http://pjmedia.com/blog/obamacare-and-the-consolidation-wave/?print=1 This is part of a series of articles on the rollout of Obamacare and how the law will change our health care system. Each Wednesday in September, we will publish two articles — one on the changes in medicine and medical care and one on changes in the insurance industry. We hope this series […]
Popular and widely read Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd published the above picture today portraying U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama as Satan himself. The unflattering picture has been making the rounds on Facebook in the Middle East and, according to Al Wafd, is representative of the hatred growing numbers of people in the region have for the American president, thanks to his staunch and unwavering support for Islamists and jihadiis — whether in Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, or Syria — even as they terrorize, murder, rape, and burn down Christian churches, that is, even as they engage in diabolical activities.
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/09/04/in-israel-a-rosh-hashanah-of-apples-and-gas-masks/ Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, comes as early as it can this year on September 5 (lasting two days). It always falls on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, but since the Jewish and Gregorian calendars don’t match, Rosh Hashanah can also fall as late as October 5. In any […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/the_un_climate_panels_hot_spot_is_missing_in_action.html The Second Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s climate-science panel (IPCC-AR2, 1996), invented the Hot-Spot in the tropical atmosphere about 10 km above the earth’s surface and assumed, mistakenly, it was proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). But the hotspot has never been demonstrated observationally. The Fifth IPCC Report […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324577304579054891507543888.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop Perhaps historians will provide a clear understanding of Barack Obama‘s head-snapping decision to pause his administration’s urgent case for military strikes in Syria to seek the formal authorization he says he doesn’t need from a Congress he disdains. Until then, the struggle to make sense of the Obama administration’s ad hoc decision-making and confusing […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324886704579051480246727444.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion Twelve years after 9/11, the U.S. remains a prime target of al Qaeda, with New York City as the bull’s-eye. Yet in the interval, New York hasn’t been successfully struck again. “Enemies Within” suggests an explanation for the city’s good fortune. Written by Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, reporters with the Associated Press, the […]
http://londoncenter.org/2013/09/syrian-slam-dunk/?utm_source=Weekly+Commentary+%289-4-13%29&utm_campaign=weekly_commentary&utm_medium=email For a few days, President Obama almost had us convinced. Not that we should use military force to punish Syria, but that he actually was going to take responsibility for something. But Saturday’s sudden announcement shocked even those closest to Obama. Instead of just attacking Syria, Obama decided to ask Congress for another “authorization […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/357582/syria-i-respectfully-dissent-andrew-c-mccarthy I respectfully dissent from the editors’ support for U.S. military intervention in Syria, which expands on the corporate position National Review staked out last week. While the credibility of an American president is no small thing, it is simply wrong to equate Barack Obama’s credibility with that of the United States, as the editors […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/357511/print
Well, an Egyptian official recently described McCain’s judgment as “moronic,” and it seems the senator is hell-bent on proving him right.
A Muslim repeatedly screams “Allahu Akbar!” while shooting down a plane. Sounds like a violent jihadist, right? Heavens no, replies John McCain — it’s a . . . “moderate!”
Andrew has the report below. Discussing a member of the Syrian mujahideen shooting a plane out of the sky, Senator McCain told the Fox & Friends crew this morning that the jihadist’s cries of “Allahu Akbar!” — echoing jihad mass-murderer Nidal Hassan, to take one of innumerable examples — were really no different from “an American Christian saying, ‘Thank God, thank God.’”
Well, an Egyptian official recently described McCain’s judgment as “moronic,” and it seems the senator is hell-bent on proving him right.
I discussed the phrase in Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy:
As it has demonstrated in each “Arab Spring” venue, the Muslim Brotherhood remains the ummah’s most significant organization. It still proclaims unabashedly it’s 90-year-old motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” The motto’s coda is not just rote chanting. Allahu akbar!, which also serves as the chillingly familiar exclamation of Muslim terrorists, is commonly translated as “God is greatest!” But that’s not exactly right. It literally means, “Allah is greater!” – the greater God, the mightier, more fearsome power. It is a comparative, ubiquitously invoked by a civilization that sees itself surrounded by hostile forces, forever competing for dominance.
