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BasicsProject.org

http://www.newmediajournal.us/

As the nation stands ready to plunge over the so-called “fiscal cliff,” it has become obvious that no matter how many ways House Republicans find to “increase revenue,” in an effort to meet President Obama and his Progressive brethren in compromise, nothing short of complete capitulation will placate the spendthrifts existing on the Left side of the aisle. It is abundantly clear that Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats intended all along to allow sequestration to occur, resulting in both the slashing of the budget at the Pentagon (an ongoing quest of both Democrats and Progressives) and gaining political capital in being able to con low-information voters into believing Republicans caused the problem in the first place.

One point that needs to be made – and understood – by even the most apolitical among us is this: Congress, and specifically the US House of Representatives, is where all legislation concerning revenue is mandated to originate. Article I, Section 7, of the United States Constitution reads:

“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”

And while the verbiage that follows outlines the processes by which the presidential veto and congressional veto overrides are to be executed, nowhere is the power of the purse – the ability to create legislation that raises revenue – extended to any other branch of government or congressional body.

I bring this fundamental tenet of our system of government to the forefront because I am puzzled as to why House Republicans, led by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), are negotiating budgetary financial matters, a responsibility and purview exclusively vested in the US House of Representatives, with anyone outside that body, let alone the Executive Branch, which only has the constitutional power of the veto over said legislation?

Such are the questions that arise when the bully pulpit is used to usurp the constitutional order of our government.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/12/27/senior-hamas-official-reconciliation-efforts-with-plo-to-be-based-on-rejection-of-israels-right-to-exist/

Fatah and Hamas appear to have more that unites them than divides them.
A Senior Hamas official said that his organization wants reconciliation efforts with the PLO to be based on the Palestinian Arab demand for a right of return, a demand that if implemented would effectively bring about the end of Israel as a Jewish state, as well the absence of recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Ahmed Bahar made the statements Thursday, according to Ma’an News Agency.“We want a real unity among the Palestinian people in order to stand in a row in front of the Israeli occupation and prevent it from carrying out its settlement projects and Judaization of Jerusalem,” Bahar said, according to a translation.

Since the end of the recent conflict in November between Israel and terrorists in Gaza, Hamas and the PA have made no secret of their interest in reconciling after their acrimonious split in 2007. Recent polls have shown support for the reconciliation process, as well as for Hamas’s leadership, has grown in recent months.

Bahar also stressed his mantra that resistance was the only path, saying that a return to negotiations would be futile as attempts at talks in the past twenty years “did not achieve anything.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12641 The gun-type plutonium bomb mechanism is small, cylindrical, and very physically robust technologically; the manners of delivery of such a nuclear device are infinite. Guess who has the technology. On December 5th, 2012, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article entitled “From Bushehr to the Bomb.” The blockbuster WSJ article reported that Iran […]

Post Election Stress Disorder: What to do Until 2024

by DR. YALE KRAMERDecember 27, 2012
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/post-election-stress-disorder-what-to-do-until-2024?f=must_reads

All loss is traumatic to human beings. The consequences of severe loss–the loss of a loved one–may be life-long and inconsolable. A lesser loss–loss of a job perhaps, or a fortune–may take months or years to overcome. A World Series wager? A couple of bourbons and a good night’s sleep.

But isn’t it time you closed the book on the 2012 election? Good grief, it’s been more than seven weeks now. Isn’t it time you stopped replaying that first debate? Gave up re-analyzing the DVR of Karl Rove’s 3-2-1 strategy of the Romney victory; and seeing Dick Morris declare again for the hundredth time that Romney was going to win with 300 electoral votes.

Isn’t it time we gave up revisiting those horrible three hours on election night after the polls closed in Connecticut. Watching Brett Baier, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as he proudly introduced the statisticians who would make the winning calls, and the guru strategists who would tell us what counties to follow as Romney’s vote total mounted and it became clear that he had beaten Obama.

And when did the collars begin to wilt and spirits begin to sag? Ten? Ten-thirty? The swing states began to slide away. New Hampshire? What? What’s going on? Virginia? We’ll make it up with Iowa, and probably Wisconsin, right? Ohio looks bad…Florida slipping away further and further. Then it was suddenly clear–all of our hopes, our strategies, our future fantasies–all illusions…childish wishes.

My e-pal P. David Hornik,(http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/west-longs-for-jew-free-zones-in-jerusalem/print/) reminds us today how the West, not content with dividing Israel’s capital now seeks actual Jew-free zones in Jerusalem, the locus of the prayers of Jews for centuries. Once, among Jews and their supporters -even leftists and pacifists- considered the city undividable. Candidates and platforms of both major political parties in America issued strong calls for moving the American embassy there. Where has that support vanished? Where are the leaders? Where is the outrage?

Psalm 137

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

http://times247.com/
Hillary not seen in public since December 15
The Weekly Standard
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Blogs
On December 15, State Department officials notified the press that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had fallen ill. Since then, Clinton does not appear to have been sighted in public. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2GFxCvj67

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

2012.12.26 (Khost, Afghanistan) – Three Afghans are blown to bits by a Shahid suicide bomber.
2012.12.25 (Nalchik, Russia) – Suspected Islamists shoot a non-Muslim twice in the head.
2012.12.25 (Peri, Nigeria) – A pastor and five worshippers are slaughtered in a Religion of Peace attack on a Christmas morning church service.
2012.12.25 (Karachi, Pakistan) – An attack on a Sunni cleric leaves six dead.
2012.12.24 (Maiduguri, Nigeria) – Six people are killed in a Christmas Eve church attack by Religion of Peace gunmen.
2012.12.24 (Samarrah, Iraq) – Suspected al-Qaeda assassinate two guards at a Shia shrine.

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2012/12/26/the-continuing-bad-advice-of-thomas-friedman-bad-for-the-united-states-and-for-israel/?print=1 On Christmas Day, Tom Friedman [1] gave his readers what may possibly be his worst columns ever (having written so many bad columns, this is of course a judgment call). Here he joins the less influential John B. Judis of The New Republic [2] in defending the status of Chuck Hagel as the leading […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/climate_science_vs_politics_the_road_ahead.html There is good news and bad news about climate. The good news is that science evidence has made it quite clear that the human contribution to a possible global warming is minor; in fact it cannot even be identified in the data record. The bad news is that the media and politicians pay no […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324907204578185960557987122.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

‘Zero Dark Thirty,” the film from director Kathryn Bigelow that opened this month, is garnering rave reviews for its unblinking portrayal of what it took the United States to track and kill Osama bin Laden. But a trio of Beltway critics are all thumbs down.

They would be Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Carl Levin of Michigan and Republican Senator John McCain of John McCain. “We write to express our deep disappointment with the movie Zero Dark Thirty,” the three wrote in a recent letter to Sony6758.TO -0.11% Pictures. “We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden.”

A still from Zero Dark Thirty.You know it’s a bad day in America when Hollywood seems to have a better grip on intelligence issues than the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the top two Members at Armed Services. The film depicts the “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or EITs, used on the detainees held at the CIA’s so-called black sites, and hints that the interrogations provided at least some of the information that led to bin Laden’s killing.What Ms. Bigelow intended by depicting the EITs is not for us to explain: This is an action flick, not a Ken Burns documentary. Yet the mere suggestion that such techniques paid crucial intelligence dividends—as attested by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden, among many others—has sent Mrs. Feinstein and her colleagues into paroxysms of indignation. They even have a 5,000-plus-page study that purports to prove her case.We say “purports” because, so far, hardly anyone outside the Senate Intelligence Committee has laid eyes on this white whale. The report began four years ago as a largely bipartisan effort to examine the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs.