Month: September 2011

The Terrorist Threat (Bumped)

Mark Noonan74 Comments

From Fox News:

Federal authorities are warning local law enforcement agencies of a potential terrorist threat involving car bombs that could coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, several sources told Fox News on Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that it had information about a “specific, credible but unconfirmed threat,” and the White House said President Obama was briefed Thursday morning and has been updated throughout the day…

Credible but unconfirmed?  Then why tell us about it?  I’d much rather the soldiers and cops just go after the “credible but unconfirmed” threat and let us know  about it afterwards…except, even then, maybe not:  when you’re hot on the trail of a dangerous enemy and you manage to catch him just before he acts, its not really a good thing to let the other enemies out there know how you did it.

There is something strange going on here…whether its just typical, Obama Administration incompetence or that they’ve actually lost the trail of terrorists and are just trying to make it look like they know what’s going on, I don’t know.  I guess we’ll find out by Monday.

UPDATE:  Hot Air has the details on the prospect of the threat being a ‘dirty bomb’.  Not good news if this is true…even a relatively small device exploded in Manhattan would be a gigantic blow to the United States.

Islamist Mob Breaks in to Israeli Embassy

Mark Noonan13 Comments

From the AP:

Protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo Friday and dumped documents out of the windows as hundreds more demonstrated outside, prompting the ambassador and his family to leave the country. The unrest was a further worsening of already deteriorating ties between Israel and post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt.

Egyptian police made no attempt to intervene during the day as crowds of hundreds tore down an embassy security wall with sledgehammers and their bare hands or after nightfall when about 30 protesters stormed into the Nile-side high-rise building where the embassy is located…

This is the end of the peace treaty – the Egyptian government either will not or cannot enforce the terms, which would include the security of the Israeli embassy in Cairo.  What form of government will finally emerge in Egypt remains unknown…but until that government does emerge and indicates its policies, no reliance can be placed on agreements made under the Sadat/Mubarak regime.  A new peace treaty will have to made – and only if the new Egyptian government indicates a willingness to have true peace with Israel.

The ultimate lesson here is to place no reliance on deals with  tyrants – Sadat was, indeed, a great and wise man…but he was a tyrant, and his successor was a tyrant, and only as long as the tyranny remained in power would any agreement be honored.  Tyrant gone, so is deal…better to have never made the deal, as if there hadn’t been a peace treaty Israel would be on the Suez, not worrying about attacks from the Sinai in to southern Israel.

Back to square one in the middle east…except now there is an even more virulent spirit abroad in the Muslim world.

Things That Piss Me Off In Politics

Matt Margolis40 Comments

Liberals who call themselves (or think they really are) moderates.

Seriously, it happens all too often that a liberal friend of mine (usually on Facebook) will argue with me about something I’ve posted and in the course of the debate they make the claim that aren’t liberal. No, of course not, if you asked them, they are moderate, or independent.

Why do they do this? It could be a number of things.

I suspect the main reason is they want to give the impression that they “listen to both sides” and come to an “unbiased conclusion” even though said conclusion is the left wing position virtually every single time.

This “I’m a moderate” argument is also used to attack my position, because I’m just an extremist right-winger who has some microchip in his brain taking orders from Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck or whoever tops their list of Hated Icons on the Right.

Sometimes what happens is that these so-called moderates adopt a couple of conservative positions on select issues so they can claim their moderate status.

Of course, I know plenty of conservatives (or Republicans) who hold the “liberal” position on issues like abortion or gay marriage, but they don’t claim to be moderates.

So why are liberals running from the liberal brand?

You better believe I am a proud conservative. Some conservatives would call me a RINO because I still like George W. Bush, but I don’t use that an excuse to call myself a moderate.

My conservative positions are based on my own assessments on the issues, and it’s hardly shocking that someone with generally conservative values will have an overwhelmingly conservative platform.

I am tired of liberals who call themselves moderate in order to claim they’ve reach an objective conclusion on the issues while implying that I have not. The fact is that they still use the same talking points that unabashed hardcore liberals use on a daily basis that reasonable people laugh at.

I’d much rather debate a liberal who is willing to admit they are liberal. At least they have a little pride in their ridiculous positions on issues and don’t try to hide behind a label that they think will protect them in an honest debate.

