The latest news from Palookaville

By The Paperboy May 19, 2013

Obamacare Plans to Sell List of Viagra Users to Match.com

(PP)- Officials from the Internal Revenue Service will announce Monday they have agreed to the sale of certain medical records to the popular Internet dating site Match.com in an effort to raise funds to pay for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly known as Obamacare.

After the largest unfunded expansion of the federal government since 1965 when Medicare and Medicaid were established, Obamacare officials plan to raise funds for the massive nanny state program by selling the names of individuals currently using the popular medication Viagra to    Match.com for an undisclosed price.

“President Obama understands that Obamacare will fail unless we find a way to pay doctors to provide medical treatment for patients who won’t pay them without federal government assistance,” said an IRS-Viagra-Match.com representative.

“Doctors will simply quit and become plumbers, electricians or politicians if they don’t get paid, and we thought we had the funding covered by targeting groups like registered Republicans who resisted the Obamacare plan. But last week’s news stories created serious problems for that revenue stream.”

Representatives from Match.com were unavailable for comment, but the company will presumably use the information to solicit men who are at the ready, at least once per day between 30 minutes and 4 hours, to engage with their unattended female premium members.

“I try to use Match.com at least once a week to get a date, but a lot of times men are unable to make things happen with a 42 year old, 398 pound Samoan grandmother,” said a member going by the name of “Pleasantly Plump in Palookaville.”

“I would be willing to pay for a premium subscription to any dating web site if I could pre-screen the fellas who are always prepared to give me the proper attention, at least once per date between 30 minutes and 4 hours.”

 Critics of the proposed sale of private medical records of all Viagra users say that IRS officials have gone too far, and have trampled on many American’s right to privacy.

Naturally, government lawyers believe the vast Obamacare laws are unambiguous.

“Buried in the text of the Obamacare Exchange bill is a tiny section allowing free-flow sharing of all data the government has on you, and there is no limit to the agencies that can share data,” offered an IRS-Viagra-Match.com attorney.

“There is no limit to the data that can be shared, and there is no limit with whom the data may be shared. Any Obamacare Exchange can sell whatever data they want about the people who utilize this government system, and every American, except elected officials, by law must utilize the Obamacare system.”

Additional language in the bill discloses government officials may also use the data to monitor patients and doctors, and to coerce physician compliance with government treatment protocols, including guidelines making Viagra usage mandatory for premium members of Match.com.

“I’m a little bit concerned and confused because I don’t need or use Viagra… I mean, will I be profiled as non-compliant by Obamacare if I sign up for Match.com and don’t check the box saying I use Viagra?” said a very popular premium member using the effective name, “King Tripod.”

“What if I’m not completely truthful on my Match.com profile… can I go to federal prison for making myself look awesome and don’t require a little blue pill?”

“And what if I start using Viagra to comply with the Obamacare-Viagra-Match.com guidelines and it works for longer than 4 hours? Does Obamacare provide coverage to treat that complication, or am I on my own to find treatment in some dark and dangerous back alley?”

The Palookaville Post has learned that, yes… you may in fact end up in federal prison for not disclosing correct information regarding your Viagra use on a Match.com premium member application.

Also, since Obamacare only covers treatment for Viagra users up to a 4 hour period and the patient is then referred to a death panel for symptoms lasting longer than 4 hours; doctors recommend patients seek their own “back-alley” treatment to deal with the serious medical problem.

Posted by Ace Cub Reporter Jimmy Olsentwins

When a penis becomes a scimitar.

May 27, 2013 at The American Thinker

Could a Mayor Weiner Pose a Threat to New York City Security?

[I've been waiting for someone to blog about this for months. Not only is Wienie Boi a lefty hack (what can we expect in Moscow on the Hudson), but his wife is truly dangerous, and means the end of Commissioner Kelly and his work in the anti-terrorism field. Muslim go boom?]

By Eileen F. Toplansky

Huma Abedin is back in the spotlight again, as her husband Anthony Weiner has announced that he is running for mayor of New York City.  The Daily Mail of the United Kingdom claims that "Huma Abedin [is] deemed her husband's greatest political asset."  Michael M. Grynbaum, et al. of the New York Times claim that "it is Ms. Abedin, a seasoned operative well versed in the politics of redemption, [who] has been a main architect of her husband's rehabilitative journey[.]"   

The word "operative" is a word that needs careful examination.  If Weiner were to win the mayoral election in New York, could this bring the Muslim Brotherhood closer to the inner security workings of New York City?

Almost one year ago, Walid Shoebat exposed Huma Abedin's connections to the Brotherhood.  Michele Bachmann and four other Republican congressional representatives requested that "no Muslim Brotherhood-associated entity or individual [be] placed into a position of honor or trust within the programs and operations of the Department of State unless he or she has publicly condemned and disclaimed the previously stated goals of the Muslim Brotherhood."  Yet such condemnation was never forthcoming from Abedin.          

