The obligatory Israel might attack Iran posting

I swear, if I had a nice, crisp, one hundred dollar bill for every time I saw this question or headline — I could retire early.

The story:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has a lot on his mind these days, from cutting the defense budget to managing the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But his biggest worry is the growing possibility that Israel will attack Iran over the next few months.

Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the United States could then stop them militarily.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action, which would be triggered by intelligence that Iran is building a bomb, which it hasn’t done yet.

via Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? – The Washington Post.

AllahPundit over at HotAir.com tosses cold water on this rather hyped headline or opinion piece.

Between you and me; I highly doubt Israel would do something like that. I could be wrong, but something tells me that Israel is just not going to risk “upsetting the apple cart,” as my grandmother used to call it. This is not to say that I do not think that Israel has the right to defend themselves, I do believe that fully. What I fear is, that Israel will pick a fight with Iran and get in over their heads; and want the United States to pull their butts out of fire. As much as I am sympathetic to the cause of Israel and how much I know the history of Israel and the Biblical connection to the land and the people — I just do not believe that the United States of America is obligated to come to rescue of a Nation, like Israel, that decides to pick a fight with another Nation. We would not do that for any other Nation, so why should we do it for Israel?

Realistically speaking, I believe this little conflict will be resolved via diplomacy, rather than war. Because again, I believe the United States and its allies learned their lessons from the last time that they tried a foolhardy mission of occupation of a Country. I believe that a fiasco of that magnitude will not be repeated anytime soon.  Again, I could be wrong; but I really just do not see this happening again, at least not this soon.

Others: Guardian, PoliticoCNN, Pat Dollard, Weasel Zippers, msnbc.com, Jerusalem Post, Associated Press, War in Context, Israel Matzav, The Enterprise Blog and Chicago Boyz

Charlie Rangel continues his role as a race-baiting twit

What a buffoon… 🙄

Video:

The story:

On of the main tenets of Eric Bolling‘s show Follow the Money is that a free market economy is fairer and more successful than one administered by the goverment. Tonight, Rep. Charlie Rangel ventured onto the program to make the opposite case: that government jobs were in some ways more attractive, because minorities and women experienced less discrimination.

Bolling opened the floor by asking why the president promotes government jobs. The distrust of the government didn’t surprise the longtime Congressman, but he noted that “a lot of women are involved in these lower income jobs, a lot of minorities,” and later explained, “the government doesn’t have the racism and discrimination that the private sector enjoys.” This, to Rangel, means that “a lot of people could to better with the government job,” both minorities, women, and the elderly, working in places such as the post office. Bolling asked again to confirm whether he really meant the private sector had discrimination.

via Rangel Says Private Sector is Racist – Charlie Rangel – Fox Nation.

Let’s see here; where’s that graphic at?

Whoop, there it is! 😆

What in the hell was Newt Gingrich thinking?

I honestly hate having to write this blog piece, because frankly, I despise this sort of idiotic tripe in politics itself.  Newt Gingrich today was able to do something that not many people can do.  Newt managed to pull off one of the stupidest, brain-dead, tone-deaf moves that any politician could ever do, one that reeked of utter desperation.  Not to mention the fact that he lost my total support.  On top that; he lost the damned primary in Florida!

What was it that Newt Gingrich did that invoked such fury from yours truly?  Newt Gingrich played one of the worst, bottom of the barrel political tactic cards, that only a few mortal brave souls have played and have come out unscathed.  Newt Gingrich waded onto territory that either brave souls or idiot fools—depending on your view of matters, have waded and lived to tell about it politically.

Newt Gingrich played —- The Jew Card.

Newt Gingrich accused Mitt Romney of denying Holocaust survivors in nursing homes to be denied kosher meals.  Here is the problem with it; not a damned word of it was even remotely true.  In fact, a well-known Jewish Conservative has written a very good article defending Mitt Romney from these idiot charges.  Now I should let it be known, I am not a Romney fan.  If Mitt Romney is nominated for candidate for President by the GOP, I will vote libertarian.  I did say that I would hold my nose and vote for Newt Gingrich in the primary and in the general election.  Well, needless to say, that is not the case any longer.  I just will not vote for a man who stoops to that low of tactics.

Therefore, I am making it official here on my blog; I will not be voting for the Republican Party in 2012 in the primary or in the general election.  I am sorry, but dishonest politics is just immoral and what Gingrich did tonight shows me that Newt Gingrich is just another dishonest beltway-type that would stop at nothing to obtain power.  Whoever is the winner of the selection process at the Libertarian Party; I will put my support behind, and that person will get my vote.

