COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Hillary Clinton cementing relations with our new friends in Libya








US Ambassador killed in Libya: chased to his death by a mob in the country he helped save

Chris Stevens had travelled to Benghazi this week to open an American cultural centre, a fitting reminder of the friendships he forged there during the Libyan uprising against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.


By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent and Areesh Saeed in Benghazi
9:17PM BST 12 Sep 2012 TELEGRAPH



By Tuesday night, he was lying prostrate on the roof of the US consulate, dying from smoke inhalation, a victim of the terrible violence that freedom has unleashed in the country he loved and in the city that he had “helped save”.

He had been trying to escape the fumes that had enveloped the building after Islamic extremists attacked the compound with rocketpropelled grenades. Despite the best efforts of Libyan doctors to revive him, he would not survive.

Diplomats, politicians and security analysts were trying to work out which elements of that new Libya had killed him and why. Was it really because of a schoolboy-humour film showing men in fake beards making crude jokes about donkeys, religion and sex?

Or was it more calculated, a carefully planned assault intended as revenge for the killing in a US drone strike of the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, a Libyan jihadist? Perhaps an attack timed to coincide with the anniversary of September 11?

The evidence on the ground was grim. “Everything is completely burned. The building is black with soot and a lot of furniture has been stolen,” said Mounther al-Senussi, a neighbour, as he surveyed the damage to the consulate yesterday. “There are two embassy cars outside that have been razed to the ground. There were bullet-holes on the walls. Everything is so burnt I could not tell which room was which.”

The events that may have led to the carnage – and to the death of Mr Stevens – began with the broadcast earlier this week of clips from a forthcoming satire on the life of the Prophet Mohammed sarcastically entitled The Innocence of Muslims. The film, said to have been created by an Israeli-American, Sam Bacile, was slick in its way but its humour was crude. It showed the Prophet in a sexual position with his first wife, and then sleeping with another woman.

The original was in American-accented English, but the film was also dubbed into Egyptian Arabic – a version that was then uploaded on to the website of Morris Sadek, a virulently anti-Islam Egyptian Christian Copt, now based in the United States. It quickly spread throughout the Middle East.

As anger in the Muslim world grew, the US embassy in Egypt tweeted that it “condemned efforts to offend believers of all religions”. That was not enough to prevent an angry crowd from forming outside the building on Tuesday afternoon, made up in part of Salafis, followers of the purist strain of Islam particularly intolerant of heresy, and the angry young men who make up the heart of many demonstrations in Cairo.

Shockingly for one of the most sensitive – and fortress-like – US embassies in the world, neither the police nor the army, generally present in large numbers, intervened as some men climbed the wall.

One managed to rip down the American flag. After failing to set it alight, the crowd ripped it to shreds. It was replaced with a black flag bearing the Arabic inscription “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet” - a standard declaration of faith, but also a common banner of Islamist fighting groups.

Meanwhile, planning for the attack that would claim the life of Mr Stevens 600 miles to the west was well advanced. By Tuesday evening, an angry mob had gathered outside the compound of the US consulate in Benghazi.
Ostensibly, the “protest” was also over the film. But to call those involved protesters is probably wrong: even in Libya, protesters do not arrive with rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

One eyewitness told The Daily Telegraph yesterday how an armed group infiltrated the ordinary protesters and sounded a warning. They told those nearby to stay back, that they had guns. The warning was real.
As gunfire rang out, the American security team protecting Mr Stevens, who was on a short visit to the consulate from his usual base in Tripoli, decided that he and his staff should be moved from the main consulate building, to a second, safer building on the compound.

However, even as they did so, the Libyan security detail outside, outgunned and outnumbered, retreated – after already having suffered 10 men dead and injured, according to a Libyan official. The second, supposedly safer, building then came under fire too, from rocket-propelled grenades. At some point, the attackers managed to enter the grounds and set the building on fire.

As the building burned, Mr Stevens made a desperate attempt to make it to the roof, trying to reach fresh air and escape the smoke.

“Folks inside were fighting the fire inside and the attackers outside,” a Libyan official told The Daily Telegraph. “Chris Stevens and the others got separated trying to escape to the roof of the building.”

The events of the next few moments are unclear, but distressing photographs circulating last night appeared to show Mr Stevens and one of his colleagues - believed to be Sean Smith, a press aide - being carried away in the aftermath of the attacks.

