http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313904/ryanism-big-picture-william-voegeli By choosing Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Mitt Romney has ensured that a “far-reaching debate about the broader role of government and the entitlement state,” in the words of Politico’s instant analysis, will dominate the final, decisive twelve weeks of the presidential campaign. The long-term budget plans that Representative Ryan has advanced […]
JINSA Vice Chairman
MORRIS AMITAY
The specter of the January 2, 2013 sequestration has created rare unanimity here in Washington. Just about everyone both in the defense establishment and Congress maintains it would have disastrous consequences if implemented.
This new round of budget cuts was mandated by the U.S. Budget Control Act after the failure of a super committee – the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – to reach an agreement on a balance between taxes and spending. The Act was part of a compromise between Democrats and Republicans to permit raising the Federal debt ceiling. This translates into a $55 billion cut in fiscal year 2013 from the roughly $511 billion base defense budget, $93 billion from the war budget and $82 billion from unobligated funding.
These cuts, mandated by the sequester, would be on top of the $487 billion in budget reductions already scheduled over the next decade, because Congress could not find another $1.2 trillion in Federal savings over the same period. With the Administration’s decision to exempt military personnel from the cuts, the rest of the defense budget would be looking at an 11.2 percent reduction and could mean an estimated 89,000 job cuts at the Department of Defense and a hiring freeze. Non-defense spending would also be sequestered, but at a lower rate.
Unfortunately, given continuing partisan rancor over this issue, Congress has been unable to agree on a solution to the growing financial crisis facing our country. With the politics of this election year preventing agreement on a decisive course of action on the economy, we can expect Congress to “kick the can down the road.” When it returns to work in September, it is expected to pass a stopgap spending measure to provide federal funding for the first half of fiscal year 2013. This would permit Congress in the “lame duck” post-election session to focus on the looming automatic sequestration cuts before the January 2 deadline.
But, at some point soon, crucial decisions will have to be made as to our nation’s overall defense posture, and by definition, our leadership role in an increasingly dangerous world. In a bipartisan vote, Congress recently tasked the Obama administration to lay out precisely what these cuts to defense and domestic programs would mean. The Administration has maintained that it had not provided details because sequestration was designed to be so draconian that implementation was unthinkable. Even with many of the details missing, there is almost unanimous agreement as to the catastrophic effects of sequestration on our national security.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has described the cuts as “devastating,” with the prospect of “the smallest ground force since 1940,” “a fleet of fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915,” and the “smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force.” In this regard, it is worth noting the average age of the Air Force’s B-52 bombers is nearly 50 years. On average, American long-range bombers are 35 years old, mid-air refueling tankers are 49 years old, and fighter aircraft are 22 years old.
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.xml
A magician typically succeeds when the attention of the audience is diverted from his main activity onto some distraction. President Obama has raised this sort of deflection into a political art form.
Take, for example, the matter of revelations by five Members of Congress and the Center for Security Policy that there appear to be a number individuals working for or with the Obama administration with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The possibility that their influence may be helping to shape U.S. policy in ways that increasingly align it with the demands, ambitions and goals of the Brotherhood and other Islamists is a national security problem of the first order. That is especially true at a moment when Muslim Brothers are consolidating their hold on power in Egypt with the cashiering of two top generals at the hands of the Brotherhood’s newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi.
Yet, Team Obama and its allies in the elite media have aggressively worked to deflect the focus away from these realities. At first, they did so by viciously attacking Congresswoman Michele Bachmann – even though she was just one of five legislators who asked for investigations into these seeming influence operations by inspectors general of five federal agencies.
Then, they sought to portray as a victim of racism and bigotry just one of those about whom the Members of Congress raised legitimate questions: Huma Abedin, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Journalists like CNN’s Anderson Cooper repeated uncritically – and unprofessionally – assurances that there was no factual basis for linking Ms. Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood. Where compelled to acknowledge that members of her family do have ties to Brotherhood-connected organizations, the administration and its allies denounced such concerns as “guilt by association” and “McCarthyism.”
Then, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, former Muslim Brother Walid Shoebat and other researchers established a direct tie between Huma Abedin and a Muslim Brotherhood front, the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). IMMA was established essentially as an Abedin family business by Abdullah Omar Naseef, an officially designated al Qaeda financier.
