The Hokey Pokey… make that the Pokey Pokey

No need to say much, just enjoy.

More ethics violations

I am not referring to Sarah Palin and those false claims of ethics violations. I am referring to the person who really does cause ethics violations from the time when he campaigned to 2008 right through to the present day. I am talking about the most corrupt politician in the USA today, and yes he is defintely more corrupt than Richard Nixon (who, in my view was not corrupt anyway).

He is still adding to the list of crimes and allegations against him, and it was not enough that he refused to go to Congress to discuss possible necessary actions in Libya. It is not enough that he has issued a fraudulent birth certificate (sheesh, I accept that he was born in Hawaii, but that certificate that he furnished is a fake) probably because the real certificate has been amended because of the Indonesian adoption.

The latest ethics violation (of which there are hundreds) relates to the use of the White House for fundraising relating to his belief that he can retain his position as POTUS (fat chance on that buddy boy). I am of course talking about none other than that dopey, unintelligent, dithering and stupid individual who is currently the POTUS.

This is the man who got his knickers in a twist over the outcome of the Citizens United case – you know the one that acknowledges the right to free speech. To refresh your memory, the group that goes under the name of Citizens United produced an anti-Hillary Clinton video. The issue that was brought to court related to the showing of the video during a time when it could influence the outcome of elections. The question arose because of the manner of the funding of the video, and the fact that it was produced by a “corporation” or something along those lines. The Supreme Court struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold legislation that affected the rights of corporations in the USA with regard to campaign funding. It did not strike down the restrictions on overseas entities since they are correctly banned from funding any candidate. The Supreme Court saw the provision as something that chilled free speech. 

This is also the man who received donations from overseas (even though it is forbidden) and in particular from residents of the Gaza strip. This money was hidden from sight by the use of bundlers who used names out of the American telephone books to hide the real source of the donations from the FEC. At least Hillary returned donations that had come from overseas sources, but Østupid has not returned that money, and as we all know he has been pushing Israel in favour of the residents of the Gaza strip – perhaps he wants those same residents to give him more money which would explain some of his more recent manouvers. This is one extremely evil and slick individual.

 

What were they trying to achieve?

The news reports regarding the attack on the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul are still coming. There are lots of details available about what took place. All reports emphasize that the Taliban were exaggerating when they made claims about deaths and hostages associated with the attack. One report claimed that the Afghan military handled the attack, but now it seems that this report was also wrong with regard to some detail because a few New Zealand special forces commandos were wounded in the response to the attack, accord to the Australian ABC news report.

When I heard about the attack, and began reading the details I was immediately reminded of the Mumbai massacre and the attacks on the hotels in that city. Sure enough, this was a thought confirmed by later reports, because it has also been claimed that it was a group from Pakistan associated with the Afghan Taliban that staged the attack. (I did see the name of the group, and I think they might be protected by the ISI but not sure).

Considering the fact that there have been efforts to negotiate with the Taliban so that there will be an end to the terror and the conflict, I am at a loss to understand why this attack has taken place. What are they trying to achieve? They claim that they are upset with the western forces that are present in Afghanistan, and they bellyache about “Muslims being killed”, yet the Taliban are the bigger killers of Muslims in Afghanistan. Not one of the special forces are there to specifically engage in armed conflict. They have a role which will involve a firefight or two, but they are not there to kill Muslims!!!  If the Taliban want NATO forces to leave then they need to stop the attacks on civilians.

As I see it, the Taliban want to gain power again. I cannot remember how they managed to get power in the first place, but when they did they commenced a reign of terror. Most Afghanis do not want the Taliban style of rule, but as is the case in any Muslim country the fanatics seem to win the argument, and eventually the moderate folk will join in because they have somehow been turned.  Afghanistan under Taliban rule was a real hell-hole, and in particular it was bad for women. Their hospitals, that allowed women to give birth in modern surroundings were destroyed. Women were not allowed to be doctors or lawyers, or teachers for that matter. Any woman showing the smallest possible amount of skin was beaten by the Taliban goons. Many were thrown into jail where they were raped by their captors. Women were the big losers when the Taliban were in power, and wherever the Taliban are present they cause fear – throwing acid in the faces of young girls, and killing male teachers because their students are female. They provide nothing more than a reign of terror.