The five Republican congressional representatives were lambasted by Senator John McCain and Rep. Keith Ellison for entertaining the notion that someone closely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, as Ms. Abedin is, might not be the best candidate to hold the job of deputy chief of staff for the State Department. 

Couple this with the fact that in 2011 the "Obama administration formalized ties" with the [Muslim Brotherhood], and in 2013 "the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group with Muslim Brotherhood origins and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial, toured the White House and met with multiple officials," thus signaling a major "policy formulation" by the White House.

Such overlapping groups all stem from the Muslim Brotherhood and the issue of infiltration may now have a new twist as Weiner runs for office.  It is critical to recall that the Brotherhood's objective is to "destroy the Western civilization from within."  As Claire Lopez explains:

... the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) functions as a kind of umbrella organization for many hundreds of offshoot Islamic Societies across North America.  Yet, in spite of its DoJ status as a front group for the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood, ISNA still has been granted a coveted advisory role with the National Security Council (NSC) of the Obama White House.  ISNA's president, Muhammed Magid, is not only the Director of the All-Dulles Area Muslim Society Center, but also an A-list invitee to White House iftar dinners and a member of the Department of Homeland Security 'Countering Violent Extremism' Advisory Council.

Notwithstanding the New York Times whitewash of the evidence, Huma Abedin was, in fact, an assistant editor for the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs from 1996 to 2008.  Her mother works to advance the Brotherhood agenda against Western interests and policies.  Her brother has had a "strong working relationship with Abdullah Omar Naseef and Yusuf Qaradawi."  Naseef "ran a charity front for terror," and Qaradawi has stated that:

... he would not deny women the right to engage in suicide bombings, a position he articulated in a 2004 fatwa that read: '[t]he committed Muslim women in Palestine have the right to participate and have their own role in jihad and to attain martyrdom.' The following month, Qaradawi said, '[t]here is no dialogue between us [Muslims and Jews] except by the sword and the rifle.' In an October 2010 interview with Al-Jazeera, Qaradawi was asked whether Muslims should try to acquire atomic weapons 'to terrorize their enemies.' He replied that such an objective was permissible [.]   

Yet none of these connections raised any red flags concerning Huma Abedin's security clearance. 

In his book entitled The New Muslim Brotherhood In the West, author Lorenzo Vidino, writes that "participationist Islamic organizations are by default the main candidates to become privileged interlocutors of Western governments.  Is their stated desire to participate in the democratic process genuine, or simply tactical?  Do they meet the criteria of reliability and moderation required by Western governments?"

In July 2012, Cliff Kincaid explained that all the controversy about Huma Abedin and her security clearances could be resolved simply by "demanding access to Abedin's Standard Form 86, which she was supposed to fill out before getting her State Department job. Did she disclose her family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as to Saudi Arabia, where she once lived and was raised?"

And more recently, Andrew McCarthy writes that Ms. Abedin "spent her last months at the State Department not really at the State Department."  Thus, while receiving her "$135,000 as a 'special government employee' Abedin was also permitted to moonlight as a 'strategic consultant' for Teno, a firm founded by Doug Band, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton."  In addition, Abedin did consultant work for the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation as well as help to head up Hillary Clinton's transition office from secretary of state to private individual.  Yet Abedin did not disclose her consultant income on government financial disclosure forms. 

This non-disclosure of activities seems to be a habitual occurrence with Ms. Abedin.

When Wiener released their 2012 tax returns, it showed that the two of them made just shy of a half-million dollars last year.  Yet it is unclear how much comes from Abedin's "extracurricular activities while she was still on the government payroll."

Also unsettling is that "Clinton cronies like the Saudis and Qataris are multi-million dollar donors to the William Jefferson Clinton foundation who do mega business with the State Department."

Which brings me back to Weiner's bid for one of the most important jobs in this country.  Given the sinister associations to the Muslim Brotherhood, the disturbing connection of the Clintons to shady deals and opportunistic exploits, and the ability of Muslim governments -- e.g., Saudi Arabia -- to funnel money to influence, it becomes more critical than ever that the issue of Huma Abedin and her security clearance be made transparent.

Is it inappropriate to connect certain dots?  On May 23, 2013, President Obama stated that "he'll lift a ban on sending up to 90 Yemeni detainees home and will initiate other stalled transfers out of the [Gitmo] compound."  This, despite the fact that, as John Bolton has explained, "at least a third will return to the battlefield against us and probably much more than that."  Does this have the potential to launch more Benghazis here and abroad, as Michelle Malkin queries?

Concerning the latest horrific jihadist terrorist attack in London, Daniel Kochis explains that the "Obama Administration's response has been to avoid calling the attack terrorism, let alone terrorism motivated by a radical Islamic ideology. Instead the Administration, via the State Department, said it stood with the U.K. in the face of 'such senseless violence.'"  Kochis maintains that:

... 'senseless violence' is the Administration's catch-all phrase loyally called upon whenever motivations for a despicable act should not be ascribed, lest someone take offense. Particularly troubling is that 'senseless violence' is the same terminology the Administration used when describing the terrorist attack in Benghazi[.]