Shortly after IMMA was founded under his chairmanship, Naseef became the secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL) which Mr. McCarthy described in an August 8th speech in Washington sponsored by the Center for Security Policy as: “the Saudi-financed global propagation enterprise by which the Muslim Brotherhood’s virulently anti-Western brand of Islamist ideology is seeded throughout the world, very much including in the United States.”
It happens that Huma Abedin was listed for twelve years on the masthead of the IMMA’s journal as an associate editor. For at least seven of those years, Omar Naseef was also listed as a member of the editorial advisory board.
In his remarks last week, former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney McCarthy directly spoke to charges that Huma Abedin was being unfairly challenged by virtue of these various ties to the Muslim Brotherhood: “‘Guilt by association’ has nothing to do with fitness for high public office. High public office is a privilege, not a right. Access to classified information is a privilege, not a right. You need not have done anything wrong to be deemed unfit for these privileges.”
Andrew McCarthy added pointedly: “It is not a question of your patriotism or your trustworthiness. It is about whether you would be burdened by such obvious conflicts of interest that you would be tempted to act on those interests, rather than in the best interests of the United States.”
Nonetheless, two days later, the Deflector-in-Chief used the occasion of remarks at his fourth annual White House Iftar dinner – a ceremony marking the breaking of the Ramadan fast – to provide a shout-out to one of his guests, Huma Abedin. Mr. Obama pronounced: “Huma is an American patriot, and an example of what we need in this country – more public servants with her sense of decency, her grace and her generosity of spirit. So, on behalf of all Americans, we thank you so much.” Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Not only does Ms. Abedin’s relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and involvement in policies favorable to its interests warrant close official scrutiny. There are at least six other individuals with Brotherhood ties whose involvement in Obama administration “Muslim outreach” and/or related policy-making also deserve investigation by the IGs and the Congress:
* Rashad Hussain, Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation;
* Dalia Mogahed, an advisor to President Obama;
* Mohamed Elibiary, a member of Homeland Security Department’s Advisory Council;
* Mohamed Magid, a member of the Homeland Security Department’s Countering-Violent Extremism Working Group;
* Louay Safi, until recently the credentialing authority for Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military and now a leader of the Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council; and
* Kifah Mustapha, a Hamas-fundraiser and graduate of the FBI’s ‘Citizens Academy’
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=281113
In the wake of an Israeli government- initiated report presenting Israel’s legal rights in Judea and Samaria, opponents of settlements argue that the issue is not about Israel’s legal and historic rights, but about “morality.” I assume that means supporting “Palestinian self-determination,” “ending the occupation” and establishing a second Arab Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.
Anything which inhibits this goal, therefore, is considered “immoral,” including Jews living in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, aka “occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).” “Justice for Palestinians,” aka “the Palestinian right of return” is also hyped as a moral obligation.
The accusation is that Israel/Jews have stolen land and occupy Palestinian territory. Theft is a criminal and hence immoral act. If that is true, however, due to Israel’s victory in the Six Day War in 1967 this would also apply to areas Israel acquired in the 1948-49 war.
While this involves legal disputes, moral arguments focus on Israel’s denial and abuse of human and civil rights. Even if Israel’s legal claims were justified, it is charged with violating “international humanitarian law” and stepped over a moral line, according to organizations like the ICRC.
As TAU Prof. Chaim Gans wrote in A Just Zionism; on the morality of the Jewish state, (OU P, 2008), it is a “moral duty… not to undermine the partition plan of 1947,” “there were significant justifications for the Arabs’ opposition to Jews’ return to the Land of Israel,” “Jews have a special moral obligation to understand [it],” and Jews caused “considerable injustice to the Arabs.”
Mitt Romney has done this country a great service by selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate. He has changed the nature of the election from one that is about who is the best candidate to lead us out of the aftermath of the Great Recession to one that concerns fundamental party policies and philosophy. He has turned the election into what we had in 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson was finishing the term of our martyred President Jack Kennedy and running for his own first term against Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican from Arizona. Goldwater was the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party and ultimately the leader of the entire party in that election.