The October, 2013 issue of Discover Magazine has an interview titled “Harper Reed: Game Changer”. Discover will not put it online for several months. The quotes in the article are from the article.
The article is an overview of what they did to get people to be active, to get out the vote and to elect Barak Obama. There are statements that bring into question the role of Internet sites like Facebook, Twitter, email providers and Google. There are many unasked and unanswered questions.
Q (Discover Magazine): Was it the technology itself that was transformational?
A (Harper Reed): l think the real innovation was the team, not the technology and the decision to bring people in-house from outside of politics. Previous campaigns had mostly outsourced technology to political vendors like Blue State Digital, a tech company that cut its teeth on Howard Dean’s [failed presidential] Campaign in 2004. In contrast, we brought people in from Google, from Facebook, from Twitter and from companies all around Chicago. We didn’t want inventors or visionaries or anyone who was going to make things complicated, We just wanted people to come in, work their hardest, not require us to train them, and to aggressively execute.
Were these people paid while they volunteered to work for the Obama campaign? If so, who paid the salaries? If they were paid by their employers, were their salaries listed as campaign contributions?
Would their employers extended the same privileges if they volunteered for the Republican campaign?
Q (DM): In 2008, the Obama campaign use of social media and online tracking tools expanded the Democratic Party’s data information base by at least tenfold.
A (HR): We spent a lot of time figuring out how to integrate databases that were all over the place.
Did the Democratic Party pay to access this data as would any commercial user such as Amazon? If they didn’t, would the same free terms be offered to the Republican Party?
Q (DM): But when people donated to BarakObama.com, the campaign asked to harvest some of their Facebook data, which meant you had the names at least of the Facebook friends. Or you knew if they responded to Facebook postings or targeted email solicitations about specific issues. Every time someone “liked” Planned Parenthood on Facebook, it registered with the Obama campaign. How was this information used?
A (HR): We also did i: on Twitter on Tumblr and even on Pinterest. We didn’t know everything you were doing on Facebook. But if you shared something or uploaded a picture and tagged it as public, we could look to see what it says. We knew if someone was interested in health care or reproductive rights based on an Internet interaction on Facebook or a response to an email. Essentially we used the technology to make sure you’re the right person to receive a particular message. Then we’d ask people if they wanted to share this message. We’d look through his or her friends and ask, “Who are the most important people for us to share this with?” And from there, we would share with these people, which continuously built our base. So if you were sharing something from the campaign, it would register on Facebook.
And with the content creation, and the postings, we tried to measure things, when you post this, what kind of clicks do you get? On Tumblr how many re-blogs, or on Twitter how many retweets? So if you go lo our Facebook page www.faeebook.com/Bararkobama, you can see the response to postings. One that got posted about an hour ago already has 54,000 likes, and 3,000 people shared it. This way, we know which messages are the most effective.
Could the Republican Party have done the same thing? If not, why not.
A question for the Republicans:
How could you run such an inept campaign? You had 4 years to do what the Democrats were doing. If you couldn’t because the companies wouldn’t let you, you could have raised a fuss about it.
But this wasn’t the only thing. Look at the debate where Candy Crowley had Obama’s answer in advance. Romney looked absolutely startled. Why did he not bring up the bias? Why didn’t he storm off pointing out this bias?
It goes on and on like this. Obama won because of his organization, because he was able to get out the vote.
If the Republicans don’t counter this now, they will not gain the Senate in 2014 and they won’t keep the House, either. And then, 2016 will be a forgone conclusion unless a real catastrophe happens and the people blame the Democrats for it.
Jan Mel Poller
janpoller@braemarnet.com