Meanwhile, Over in Europe

Mark Noonan6 Comments

From Ekathimerini:

The government is facing the possibility of not being able to pay wages and salaries in October if its international creditors do not approve the pending 8-billion-euro sixth installment immediately.

The country’s foreign lenders have made disbursement conditional on the government’s adoption of new measures that will target the collection of at least 1.7 billion euros. Without the sixth tranche, the public purse will be 1.5 billion euros short on October 17.

The prospect of a freeze in payments appeared even more serious on Thursday, after Greek commercial banks failed to cover the sum of 300 million euros of supplementary, noncompetitive bids for Tuesday’s auction of T-bills, providing only 155 million. The shortfall is interpreted as a clear message by banks to the government that they are unwilling to fund future issues of T-bills…

Greek one year bonds are approaching 100% as the financial world fully expects a Greek default some time in the next 12 months – which means that Money is figuring there is nothing the European Union can do to avoid default.  Money is right – there isn’t anything.  Oh, they could maybe put it off for a while, but they can’t stop it.  Greece owes too much money and no elective government of Greece would ever have popular support for bankrupting the people of Greece so that banksters can be bailed out (a dictatorship could do it…and one does wonder if the Euroweenies are considering that?).

And once Greece does default, look out!  The financial world will be in for a crash like no one has ever seen before.

HAT TIP:  Mish’s

UPDATE:  More on the Eurocalypse.

Democrats Grow Desperate in NY-9

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From National Journal:

Democrats are showing the clearest sign yet of concern ahead of next Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 9th District – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going up on air with an expensive television buy in the campaign’s closing days.

According to buy information obtained by Hotline On Call, the DCCC has made a $483,500 TV ad buy in the district, starting tomorrow through Monday. The broadcast TV buy will not air on September 11, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Democratic … PAC, House Majority PAC, has also bought advertising time in the district as well…

If blue districts in New York are under threat, then how is the rest of the country going?  The Democrats don’t want to start next week with the loss of a House seat…it would just be too grand a demonstration that their programs are failing and thus it is time to follow a new course.  So, they are pouring in the money – and given the Democrats registration edge, I suspect it will be enough to pull out a win.  But if it winds up close, even if the Democrat wins it will still be a harbinger of what is to come next year.

HAT TIP:  Hot Air

San Diego Blackout

Mark Noonan75 Comments

Very strange – from NBC San Diego:

Communities across San Diego went dark Thursday afternoon as a power outage plagued parts of Southern California.

Southern parts of Orange County, Coachella Valley  and northern Mexico are experiencing outages as well.

Officials were unable to say when power would be restored…

…”Essentially we have two connections from the rest of the world: One of from the north and one is to the east. Both connections are severed,” said the SDG&E official, who also noted that the outage had prompted the San Onofre plant to be taken offline as well.

The FBI and SDG&E officials said the power outage was not related to a terror threat that officials notified the nation about at nearly the same time…

It is extraordinarily bizarre that both power lines went down at the same time – the odds against that happening are astronomical…if it wasn’t a terrorist attack, then just what was it?  However it happened, it makes you wonder about the security of our power grid.  Did some hacker break in and shut things down?

Very, very odd…

 

Obama Unveils $450 Billion Jobs Plan

Mark Noonan55 Comments

From the AP – first, bait the GOP with a tax cut:

…The newest and boldest element of Obama’s plan would slash the Social Security payroll tax both for tens of millions of workers and for employers, too. For individuals, that tax has been shaved from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for this year but is to go back up again without action by Congress. Obama wants to keep it and deepen the cut to 3.1 percent for workers…

Then get on to Porkulus II – from Hot Air:

…According to CBS, more than $100 billion will go towards infrastructure and a similar amount will be comprised of money to states to hire more teachers and first-responders and tax breaks for small businesses…

Don’t get me wrong, I like teachers – but how are teachers going to get us out of a recession?  What Obama is really doing here is shoveling more money at government-union enterprises to keep employment up in those areas, thus assuring a large and steady stream of union donations to Obama’s re-election effort.  As for the infrastructure stuff…first off, didn’t we already spend hundreds of billions on that?  Secondly, did thos hundreds of billions actually create jobs?