Mr Stevens was rushed to hospital. Meanwhile, two other unnamed US officials lost their lives at some point during the firefight.

A Libyan doctor, Dr Ziad Abu Zeid, yesterday told how had he spent 90 minutes trying to revive Mr Stevens at the Benghazi Medical Centre. He died of severe asphyxia, giving rise to stomach bleeding. It is thought that his three colleagues all died of gunshot wounds.

Their job done, the mob dispersed. An indirect claim of both responsibility and irresponsibility came in the morning, in a rambling statement from a spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia, the extremist group most closely associated with this sort of violence.

“Mockery of Sharia and the Prophet should be met forcefully,” he said.
“This is a popular uprising where all Libyan people have come forward to make victorious the religion of Allah.”

There is no evidence that Mr Stevens or any of his colleague mocked sharia or the religion of Allah: indeed, their work last year helped Libya to throw off the shackles of a dictator who enthusiastically oppressed it.
A deputy interior minister, Wanis Sharif, tried vainly to say that pro-Gaddafi remnants were involved. Few believed him.

Most Libyans – who voted in recent elections to reject pro-democracy Islamic parties, let alone radicals – divided their blame between their own weak government and the forces seeking to undermine it. “We are so upset for what happened,” said Maher al-Senussi, an onlooker.

“Real Libyans cared about this guy, he was helping us. Believe me the majority are condemning this.”

Only two months ago, Mr Stevens sent an email describing how happy he was to have returned to a country “much more friendly” than when he was first stationed there under Col Gaddafi. “It is great to be back in the ’new Libya’, as people are saying,” he had said. It was a return that would claim his life.

73 comments:

  1. To peace-niks all over the world who just want to live in Peace and Harmony, the whole Clash of Civilization is a CIA conspiracy in its national interests to create a continuos cycle of chaos, conflicts and violence in the Ummahs.

    a) Starting from the AfPak, the CIA created a Jihadist opposition to the communist regime in Kabul by roping in the Wahhabi Gulf, arming and funding extremist Islamists from all over the Ummahs like Al Qaeda, Chechens, Mujahideen , etc.

    b) To facilitate the CIA effort in Afghanistan, they turned to their Pakistani intelligence ally to manage and coordinate the terrorists. In fact, Osama claimed that they are the one that brought down the Soviets in the battle-fields.

    c) By the time of the Soviet downfall, the Hegemon has left the whole region much like the Somalia it created. Mujahideen warlords were fighting for their share of the booty to supply the opium to the West. The Wahabbis has funded and trained tens of thousand of Talibs every year from their madrassas there. With the helps of the ISI, the Talibs finally established their regime in Kabul.

    d) Extreme Jihadist ideologues like Osama has by now grown disillusioned with the Hegemon whom he perceived are propping up various crony regimes like in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen etc. who are fighting among themselves to keep the Ummah weak. Hence he strikes out on the fateful 9/11 day,

    e) The Hegemon were quick to strike back by ousting his Taliban sympathizer regime from Kabul in a new phase called the War on Terror which it now promises to quit with honor from AfPak in 2014.

    f) Flushed with their initial successes, the neocons now turned their attention in coveting the Ummah riches in Iraq under the guise of "Regime Change" of its first crony Saddam. Saddam was the key CIA tool to pressure the Shia theocrats using weaponry and gases supplied by the Hegemon. Today the Hegemon had left with Honor in Iraq by giving democracy to the Shia nemesis in power there.

    g) With the arrival of Spring, the Hegemon saw an opportunity window to do Regime changes of its other cronies in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria etc by bringing in the same religious fundamentalist formula of Wahhabi cum Jihadists much like in AfPak and Somalia. In Libya where much of the population were still with the crony, the Hegemon had to intervene militarily under the guise of protecting “civilians cum terrorists” enclaves under a UN mandate to do the regime change of Gaddafi who was finally tracked by drone to be killed by the Jihadists.

    h) The Hegemon now hope to repeat the same formula in Syria in the face of the Russian opposition. The terrorists now called Militants are now allied to the Hegemon. We can expect the same sort of warlord division and assassinations like between the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The killing of a Jihadist leader is part and parcel of the game played by the Hegemon.

    However the script of the Hegemon never runs that smoothly and is unexpected as the Militants cum terrorist allies have turned their guns on its Benefactor in Benghazi so claimed by the Zionist elements in Washington.

