finds.

The report, "A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border" warns that increasing ties between Middle East terrorist groups and Mexican drug cartels allows terrorists to enter the United States undetected.

"This is an area that has gone largely ignored and overlooked, and yet it is right in our backyard," subcommittee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas., said during the hearing. "We talk about the Middle East a lot and we talk about North Africa and Egypt and Libya, and yet something's happening not too far from here that I think the American people have no idea the threat level that it presents to us."

Intelligence gathered during the 2011 raid of Osama bin Laden's compound showed that al-Qaida contemplated using operatives with valid Mexican passports to enter the United States to conduct terror operations.

"… [T]he U.S.-Mexican border is an obvious weak link in the chain. Criminal elements could migrate down the path of least resistance and with them the terrorists who continue to seek our destruction," the report says.

Existing weapons and human smuggling networks along the Mexican border give terrorists confidence that they will be able to plan and execute major terror attacks that require a long-term presence in the United States, the report says.

McCaul led a fact-finding mission to the Tri-border region of South America of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina to see the Hizballah threat first-hand, concluding that Iran and Hizballah pose a serious threat to the U.S. southern border.

"What we are seeing here is a marriage between Hizballah, the [Iranian] Quds Force and these drug cartels," McCaul said.

A substantial link between Hizballah and the drug cartels was exposed in the indictment of Ayman "Junior" Joumaa, a Lebanese national who was accused of selling 85,000 kilos of cocaine to Mexico's Los Zetas drug cartel from 2005 to 2007.

"This nexus potentially provides Iranian operatives with undetected access into the United States," the report says.

"If there is, God forbid, a strike from Israel into Iran, the retaliation will be certain, and it will be swift, not just against Israel, but in the entire Middle East, and it will also expand into this hemisphere," McCaul said. "It will light up Hizballah operatives I think in Latin America; it will also activate Hizballah cells in the United States."


Source: IPT

Medical Supply Giant Stryker Cuts 1,170 Workers – Cites Obamacare

Nov. 17, 2012
by Jim Hoft



The Gateway Pundit:

Medical supply giant Stryker announced they would lay off 1,170 workers citing the costs associated with Obamacare. By the end of the year, Michigan-based Stryker Corporation should complete its downsizing, which will result in the shuttering of two Western New York operations.

FOX News reported:

Medical supply giant Stryker is the latest company to announce job cuts in anticipation of coming costs associated with ObamaCare, even though the man who inherited a fortune from the company’s founder is a fan.

The company will cut 1,170 jobs, or five percent of its worldwide workforce, despite the fact that the founder’s grandson was one of the largest contributors to President Obama’s re-election campaign. Medical tech scion Jon Stryker, whose net worth is currently estimated at $1.2 billion, contributed $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC and has given $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party. Stryker does not run the company.

A “medical device excise tax” included in the mandate imposes a 2.3 percent levy on medical device manufacturers and suppliers, which critics say will raise prices on everything from pacemakers to prosthetics to stents. Companies will be required to pay the tax regardless if they have a profit or loss for the year. The tax is estimated to cost the medical device industry $20 billion.

House Republicans tried to have the tax repealed, drafting a bill called the Protect Medical Innovation Act, but the Democrat-controlled Senate has blocked the measure.

“The targeted reductions and other restructuring activities are being initiated to provide efficiencies and realign resources in advance of the new Medical Device Excise Tax scheduled to begin in 2013, as well as to allow for continued investment in strategic areas and drive growth despite the ongoing challenging economic environment and market slowdown in elective procedures,” Stryker spokeswoman Yin Becker told FoxNews.com. “The reductions and restructuring activities are expected to be substantially complete by the end of 2012.”

Anonymous Online Hacker Group Sides With Hamas – Takes Down 550 Israeli Websites

Nov. 17, 2012
by Jim Hoft

The Gateway Pundit:

Anonymous, the online hacker group, sided with Hamas this week and declared war on Israel. The radical leftist group bragged today that they brought down over 550 Israeli websites and leaked email addresses and passwords.

The Next Web reported:

When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week began taking military action in the Gaza strip against Hamas (as the IDF announced on Twitter), Anonymous declared its own war as part of #OpIsrael. Among the casualties are thousands of email addresses and passwords, hundreds of Israeli web sites, government-owned as well as privately owned pages, as well as databases belonging to the Bank of Jerusalem and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


PREDICTION: Obama Will Try To Argentinize Business Within The Next Year

Nov. 17, 2012

What do I mean by "Argentinize"?

Read the post, you'll see.

"America": The Unions Win!!! Protect The Working Man - Hostess Goes Out Of Business, Laying Off 18,500 Workers


This is a cause for celebration in Bronco Bama's "America".

The Working Man's cause has been championed and the Unions have won.

From Fox:

IRVING, Texas - Say goodbye to your Twinkies.

North Texas-based Hostess Brands, Inc. has decided to go out of business and liquidate its assets after failing to win back striking workers. The company posted a statement on a website set up specifically for people following the strike.

"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," said Gregory F. Rayburn, chief executive officer.

"Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders."
You see how that works.

Meanwhile, the Unions, who I may remind, do what they do in the interests of the Working Man, are starting in on the nation's largest employer (other than Bronco Bama) Wal-Mart:

WAL-MART workers plan 'Black Friday' walkout...

With any luck, now, the Unions can force Wal-Mart out of business too.

NICO (WHO LIVES IN ARGENTINA) LEFT A VERY IMPORTANT COMMENT. I THINK IT IS LIKELY WE WILL SEE THIS HAPPEN WITHIN THE NEXT YEAR:

Starting to sound a lot like Argentina. Here though the government can force you to keep your company running since shutting it down could land you in prison.

People here say the government doesn't understand how business works. I am sure they do. But they also understand how to REDISTRIBUTE wealth. Unions are the best way to do that. Unions have the power to bankrupt a company (and they do), but here the government has the power to force the company to remain open to every last dime that the evil rich guy had gets distributed!


Source: TAB

THIS IS THE KIND OF STUFF THAT THE SCUM CODE PINK SUPPORTS ALL THE TIME

Nov. 17, 2012

NYTIMES:

Masked gunmen in Gaza summarily executed a man here on Friday as a suspected collaborator with Israel on the third day of its deadly aerial bombardments, shooting him multiple times and leaving his body beneath a billboard featuring a Hamas fighter holding a rocket.

SO, WHY DOES CODE PINK SUPPORT HAMAS AND OPPOSE ISRAEL - EVEN THOUGH ISRAEL HAS GENDER EQUALITY AND FREE SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND GAZA DOES NOT?



SIMPLE:

CODE PINK SUPPORTS HAMAS BECAUSE HAMAS OPPOSES ISRAEL, THE USA AND JUDEO-CIVILIZATION, AND DESTROYING JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR CODE PINK -AND THE REST OF THE POSTMODERN LEFT.

IF THEY REALLY SUPPORTED HUMAN RIGHTS, THEN THEY'D SUPPORT ISRAEL.


Source: TAB

Is Petraeus Scandal an Obama Scandal?

Nov. 17, 2012


(Accuracy In Media) - The news media are continuing to try to protect the Obama administration from a rapidly growing scandal. A November 13th article in The Washington Post by Scott Wilson argued that Obama “has been untouched by the unfolding investigation involving former CIA director David Petraeus,” a view that belongs on the opinion page under the heading, “wishful thinking,” not on the news pages.

The stunning news from November 9th that CIA Director David Petraeus had resigned over an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, a former Army intelligence officer and a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has become the source of numerous theories and psychological questioning of what makes powerful people tick. But it is actually proving to be a second shot at what should have been treated as a major Obama administration scandal prior to the November 6th election, the situation surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 this year, as I argued in a column last week.

Why, in light of two previous attacks this year on our consulate in Benghazi, did we keep it open, and not provide the added security that Ambassador Chris Stevens pleaded for? Why, knowing that he was on an al-Qaeda hit list, was our consulate not better protected, especially in light of a secret August 16th cable he sent to Hillary Clinton’s office at the State Department pointing out that there were “approximately ten Islamist militias and AQ training camps within Benghazi?” Why did the administration for weeks try to argue that this was the result of a spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand, which was, as Susan Rice called it, a copy-cat demonstration of the one earlier in the day in Egypt, supposedly over a little seen anti-Muslim video trailer made in the U.S.?

The bar for what is considered a scandal was cited in an Atlantic Wire article last year, as being when the word “scandal” is on the front page of The Washington Post. In the case of Obama, according to this definition, even Operation Fast & Furious and Solyndra didn’t qualify as scandals.

The Post’s Scott Wilson wrote that the Petraeus “scandal hinges on a personal relationship beyond the White House and has not implicated the president or his closest advisers.” That is where Wilson, the Post and most of the media have missed the big picture.

The Post reported on the front page on November 13th that Petraeus had planned to continue in his job as CIA director if his affair with Broadwell did not go public, and he was apparently led to believe it would not go public.

Charles Krauthammer, a columnist for the Post, in his role as a Fox News analyst, saw that information as being very revealing: “It meant that he understood that the FBI obviously knew what was going on…and that he understood that his job, his reputation, his legacy, his whole celebrated life was in the hands of the administration, and he expected they would protect him by keeping it quiet.”

Krauthammer continued: “And that brings us to the ultimate issue, and that is his testimony on September 13. That’s the thing that connects the two scandals, and that’s the only thing that makes the sex scandal relevant. Otherwise it would be an exercise in sensationalism and voyeurism and nothing else. The reason it’s important is here’s a man who knows the administration holds his fate in its hands, and he gives testimony completely at variance with what the Secretary of Defense had said the day before, at variance with what he’d heard from his station chief in Tripoli, and with everything that we had heard. Was he influenced by the fact that he knew his fate was held by people within the administration at that time?”

Now that the Petraeus adultery scandal has emerged, it is bringing all these issues to the forefront, with an emboldened Republican Party that doesn’t believe the President when he says he knew nothing about the Petraeus affair until the day after the election. It’s not just Republicans, as many in the media are just as incredulous. Ron Kessler, for example, a former reporter for The Washington Post, now with Newsmax, wrote the day following Petraeus’s resignation, “FBI agents on the case expected that Petraeus would be asked to resign immediately rather than risk the possibility that he could be blackmailed to give intelligence secrets to foreign intelligence agencies or criminals. In addition, his pursuit of the woman could have distracted him as the CIA was giving Congress reports on the attack on the Benghazi consulate on Sept. 11.”

Kessler has written several books on the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, and is known to have excellent sources inside the FBI. He added that “FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.”

It is just not believable that Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the affair and the investigation in late summer, and the FBI knew about it at least since May, yet the President was kept in the dark that his CIA director was under investigation. If that is what happened, then heads should roll for incompetence, and leaving the head of the CIA in a vulnerable position while the President of the United States was unaware.

Holder finally offered an explanation publicly on November 15th. He said the Justice Department does “not share outside the Justice Department, outside the FBI, the facts of ongoing investigations.” He said he “made the determination as we were going through that there was not a threat to national security.” As the Post reported, “Because of that conclusion there was no reason to advise officials outside the department before the investigation was complete.”

Apparently he felt it was finally complete enough to go to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr. on late afternoon of Election Day. Clapper then told the President the following day. But then how is it that it was only this week, on November 12th, that the FBI went to Ms. Broadwell’s home to search her computer for classified materials? It is those sorts of questions that make it implausible that an investigation to figure out if this posed a national security threat would not have been brought to the attention of the President.

Today, Petraeus went before the House and Senate Intelligence committees to clarify how the message of what the administration knew and when they knew it became so tangled. The issue was attempting to square what he was said to have told Congress back on September 13th with what is now known to be the case. Back then, it was reported that Petraeus said the attack on the consulate resulted from a demonstration, akin to a “flashmob,” sparked by the anti-Islam video, and not a planned terrorist act.

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that Petraeus claimed that he had said early on that the attack on the consulate was a result of terrorism. But King seemed puzzled, saying that he remembered Petraeus playing down the role of an al-Qaeda affiliate during his September 13th testimony.

According to Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV) of the House Intelligence Committee, who attended Petraeus’s September 13 appearance and today’s, the initial talking points that the CIA released went through an editing process before being given to UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who addressed the media on the Sunday following the attack. Heck said they didn’t know for sure who edited the talking points, but President Obama said at his press conference on Wednesday that Rice “made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.”