And then there is the latest news that Obama is "urging the repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the 2001 law that essentially authorized the War on Terror."

Andrew McCarthy has asserted that "to perceive no correlation between the Islamists' fervid anti-assimilation program and the United States government's stunning accommodation of the Brotherhood and its agenda is to be willfully blind."

Unless it is not willful blindness at all.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/05/could_a_mayor_weiner_pose_a_threat_to_new_york_city_security.html at May 27, 2013 - 02:04:32 PM CDT

Decay, the friend of modernism.

‘In Detroit, You Can’t Talk Aesthetics without Talking Ruin Porn’

Ed Driscoll at PJ Media March 3rd, 2013 - 3:19 pm

 Back in 2004, blogger Val Prieto coined the phrase “Omnipotent Tourist Syndrome” to describe the love of many on the left to jet into places such as Cuba and scope out the socialist-inflicted ruins, and the ruined lives of its inhabitants and then jet back a few days later to enjoy all of the benefits of American or European capitalism:

The Omnipotent Tourist Syndrome is a disease common among Americans that is caused by arrogance, egotism and nonchalance. Carriers show a penchant for obliviously overlooking the obvious while delighting themselves at the cost of others. Delirious OTS sufferers refuse to acknowledge their malady and will argue that it is their God given right as an American to travel freely about the world with little or no conscience or consequence. OTS people frequently hide behind their Bill of Rights and Constitution. Unfortunately, there is no cure for OTS nor is there any way to ease its symptoms. It is a disease which, no matter how much hard data and facts are introduced into the OTS sufferer, will not ease unless said sufferer finds a compass of morality and humanity.

See also, Dennis Rodman and Ted Turner, just after their visits to the hell of North Korea.

Of course, getting to Cuba or North Korea from America can take a bit of effort. But these days, there’s no need for a leftist with a yen to play omnipotent tourist to ever leave the US, as my fellow PJM columnist Richard Fernandez writes, taking one for the team by spotting an article in the New York Times titled, “How Detroit Became the World Capital of Staring at Abandoned Old Buildings.” Richard sets up his link to this piece by writing:

Mark Binelli of New York Times has managed to portray the collapse of the city as some kind aesthetic triumph. He calls it the “world capital” of beautiful ruined buildings. [They are beautiful because they were built during the great American Renaissance, If they were modern glass blocks they would simply be waste.] Where else can you see whole city blocks of skyscrapers in smashed, burned and deserted condition except in movies with titles like “Omega Man” or “I am Legend” or “After Earth”?  And in the movies they do it with CGI whereas in Detroit it’s all live action.

Binelli explains a point which may not have been obvious to the reader. It is only plain to the artist: the city is beautiful because it seems ugly. [No it is not, it is because it's ugliness is built on a foundation of beauty.]

Now much of the attention being showered upon Detroit from the trendiest of quarters comes, in no small measure, thanks to the city’s blight. Detroit’s brand has become authenticity, a key component of which has to do with the way the city looks.

This is not exactly a question of gentrification; when your city has 70,000 abandoned buildings, it will not be gentrified anytime soon. Rather, it’s one of aesthetics. And in Detroit, you can’t talk aesthetics without talking ruin porn, a term that has become increasingly familiar in the city. Detroiters, understandably, can get touchy about the way descriptions and photographs of ruined buildings have become the favorite Midwestern souvenirs of visiting reporters.

Still, for all of the local complaints, outsiders are not alone in their fascination. My friend Phil has staged secret, multi-course gourmet meals, prepared by well-known chefs from local restaurants, in abandoned buildings like the old train station; John and his buddies like to play ice hockey on the frozen floors of decrepit factories. A woman who moved to Detroit from Brooklyn began to take nude photographs of herself in wrecked spaces (thrusting the concept of ruin porn to an even less metaphorical level). And Funky Sour Cream, an arts collective originally from New York, arranged an installation of little cupcake statues in the window of a long-shuttered bakery on Chene Street. A few days later, the bakery burned down. People debated whether or not this was a coincidence.

Perhaps the article is tongue in cheek, but if not then the bakery fire is probably not coincidence. It was probably intentionally set by the last sane man in Detroit.

 One black lady managed to point out the downside of living in ruins at a talk the author attended. “During the question-and-answer period, a stylishly dressed African-American woman in her 50's stood up to make a contrarian point: that devotees of ruined buildings should be aware of the ways in which the objects of their affection left ‘retinal scars’ on the children of Detroit, contributing to a ‘significant part of the psychological trauma’ inflicted on them on a daily basis.”