    ReplyDelete

  2. i) Respect for free speech is to be placed above respect for religious claptrap and religious bigots. The rub is that Islam is not inclined towards freedom of expression and never will be.

    j) America under Obama, Clinton and the neocons played a big hand in a forced very violent regime change that many saw as being more about control of Libya and its resources than protecting civilians, many thousand of the latter being slaughtered by NATO strikes on Sirte.

    k) Many american interests, not least their embassies in countries where they have had a military conflict in, are in my view at extreme risk of attack from many disaffected groups who do not need any other excuse.

    l) The consuls and diplomats in these same countries are more closely aligned to the american politicians who have caused so much death and suffering, and are in many ways a more ‘valid’ target than the troops who just follow orders. The Hegemon continues.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wonder if Obama even knows what really did happen there. (the "revolution," I mean.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guarantee you, the boys at BP, Total, Eni, and the CIA know. Putin, I'm sure, is laboring under No false illusions as to what happened. Bill, and Hillary, hell yeah. Cheney, and even Bush.

      But, Obama?

      He might have figured it out by now. :)

      Delete
  4. We stuck our big nose in an ugly civil war and now we are seeing paybacks. Fifty marines are going to do their paybacks and on it will go.

    Fifty more can turn into fifty thousand more quicker than you think.

    Knowing that!

    We have no business there. Obama is a fool for having involved NATO in nation building. Who was attacked?

    Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie?

    Mind our own business. Stay the hell out of the Middle East.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The United States and Libya have agreed to work together to investigate a deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. The US president has also asked Egypt to protect US diplomatic personnel.

    The White House said in a statement that US President Barack Obama spoke on Wednesday evening with his Libyan counterpart Mohammed el-Megarif, with the two leaders agreeing “to work closely over the course of this investigation.”

    “The president made it clear that we must work together to do whatever is necessary to identify the perpetrators of this attack and bring them to justice,” the statement said.

    According to the White House, Obama also called Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi about protests in that country, and asked that he “cooperate with the United States in securing US diplomatic facilities and personnel.”

    ReplyDelete
  6. Who is Mohammed el-Megarif and how did he become Obama’s counterpart?

    El-Megarif, who wrote a series of books on Gaddafi's repressive policies, lived as a wanted fugitive for years, and was the leader of the country's oldest armed opposition movement, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. The movement made several attempts to end Gaddafi's 42-year rule, sometimes by plotting assassination attacks including a well-known and daring 1984 raid on Bab al-Aziziyah, the late dictator's fortified compound in Tripoli.

    The regime cracked down on the group, executing and arresting many of its members. Many fled abroad where they worked as political activists. El-Megarif's movement organised the first Libyan opposition conference in London in 2005 and called for the overthrow of Gaddafi's regime at a time when other groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, accepted Gaddafi.

    Upon his return to Libya after last year’s armed revolution, he formed a new party, the National Front, which sees Islam as a broad guideline to the state’s affairs. - Guardian

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mohammed el-Megarif sees Islam as a broad guideline to the state’s affairs.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wouldn’t the Russians, the Iranians and the Chinese love to see us tied down in ME War (anyone keeping count on which number this one is?)

    ReplyDelete
  9. MOSCOW — Upon learning of the violent death of the United States ambassador to Libya on Wednesday, many Russians responded with variations on “I told you so.”

    Russia has long argued that the West should not support popular uprisings against dictatorships in the Middle East lest Islamic fundamentalism take hold. Vladimir V. Putin, then serving as prime minister, was especially enraged last fall after an angry crowd killed his ally, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, an event he later condemned as a “repulsive, disgusting” scene.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Assad is probably resting easier.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I awake to the great news that Angelina is on the scene. She can adopt some Libyan babies. Can Brad be far behind? Meanwhile, passed through Cairo, Illinois, that Jim and Huck drifted on by unawares, and there seems to be peace in that Cairo. I like our Cairo better than their Cairo.


    My wife is suggesting that Angelina simply buy Libya and be Queen. (she is forgetting the muslim antipathy to women in power, for the moment)

    Went to Keeneland Race Track to buy a box with a wet bar and TV in the upper grandstand for the season.

    Can you believe it, there was a guy selling subscriptions to

    "Q-TIPS" -

    Your horse racing pro -

    $4,320,000 won by customers last year

    50 years experience

    86.4% on show
    43.2% on place
    21.6% on win

    average over all those years

    Only $599.99 for subscription through the season

    or $25.00/day

    Engaged the man in conversation, said he was from Detroit, Michigan, and had spent his entire life around horses.