The 1964 race became a referendum on whether the United States should jettison the principles of the party of hope – the Democratic party — created by FDR that united the aspirations of the middle class and addressed the needs of the poor and the concerns of women, blacks, Jews, other minorities, and farmers. FDR, a wealthy man, was denounced by many of his peers as a traitor to his class.
What FDR gave to our country was the promise of greater fairness for all of its people. One of his greatest contributions, many would say, was the Social Security program that was intended to assist these who had worked all their lives to retire at 65 with dignity. That concept was extended by President Johnson in 1965 with the creation of both Medicare and Medicaid. The former is basically for the elderly and the latter is for the impoverished of all ages.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the very programs that the Republicans and Conservatives beginning with Goldwater have been seeking to chip away at and ultimately eliminate. For example, President George W. Bush rightly recognized that Social Security needs to be changed to make it solvent. However, his proposal to privatize the program, making payments dependent on stock market performance, makes no sense, particularly in view of the affects of the Great Recession on the stock market. A better approach would have been and still would be to gradually increase the eligibility age (we fortunately live much longer today than we did in 1935), and apply the current Social Security tax to our entire personal income – it stops now at $110,100 — with such additional fiscal measures as are necessary to bring in more revenue. The program eligibility could also be made subject to a needs basis. Those who are wealthy don’t need the employer subsidies which could be added to and used for those who do.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187072/Saudi-Arabia-Women-city-planned-allow-more-females-pursue-career.html#ixzz23VzlYVrP
No man’s land: Women-only city planned for Saudi Arabia to allow more and more females to pursue a career
Saudi Arabia is planning to build a new city exclusively for women as it bids to combine strict Sharia law and career minded females, pursuing work.
It is thought the Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon) has been asked to bring the country up to date with the rest of the modern world with the controversial city, which is now being designed with construction to begin next year.
It is hoped it will allow women’s desire to work without defying the country’s Islamic laws.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/10-medal-olympian-quietly-living-golden-years-in-israel/
10-medal Olympian quietly living her golden years in Israel
Surviving the Nazis and the Communists, Agnes Keleti moved here in 1957; the previous year, aged 35, she had won four gold and three silver medals
ERZLIYA, Israel (AP) — One of the world’s most decorated Olympians is living quietly in Israel, a country that just wrapped up its participation in the world competition without a single medal.
Agnes Keleti, 91 now, won 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics, including five golds, for Hungary in the 1950s before defecting and emigrating to Israel.
That was just one chapter of her unusual life. Her Olympic heroics began when she was already at an age when most athletes have hung up their shoes — because she spent her prime sporting years escaping the Nazis during World War II.
Now living in an apartment near the beach in the coastal city of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, the retired gymnastics coach is still physically fit but has trouble recalling details of her Olympic heyday.
She couldn’t find her precious hardware.
“Staying alive is more important than the medals,” she said, after rummaging in vain through drawers in her apartment. “The medals have no meaning.”
After the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia, she had more of them than any other woman in the world.
At 35, an age when most gymnasts have long retired, Keleti won four gold medals and two silvers, winning three of the four individual events — floor, bars and balance beam — and placing second in the all-around. The showing made her the top medalist of the games and the oldest female gymnast ever to win gold.
Together with her four medals from the 1952 Games in Helsinki, Finland, she became the top female medalist ever, trailing only Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi and American shooter Carl Osburn on the all-time list at the time.
Keleti said she never even wanted to be a gymnast. Her childhood dream was to be a cellist. Those and other plans changed with the Holocaust, when her family was driven from home and scattered across Europe.
She survived by taking on an assumed Christian identity. Her mother and her sister were saved by papers issued by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat in Budapest who rescued thousands of Jews.
Her father and other relatives perished in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/10/obama-lets-take-over-every-industry/
First President Obama said “the private sector is doing fine.” Then he lectured business owners, “you didn’t build that.” Now he wants to extend the government’s auto-industry takeover across the board. Mr. Obama simply cannot understand how the economy can function without government’s firm guiding hand.At a campaign stop in Pueblo, Colo., on Wednesday, Mr. Obama touted the alleged success of his government-backed takeover of two-thirds of the domestic car business. “The American auto industry has come roaring back,” he said. “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.”