The announcement of the draw down of American troops has already proved to be a disaster. Rather than being a positive change in Afghanistan, it has been negative, inviting this renewed round of terrorism that is directed at everyone.

 

Heads Up

The Daily Caller has a report that there is a possibility that the Congressional Ethics Committee is to have another look at Jesse Jackson Jr. in the light of the Blago trial conviction. If he is found guilty of an ethics violation this will be justice, but then what will be the punishment?

More important is the possible pressure that is being placed upon the White House, because quite frankly the whole mess goes back to one person and that person is not Blagojavich, who has just been screwed by Østupid and those who are protecting the most corrupt individual to hold the position of POTUS (a most unworthy person to boot)

It’s too late – LA Times on Egypt

Actually, the LA Times did not say it was too late, but I am saying it, because the activists in Egypt have been played like a fiddle. This is what a lot of us were saying in the first place when the protests began in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt in the 1920s and their aim at that time was the Islamisation of Egypt. That aim has never changed.

However, the more secular protesters failed to see that the MB were waiting for an opportunity to win in the political sphere. They were being kept back by Hosni Muburak, which explains why they want to see him punished, as a matter of urgency. In the meantime those same protesters failed to see the danger of allowing MB to fill the void.

A lot of us on the internet have been echoing the same caution in other countries such as Yemen, Syria, Libya and Tunisia. What do any of us know about these opposition forces? AQ is looking for an opportunity to take over in Tunisia and Yemen. At least in Libya AQ is not the strongest in the opposition parties. However, we will not know for sure until Gadhafi leaves or is arrested and the NTC has the opportunity to help renew Libya. At least in their case I am hopeful that there will be a pro-Western government. I am also hoping that they will reform their economy to allow free market forces.  Already in Libya we see the results of the Gadhafi planned economy because the hospitals in Benghazi are once again running out of medical supplies, including critical anti-cancer medications.

Conviction

This has taken a long time to come to fruition but finally a jury has convicted Blago for his corruption.

What I find confusing is that it says he was convicted relating to the attempt to sell the Senate seat, but what is overlooked is that it was Østupid who was trying to put pressure on Blago to have Jarrett installed in the seat. Also, Blago actually did the right thing by appointing Roland Burris to the seat, and he did not take money for that appointment.

I hope that this is not the end of the story because the most corrupt politician is the one who resides in the White House. He is the one who needs to be arrested over his fraud.

He should call it wet dreams party

I stole the idea for the heading of my post from a comment associated with the article. The story is of course about the watermelon aka Green Party aka Marxist in disguise, Van Jones who wants to create his new version of a TEA movement. He claims that the USA is not going broke. It seems that Van Jones lives in some kind of void, a place where he does not accept reality and a place where he can ignore good economics.

If John Maynard Keynes was alive today I am certain that he would have scrapped his theory based upon the evidence that we have confronted since at least the 1970s. The welfare state, where able-bodied people scam the system, does not work because it needs a constant stream of tax revenues to make the system work properly. Jones does not get this particular truth. The system that works best, where people who are ill, old-aged, or not able-bodied are cared for, is one where there is little in the way of government interference, and where the majority of able-bodied individuals are in the work-force. Taxes come from everybody. If people are not working and they are drawing upon the government coffers by way of benefits, they are a drain on the rest of society.

My best memory of Keynes’s writing is that he stated that taxes should be lowered when there is not a war, and raised when there is a war so that the government budget remains equal. In other words, Keynes recognized the value of lower taxes in getting people to work. The government income via Tax will still flow, and more of it will be received when fewer people are on welfare. This is probably why I will defend at least a portion of the thought of J.M. Keynes.