In other words, President Obama was taking the credit for whatever “presentation” Rice made during her talk show appearances. Rep. Heck told Fox News, “The initial talking points, which were put together in an unclassified format at the request of the House Intelligence Committee initially did state that al-Qaeda affiliated groups were involved, however, we understand that by the time it went through its editing process after it left Langley (CIA), that reference was taken out.” He added that Petraeus made clear and emphasized this morning that “the initial intelligence reporting which stated that the incident grew out of a spontaneous demonstration or protest was proven to be false. There was no protest outside the gates prior to the attack starting. And that became apparent after the interviews of individuals that were at the compound as well as after being able to view the surveillance videotape of the embassy outpost.”

Was Petraeus changing his story and no longer parroting the White House’s line? That remained unclear, but it certainly appears that he changed his tune. Another oddity was the timing of an announcement by the CIA on Thursday, the day before Petraeus would be talking to the committees for the first time since his resignation, that the CIA inspector general would be conducting an investigation into his conduct. Another warning to toe the party line?

On that same day, Andrea Mitchell raised the question of Petraeus’s responsibility in an interview with Democratic Senator Kent Conrad. “What is David Petraeus’s responsibility for this?” asked Mitchell. “There is some suggestion that General Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, was already concerned that the CIA was putting out its defense without checking with other agencies for the way Benghazi was handled. And also that the White House is not happy with the CIA for giving talking points to Susan Rice that got her into this political difficulty on the Sunday morning talk shows. Do you think the agency should bear some responsibility or is this scapegoating after the fact?” Even Sen. Conrad was amused by Mitchell’s spin.

It remains to be seen how this plays out. Republicans are calling for a Watergate-type select committee, meaning that instead of Armed Services, Intelligence and Homeland Security each holding separate hearings, there would be one committee with members from each of those committees represented. Also, the lead would come from the House, rather than the Senate, which would leave the Republicans in charge to determine the witnesses and schedule, rather than having Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once again running interference for the Obama White House.

This is not what President Obama had in mind for his second term in office.

Obama To Unleash Racial-Preferences Juggernaut

                                 
(IBD Editorial) - If your organization has a policy or practice that doesn't benefit minorities equally, watch out: The Obama administration could sue you for racial discrimination under a dubious legal theory that many argue is unconstitutional.

President Obama intends to close "persistent gaps" between whites and minorities in everything from credit scores and homeownership to test scores and graduation rates.

His remedy — short of new affirmative-action legislation — is to sue financial companies, schools and employers based on "disparate impact" complaints — a stealthy way to achieve racial preferences, opposed 2 to 1 by Americans.

Under this broad interpretation of civil-rights law, virtually any organization can be held liable for race bias if it maintains a policy that negatively impacts one racial group more than another — even if it has no racist motive and applies the policy evenly across all groups.
Equal Outcomes

This means that even race-neutral rules for mortgage underwriting and consumer credit scoring potentially can be deemed racist if prosecutors can produce statistics showing they tend to result in adverse outcomes for blacks or Latinos.

Already, Attorney General Eric Holder has used the club of disparate-impact lawsuits to beat almost $500 million in loan set-asides and other claims out of the nation's largest banks.

In addition to the financial settlements — which include millions in funding for affordable-housing activists — Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust have all agreed to adopt more minority-friendly lending policies.

Though the administration seeks equal credit outcomes, regardless of risk, across the entire banking industry, it doesn't have to sue every bank to achieve its goal. As a prophylactic against similar prosecution, IBD has learned the American Bankers Association recently advised its 5,000 members to give rejected minority loan applicants a "second look," which it says "can result in suggested changes in underwriting standards."

Also, the administration sent a chill through the financial industry earlier this year when it announced its new credit watchdog agency will join Justice, as well as HUD, in using the disparate-impact doctrine to enforce civil-rights laws.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray warned companies the agency will "protect consumers from unfair lending practices — as well as those that have a disparate impact on communities of color." He added:

"That doctrine is applicable for all of the credit markets we touch, including mortgages, student loans, credit cards and auto loans," as well as small-business loans.
Hiring Criminals

For the first time, the nation's consumer credit reporting agencies, including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, will come under federal review. CFPB examiners will subject these companies and others to an "effects test" to make sure credit transactions are racially balanced.

Those who reject minority applicants for credit cards or charge them higher loan rates had better be prepared to prove to Cordray's diversity cops they aren't racist. Many have already decided it's safer to give black and Latino applicants preferential treatment, which of course is racism of another kind.