“Retinal scars” — that’s a classic. How’s that related to the scars that have been gouged in the American landscape by the legions of those in search of aesthetics, themselves, their life destiny, in making a statement for passion, caring, understanding and all the other planks of liberal policy that led the city to dusty death?

“Retinal scars” was probably her polite way of telling the members of that refined audience that there was something of a downside to living in a dump. But whether that will dissuade artists whose idea of chic is having yourself photographed nude in a reasonable facsimile of Berlin, 1945 remains to be seen.

Berlin, 1945 you say? We’ll talk more about that right after the page break.

It’s funny; my first thought after reading the above passage from the Times on Detroit and “Ruin Porn” was simply to juxtapose it in a blog post with a quote from historian Frederick Taylor’s 2005 book Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 from Robert Ley, the head of the National Socialist Labor Front. When Dresden was flattened by the Americans and British in 1945, with the approval of the Russians simultaneously advancing into Germany from the east, Ley fanatically said:

“After the destruction of beautiful Dresden, we almost breathe a sigh of relief. It is over now. In focusing on our struggle and victory we are no longer distracted by concerns for the monuments of German culture. Onward!…Now we march toward the German victory without any superfluous ballast and without the heavy spiritual and material bourgeois baggage.”

Of course it’s fantasy, with the end of the Nazis clearly in sight, even to them. (And recall early in the film Downfall, Hitler utters a very similar remark to Albert Speer when staring at his enormous model of Berlin, backhandedly praising the allies for hitting the CTL-ALT-DLT keys on Berlin, which they themselves had planned to do, either before the war or if they had won.) But that sense of nihilism has implications far beyond the television and movie screen. Much of today’s left have abandoned the serious study of history, and have largely turned their backs on the future as well. All that is left for them is to play in the ruins — and to create more of them.

Many of today’s left though simply want to leave the ruins in place. Earlier today, we linked to Robert Tracinski inReal Clear Politics, written after watching the Oscars last week revealed to him the abyss of 21st century Hollywood, and Tracinski concluded:

This is the dead end of Modernist culture, which sought to break down traditional values and rules but was unable to replace them with anything better. It left us in a cultural void where, as the New York Times piece puts it, everyone is afraid that “serious commitment to any belief will eventually be subsumed by an opposing belief, rendering the first laughable at best and contemptible at worst.” In the second half of the 20th century, this corrosive Modernist skepticism brought us the ruling concept of contemporary popular culture: the “cool.” Remember the original meaning of the term. To be “cool” is to be emotionally cool, to refuse to be caught up in enthusiasm. Early on, this could be taken to mean a kind of manly reserve, the ability to be calm, cool, and collected in the face of strife, or to refuse to be carried away by momentary or trivial emotions. This is the sense in which James Bond was “cool.” But by the end of the 20th century, the culture of cool increasingly came to mean a studied lack of response to values. It meant refusing to be carried away by enthusiasm about anything.

That sense of nihilism has implications far beyond the television and movie screen. Much of today’s left have abandoned the serious study of history, and have largely turned their backs on the future as well. All that is left for them is to play in the ruins — and to create more of them.

It's the same old song.

The London Horror and Jihad Denial

Posted By Bruce Bawer On May 24, 2013 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage

It began on Tuesday in Woolwich, London, when two young men in a car deliberately ran over an off-duty British soldier who was walking to a nearby military installation, then “hacked and chopped” at his body and attempted to decapitate him as they shouted “Allah Akbar!” They forced witnesses to film the scene, saying: “We swear by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day.” When police arrived, the murderers “charged at them wielding firearms, knives and a machete.” They were apprehended alive, and are now in hospital. It has since emerged that one of them, a son of Nigerian immigrants, was born in Britain as Michael Olumide Adebolajo, converted to Islam in 2003, changed his name to Mujahidin (i.e., jihadist), and for several years attended meetings of the group Al-Muhajiroun, founded by terrorist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed. Late Thursday afternoon, U.K. time, the murdered soldier was identified as 25-year-old Lee Rigby, a drummer in the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the father of a two-year-old son.

Just like this week’s nightly riots by “youths” in Stockholm, the brutal slaughter in Woolwich was plainly a jihadist act. Yet just as the Swedish elites are continuing to dance around that uncomfortable core truth, their British counterparts are engaged in some fancy footwork of their own – led by Prime Minister David Cameron, who described Tuesday’s atrocity as “not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life” but “also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country.” (Does it need to be said that for a British leader to haul out this ragged, repulsive lie in the year 2013 is itself a betrayal – a shameless, craven betrayal of precisely what Cameron pretends to be standing up for, namely “Britain and…the British way of life”?)