The real problem for Government has been the implementation of Keynesian theory, since it has been Marxists within government that have done the implementation, and always with their own agenda of flooding the system. The experience of the late 1940s through to the late 1960s was that government had a policy of high employment but also kept a hand on the levers controlling inflation and interest rates. The hand came off the levers as unions became more powerful and started to demand higher wages at a point where other factors were starting to get out of control. The late 1960s, early 1970s saw the first oil shock. This was also the time of the rise of stark raving mad Islamists. It was a time when the PLO came to prominence as they went on a killing spree around the world. It was also a period of higher inflation, higher interest rates, and out of control government spending.

Stop…. did you see what I just noted?  OUT OF CONTROL GOVERNMENT SPENDING. It is my theory that the stagflation and the prolongation of the stagflation of the 1970s was in fact due to the out of control government spending at the time. This is something that I have observed in Australia because the stagflation seemed to be a direct result of government policy at the time, as well as the other factors such as the oil shocks, as well as the increased demand for wage increases, union disputes, strikes that caused huge losses to production. I should point out that 1972 was the year that Australians went bezerk and elected the Marxist Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister based upon the use of a catchy tune “It’s Time”… aha… it was not. As soon as Whitlam took power he went on a spending spree and government debt went totally out of control. By the end of 1975 when he was tossed out of power, somewhat like a dirty rag doll is tossed out, the employment situation in Australia was devastating. The jobs market, especially at the graduate level had dried up.  Australia went through a lot of pain right through to the 1990s as successive governments tried to bring the deficit under control, as well as trying to free up our trading with other nations. (we used to have tariffs on imports).  The Howard Government brought us back into balance, but when John Howard was defeated, and Kevin Rudd-Julia(r) the Marxist Gillard (als known as Juliar Dullard) took control, Australia went from having a surplus to having a very huge budget deficit. Like the USA we had an unnecessary stimulus that was nothing more than pork barrel spending.

As you can see, the pattern is once again repeating itself. Perhaps, and this is theory, even just a thought I just had, the stagflation was also the problem in the 1930s where it was the economy that had remained stagnant despite the excessive government spending. OOPS… NOTE what I just said. There it is again… excessive government spending.

The point is that when government spends in this manner, it is taking available Investment dollars away from the private sector. When the investment dollars become scares, which is inevitable when Government is competing for a finite resource, then the price of borrowing (the interest rate) rises substantially.

This is why Van Jones, and a number of economists in the USA such as that extremely stupid Krugman, are so very wrong. Government spending of that nature destroys the economy. It does not stimulate the economy at all.

 

Project Gunrunner – a commentary

Please click on this link to see a cartoon commentary regarding Project Gunrunner and WHO is really responsible.

This one is well worth a look. The best I can do is to give the link to BigGovernment and then give kudos to Chris Muir for his cartoon.

The creepiest man in Iraq

His name is Moqtada al Sadr. He has been a thorn in the side of the US and the Iraq government since the successful invasion.

The time has come for the USA to continue the withdrawal of troops from Iraq since, in reality the “war” is well and truly over, but there remains a problem with stability. That problem can be summed up as Moqtada al Sadr.

This “imam” is an ally of Iran.  I refuse to call him a cleric because that is a title reserved for Christian priests, and these Islamic imams, especially of the type like Moqtada al Sadr do not act priestly and their role is not that of a priest, who offers sacrifice. If he was successful in taking over in Iraq then this would spell the end of any democracy in that country because this man would ensure that there was an alliance with Iran and that the Grand Pooh-bah of Iran was the “Supreme Ruler”.

The dangers are quite obvious. The Iraqi government wants the USA troops to stay longer, but if they stay Moqtada al Sadr has promised an increase in hostility. There will be more bombings.

We hear all the time about how it is in the Koran that Muslims must not kill each other, but there is an over-riding clause. They must belong to the same sect. In other words a Sunni can kill an Shiite, and vice-versa, and both of them kill members of the other sects such as the Sufi etc. etc.