Other targets of the administration's "racial justice" juggernaut include: standardized academic testing, professional licensing examinations, employee background checks, voter ID requirements, student disciplinary codes, prison sentencing guidelines — you name it.

The goal is to equalize outcomes based on race without regard for performance or merit.

According to Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, President Obama is committed to "aggressively pushing the 'disparate impact' approach to civil-rights enforcement" through which "the federal government insists that the numbers come out right — even if it means that policemen and firefighters cannot be tested, that companies should hire criminals, that loans must be made to the uncreditworthy, and that — I kid you not — whether pollution is acceptable depends on whether dangerous chemicals are spread in a racially balanced way."

Last month, moreover, the Education Department pressured the Oakland school district to impose "targeted reductions" in the number of black students suspended.

The department charged that Oakland's disciplinary policy has a "disparate impact" on African-American students, who are suspended at higher rates for violent behavior.

The Oakland case is the first of some 20 such investigations of school districts across the U.S. "The Obama administration is pressuring school districts not to suspend violent or disruptive black students if they have already disciplined 'too many' black students," said Competitive Enterprise Institute counsel Hans Bader.

Education is also investigating a "disparate impact" complaint recently filed by the NAACP alleging the entrance exam used by selective New York City high schools illegally discriminates against blacks.

Through disparate impact suits, Holder has forced banks to adopt racial lending quotas and even open branches in minority neighborhoods.

He's authorized five more lending-discrimination suits, while opening another 30 investigations against banks. And he's just getting warmed up.

"The question is not does (affirmative action) end, but when does it begin?" Holder said in February at a Columbia University forum. "When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?"

Banks had hoped the Supreme Court would declare his actions unconstitutional.

But a landmark disparate-impact case was scuttled at the last minute this year when the petitioner withdrew it under pressure from Holder's civil-rights chief.

Congress is probing the unusual arm-twisting — which included what appears to be a corrupt quid-pro-quo bargain — that led to the case being dropped.

Most agree that had the Magner v. Gallagher case gone forward, the high court would have struck down the use of disparate impact and effectively shut down the administration's witch hunt against lenders.

On the campaign trail, Obama was mum about his disparate-impact strategy and rarely talks at all about race.

He's no doubt aware of polling in his last presidential bid which found 56% of voters harbored fears he'd favor African-Americans. But his 2006 writings inform us.

To close the "stubborn gap that remains between the living standards of black, Latino and white workers," then-Sen. Obama proposed "completing the unfinished business of the civil rights movement — namely, enforcing nondiscrimination laws in such basic areas as employment, housing and education."

He added: "The government, through its prosecutors and its courts, should step in to make things right."



*originally posted November 8th, 2012 at investors.com

Here comes Obama’s Socialist transformation of America. “Obama Begins Push for New National Retirement System” to “Redistribute the Wealth”.

Nov. 17, 2012


Barack Hussein Obama has been totally consistent throughout his entire life in promoting his Marxist/Socialist ideas but most people who voted for him never found out because his state run news media supporters covered up for him and never published anything to cause B.O. embarrassment. During his first campaign in 2008 he promised to "fundamentally transform America", but nobody asked him what he meant. But even before that, Obama was speaking about redistributing the wealth, the hallmark of Socialism. Here he is in October 19, 1998 at Loyola University.



Now he wants to grab everyone's 401K and IRA retirement plans, because "they are unfair to poor people", and share the wealth. The questions that have been coming up lately about the expected Civil War that will soon break out have only been concerned up to now with what specific incident will provoke it. We have long believed it would be the attempt to confiscate privately owned firearms but now it could be the day that Obama succeeds in nationalizing our pension plans and have our 401K's and IRA's wiped out. Of course, those retirement plans for his union buddies will probably get exemption waivers just like they got for his Obamacare.


From: National Seniors Council
Obama Begins Push for New National Retirement System


A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA’s and 401k plans, NSC is warning.

The hearing, held in the Labor Department’s main auditorium, was monitored by NSC staff and featured a line up of left-wing activists including one representative of the AFL-CIO who advocated for more government regulation over private retirement accounts and even the establishment of government-sponsored annuities that would take the place of 401k plans.