    ....Lexington is o so green, and o so clean looking.....nice place, even downtown.....



    ReplyDelete
  12. Nice picture of the American media at Red State -

    http://www.redstate.com/

    Clowns.

    Good article too.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is not a good time to be bogged down in Afghanistan. 85 Thousand of our best troops (with our best equipment) guarding Karzai's opium fields.

    Oil is the lifeblood of our economy, and 1/3 of it comes from Africa, and the Middle East. When that place blows we'll have a choice between All-Out War/Occupation of the entire area, or Depression.

    We're slowly but surely getting ourselves into one hell of a pickle.

    ReplyDelete
  14. RASMUSSEN POLL: ROMNEY BACK IN LEAD...

    R: 47%
    O: 46%


    Things returning to normal.

    Rasmussen catching up with BubblePlumbPolling.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Things never changed
      There was no "Bump"
      none that mattered, anyway

      RASMUSSEN REPORTS

      Electoral College
      Obama: 247 - Romney: 196 - Toss-up: 95


      No change since early August when WI became a toss-up.

      Wonder why Mr Ryan is spending so much time in his District, running for a Congressional seat, if he's feeling confident about the "Big Race"?

      Delete
  15. .

    Bob.

    Meant to tell you about this earlier and forgot.

    There is a website called Coursera.com where you can sign up to audit college courses online for free. The site currently has 124 courses offered through about 16 major universities. A number of them have already begun.

    The one I thought you might be interested in was

    Modern and Contemporary Poetry (University of PA.)

    Unfortunately, the class started on September 10; however, you can likely still sign up. It runs for 10 weeks and you would have the opportunity to tell the professor what he doesn't know.

    There are other courses offered later that you might enjoy such as

    Equine Nutrition (University of Edinburgh)

    Introduction to Philosophy (University of Edinburgh)

    and courses that you sorely need

    Introduction to Logic (Stanford University)

    and others that might help you attain a measure of self-awareness

    A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior (Duke University)


    I happened to see one that looked interesting to me

    Fundamentals of Pharmacology


    Plus if you complete the course you get a certificate. Ooohh baby.

    .


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't bother me dude, I'm reading Jon Swift right now.

      Delete
    2. I happened to see one that looked interesting to me

      Fundamentals of Pharmacology


      Readily can I understand your interest, Quirk. If it were Equine Pharmacology you might add it to the list of your credentials on "Q-TIPS" here in Lexington. As in, 'your tipster can always tell which horses are drugged, with what, and why'.

      Would be most excellent added credential.

      Delete
  16. This really is a most excellent town. Here the locals have wisely named some of their streets not after some Civil War general, or some local or national politician of dubious value, but rather after noble Houyhnhnms. In good Swiftian fashion you might see in a park a noble horse, saddleless, riderless, rather than just another Yahoo or other, saddled up for war, out for, usually, particularly the politicians, out for his own ego enhancement. This is surpassing excellent, indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "I can see an empty chair from my house!"

    Empty blows on out to Vegas. Leaves store untended, empty.

    gimmeliberty Collapse

    Just when you think this spectacle called the Obama Administration couldn't possibly get any uglier and hard to watch, well, just damned! America's embassy and sovereign soil has been attacked by Islamic extremists and what is Obama's first response? Dispatch his useful idiots in the MSM to attack Mitt Romney over a statement he made, apologize to the extremists who attacked the embassy, jump the first plane to Las Vegas for a fund raiser and more fun, frivolity and silliness! Just unbelievable. Voters; pleeeeaaase replace this clueless immature clown in the White House with a real adult who understands the basic fundementals of how the real world works and is willing to actually BE president rather than someone masquerading and pretending to be president.



    Glenn Hanson

    well gee he did spend the first two minutes on our 'tough day'.


    rpjkw11

    I don't think American leadership is absent. Obama, our "Imam in Chief" is working hand in glove with the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorists. Obama was once quoted as saying the sweetest sound in the world was the call to prayers. And now we're TOLD to believe the man feels differently? Obama has only one loyalty and, friends, the USA ain't it.




    (((((Just last month, U.S. intelligence agencies monitored a meeting between officials of the Egyptian and Iranian intelligence ministries, raising the specter that the newly installed Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo could be secretly backing terrorism worldwide, it was reported yesterday. Members of the anti-Muslim Brotherhood opposition believe Obama has signed off on a covert agreement to support the Morsi government.))))))

