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- Europe: Major Staging Area for Islamic Extremists
Europe, with its ongoing and uncontrolled colonization by Muslims and their attendant radical brothers and sisters into its midst, is now viewed as one of the world’s major training grounds for terrorists planning attacks against it and the USA. Europe’s area is large and its people are more consumed by and concerned with political correctness (PC) and allowing terrorists to express their own viewpoint (and ultimately their right to murder anyone who disagrees with them) than they are with their own survival. This also seems to be an increasing agenda and belief system within many in the United States.
US Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said recently in a BBC interview: “One of the things we’ve become concerned about lately is the possibility of Europe becoming a platform for a threat against the United States.” He also said that there are no plans to begin screening passengers from Europe traveling to the US. Chertoff further said: “I see an Al-Qaeda that’s evolving. I don’t see any diminishment of the threat, and my concern is that we not relax and let the enemy get ahead of us.” But, despite the acknowledgement that Europe has become a terrorist staging area and tangible threat to the United States, Chertoff states: “We have the visa waiver program which allows most Europeans, who come to be tourists, to come [into the USA] without visas. That means the first time we encounter them is when they arrive in the United States and that creates a very small window of opportunity to check them out.” Hmmm. It would most strongly appear that a wise course of action just might be requiring—instead of waiving—visas from these aforementioned European tourists. But—per Mr. Chertoff—that’s not what’s happening and it appears that it won’t happen within the near future. Note: If protecting the USA from terrorists does not occur within the near future, there will be no medium or distant future for the country.
Questions: Isn’t this ongoing lack of additional screening causing more problems than the ostensible—and not to be confused with the truth—“good” PC policy that has become yet another (and only the latest) replacement for common sense? Are We-the-People expected to continue our silent submission toward being led like lambs to our slaughter? Of even more import, will we continue—as Europe appears to have done—to allow said slaughter to continue on our side of ‘the pond’?
Because of political correctness and the majority’s lack of any real desire to stop uncontrolled immigration of terrorists and their accompanying mass-murders into Europe, that continent has been overrun with violence from the fanatical perpetrators. Those who wish to bring a worldwide enforced-by-intimidation-and-death Islamic caliphate are beginning to gain the upper hand in European governments. As an example, the United Kingdom is now allowing Muslims Islamic Shari’a Law in place of the British courts. French prisons—as it is also in US prisons—have become a new recruiting tool for the Islamist Imams. Islamist bombings and genocide of the world’s people continue on a worldwide basis to intimidate non-Muslims into converting to Islam and to remind Muslims to comply with the demands of their ever-expanding extremist brethren—or else. Already, Islamic “honor” murders are occurring in the US. The latest are the murders of two Muslim teens in Dallas by their own father—a father who is said to have been “upset” that his daughters were becoming “westernized.” Imagine that! They were becoming westernized in a Western country. Simply amazing! However, this only illustrates the point that the real reason too many of those who adhere to Islam are immigrating to the USA and other Western countries is not to escape religious persecution. Instead, it is to establish religious persecution against all but, Muslims. It is to bring third-world forced Islamic culture and religion into the countries they are now overrunning and replace the cultures and religions of those countries with their own—under an increasing penalty of death to those who refuse to obey. And, too many of us are continuing to allow it.
Wake up America! Be warned and advised that if it doesn’t, we-the-American-people will be forced to sleep forever in the graves of our own creation.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080116114347.jqnikhve&show_article=1
http://alwaysonwatch.blogspot.com/2006/11/sharia-law-comes-to-uk.html
http://www.barganews.com/2005/04/22/french-prisons-extremist-training-grounds/
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/10/dallas-honor-killing-update-said-still-missing-reward-offered/
- Stealing From All to Give Freebies to Grandma
-By Warner Todd Huston
Or, how government is licensed theft.