"This hearing was set up to explore why Americans are not saving as much for their retirement as they could," explains National Seniors Council National Director Robert Crone, "However, it is clear that this is the first step towards a government takeover. It feels just like the beginning of the debate over health care and we all know how that ended up."

A representative of the liberal Pension Rights Center, Rebecca Davis, testified that the government needs to get involved because 401k plans and IRAs are unfair to poor people. She demanded the Obama administration set up a "government-sponsored program administered by the PBGC (the governments’ Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation)." She proclaimed that even "private annuities are problematic."

Such "reforms" would effectively end private retirement accounts in America, Crone warns. "These people want the government to require that ultimately all Americans buy these government annuities instead of saving or investing on their own. The Government could then take these trillions of dollars and redistribute it through this new national retirement system."

Deputy Treasury Secretary J. Mark Iwry, who presided over the hearing, is a long-time critic of 401k plans because he believes they benefit the rich. He also appears to be one of the Administration’s point man on this issue.

"This whole issue is moving forward very quickly," warns Crone. "Already there is a bill requiring all businesses to automatically enroll their employees in IRA plans in which part of every employee’s paycheck would be automatically deducted and deposited into this account. If this passes, the government will be just one step away from being able to confiscate all these retirement accounts."

NSC has taken the lead in warning the nation about this new government onslaught and is plotting ways to stop it.

"This effort ultimately is designed to grab the retirement nest eggs of America’s senior citizens. This new government annuity scheme, even if it is at first optional, will turn into a giant effort to redistribute the wealth of America’s older citizens," explains Crone. "This scheme mirrors what I expect the President will try to do with Social Security. He wants to turn that program into a welfare program, too."

NSC will likely unveil a new grassroots campaign effort later this year or early in January to coincide with the seating of the new Congress.



source: Old Ironside

Friday, November 16, 2012

EXCLUSIVE Rep Jesse Jackson, Jr Won’t Resign Until He Gets Disability Pay for Life

Nov. 16, 2012



CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Sources tell FOX 32 News that Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is willing to give up his 2nd Congressional District seat if he's given disability when he steps down.

Jackson Jr. was re-elected to his tenth term but last month, sources say, he applied for a disability package--what could be his only income if he resigns. It is expected to take a couple of weeks for Congress to approve or deny the request.

His house on 72nd Street in Chicago is part of the federal government's investigation into allegations that Jackson Jr. misused campaign funds. Sources say Jackson allegedly spent $20,000 to renovate and buy furniture for the family's home in Chicago, not their 5-bedroom Victorian home in Washington D.C.

The basement in the Chicago home has five televisions and a number of printers and copying machines, sources say. Most of the equipment was purchased in the mid-90's when Jackson was first elected, but because of flooding a couple of years ago, most, if not all, was replaced.

Sources close to the family tell FOX 32's Darlene Hill that the congressman may be reporting the use of the space in the basement as his campaign headquarters.

FOX 32 called the House Ethics Committee in D.C. and while they would not comment specifically on Jackson's case, the federal campaign finance law states, "a campaign committee may not rent space in the candidate's home."

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the congressman's wife, Alderman Sandi Jackson, is now being investigated because she is a consultant for Jackson's campaign operation and is paid monthly. Sources say that the alderman met with the Justice Department one time and was asked a couple of questions unrelated to any federal investigation involving her or her husband.

A Rolex watch is also part of the case against the congressman. Our sources say that the federal agents want to know where Jackson got $42,000 to pay for the watch he purchased for the woman he was having an affair with.

Denny's to Charge 5% 'Obamacare Surcharge'

Nov. 16, 2012

Denny's to charge 5% 'Obamacare surcharge' and cut employee hours to deal with cost of legislation

President Obama's election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power - but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.

Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny's and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills and will reduce his employees' hours.

With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is 'the only alternative. I've got to pass on the cost to the customer.'


A Florida restaurant owner who runs 40 franchises of the Denny's restaurant chain has threatened to add a five percent surcharge to customers bills in an effort to combat Obamacare
The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, 'that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.'

Claiming that he is not anti-insurance Metz has said that he understands the problems this will cause for his employees.