    AND I'M ASKED TO WASTE MY TIME GIVING QUIRK SOME REASON TO VOTE FOR ROMNEY!!!

    Gawdalmighty


    http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/middle_east_a_tinderbox_american_leadership_absent.html




    ReplyDelete
  18. I'm reading the Ambassador was treated in an undiplomatic manner before he was killed but don't know the truth of it yet. Rumor is he may have been raped and tortured.

    Since Obama is in Vegas, we must turn to Hillary for the.....truth off all this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe Joe 'wet drunk' Biden can fill us in.

      Delete
  19. OT - really nifty new monkey discovered -

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2202569/The-colourful-new-species-African-owl-faced-monkey.html

    ReplyDelete
  20. The head maintain guy here says 'why it's just pitiful, just pitiful, what a guvment we got now - they killin' our people and the President goes to Vegas, it's just pitiful' that's what he said.

    ReplyDelete

  21. It looks like the Associated Press has solved the mystery of who was behind the anti-Islam film believed to have sparked this week's violent protests at U.S. missions in Egypt, Libya, and throughout the Middle East.



    That man is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Coptic Christian with a criminal past who lives in California, according to the news wire's digging, which has been backed up by a federal law enforcement official.


    In an interview with the AP, Nakoula admitted to providing logistical support for the production of Innocence of Muslims but denied being "Sam Bacile," the name given as the film's maker. But the evidence cobbled together by AP reporters Gillian Flaccus and Stephen Braun suggests otherwise.



    The AP was one of a handful of media outlets to publish an interview early Wednesday with a man who claimed to be Bacile. Reporters traced the cellphone number used during that interview to Nakoula's address and, once there, noticed that Nakoula covered up his middle name of "Basseley" with his thumb when displaying his driver's license.


    A little more digging on the part of Flaccus and Braun led to the discovery that Nakoula pleaded no contest in 2010 to bank fraud charges, had used numerous aliases in . . . . . . . .


    Different name, different religion, same asshole

    fucking religion is going to be the death of us all, yet.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Nay, nitwit, it's the muslim 'religion' may be the death of us all, yet.

    Everyone else would laugh the whole thing off.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Ann Romney to be in horse country here next week!

    ReplyDelete
  24. The Coptic refugee was not laughing it off, when he financed the movie, dimwit boobie.

    The Mormon candidate for President of the USA grandparents did not laugh off religious intolerance, no, they left the USA because of it.
    Miles Romney was even prosecuted in 1885 under the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act (for polygamy). This act allowed certain citizenship rights to be stripped of those convicted. Shortly after that he left for Mexico, taking his family with him.
    Religious intolerance is no laughing matter.

    ReplyDelete
  25. The Republicans in Pennsylvania are trying to disenfranchise 18% of those voters over 55, 25% of Blacks, and 24% of Young voters with their voter ID law. It looks like they might succeed. That isn't any laughing matter, either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I understand that those people in the American Consulate in Benghazi weren't terribly amused at the video.

      Delete
    2. On that disenfranchisement stuff.

      But then, everyone knows how bullheaded you can be, so what's the use to argue?

      Delete
    3. Even the lawyers for the republicans admitted to the Pa Supreme Court, today, that there really wasn't any problem with ineligible people voting in Pennsylvania.

      Delete
  26. They didn't kill people over it, innocent people, craparoo.

    Over some movie made in a foreign land, dimwit crapper.


    TV news says gas $4.01 here today.

    It's all part of the Obama/Rufus recovery/ethanol/solar/wind/geothermal policies kicking in, right in time for the election!

    Helping the working class to greater ease of living!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's Peak Oil continuing to bite, idiot.

      Wholesale Ethanol was $2.56/gal at the CBOT, today.

      If it wasn't for the republicans we'd have more of it (and gasoline would be cheaper.)

      Delete
    2. There certainly were people killed in the Mormon Rebellion, dimwit.

      Mormons attacked and KILLED at the Mountain Meadows massacre. Indeed there were approximately 120 US citizens killed by renegade Mormons, there in 1857.

      The Mormons were battling against religious persecution they perceived directed at them by the US government.

      Delete
    3. That your knowledge of US history is so limited, boobie, makes me wonder ...

      Where were you born?
      What country issued your birth certificate?