Here is a perfect example of the destructive power of government. It is also a representative example of why it is a canard that government ever gives anything away for “free” as that so-called free gift inflicts pain on everyone under that government. In this tale Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has pulled a fast one on the people of Illinois. He’s agreed to a plan that hikes a tax that few people even know the existence of and he’s added his own layer of cost just to get old people in the city of Chicago to like him. In pandering to this tiny minority he’s skewered the entire state in general and the people of the six counties surrounding the people’s republic of Chicago in particular.At issue is the bail out of Chicago’s mass transit system. Naturally, being a normal government program, it is a money losing, disorganized, union bloated, den of corruption and waste, but the leaders in the state capitol of Springfield (no better name for the comedy going on there than “Springfield,” just like the town in the cartoon “The Simpsons") felt it necessary to infuse state funds into the backwards and failing transit system in Chicago. So, the state legislature came up with a bailout plan and sent it to the Governor to sign.
Upon reaching his desk, Governor Blagojevich decided to add his own tragiocomic aspect to this government fiasco through an amendatory veto. He decreed that henceforth all old folks will ride the CTA in Chicago for “free.” The great white Father has waved his magic wand and now all the old folk in the city have a new perk merely for having reached their golden years without becoming bedridden. No bus and train fares for grandma from here on out. Hoorah for the nanny state.
So, how the heck do we pay for the estimated 10 million dollars a year this “free” give away to the elderly will cost the CTA to provide? Why we will raise the real estate transfer taxes on the sale of the old folks’ homes, that’s how. This transfer tax is going to go from $7.50 per thousand dollars of the final selling price to $10.50 per thousand. Not to mention a sales tax hike and numerous other tax hikes.
Some “free” program!
Worse, this “free” ride for grandma will be doled out to anyone over retirement age quite regardless of whether that citizen can afford to pay their own way or not. That means the poorest citizens get a free ride right alongside the richest. Does that make any sense at all? I thought Democrats were only supposed to be for the “poor"?
Needless to say, Gov. Blagojevich’s pandering isn’t being well received by the legislature who is being asked to approve Blagojevich’s budget busting late addition to the bail out plan. Now, State Senator Kirk Dillard of the 24th District is saying that this “free ride” should be means tested to make sure that rich old folks aren’t getting an undeserved free ride. And, everyone wonders, why should just any ol’ old guy get a free ride, anyway? Should an elder from Wisconsin get the benefit of our Illinois tax dollars at work through the CTA? Should just any one over a certain age get this freebie no matter where they are from? (What a treat for visitors, especially if the city gets the Olympics, eh? THAT little freebie won’t cost us too much.)
For his part, the Governor says that only Illinois oldsters should get that benefit. So, we have a Gov. saying only resident elders should get the freebie and we have Dillard (and others) saying that the freebie should be means tested… this all begs a question to be asked. How do we certify that someone is poor enough and/or a legal citizen of the state in order to deserve this magical freebie?
Answer: we will have to start a NEW government office to do the research and certification, of course. We will surely have to issue some sort of CTA ID card that certifies that said oldster applied and was approved for the benefit, as well. And, even if we just use a state ID or Driver’s license, we will require the bus driver to view each individual’s ID to make sure they are getting their free fare legally. This will cause time and money, too.
NONE of that is “free,” Governor Blagojevich. All of these things will cost the government and the CTA millions of dollars to implement.
So, the Guv’s pandering, his mere idea of attaching a freebie to this already tax hiking mass transit bailout bill, will add millions more to the costs of running Chicago’s mass transit system. Further, we are putting a mounting tax burden on every last tax paying citizen of the state of Illinois to benefit the few old folks in Chicago that will decide to take the Gov. up on his “gift.” And, who can doubt that the transit unions will demand more money should they suddenly be required to add this new ID card checking aspect to their job?
And guess what? This is all a sure thing because of a quirky idea in the Illinois state constitution called the amendatory veto which was initiated in 1970. With this power, the governor can add an amendment to a bill that takes three-fifths of both houses to overturn. In this case, few amendatory vetoes ever get overturned, most being just approved without argument, because it’s so hard to muster the votes to dump them. All cementing the state of Illinois as one of the most corrupt and incompetent state governments in the union.