The papers were full of the standard-issue stuff. The Muslim Council of Britain made the usual assertion that the latest heinous act committed in the name of Islam had “nothing to do with Islam.” Baroness Warsi, a Pakistani-English Muslim who serves as “Communities Secretary” in the current government, painted the familiar pretty picture of “faith communities coming out together” in the wake of said heinous act “and showing a unified condemnation of this.” The Guardian ran the obligatory hand-wringing article about the “fear of backlash” against Muslims in the wake of the heinous act in question. (The headline of another Guardian article actually indicated that there had been “Anti-Muslim reprisals after Woolwich attack”; it turned out that one man was “in custody on suspicion of attempted arson after reportedly walking into a mosque with a knife in Braintree, Essex,” and that “police in Kent were called to reports of criminal damage at a mosque in Canterbury Street, Gillingham.”) And Ken Livingstone, the loathsome ex-mayor of London (which he described as “the most successful melting pot in the history of the world and the city of the free”), warned those less evolved than himself not to “scapegoat entire communities for this barbaric act.” This from the sometime host, defender, and chum of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is famous precisely for encouraging such barbaric acts.

Newspaper commentaries on the atrocity added up to a depressing profile of the pathetic, obstinately reality-challenged psychopathology of the British elite when confronted with Islamic violence. The prize for sheer inanity of approach must go to Laborite Dan Hodges, who spent a whole column in the Telegraph elaborating on the theme that “for me, yesterday’s barbaric act of terror in Woolwich was literally senseless. None of what happened actually made any sense.” The murder, he asserted, was “confusing, horrific, bizarre.” He proceeded to repeat this refrain in one paragraph after another: “none of it made sense….Still none of it made sense….It didn’t make sense….It didn’t make any sense….Yesterday was the senseless day.” Reading this feeble, embarrassing nonsense, one could not help wondering: was Hodges equally stumped by 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Bali, Beslan, the Boston bombings? One of the things that didn’t “make sense” to Hodges was that one of the murderers spoke of “our lands,” meaning the Muslim world, even though “he had a south-east London accent.” It was as if the Woolwich killers were the first “home-grown terrorists” to ever come to Hodges’s attention. How remarkable that during all these years when the non-Muslim world has been racked by one death-dealing jihadist assault after another, Hodges’s contemplation of these incidents has apparently yielded absolutely nothing in the way of awareness or insight.

Brendan O’Neill, also writing in the Telegraph, was also purportedly baffled beyond all hope by Tuesday’s events, professing to find it “shocking” and “bizarre” (that word again) that one of the terrorists “claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims,” speaking “as if he were a representative of the ummah.” Again, one would have thought that this was the very first time such a thing has ever happened. “How can a couple of men,” O’Neill asked, “so thoroughly convince themselves that they speak for all Muslims, to the extent that they seriously believe their savage and psychotic attack on a man in the street is some kind of glorious act of Islamic resistance?” Unlike Hodges, however, O’Neill had a theory. A certain kind of thinking, he posited, had led directly to the Woolwich atrocity. Jihadist ideology? Nope: contemporary British identity politics. You see, “in this era in which any old fool can claim to be a ‘community spokesperson’, and can be treated seriously as such, these murderous loners seem to be trying a psychotic version of the same trick – claiming that by dint of shared skin colour or common religious sentiment they have the authority to speak on behalf of millions of people they have never met or whose lands they have never visited.” Somehow, O’Neill would appear to have missed the news that it’s not only in Merrie Old England that jihadists have proudly proclaimed themselves to be jihadists.

Some observers emphasized that it was crucial to “keep calm.”  Writing in the Independent, sociologist Frank Furedi urged Brits not to “over-react” – and, moreover, not to “redefine” this “incomprehensible act of violence” (yes, he was mystified too) as “an act of political terrorism.” If O’Neill saw the two killers as products of British identity politics, Furedi, calling it “unlikely” that they had “been busy reading al-Qaeda’s terror manual,” cast them instead as products of “reality entertainment” culture, noting their decision to record their monstrous actions on camera. “The murderers may have adopted the role of idealist jihadists as one of them chanted ‘We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,’” wrote Furedi, “but what they really meant was that we will never stop performing.” Furedi’s advice to his readers: don’t give “recognition to two self-obsessed killers who did not deserve it.”

Michael White made a similar argument under the headline “Woolwich attack: let’s try a bit of keeping calm.” Hey, here’s a thought: could it be, just possibly, that official Britain has been too damn calm for too damn long? How about finally getting a little angry? Just to begin with, how about reforming the insane immigration and deportation policies that have made London a sanctuary for some of the most contemptible preachers of Islamic terror on the planet? How about cutting out all the smooth lies, the slick euphemisms, the talk of “Asians” when the subject is really Muslims? How about somebody in a position of authority screwing up a little courage and facing a few facts – and thereby maybe, just maybe, causing Churchill to stop spinning in his grave?