I realize that my vote will most likely put a dent the GOP’s chances of defeating President Barack Obama.  Believe me when I tell you this, nothing bothers me more than knowing that fact.  However, I just cannot and will not support a man who stoops to such beltway tactics such as this.

Admittedly, I have nothing put disdain for Mitt Romney, however, none of that disdain has anything to do with his religious affiliation.  My disdain has to do with the fact that man is a habitual liar, the fact that he is a serial flip-flopper; my disdain is because the man claims to be a person from Michigan, when in fact that he has not lived here for years.  My disdain of the man is related to the fact that he claims to be a rib-rocked Conservative, when in fact, Mitt Romney is nothing more than an indecisive moderate!

Furthermore, the reason for my decision is this; the race of the GOP’s nomination for President of the United States is not supposed to be a religious test.  If that is the case in the Republican Party, then why in the name of the Almighty God of Heaven did Newt Gingrich use the Jews as a proxy to attack Mitt Romney’s Mormonism?  I know the answer —-desperation.  I do not wish to support a man, who instructs his advisors to play “Dirty Pool.”  It shows of the man’s character and I find it lacking greatly.  I will not call Newt Gingrich an Anti-Semite, as I do not know his heart or him personally.  However, I found this attack to most untactful, idiotic and highly unbecoming of someone who is supposed to be a Reagan Conservative.

Therefore let it be known; I officially disown those running for President of the United States of America in the Republican Party.  Sorry, but this freak show just got rather hard to bear any longer.  Also too, please know that I am under no illusions about the Libertarian Party’s chances in the 2012 election.  However, my vote will be of a protest of the beltway establishment’s tactics in the Republican Party.   The Tea Party movement’s message was supposed to be, during its founding that said, during its railing against the Republican Party and the United States Government; “No more business as usual in the beltway!”  The Republican Party was quite obviously either not listening or somehow that message was lost.

Having said all of the above, this bloggers vote will be going on Election Day 2012 to the political party that actually believes what it stands for —- The Libertarian Party.  I might not agree with everything that some libertarians believe in; but at this point, I see no other party that I actually wish to waste my vote on.

Others: ABCNEWS, Washington Post, CNN, The Other McCain, Daily Kos, msnbc.com, Gothamist, GOP 12, The Spectacle Blog, Saint Petersblog, The Right Scoop, The Raw Story, American Spectator, Reuters and Politics, Roger L. Simon, Ballot Box, National Review, ABCNEWS, Hot Air, The Spectacle Blog, Israel Matzav, JOSHUAPUNDIT, News Desk, Cold Fury, Truthdig, The Atlantic Online, Politics, The PJ Tatler, Washington Monthly, Tablet Magazine, GOP 12, The Daily Dish, Washington Post, The Raw Story, The Politico, msnbc.com, ThinkProgress, CNN, The Huffington Post and PolitickerNY

Update: Oh and by the way; Mitch Berg, Shut the hell up….and start writing blog postings under your real flipping name. Damned Cowards, you and AllahPundit both. Al-Qeada is nearly defeated, it’s time to cut the chicken routine and be out with the who you both really are.  😡

San Francisco occupy protester strangles his parents

Unreal.

The Story:

Friends and relatives said Susan Poff and Robert Kamin of Oakland were the perfect pair to adopt a foster child.

They had dedicated their careers to helping others escape poverty, she as a physician assistant in a city-run clinic in the Tenderloin and he as a clinical psychologist for inmates in the San Francisco County Jail system.

But now, less than a decade after they adopted, their 15-year-old son stands accused of strangling both Poff, 50, and Kamin, 55, then hiding their bodies in the back of the family’s PT Cruiser.

Police were called to the family’s home on Athol Avenue on Friday by a co-worker who was concerned when Kamin did not show up for work.

[…]

Initially the son, whose name is being withheld because of his age, denied any involvement, but later told officers what had happened, authorities said. He was arrested on suspicion of murder Saturday and is being held at the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center in San Leandro.

Co-workers said Poff and Kamin were having some arguments with their son, some of it having to do with him spending too much time in the Occupy Oakland encampment, but nothing that sounded beyond the scope of typical teenage rebelliousness.

Yup, Just like the tea party.