At least we are number one in something.
So, remember, whenever a government tells you that it’s going to give you something for free, better get out your wallet because it’s going to cost you many millions to implement.
- Liberals' Plan to Stimulate Inflation
By Thomas E. Brewton
Liberals propose to follow the same game plan that gave us stagflation in the 1970s.
As success with the military surge in Iraq increasingly belies their claim that the war is already irretrievably lost, liberals have changed the subject from Iraq to the economy and the rising possibility of a recession. Liberal Republicans and Democrats, as usual, prescribe Federal deficit spending and higher taxes on “the rich.”
That is the doctrine of Keynesian economics, which advocates consumer spending as the exclusive highway to full employment and prosperity. According to Keynes, consumer and business savings must be offset by massively increased Federal spending. What the money is spent for doesn’t matter; just flood the market with money created by bookkeeping entries at the Federal Reserve banks.
Keynesian economics failed to end the Depression. Its repetition, as we saw in the bitter experience of Great Society stagflation in the 1970s, discouraged investment in projects of long term value and led to speculations that promised high rates of return in the short-run.
For example, during the 1970s stagflation, is was only marginally profitable to build rental apartments, because the rate of return on those investments was far below the inflation rate. What occurred, instead, was an unprecedented boom in hotel construction, because room rates could be increased every day. By 1980, there was a shortage of rental apartments and an oversupply of hotels.
In the real world, the only road to non-inflationary economic growth is lower taxes, offset by reduced Federal spending, grounded on a stable currency.
Non-inflationary economic growth is not a product of consumer spending. It must be funded by business and consumer savings. Consumers who save will not max out credit cards and add to inflationary pressures. Businesses that save will make long-term capital investment in higher productivity that enables increased production of useful goods and services at lower cost. That higher productivity makes possible higher wages and an improved standard of living for everyone.
Federal deficit spending inevitably spurs inflation, which over time wipes out the purchasing power of people’s lifetime savings. Increased deficit spending is the way to go if we want to eliminate self-reliance and personal responsibility, while training people to turn to government for all their needs. That, of course, is a description of socialism.
Higher taxes reduce incentives to save, the only non-inflationary source of funding to grow the economy. Increased production funded by savings adds to consumer purchasing power when workers and suppliers are paid, without inflating the money supply.
In contrast, higher welfare-state handouts create artificial demand that merely raises prices, because of the time lag between the Fed’s out-of-thin-air addition to the money supply and increased availability of goods and services. That, of course, is a description of inflation.
Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.
His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com
- Target Takes Sites Off Bloggers , Doesn't 'Participate With Non-Traditional Media'
-By Warner Todd Huston
Target department stores apparently haven’t gotten the memo that dissing the Internet and bloggers can be a dangerous game for a retailer these days. And, Target isn’t just dissing blogges and “non-traditional media” they might be claiming they won’t even interact with them. All this over a new advertisement that shows a woman in Winter clothing, spread-eagled atop the Target logo, the center of which appears right between the model’s spread legs. Just what the “target” here is, can be a pertinent question to ask and several consumer advocates are asking just that question.Amy Jussel of the organization Shaping Youth (shapingyouth.org), for instance, raised her concerns that this Target advert places an unwanted emphasis on a woman’s genitals and points out that it is part of the overly sexualized nature of too much of our advertising industry. Jussel says, “This Target ad is senselessly subversive on so many levels,” and wonders if Madison Avenue types care if “kids’ psyches are being trashed” in this country.
Jussel has also been following other ad campaigns that feature women in spread-eagled poses and pointing out the overly sexualized nature of our media.
Jussel wrote to the Target corporation about her concerns and received this curt reply:
Good Morning Amy,
Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.