White had a lot to say. Protesting that the publication of photos of the Woolwich perpetrators’ “rusty knives and meat cleavers” was “indecent” and “voyeuristic,” he proposed that today’s Brits adopt the “Keep Calm and Carry On” attitude of their World War II-era forebears – in other words, turn away from the gruesome images and don’t exaggerate the importance of these evildoers (who might just as easily have been members of some street gang unrelated to Islam rather than “ill-educated and unemployed young men…who have been watching jihadi video nasties on the internet”). Suggesting that the Woolwich killers are “lone wolfs” (sic) whose acts have no wider meaning or organizational backing, he maintained that “the only visibly organised conspiracy” in the picture is the English Defense League (that tacky pack of unspeakable rowdies). He went on to insist that, in any event, ordinary street gangs are “a greater problem for life in our big cities than wannabe jihadis.” And he found it appropriate to add that British soldiers of the non-Islamic persuasion are, after all, sometimes “attacked” or “even occasionally murdered” by “their drunken co-religionists.” So why make a fuss about the Islamic roots of this unfortunate affair? (For good measure, White worked in a passing reference to the nightly riots in Stockholm by “the unemployed.”)

What artful dodgers! The lesson was clear: with very few exceptions, the British elite is terrified to call jihad by its rightful name. It would rather condemn the English Defense League for the thousandth time than choke out even the most muted, gracefully nuanced acknowledgment that there might, in fact, be something of a causal connection between the instructions to the faithful spelled out in the Koran and the actions carried out in Woolwich on Tuesday afternoon. Yet it’s precisely that elite’s dishonest, irresponsible, lily-livered response to abominable transgressions like this one that is driving more and more people into the arms of the EDL. For while Cameron, Livingstone, and company were responding to the Woolwich killing by defending Islam, feigning perplexity, and/or dismissing the idea that this murder had any larger significance, EDL leader Tommy Robinson was speaking the plain and simple truth, accusing the country’s leaders of being “scared to say the word Muslim” and flatly rejecting the fatuous falsehoods about Islam that are proffered in Britain’s classrooms and endlessly reiterated in its media. Said Robinson on Tuesday: “Our next generations are being taught through schools that Islam is a religion of peace. It’s not. It never has been. What you saw today is Islam.”

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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/the-london-horror-and-jihad-denial/

The MSM sees a dream walking.

The press has won 

by Neo-neocon.

Back in the earlier half of the 20th century right through my childhood years and up to the Vietnam War and the cultural explosion we call the Sixties, the press (with some more liberal pockets) was predominantly—at least compared to today’s press—pro-American and at least somewhat supportive of whatever government might happen to be in power, especially during wartime.

Time and Life were not only read by a huge number of Americans, but they were published by a man who was fairly conservative, Henry Luce, and they set the cultural tone, especially Life. The Saturday Evening Post was similar and the Reader’s Digest was read by a lot of people, too. Movies were on the same page.

During the 60's, as we know, all of that changed. We can date the change to this moment or that, but I think we can all agree that major elements for the press were Vietnam after Tet (including Cronkite’s response, which I've written about here), the Nixon years and Watergate. Suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly but over a period of less than ten years, the press saw itself as “speaking truth to power,” reforming government and making it more responsive to the people. It became, at least in its own self-admiring eyes, a whistleblower on government.

This would have been okay except for a couple of things. One was that America doesn't exist in a vacuum. The press’s relentless negativity about the country and its policies, and some of its presidents, was taken as gospel and accentuated abroad. After all, it was almost unheard of for other countries to do something similar to themselves, so why wouldn't they believe things must be even worse than the press was saying? Another was that it required even-handedness; the press needed to speak truth to power whichever party was in power, and to require of itself a strict devotion to getting its facts straight.

As time has gone on, though, that press has fallen more and more behind on that latter task. It goes without saying that they were always going to be rough on Republican presidents, beginning with Nixon. But to the best of my recollection they were not especially easy on Carter either, once the honeymoon period was over (isn’t it quaint, now, the idea of temporary a “honeymoon” period for both a Democratic and a Republican president—the Democratic because it’s a never-ending honeymoon now, the Republican because even the honeymoon is a knock down drag out battle?). And even Clinton, although he got a lot of good press for a long time, wasn’t always a media darling.

That changed with Obama, of course. Obama is the recipient of such fawning worship, such complete lack of criticism (and the opposite for the opposition) that it would be almost laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

The reasons are fairly obvious. Obama is the president the MSM of this generation has always dreamed of, as though sent by central casting. And it occurs to me that the press, having worked so hard for so many decades to “speak truth to power” and to further its own liberal agenda, recognizes that it has finally gotten what it wanted. Criticizing Obama would be to kill one’s own beloved creation, the fruits of all one’s labors. Why would anyone want to do that for some abstract notion like truth, or reporting? Wasn’t the point of all the reporting to coax America into electing someone like this, and then another person like this, and another?