The Obama administration ritually flaunts the General Motors bailout as its model of success, but “government motors” is actually a cautionary tale. The bailout cost taxpayers around $100 billion, which means the government coughed up around $780,000 for every American GM job that Mr. Obama claims he “saved.” The feds hold 500 million shares of GM stock, which has plummeted almost 45 percent since its initial public offering.
Believing in GM’s resurgence is only possible through creative accounting. GM counts a car as “sold” when it arrives at a dealership, not when it is in the hands of a consumer. The increased “sales” the administration brags about are surplus cars sitting in dealer lots, a practice known as “channel stuffing.” In a healthy economy, dealers have approximately a two-month inventory on hand; GM now has over double that. So long as GM pumps out cars that are “bought” by dealers, Mr. Obama can continue to claim things are looking up. Of cars that are actually driven off the lot, many are being bought by the majority stockholder: the government. In June, government purchases of GM cars went up 79 percent. This is a Ponzi scheme, not an economy.
http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/
So Long (and thanks for all the fish)
I’ve been putting off writing this post, but I can’t put this off forever: I’m closing down my blog. This blog has always been a hobby, and as happens in life, I’ve moved on to other things. I’ve also discovered that it’s not really healthy for me to read thousands of news articles a day and to be aware of every tragedy and scandal across the continent.
Comments are still welcome, and every now and then I’ll moderate them. All related email lists will be shut down.
A big thank you to my readers: when I started off you gave me financial support to buy books on the topic, but more than anything else, you forced me to think. In the many arguments and debates I’ve had with you over the years, both by email and by blog comments, I’ve had to review and rethink my positions. I didn’t always agree with you, but my opinions have definitely developed over the years.
A big thank you also to my husband, my silent partner in this venture. My chosen topic never really interested him, but despite that he sat through hours of discussions, helping me find my moral compass through it all.
I’ve started this blog in November 2005. I’ve gotten interested in the subject of the Muslim community in Europe and had been reading other blogs dealing with the issue. At the same time I started learning Dutch with a Flemish friend. A whole new world of news and opinions opened up to me. But what really got me blogging was the realization that the Jewish community was being affected by this very debate, and that nobody else was blogging about that angle. This was brought home to me by the following story: A Dutch author published a thriller centering around a terrorism plot. To add a surprise twist, though Muslims were implicated, the terrorist turned out to be Jewish. That made me realize that Jews were no longer spectators in the game, they were being dragged in.
Suddenly issues like kosher food, circumcision, head coverings, and religious practice were being questioned. The recent German court decision to ban circumcision, followed by similar decisions in Switzerland and Austria, comes as a final note to this blog. I agree with the commentator who wrote that “they’ve just made Judaism illegal”.
I chose a pseudonym because I did not want current or future bosses and acquaintances looking me up. I did not want to hide the fact that I was Jewish, after all that was what got me blogging, and so I chose the name ‘Esther’: a Jewish name which symbolizes ‘hiding’. Like the Biblical queen, I did not reveal my identity and nationality. I wanted my blog to stand and be judged on its own merit, and I was afraid that my true identity – a religious Israeli – might skew people’s opinions and turn my blog into a battleground about issues I had no interest in discussing.
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4244
“Everyone knows the inevitable awaits. Mitt Romney put down his bet that he, with Paul Ryan’s help, can persuade Americans to put aside, if only briefly, the trivia of a culture obsessed with celebrity and entertainment and drunk on entitlement. Greece lies at the bottom of that cliff, and there is no love among the ruins.”
Now we can get serious about November. Gone, if Mitt Romney intends to apply sufficient pressure, are the silly and irrelevant soundbite wars. No more “Romneyhood,” the bon mot the president is so proud of. Likewise, Mr. Romney can retire “Obamaloney” to the same schoolyard.
Besides, neither of these guys (or their writers) will ever remind anyone of Bob Hope or Rodney Dangerfield. But Paul Ryan, with his knowledge of budgets and how they work and the consequences when they don’t work, might open the conversation everyone says he or she wants but so far nobody will seriously engage in.