And all this will lead to a campaign meme:  “I offered them a middle class tax cut, but those obstructionist GOPers in Congress were more interested in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.  Let me be clear, I know that we have much to do and things are hard…but I need more time to get our do-nothing Congress motivated to work for the people”.

Its nothing but a campaign speech.  Obama knows that no policy he can use would help the economy, so now he’s just setting a blame-shifting stage and hoping we all sorta forget he’s been President since 2009.

UPDATE:  Bank of America may lay off 40,000 workers.

Solyndra Raided by the FBI

Mark Noonan1 Comment

Interesting – from NBC Bay Area:

FBI agents armed with search warrants descended Thursday morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda.

The investigation comes after a request by the Department of Energy’s inspector general, FBI spokesman Peter Lee told NBC Bay Area News…

Bit unclear what the issue is – but Daily Caller takes note of the number of times Solyndra execs visited the White House:

Not only does the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra have a cozy financial  relationship with the Obama administration, company representatives also made numerous visits to the White House to meet with administration officials, The Daily Caller has learned.

According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged…

So, what are we to make of this?  Best I can figure is that with calls being made for an investigation in to how Solyndra managed to get federal backing, this raid is a means of forestalling Congressional investigators…the Administration can say they are willing to cooperate but they can’t release all the data due to an on-going, criminal investigation in to Solyndra.  How much would anyone like to bet me that the investigation goes on until at least November 7th, 2012?

Rather fishy, I think…

Trying to Get “Fast and Furious” Answers

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Sen. John McCain has requested a Congressional hearing on the much-maligned gun trafficking investigation led by the ATF.

Up until recently, two fellow Republican legislators — Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., — have led the Congressional inquiries into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Fast and Furious” operation…

…“The committee should hold a meeting as soon as possible to examine these new revelations and determine what additional measures are needed to help prevent this type of malfeasance from occurring again,” McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The veteran Arizona Senator is asking for the committee to call the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder; the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; and the ATF’s acting director, B. Todd Jones; as witnesses…

In this case, Obama had better hope he loses next year – you see, the only thing holding back Watergate-style hearings on this is the fact that Democrats still control the Senate.  Given the number of vulnerable Democrats up for re-election next year and the number the GOP needs to win to gain control, it is almost a certainty that Harry Reid won’t be in charge of the Senate come January, 2013.  At that point, there is no protection for the Administration in covering up this scandal…which is, in fact, worse than Watergate with the only thing entirely unknown at this point is the President’s role.

My view is that the Administration, in an effort to gin up support for gun control, cooked up a plan to have American weapons transferred to the drug cartels, knowing they would be used in crimes which Mexico would then blame on us…a media frenzy would erupt and demands would be made for restrictions on gun ownership.  Presto, gun control is back in to the American political mix after having been dead and buried for more than a decade. The only reason it didn’t work out like that is because an American border patrol agent was murdered with the guns and a couple people involved blew the whistle.

We do need to get to the bottom of this – who ordered the program and why they did it.  Putting Holder, especially, under oath is important here.  I don’t expect him to tell the truth, but I either want prosecutable perjury against him, or the spectacle of him taking the 5th.  Such actions could break lose other people who do know the truth and then we’ll find out what happened and why.

Obamunism! Unemployment Claims Surge

Mark Noonan6 Comments

From Reuters:

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, further evidence of a weak labor market just hours before President Barack Obama unveils a plan on job creation in a major address to Congress…

…Applications for unemployment benefits rose to 414,000 in the week ending September 3 from an upwardly revised 412,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Wall Street analysts had been looking for a dip to 405,000…

Why would analysts be look for a dip?  Over at FinViz, they report the expected number not a 405,000, but 400,000…and here it goes, again, with an “unexpectedly” higher number.  Are the analysts working on the “magic” theory in which an increasingly bankrupt nation will create jobs “just because”?  Are they just guessing?

That is what I figure – after all, how can you really analyze such a thing?  Not like you can call all the businesses in America on Monday and ask them how many they will lay off on Friday.  What this shows is that a great deal of the data we’re using to make decisions on is bogus…meaningless numbers put out by people who (a) think they have to put them out and (b) figure that any number is better than no number.

Better to just wait for the number – and until it drops below 250,000 a week, we’re not getting anywhere.