Nancy Pelosi herself said it!

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I’m sure she is really proud.

Others: The Gateway Pundit, moonbattracker.com/wordpress, Verum Serum and Jammie Wearing Fools

Rand Paul: “‘I was barked at: “Do not leave the cubicle!” by the TSA

…and of course, the statist White House sides with the TSA! Hope and Change?!?! Right. 🙄

Just a follow up to a story I wrote on earlier

Over to you Daily Caller:

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told The Daily Caller that being “detained by the Transportation Security Administration at the Nashville airport Monday was a major ordeal that underscores flaws in TSA’s procedures that affect tens of millions of passengers every year.

“It was a big headache,” Paul said in a phone interview. “I missed my speech here. I was supposed to speak to the Right to Life March, probably the biggest audience I’ll get to speak to, and I missed it.”

The White House, through spokesman Jay Carney, defended the TSA’s actions during Monday’s press briefing by arguing that Paul wasn’t technically “detained.”

“Let’s be clear,” Carney said. “The passenger was not detained. He was escorted out of the area by local law-enforcement.”

But Sen. Paul told TheDC that he certainly felt like he was detained. “If you’re told you can’t leave, does that count as detention?” Paul asked.

“I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle!’ So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

The incident started after the scanner Paul walked through sounded its alarm. Current TSA rules would require Paul to undergo a mandatory pat-down before proceeding to his plane. But Paul told TheDC that the TSA agents caved in after a two-hour battle and allowed him to go through the scanner again without additional physical screening.

“For an hour and a half, they said ‘absolutely, I would have to [accept a pat-down],’” Paul said. “And, because I used my cell phone, they told me I would have to do a full body pat down because you’re not allowed to use your cell phone when you’re being detained.”

“It’s like, well, I can’t call my attorney? I can’t call my office to tell them I’m going to miss a speech to 200,000 people?”

“In the end, after two hours of this quarreling,” Sen. Paul explained, “they did let me walk through the screener [machine] and it didn’t go off. So what the TSA is not telling you is the screeners are being used as random devices as well. The [mechanical] screeners will go off randomly, and the [agent] screeners don’t know that it’s a random call but it has nothing to do with what you’ve done.”

Of course, the Statist in chief’s staff is defend the entire thing; over to you The Hill:

The White House is standing by the Transportation Security Administration in its standoff with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and his father, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

The elder Paul called the TSA a “police state” Monday after Rand Paul was reportedly detained by TSA after he refused to take a pat-down from TSA officials at the Nashville International Airport.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that he didn’t have any reaction to Paul’s “police state” comments.

But Carney sided with the TSA saying, “I think it is absolutely essential that we take necessary actions to ensure that air travel is safe.”

Ron Paul, who is one of four remaining Republican candidates for president, disagreed Monday afternoon. Paul said after he confirmed the incident involving Rand Paul on his Twitter page that it showed why the TSA should be eliminated.

“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” the elder Paul said in a statement released by his presidential campaign.

“One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities,” he continued. “The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe. That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA.”

TSA has defended its treatment of Rand Paul, saying that its employees in Nashville followed its normal procedure with the senator, who has often sharply criticized the agency’s pat-downs before he refused one Monday morning.

So, there you have it, an out of control organization that is now detaining White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and not the Arab terrorists it was designed to capture. How quaint. 🙄  I have to wonder aloud, if Rand Paul were Jewish or black, would they have done all of this?  It is to wonder.

I am also getting tips from readers that were in the area of the time of the incident and they are reporting that Senator Rand Paul grew very angry and used vulgarities at the TSA staff and made some very nasty racist comments at the TSA staff, who just happened to be black. Nice going Senator Paul; make yourself look like a bigger idiot than you already are. 🙄  Of course, I cannot independently verify the reports, so take them for what they are worth.

Update: Now a huge memeorandum thread.

Update #2: Smitty, who I consider to be a friend; makes some good points.

Breaking News — Senator Rand Paul detained by TSA

Rand Paul has been detained by the TSA for refusing a pat-down, after a x-ray showed an anomaly”

The Daily Caller has the story:

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s press secretary Moira Bagley tweeted on Monday that Transportation Security Administration officials were detaining her boss in Nashville, Tenn.

“Just got a call from @senrandpaul,” Bagley tweeted at about 10 a.m. on Monday. “He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

Texas Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul – Sen. Rand Paul’s father – placed a post on Facebook about the news as well. “My son Rand is currently being detained by the TSA at the Nashville Airport,” Ron Paul posted. “I’ll share more details as the situation unfolds.”