Smooth move, Target. Does Target not “get” that blogs and the Internet ARE the people that they want to reach to bring into their stores? Is Target completely unaware of the power of the Internet? Did Target not notice that Dan Rather, for instance, was laid low by the power of the Internet?
You’d think that Target would have learned their lesson when they banned the Salvation Army bell ringers from collecting donations in front of their stores last year. That Internet storm caused Target some heartburn.
Someone needs to update the Customer Relations Department at Target that the Internet is not something that you can just blow off and that the future resides on the world wide web!
So, I’ve got a little advice for you Target. Why don’t you set your aim on the FUTURE! Stop imagining the Internet is just a few nuts that no one cares about. Your unconcern with “non-traditional media outlets” may come back to bite you.
- MSNBC Floating a 'McCain-Lieberman Ticket' Despite Reality
-By Warner Todd Huston
Once again, the news media is trying to create reality instead of merely reporting on it. In this case, we have MSNBC trying to create a McCain-Lieberman ticket out of whole cloth with wild speculation not born of any real life news. What we end up with here isn’t any sort of journalism, but a wish list based only on the author’s desires and not any reading of reality. This fantasy does, however, fit in quite well with the media’s love of John McCain and his “gutsy” positions and their desires to override what Republicans want to instead have McCain anointed by the media as the GOP standard bearer.I have an idea and I know that it’s a novel idea in most “journalist’s” circles. Let’s let Republicans decide who they want. The media should just report the matter not try to influence it. But, that advice aside, MSNBC’s Tom Curry floats his dream ticket anyway…
Will McCain, now a leading contender for the 2008 GOP nomination, borrow Kerry’s idea and offer the vice presidency to Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut’s self-styled “independent Democrat”?
What possible proof does Mr. Curry think he sees that would lead him to this question? McCain flatly turned down any offers from John Kerry in 2004 to be his VP and running mate. Lieberman has repeatedly denied that he’d ever jump Party lines and become a Republican. There is no proof or even a hint that this dream of Curry’s could be in the offing. But, Curry sees the possibility none-the-less.
The McCain-Lieberman duo showed a warm camaraderie Friday during their joint appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, an event where they both called for a substantial increase in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq in order to impose order, stop ethnic cleansing, and give the Maliki government a chance to succeed.
So they exhibited “warm camaraderie"? So, what? Are Democrats and Republicans not allowed to show camaraderie without eliciting rumors of becoming running mates? Further, should all Dems and Repubs be such enemies that they cannot appear together to support some bill or some plan or another? And what does that say of the claim for “bi-partisanship” that the media is always bleating for?
Curry goes on to explore some of the two candidate’s “affinity of personnel, as well as of ideology” as an excuse to say they should hook up to run for the White House. But Curry focuses solely on a small, unrepresentative handful of issues where they agree and ignores that they’re polar opposites on a host of others that would make them untenable as a ticket.
Curry quotes a Lieberman campaign spokesman to support his claims that a “maverick” team could sway “independents” to accept a McCain-Lieberman ticket.
“With the caveat that it’s far too early for this type of speculation, birds of a feather do flock together,” Cabrera said. “And in a nation as politically polarized as ours, a bi-partisan maverick ticket could be incredibly formidable. But before we all start counting our independent chickens, there would also be a significant downside: a pro-war, pro-surge ticket. Barring a radical turn of events in Iraq, I can’t imagine ‘Vote Hawk’ serving as an effective rallying cry in ‘08.”
What an absurd fantasy. Independents have only one power at the polls and that is as a swing block. They CANNOT, however, elect a president solely on their own voting power. There just aren’t enough of them and Tom Curry should know this. Chances are, he does, but he is floating this “maverick” balloon in hopes that he can create his own reality, anyway. Naturally, that would assure that the Democrat – who ever is to be their nominee – would win the 2008 elections.
Like I said, it would be nice if the MSM would just stick to real reporting and shy from trying to create their own news, wouldn’t it?