      You've said, previously, America, which is not a country that issues birth certificates or passports.

      We all know your wife voted illegally in Ohio, in 2008.
      By claiming to be a resident, there, when she was not. Your personal experience with VOTER FRAUD in the family does not make you an expert on the going ons in PA.

      Delete
  27. Now expect the crapper to come back with some shit, when everyone knows historically the muslims have been, and continue to be, the greatest offenders, generation after generation after generation, though others have misbehaved as well. The moslems are the worst at it. Though some of the secular are very good too.

    ReplyDelete
  28. The Supreme Ct. in Pa is elected. 3 Republicans, and 3 Democrats are hearing the case. It's widely expected that the 3 republican justices will side with the republican state government, and as a result, the law will be upheld.

    As bad as Alabama ever was.

    ReplyDelete
  29. A demented fool corrects Empty -

    President Carter spoke to Drake University in Des Moines and was asked if he agrees with what Obama said about Egypt:

    Carter: "Egypt is an ally of the US, we know Egypt well."

    President Obama had earlier stated during an interview: Obama: 'Ya know, I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we do not consider them an enemy. '

    Carter went on to Talk about Egypt's new President , Carter says he knows him well and has met with him. Carter said Egypt's president is dedicated to peace and truly a democratic government.


    Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/jimmy-carter/2012/09/13/jimmy-carter-corrects-obama#ixzz26OafmTig

    ReplyDelete
  30. According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted.

    Obama and Hillary and The Team were out playing golf, campaigning, or doing Vegas, or fooling around with Huma Abedin while all this was going down.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/revealed-inside-story-of-us-envoys-assassination-8135797.html

    Wunnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful.

    And now Jimmah chirps in.

    Were is Biden, the brains of the operation??

    ReplyDelete
  31. This isn’t unprecedented. The Bush administration pushed for a welfare “superwaiver” that would allow states to waive just about every requirement, including the work requirement. “The superwaiver proposal passed the House three times: in 2002, 2003, and 2005,” CRS’ Gene Falk writes (pdf). “The legislation would have had the effect of allowing TANF work participation standards to be waived.” All three times the proposal was backed by Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Rob Portman and most other Republicans in the House. (The relevant roll call votes are here, here and here.)

    Waiving the work requirement may or may not be a good idea. But despite what the Romney-Ryan campaign’s ads say, Paul Ryan is the only person on the national ticket to have supported doing it.


    Republican Proposal that really Would Gut the Work Rule

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That'll make for some great debate fodder!

      Delete
    2. I think Joe Biden might have a better debate than some of the tea folks think he will.

      Delete
  32. The Federal Reserve, frustrated by persistently high U.S. unemployment and the torpid recovery, launched an aggressive program to spur the economy through open-ended commitments to buy mortgage-backed securities and a promise to keep interest rates low for years.

    ...

    "We want to see more jobs," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a news conference Thursday...

    ReplyDelete
  33. Libyan reinforcements eventually arrived, and the attack ended. News had arrived of Mr Stevens, and his body was picked up from the hospital and taken back to Tripoli with the other dead and the survivors.

    Mr Stevens' mother, Mary Commanday, spoke of her son yesterday. "He did love what he did, and he did a very good job with it.

    He could have done a lot of other things, but this was his passion. I have a hole in my heart," she said.

    ReplyDelete
  34. A member of Congress who has been pushing for more transparency, including an audit, of the Federal Reserve for years says the announcement today the quasi-governmental agency is going to print more money to try to help the U.S. economy isn’t surprising.

    ...

    “No one is surprised by the Fed’s action today to inject even more money into the economy through additional asset purchases. The Fed’s only solution for every problem is to print more money and provide more liquidity,” Paul said.

    ReplyDelete
  35. So as the media pound Mitt Romney for allegedly violating the inviolable space around 9/11 and difficulties overseas, remember this about Barack Obama. He sought campaign volunteers and his top adviser launched a harsh attack on Romney early on 9/11.

    His top surrogate, Bill Clinton, let loose a tough attack on Romney and entitlements that evening. Obama rejected a meeting with a key ally potentially on the verge of war at least in part because he might need to be campaigning at the end of the month.

    ...

    Who’s being political?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoever wrote that nonsense.

      The brouhaha wasn't about "romney violating the inviolable space around 9/11 and difficulties overseas.