John Metz also owns Hurricane Grill & Wings which has 48 franchises around the country and falls under the umbrella of his firm RREMC Restaurants
'I think it's a terrible thing. It's ridiculous that the maximum hours we can give people is 28 hours a week instead of 40,' said Metz to the Huffington Post.

'It's going to force my employees to go out and get a second job.'

Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.

The program mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours a week are covered under their employers health insurance plan, chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are already considering reduced worker hours.

'Obviously, I'd love to cover all our employees under that insurance,' said Metz.

'But to pay $5,000 per employee would cost us $175,000 per restaurant and unfortunately, most of our restaurants don't make $175,000 a year. I can't afford it.'

Obamacare supporters and protesters gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to find out the ruling on the Affordable Health Act June 28, 2012 - the Court upheld the controversial legislation
Several other restaurants including Papa John's, Apple Metro and Jimmy John's have announced plans to skirt Obamacare by reducing employees hours to make them part-time.

Indeed, Metz is adding the surcharge because he believes that eventually firms will be fined for not covering staff who complete over 30-hours in a week,

In November, a poll for Kaiser Health Tracking found that 43 percent of the United States had a favourable opinion of Obamcare, while 39-percent had an unfavourable one.

'Instead of indirectly charging customers by raising prices, he is directly charging and making a political statement,' said Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington.

Here to stay: President Barack Obama's landmark health care legislation has been cemented into law by his re-election
'Potentially 43 percent of this person's customers may find the explicit charge a turnoff, and vote with their feet and their money and choose not to eat there.'

Despite this, Metz has admitted he is willing to take the heat should the decision backfire on him.

'We're trying to get more restaurant operators rallied around the concept of adding a 5 percent surcharge to their bill to cover the costs of Obamacare as opposed to raising prices,' he said.

Earlier this week Papa John's CEO John Schnatter told shareholders in a conference call this week that Obamacare would cost the company 11 to 14 cents per pizza, a cost that would be passed on to customers.


source: uk daily mail

BBC Calls Tel Aviv Israel's Capital, Not Jerusalem

Nov. 15, 2012
by Ben Shapiro


Breitbart.com:

Today, BBC News tweeted that Tel Aviv was the capital of Israel. Jerusalem, of course, is the capital of Israel. But, mirroring the Obama administration’s hesitance to declare Israel’s capital Jerusalem, the BBC instead tweeted:




The BBC, which is massively anti-Israel in its coverage, has repeatedly refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. During the Olympics, the BBC refused to list Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, drawing a caustic response from the Israeli government.

Obama´s Jonestowns

Nov. 16, 2012

By Jack Cashill

At first, the numbers seemed too absurd to be true: did Mitt Romney really receive zero votes in 59 Philadelphia voting districts? Did Barack Obama really outpoll him by a combined 19,605 to 0 votes cast in these 59 districts.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which has no interest in deceiving, the answer is yes. Immediately, one suspects some element of fraud, but fraud isn't the real issue here. Obama was producing nearly comparable numbers in inner-cities throughout America, especially those in contested states.

Worse than fraud is the process that turned nearly 20,000 black Philadelphians -- and millions of inner-city dwellers throughout the country -- into automatons. Hope does not produce this kind of regimentation. Fear does. In looking at these numbers, in fact, one can begin to see how, 34 years ago this Sunday, in the jungles of Guyana, Jim Jones was able to persuade 918 of his followers, most of them poor and black, to drink their lethal Kool-Aid. Fear can do that.

Not surprisingly, it was while at college -- Indiana U -- that Jim Jones got his first injection of Marx, and he was hooked from the beginning. Given that promoting communism in 1950's Indianapolis held about as much promise as promoting traditional marriage in contemporary San Francisco, Jones took another tack. "I decided how can I demonstrate my Marxism," he would recount years later. "The thought was 'infiltrate the church.'"

In 1955 he and his wife Marceline did just that, opening the Peoples Temple Christian Church in Indianapolis. Here, Jones embarked on a second strategy, this one a proven winner in Communist circles: exploit America's Achilles heel, racial injustice. This he did as well, recruiting hundreds of Christian blacks and then subtly shifting their focus from Jesus to Marx, all the while reinforcing their fear of White America. In 1965, he moved the whole shebang to Ukiah, about 100 miles north of San Francisco up Highway 101.