And so, in an interestingly ironic twist, the press—which earlier in the 20th century was marching somewhat in lockstep with the government, at least in wartime, and which had some respect for the person who held the office of president no matter which party, and which had set itself up as the official government whistleblower during the 60s and beyond—has come full-circle back to marching in lockstep with the government, probably more than ever before, while somehow simultaneously retaining its own vision of itself as whistleblower by concentrating that function on Republican administrations. The press rebelled and remade American opinion in its own desired image, and is now the mouthpiece for the party a la Pravda, turning in its press badges to become bards and tribute singers to the current administration.

Whistling past the cemetery.

AT LARGE The American Spectator

Blindly Down the Strategic Valley

By George H. Wittman on 2.21.13 @ 6:07 AM

We’re past the point of deterring Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weaponry. So what now?

There is a tendency in American political and journalistic circles to believe there is some way to deter Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. This is a totally false perception, as the Iranians are already committed to the creation of a nuclear weapon arsenal. For what other reason would they have continued to invest in its extremely expensive and technologically difficult program? They certainly do not need additional energy sources, and couldn't care less about hydrocarbon pollution. This matter already has been closed.

The only real issue left is to determine how to counter the possible use of a Persian nuclear weapon. Sanctions are irrelevant in a nuclear confrontation. If a country such as Iran decides to use a nuclear weapon, the only deterrent is to create the expectation of an immediate and devastating counter-strike  The Mullahs knows full well that if they allow a first strike on themselves, any further conflict through a retaliatory strike by them would be limited by the damage originally caused by their opponent. Iran must strike first — and hard — if at all.

In other words, the strategic situation with Iran is a fait accompli. The only decision left to be made is whether Iran’s nuclear capability should be destroyed in some form of a first strike or a method should be devised to learn to live with the new nuclear-armed Iran. This choice also exists for North Korea, and, in a way, they are related. The nuclear cooperation between the two countries is supposed to be quite close. Certainly they share the same arch-enemy in the United States. The difference, of course, is that if South Korea is effectively North Korea’s “Israel,” there is no question that the Americans will adhere to their defense agreements with the South, though in the last few years a serious debate has arisen over just how solid the U.S. commitment to defend Israel is.

In this regard, there is no way Israel’s defense strategy can count on serious military support from the Obama administration. The question follows as to whether and to what degree South Korea could depend on the U.S. to adhere to the letter and intent of its defense accord with Washington. In fact, it would appear that the reluctance of President Obama to use American military power brings into question any and all American defense agreements.

This possible situation poses a serious question in world affairs. It would appear that American military interference worldwide is now to be limited to covert action (including, at most, lethal drone attack) and intelligence gathering. This relatively benign policy suggests the Obama White House actually believes it can pave the way for other military powers to curb their potential aggression and join Washington in a new — if unstated — agreement to forswear traditional military action, thus reducing the dangers to world peace.

While it is relatively easy theoretically for major powers such as Russia and China to pretend to such a “new concept” form of disarmament, this approach will do little to dissuade emerging nuclear weapon nations like Iran and North Korea from using their newly forming military strength to coerce or even attack their chosen enemies. Rather, it is easily arguable that the Obama concept of military preparedness and reaction is an invitation to conflict rather than a deterrent.

The basis of strategic parity through the Cold War and the following years has been the threat of mutually assured destruction. This threat extended beyond the actual potential of the major adversaries to use their massive nuclear arsenals, but collaterally diminished even direct conventional conflict between them. A good example might be the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 where the U.S. became involved only on a covert basis and earlier in Cuba where Washington was restrained from extending conventional attacks after the Bay of Pigs failure. This is to say nothing of various covert contests worldwide in Africa, Central America, etc.

Such a balance of potential destruction is not at all clear in the evolving nuclear military power of either Iran or North Korea. For the concept of mutually assured destruction to act as an impediment to nuclear assault, there must be parity in the destructive capability of nuclear arsenals. There also has to be no religio-ideological predilection to martyrdom as in the case of Shia Iran or, as is the case of North Korea, an acceptance of economic privation and a commitment to national dominance.

The truth is that the esprit of nuclear powers differs even as their nuclear capabilities to destroy tend to evolve. Will the spirit of the Israelis to survive another Holocaust drive them to a preemptive attack? Will the Iranians wait for Israel — an easy target — to make up its mind? Will the North Koreans simply unleash their limited nuclear assets as an initial barrage against a South Korea that must respond as well to a conventional invasion of a massive army from the north?

How does Barack Obama’s defense strategy consider these contingencies? And does he realize “balance of power” means a balance of physical power and the will to use it?

About the Author

George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy. March 2nd, 2013

Islam is a clock that always runs backwards.

Islamists Eliminating History

By Michael Curtis in the American Thinker 2/16/2013

A new form of warfare by Islamists is being waged.  This new offensive is not only a military campaign for jihad and for the creation of Islamic states ruled by sharia law; rather it is explicitly for the elimination of the non-Islamist past -- an ideological offensive to remove the memories, historical artifacts, monuments, buildings, or any other evidence of the history and contribution of Judaism, Christianity, and even the moderate forms of Islam to civilization.  This offensive is potentially more dangerous than any violence or vandalism or acts of revenge directed against supposed enemies.  Part of it is the denial or minimizing of the Holocaust.