Ron Paul adds, via Twitter, that the TSA detained his son “for refusing full body pat-down after anomaly in body scanner.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s Facebook page has a post about the incident too. “Senator Paul is being detained at the Nashville Airport by the TSA,” Sen. Rand Paul’s Facebook post reads. “We will update you as the situation develops.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s chief of staff Doug Stafford told The Daily Caller the Senator “was detained by the TSA after their scanner had an ‘anomaly’ on the first scan.”

via  The Daily Caller.

To my libertarian and Ron Paul fans, please, do not freak out over this; the TSA were simply doing their jobs, I believe Rand Paul was released, but they would not let him fly on the plane he did try to board.

My friend, Ed Morrissey, who I do trust, weighs in:

No one thinks a Senator should get different treatment than anyone else, but that proves that the security theater we experience at airports isn’t designed with flight security as its primary goal.  Besides, let’s not forget that TSA is already working on programs for clearing frequent travelers on an expedited basis who they know through prior investigation won’t pose a security risk on commercial flights.   Who in their right mind thinks that Senator Rand Paul represented any kind of real security risk on board an aircraft?  Anyone? Anyone?  Bueller?  Bueller?

Now, it might look like it was intentional, but I very much highly doubt that was even remotely intentional at all.  I simply believe that the TSA wanted to do their jobs and Rand Paul refused to let them, and for this, he was detained and released and not allowed to fly. Let us not forget why the TSA put these regulations in place, on Christmas Day in 2009, an idiot kid from Nigeria blow himself up on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan; which by the way is my hometown and the airport that this almost happened at, is less than 10 miles from my HOUSE!

Anyhow, again, this might look bad, but I seriously doubt it is anything but Senator Rand Paul grandstanding against something that he feels is against his rights as a citizen. I personally disagree with that; I believe that safety of those flying here in America and abroad, should come first. Then again, I have never flown, nor will I ever. Too many planes crashing for this old man. 😯

Related:

Others: Hot Air, The Gateway Pundit, Big Government, Outside the Beltway, Mediaite, Michelle Malkin, The Raw Story, Gothamist, LewRockwell.com Blog, Campaign 2012, National Review

Update: Now a huge Memeorandum thread.

Update #2: Smitty, who I consider to be a friend; makes some good points.

 

Mitt Romney fires a shot across Newt Gingrich’s bow

Looks like Mittens is feeling the heat, perhaps from the flip flops and/or because of the recent polls and is firing back.

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. — Mitt Romney landed here Sunday with a simple message: Newt Gingrich is a failure and a fraud. And a disgrace. And a hapless showman.

Standing under a brilliant orange Florida sunset, Romney delivered his longest sustained critique of the South Carolina primary winner to date — ticking through a list as if he were reading off Gingrich’s Wikipedia page, and undercutting each item as he got to it.

“Speaker Gingrich has also been a leader,” the former Massachusetts governor said. “He was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. And at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader and he had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that, he actually resigned after four years, in disgrace.

Romney continued: “He was investigated over an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that and then his fellow Republicans, 88 percent of his Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich. He has not had a record of successful leadership.”

Then Romney got into Gingrich’s post-congressional career.

“Over the last 15 years since he left the House, he talks about great bold movements and ideas,” he told the crowd of several hundred people gathered at a building materials company here. “Well, what’s he been doing for 15 years? He’s been working as a lobbyist, yeah, he’s been working as a lobbyist and selling influence around Washington.

via Mitt Romney: Newt Gingrich is a ‘failed leader,’ ‘disgrace’ – Reid J. Epstein – POLITICO.com.

To be clear, Newt Gingrich is not a saint and as Geller put it, “He is a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our Son-of-a-bitch.”  I know that personally I would rather vote for someone like Newt and hold my nose, than to vote for some idiot racist Mormon who worked for a Latin-American financed company that acted as corporate raiders. I am sorry, but that is simply Anti-American; the very idea that an American would sit at a table with Latin Americans to devise a plan to destroy American businesses is absolutely asinine and for this Mitt Romney should be held accountable.  However, because Fox News and others are in the tank for that creep, you will not hear a word about it and that my friends is the tragic thing about corporate media.

So, yes, you can put me in the “anyone but Mitt Romney” category.