By 1970, the Peoples Temple had shed all but the illusion of Christianity. "We are not really a church," one of the leaders confided to Debbie Layton, a Jonestown survivor, "but a socialist organization. We must pretend to be a church so we're not taxed by the government."

Layton remembers Jones explaining "how those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought into enlightenment -- socialism." In his own reminisces, Jones called religion "a dark creation" of the oppressed. Salvation would come through other channels. "Free at last, free at last," he led his temple comrades in prayer, "Thank socialism almighty we will be free at last."

Faux Christian that he was, Jones pioneered the "social justice" mission. To be clear, though, he had no real interest in helping black people than do contemporary liberals. They provided his base, his path to power. As in today's Democratic Party, the hierarchy was almost exclusively white and female, many of whom Jones had raped. A sexual progressive, Jones raped his white male followers as well.

Like so many Democrats, Obama among them, Jones worked to aggravate race relations in America, not improve them. To that end, Jones had his people write hateful, racist letters and attribute them to lesser white people. Obama likewise worked to intensify the fears of black America, as he famously did at Hampton University in June 2007, when he reminded his listeners that the Republican administration did "not care about" them or consider them "part of the American family."

By 1973, after aggressive recruiting in black neighborhoods nationwide, the Peoples Temple boasted some 2500 members, most of them in San Francisco. Better still, they voted as if with one voice, Jones'. And not only did they vote en bloc, they rang doorbells and made phone calls and hung posters en bloc. Given their affection for independent thinkers -- and so many of them in one place! -- the city's progressive politicians wooed Jones like a Southern Belle.

From gay icon Harvey Milk to Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy's wife, they all come a courting. "I figured if these people -- if anybody should know, they should know," testified one black survivor as to why he stuck with Jones. After taking office as mayor in 1976, San Francisco mayor George Moscone repaid Jones by appointing him to the Human Rights Commission and then to the chairmanship of the San Francisco Housing Authority. That same year, The Los Angeles Times named Jones "the humanitarian of the year."

"In my later years," Jones reflected near the end, "there wasn't a person that attended any of my meetings that did not hear me say, at one time, that I was a communist." In the People's Republic of San Francisco that fact bothered almost no politico of consequence. "And that is what is very strange," Jones added, "that all these years I have survived without being exposed." In San Francisco, what was strange was that he even worried about it.

In 1974, Jones leased 3,000 acres of land in a Guyana jungle and began construction of a commune called the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. Hundreds of his followers were dispatched there to work. What they discovered was a South American gulag equal parts Werner Erhard and Pol Pot.

The buzz about Jonestown persuaded Democrat Congressman Leo Ryan to check the place out. When Jones found out about Ryan's impending visit, he resorted to the ultimate Democrat gambit -- race baiting. He denounced Ryan as someone who had "voted sharply in racist terms and fascist terms" and began rehearsing his people for "White Night," the night when Ryan and other evil white people would come to kill them.

In preparation for visits from outsiders, Jones had earlier issued proclamation #75, "Give your original name when guest is here -- do not use your socialist names such as Lenin, Che Guevara, etc. . . " (87) On his visit Ryan quickly saw through the subterfuge. When he attempted to fly back to civilization with inside dope on the commune, a Jonestown security team murdered him and four others on the runway.

That night Jones put his well-drilled minions through a "White Night" exercise. They had been through this before, drinking the proverbial Kool Aid and surviving. They likely presumed that this was just another test of their loyalty. It wasn't. This time the drink was heavily laced with valium and cyanide. Everyone who drank it died. Those who refused to drink it were injected with it. As to Jones, he shot himself.

Despite the tragedy, Democrats from the president on down have continued to do almost exactly what Jones did and get away with it: embrace minorities, alert a partisan media to the embrace, woo the minorities for their support, reward them for it with Obamaphones and the like but never with real power, scare them with tales of racist whites, promise to protect them from those whites, engineer societies (or school systems) from which there is no escape, and when all goes to hell, as it inevitably does, blame Mitt Romney or some evil "other." In 2012, this strategy would seem to have paid off. Despite record poverty and unemployment, atrocious schools and neighborhoods, all the residents of Obama's Jonestowns voted for him.

"They're going to put y'all back in chains," Joe Biden told a group of African American supporters in August.

Silly us -- we thought it was a gaffe!


source: American Thinker