It is now well-understood that since the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Islamist forces and groups, as well as the Palestinian extremists, have not only sought to eliminate it by military methods -- by wars and terrorism -- but also asserted that Jews have no historic association with the land and therefore that the State is illegitimate.  They even ignore or deny the visible evidence of Jewish history offered by the many physical sites in the area.  Instead, a fallacious Palestinian narrative has been created declaring that the disputed area, from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea and embracing Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Jericho, Gaza, Galilee, Hebron, and Tiberius, is not Jewish, but rather completely Arab by associations of history and identity.

Though their specific activity varies from country to country, in recent years Islamist leaders have emphasized this argument.  Iranian President Ahmadinejad has proclaimed that most Jews have no roots in Palestine and, in what may be considered incitement to genocide, argued that the "Zionist regime" as he refers to Israel is on its way to annihilation.  In similar frame of mind, Mohamed Morsi, in September 2010, before he became President of Egypt, declared that the Zionists, "occupiers of the land of Israel ... these blood suckers, these war mongers, the descendants of apes and pigs ... must be driven out of our countries[.]"  For Ahmadinejad and Morsi, Jewish history in the area of Palestine never existed.

Recent events in a number of countries have made clear that Islamist extremists have not confined their ambition to obliterate the history of the Jewish people in Israel.  Now they are applying it to all countries in which they have or seek to have some authority.

The occupation of northern Mali by extreme Islamist and Salafist forces in 2012 has exposed this clearly.  These extremists have sought to obliterate the reminders of the history of the more moderate Sufi Muslims, whom they regard as heretical and worshipers of idols.  They have destroyed three historic mosques, eleven mausoleums of holy Muslims and cemeteries, and thousands of ancient manuscripts in the historic town of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a center of Islamic culture five centuries ago.  The tombs of Sufi saints were totally destroyed.  The Ansar Dine [Translation-Friends of the Way of Allah] militants, who declared that they would destroy every mausoleum in Timbuktu, regarded the destruction of the various artifacts as obeying a divine command.  Between 2,000 and 3,000 manuscripts in the Ahmed Baba Institute were burned or destroyed in the city.

These militants were following a pattern that has become familiar.  In Libya, Islamists had wrecked shrines and mausoleums and destroyed Sufi holy sites, some of which were also World Heritage sites, in Zliten, Misrata, and Tripoli.  For Sufis, the sites were of cultural and religious significance.  The brutal civil war in Syria has led to the destruction of churches, as well as six World Heritage sites in Damascus and Aleppo; historic buildings; and archaeological sites, and the looting of museums.  In Iraq, libraries and archives were destroyed, and the National Museum in Baghdad was looted in 2003.

The emphasis on destruction has a long history, and it is not confined to the Muslim world.  Other religions in the past have sought to eliminate what they regarded as idolatry, but at the present time, iconoclasm is largely evident in extremist Islamist groups.  Some of these groups have memories of the consequences of the Muslim invasion of India and the rule of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, in the 17^th century, who destroyed Hindu temples and replaced them with mosques.

This kind of destruction has taken place and is still applauded in other countries: in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Perhaps the mildest but most absurd statement, and the one that would affect the largest number of tourists from Western countries, was the demand by an extreme religious Egyptian named Murgan Salem al-Gohary to destroy the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, which is said to have some power over the level of the River Nile.  He argued that all Muslims were charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove idols such as the Pyramids, as had been done in Afghanistan with the Buddhas.  He did not mention that the Pyramids were the only survivors of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The "removal" of supposed false idols in Afghanistan and of the heritage of Buddhists was indeed catastrophic.  The most well-known disaster is the destruction in the Bamiyan Valley in March 2001 of the world's two largest Buddhas, one 175 feet and the other 120 feet tall, carved into a sandstone cliff, which had stood for more than 1,500 years and which together made for a World Heritage site.  The Taliban, perhaps influenced by al-Qaeda, destroyed them by explosives and tank fire.

These actions have to be seen as the desire to destroy all parts of the pre- or non-Islamic past of Central Asia and North Africa.  To its discredit, the international community took no action to prevent the destruction in Afghanistan.  But the lesson has now been learned to some extent: Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, did in December 2012 call on the international community to act urgently to protect the cultural heritage of Mali.  She recognized that the attack on the heritage of Timbuktu was an attack against the nation's history and values.  The wanton destruction of inestimable treasures was a crime against the people of Mali, committed by the Islamist radicals.

The urgent issue now is whether the international community is indeed willing to take action to prevent history and the artifacts that attest to that history from being erased or from being falsified for the sake of anti-democratic and fanatical ideologies.

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