 

Sarkozy, Gates and Libya

I have been very critical of the Gadhafi regime and it is for a good reason. I certainly do believe that it is not appropriate for any dictator or leader to kill his or her own people. My attitude towards Libya is the same attitude that I have relating to other countries where there has been suppression of the population in such a violent manner. Taking a walk back in time, to 1956 the Russians invaded Poland. This was the year in which the Olympic Games were held in my home city of Melbourne, Australia. As a result of the invasion of Poland the water polo matches got a bit bloody. I have no memory of those games, but my parents did remember and from time to time I hear it mentioned on the radio or on the TV (but it is rare these days). A few years later Russia invaded Czechoslovakia, and yes I can barely remember hearing about that invasion on the radio. In later years it was things like Tianemen Square where students were mowed down. However, these situations in the past were nothing compared to the suppression in Iran in 2009, followed by the bloody events this year in Egpyt (few actually died), Yemen, Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Bahrain.

As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the situation in Libya is different from the situation in the other M.E. countries. This is because the people in Benghazi, when they overcame the military, quickly formed themselves into an alternative opposition to Gadhafi. On top of that they had stated that they were pro-Western, and they asked for the implementation of the no-fly zone. No such requests had been made in any of the other M.E. countries. There are other differences, but the only way to understand Libya is to do the historical research. Moammar Gadhafi has never been a friend of the West, and I might add that he had always been a terrorist. He has been a sponsor of terrorism for a very long time. He had chemical weapons and he was supposed to dispose of these weapons but he had not completed that task.  Whilst Bush was the President he had been cowered but Østupid gave him renewed vigor for his previous activities. He was not afraid to go ahead and attempt to suppress his people.  Once Gadhafi is gone, then we will have to wait and see what happens next in Libya, and we will just have to hope that AQ does not attempt to fill any void.

That being said, I spotted a news article on the Reuters site that refers to comments made by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and what he has stated supports what I have been saying with regards to who is providing the major role in Libya. It is not the USA, which is fulfilling a support role. Sarkozy actually backhands Gates over his rather snide comments towards the European members of NATO. This is the main thrust of those comments:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy assailed outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for remarks this month criticizing EU nations for lacking military muscle.

“It was particularly inappropriate for Mr. Gates to say that, and what is more, completely false, given what is going in Libya,” Sarkozy told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels.

“There are certainly other moments in history when he could have said that, but not when Europeans have courageously taken the Libyan issue in hand, and when France and Britain, with their allies, for the most part, are doing the work.

In a June 10 valedictory speech, Gates said the Libyan campaign had exposed limitations, with an air operations center designed to handle more than 300 sorties a day struggling to launch about 150.

“I think his retirement may have led him to not examine the situation in Libya very closely because, whatever people want to say, I don’t have the impression that the Americans are doing the bulk of the work in Libya,” Sarkozy said.

The writing really does appear to be on the wall for Gadhafi, and something that I have noticed about this report, and others that have been similar, is that there has been a little bit of a switch in the “talk”. By this I mean that there is more talk of a Gadhafi exit in the possible near future. The defections by the military and others has continued. According to this same Reuters report another 19 members of the military were on a boat that arrived in Tunisia. This is on top of the 150 who defected recently. These defections are having an impact on the Libyan regime:

In the latest of a string of defections, 19 police and army officers were among a group of Libyan refugees who arrived in Tunisia by boat on Thursday, Tunisian news agency TAP reported.

Gaddafi allies have denounced such defections.

“Anyone who defects or refuses to take up arms is an apostate … and this applies to all Libyans,” preacher Mohamed al-Matri said in a live broadcast of the Friday sermon from Cordoba mosque in the town of Sirte.

It is quite obvious that the imam in Sirte is a regime goon, probably because he is a part of the Gadhafi tribe (Sirte is Gadhafi’s home town, so one would expect this kind of statement coming from the imam). However to call these people apostates because they refuse to kill their own actually goes against their Koran, or at least that is what a majority of Muslims will tell us.