http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577221342883636060.html?mod=opinion_newsreel He’s proposing higher spending and deficits this year. Federal budgets are by definition political documents, but even by that standard yesterday’s White House proposal for fiscal year 2013 is a brilliant bit of misdirection. With the abracadabra of a tax increase on the wealthy and defense spending cuts that will never materialize, the White […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577220941440285970.html Americans will get their first close look this week at Xi Jinping, the man who’s expected to replace Hu Jintao later this year as China’s paramount leader. Mr. Xi is one of the Communist Party’s original princelings—his father was a top Mao lieutenant until he was purged in the early 1960s—and press accounts of […]
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/13/v-print/138768/after-killings-of-iran-nuclear.html JERUSALEM — Israeli officials blamed Iran on Monday for nearly simultaneous attempts to bomb Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia in what some analysts suggested may be Iranian retaliation for a series of attacks on its nuclear program that have been widely blamed on Israel. In New Delhi, the explosion wounded four people, […]
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/index.php/pruden/full_column/over_the_top_to_the_guillotine “Over the top” is the preferred destination of all politicians, and nothing inspires candidates to go over the top like a presidential primary season. Newt Gingrich goes over the top to fly off to the moon. Herman Cain goes over the top to buy a pizza for all the lovely ladies. Mitt Romney goes […]
Shariah’s Police? www.SecureFreedom.org Over the weekend, a drama with potentially horrific consequences for freedom-loving Americans played out half-a-world away. A Saudi newspaper columnist named Hamza Kashgari was detained in Malaysia, reportedly on the basis of an alert by the International Criminal Police Organization, better known as Interpol. Reuters quotes a Malaysian police spokesman as saying […]
Egypt’s Downward Spiral Towards Self-Destruction Posted By Nonie Darwish
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/13/egypt%e2%80%99s-downward-spiral-towards-self-destruction/
The Arab Spring brought Egyptians new freedoms: kidnapping and robbing American tourists, the arrest of 43 NGO workers, including 19 Americans, senseless killings, endless riots and chaos, burning of churches and the killing and kidnapping of Christians.
Arrests of Westerners and accusing some of espionage and stirring up the riots and attacking and accusing Christians of working with the enemies of Islam, is nothing new and is almost always politically motivated. Focusing on the outside non-Muslim world rather than focusing on urgent internal matters and taking responsibility for previous failures has always been the norm in almost all Muslim countries, especially Egypt. With a straight face, an Egyptian MP recently commented on the Egyptian soccer riots that resulted in the killing of over 75 people and injuring hundreds, by saying “This anarchy is caused by America, Israel and the former regime.”
Obama’s Assault on America’s Prestige Posted By Bruce Thornton
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/13/obama%e2%80%99s-assault-on-america%e2%80%99s-prestige/print/
In 1868, a British army led by Sir Robert Napier sailed from India to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to rescue several English and European hostages from the mentally unstable, sadistic King Theodore. Theodore had become enraged a few years earlier because his letter to Queen Victoria asking for military assistance had been ignored, and so he retaliated by taking the hostages. Napier’s expedition required the building of a port, railroad, and road in order for his army of 13,000 soldiers to march to Theodore’s stronghold Magdala, 400 brutal miles from the coast. After the three-month march, the British met Theodore’s army at Magadala and routed it. The hostages were released, and Theodore committed suicide. Then Napier led his army back to the coast and sailed away, surprising many who believed that rescuing the hostages was a pretext for colonial expansion.
The Abyssinian expedition illustrates the British awareness that an empire must defend not just its material interests, but also its prestige. Insults and injuries to its citizens cannot be tolerated, for rivals and enemies will interpret such forbearance as a weakness to be exploited. The expedition was an expensive, massive undertaking, but one necessary in order to warn the Empire’s potential enemies that England would pay any price to defend its honor and interests. Power is not just about material resources, but also the perceptions of others that power will be used, a perception that works as a force multiplier. As Vergil says in the Aeneid, “They have power because they seem to have power.”
Why Conservative Movies Outperform Liberal Ones Posted By Ben Shapiro
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/13/why-conservative-movies-outperform-liberal-ones/print/
The Hollywood Reporter wrote this week about Dr. Ted Baehr’s Movieguide Awards, handed out to the most family friendly films of the year. According to the Reporter, “The report praises such 2011 releases as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Battle: Los Angeles, Moneyball, We Bought a Zoo and Hugo while heaping scorn on the likes of Super 8, Red State, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Bad Teacher and Happy Feet Two.”