      It was that he had the Facts All Wrong. And, even after he had to know he had the facts and chronology wrong, he doubled down, and then tripled down.

      Delete
  36. The security guards made a decision to brave the flames to find the missing ambassador but were beaten back by the flames and couldn't find Mr. Stevens.

    A third of the four Americans killed was identified by family and friends Thursday: Glen Anthony Doherty, a security officer for the State Department and former Navy SEAL. Mr. Stevens and 34-year-old State Department information officer Sean Smith had been named Wednesday.

    The fourth victim remains unidentified pending notification of his relatives.

    ReplyDelete
  37. On this day in 1996, Rapper Tupac died in Las Vegas six days after he was hurt in a drive-by shooting.

    ReplyDelete
  38. It seems to me that the larger and more important question is whether it can sustain such growth.

    And the answer to that is unequivocally “no”.

    The Barnett shale which is the oldest and most mature shale play in the US was surpassed in production by the Haynesville over a year ago. It is interesting to note, however, that at the time of the Barnett’s demise, there were more than 15,000 wells in the Barnett as opposed to 1,500 in the Haynesville. So ten times the number of wells could not keep production at levels equivalent to the newer play. This is called decline curve reality. This is also, no doubt, why all the major operators in the Barnett sold their properties outright or jv’ed.


    10 Times

    ReplyDelete
  39. 'The thing about quotes on the Internet is you cannot confirm their validity.'

    - Abraham Lincoln

    ReplyDelete
  40. Okay, that attack on the U.S. Consulate went on for hours.

    Why in the hell didn't we have helicopter gunships, and Fast Assault Forces that could get there in time to send those assholes to allah?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Where were the drones with the hellfire missiles?

      Delete
    2. What you are asking is

      WHERE WAS OBAMA?
      WHERE WAS HILLARY?
      WHERE WAS WET DRUNK JOE, THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION?

      THEY WERE WARNED A WEEK AHEAD OF TIME!!

      THEY WERE ALL OUT FUCKING AROUND!!!!!!!

      NOT GIVING A BIG SHIT!!!!!!

      That's what they were all doing, each in their own way,

      JUST FUCKING AROUND!!!!!

      Delete
  41. Trivia


    You want to buy a shirt for $97, have no cash


    So you borrow $50 from mum and $50 from dad.


    You buy the shirt and get $3 change


    You pay mum and dad back $1 each and keep $1 yourself.


    So you now owe mum $49, dad $49 and you have $1 49 + 49 = 98 + 1 = 99.


    Where is the other dollar?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have a $97.00 shirt, and a Dollar in yo pocket. That's $98.00


      You owe $49.00 + $49.00 or $98.00.

      The Books Balance.

      Delete
    2. It's this statement that's fucked up:

      'So you now owe mum $49, dad $49 and you have $1 49 + 49 = 98 + 1 = 99.'

      It's mixing debt with profit.

      Delete
    3. :)

      It took a bit o' puzzlin'.

      Delete
    4. It's Goldman Sachs math.

      :)

      Delete
  42. In a separate television interview broadcast yesterday, Mr Obama said the new Egyptian government was "trying to find its way". He also told the Spanish language network, Telemundo, that the US-Egypt relationship after the revolution remained uncertain.

    ...

    Both Mrs Clinton and the White House tried to underscore that while the US condemned the film cited as the cause of the latest riots, it could neither have blocked its distribution, particularly in the era of YouTube, nor prevented its making in the first place because of right to freedom of expression. "Our country does have a long tradition of free expression which is enshrined in our constitution and our law," Mrs Clinton said.

    "And we do not stop citizens from expressing their views, no matter how distasteful they may be."

    ReplyDelete
  43. Here's the problem in Egypt (and some other places.)

    The situation doesn't fit in with the "natural world." A country that poor, with the numbers and military equipment that Egypt has, is supposed to be at war. Someone is either supposed to be invading them, or they are supposed to be invading someone else.

    It's not natural for a large nation just to sit down and starve to death. Those people know in their bones that they're supposed to be "goin' out and getting something."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Historically, in lean times they've attacked to the South (Sudan.)

      Sudan and Egypt have been getting it on for at least 7,000 years.

      Delete
  44. My mom's boyfriend says the whole region needs to be 2,000 degrees and cloudy.

    ReplyDelete
  45. helped save???? how do you figure? this illegal occupation had nothing to do with trying to save Libyans...and had everything to do with oil and money

    ReplyDelete