Just as importantly, the report demonstrated that such family friendly films are significantly more lucrative than non-family friendly films: “Movieguide identified 91 movies in 2011 that scored high in ‘conservative/moral categories’; these earned an average of $59 million apiece. On the other hand, it identified 105 movies that scored high in ‘liberal/leftist categories’; each of those titles earned an average of just $11 million. The average movie scoring four stars from Movieguide earned $53.5 million while the ones that scored just one star earned $10.6 million.”
“Most moviegoers want good to conquer evil, truth to triumph over falsehood, justice to prevail over injustice and true beauty to overcome ugliness,” said Baehr.
Breaking: Iran’s ‘Fordow’ Nuke Plant Now Fully Operational Posted By Reza Kahlili
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/breaking-irans-fordow-nuke-plant-now-fully-operational/
According to Mehr News Agency, sources within Iran revealed [1] that there will be an announcement in a few days that the previously secret nuclear site, the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, is now fully operational and enriching uranium at a 20% level.
The world learned about the existence of this site in 2009 when the Iranians disclosed it to the IAEA right before President Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France made statements at the G-20 summit in Pittsburg that referenced the secret Iranian site.
The site is built deep into a mountain on a Revolutionary Guards’ base near the city of Qom.
The Iranian leaders had intended to transfer much of their low-enriched uranium stock from Natanz to Fordow and to start the process of enrichment at a much higher level with protection against any attack.
Now it’s $11 Billion for the Muslim Brotherhood? Only in America Posted By David P. Goldman
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/02/12/now-its-11-billion-for-the-muslim-brotherhood-only-in-america/
Now that America-hating Islamists control three-quarters of Egypt’s parliament and the military government has rejected American protests at the prosecution of U.S. citizens for supporting democracy, Egypt is asking for $11 billion in Western aid. That has to be the least popular idea to float down the Potomac in a long time. Nonetheless, the Obama administration and its supporters in the Punditeska doubtless will ask American taxpayers to ante up a large part of the $11 billion handout, in the interest of “promoting Egyptian democracy.” Only in America do we feed the mouth that bites us. CPI Financial News reported on Sunday:
Mumtaz El Saeed, Egypt’s Finance Minister, says the country needs $11 billion to help it get through the next fiscal year, as well as help with economic reforms, according to a report in Al Ahram, a local newspaper.
This comes as rating agency Standard & Poor’s lowered its long-term foreign- and local-currency sovereign credit ratings on the country to ‘B’ from ‘B+’; with a negative outlook.
S&P said that Egypt’s external position has deteriorated and is likely to weaken further, absent stabilisation in the domestic political situation alongside external financial support.
“Egypt’s external financing risks have risen significantly, with foreign direct investment having declined sharply and net portfolio flows also having turned negative. Egyptian Central Bank interventions–to support the Egyptian pound in the face of significant capital outflows and double-digit annual inflation–have resulted in a sharp decline in net international reserves. These were $16 billion at end-January 2012, down from $36 billion at the start of 2011. Historically, S&P’s assessment of Egypt’s external score has been a relative strength to the rating; this is now being eroded. It estimates that net international reserves, excluding gold, now cover less than three months of goods and services imports compared with more than six months at the start of 2011,” the rating agency said.
What Egypt’s reserves might be is unclear — the New York Times recently published an estimate of $10 billion, or less than two months’ imports — but at least half of the $20 billion to $25 billion loss in reserves is the result of flight capital. Only half reflects the minimum, essential import needs of a broken economy that imports half of its caloric consumption.
Wealthy Egyptians, that is, are moving their money out of the country at the rate of $2 to $3 billion a month. The actual rate is higher, because a great deal of diesel fuel, propane gas, rice, wheat, and other things are stolen and sold overseas. As I reported (exclusively in the English-language media) last October, Egypt’s generals fired all the outside directors of the country’s central bank, which means that no-one outside the military knows precisely what is happening. After sixty years of military rule, Egypt’s military runs the Egyptian economy, which means that most of the capital leaving the country belong to the generals or their friends and family.
To ask Americans to pour more money into this kleptocracy is outrageous. Like Somalia, ordinary Egyptians will never see the benefits. But that is precisely what the Obamoids will demand. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, for example, begs America not to cut off aid in response to Egypt’s provocation:
