Via u_96
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Obama's G-20 Debacle 'Clearly Demonstrates a Lack of Leadership'
President Barack Obama's inability to build strong international support for military strikes against Syria at the Group of 20 summit in Russia "clearly demonstrates a lack of leadership," former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra told Newsmax on Friday.
"The president has four groups of people who he needs to convince that going into Syria is an absolute imperative — and one of those is the international community," Hoekstra told Newsmax in an exclusive interview.
"And, coming out of the G-20 summit, where he had the opportunity to personally make the case to many of our allies — and to come away pretty-much empty-handed — shows exactly where this president is right now.
"It's going to make it very, very difficult to get the votes next week" in Congress, he concluded. "It's going to make it much more difficult for the president to get the American people to be supportive of a move into Syria if we can't convince our allies."
More @ Newsmax
Obama employing think-tank plan to oust Assad?
Produced by the think tank’s Sabin Center in March 2012, “Middle East Memo #21,” titled “Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change,” proposed the United States should implement a policy aimed at destabilizing Syria with the explicitly stated goal of ousting the Assad regime.
Authored by four Brookings Institution-affiliated authors, the report said the “brutal regime of Bashar al-Asad (sic) is employing its loyal military forces and sectarian thugs to crush the opposition and reassert its tyranny.”
The authors’ underlying justification for removing the Assad regime was that it was engaging in acts of violence against civilians that violated international standards of human rights.
The memo, however, made clear that the real gain to be achieved in toppling Assad was not the humanitarian protection of the Syrian population but the removal from the Middle East of “Iran’s oldest and most important ally in the Arab world.” The report characterized the Assad regime as “a longtime supporter” of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that has “at times aided al-Qa’ida terrorists and former regime elements in Iraq.”
The memo’s characterization of U.S. foreign policy goals has prompted critics to charge it presented humanitarian concerns couched in the doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” a U.N. initiative asserting sovereignty is a responsibility, not a right, and the international community, therefore, has a right to ensure nations protect their populations from genocide, war crime, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
The critics see the plan as a pretext designed to cover the real goal of destabilizing Syria to depose the Assad regime. The plan would provide weapons to rebel groups, combined with U.S. air attacks and the possibility of a U.S.-backed, internationally configured military invasion with ground troops.
More @ WND
This Is a Fake Housing Recovery
Nearly half of U.S. home sales are cash transactions.
That's right. Goldman Sachs just reported that cash sales account for 57 percent of all residential home sales versus 19 percent in 2005. Other estimates are not as high, but still range from 40 percent to 50 percent. That's amazing. And that's not just new homes; it's all homes.
So, do you think a lot of first-time homeowners are buying their homes with cash?
You've got to be kidding. Even most second- and third-time homeowners probably aren't paying 100 percent cash.
The fact that this bull market is driven so heavily by cash purchases tells you that it's not a real housing market. It's another investment bubble.
More @ Money News
Lessons in urban warfare from Syria
We are at interesting point in time. It might be point that changes human history if some of those who rule us (sorry to call it like that but that is situation right now) play their game and it escalates. Im happy to know most of you have already proper storage and skills to try your best when storm hits. Let’s hope we don’t need anything of this.
If you have time, stop eating (but maybe get drink) and spend half hour to watch the video below. It is just out since 4th of September 2013 but shows bit older video footage of people fighting for their survival in Syria in current conflict. It’s bloody and maybe disturbing for some, so maybe dont eat. I speak a lot about how I moved through city and fought in my survival course and see many similarities. Too many, so I had to take some breaks looking at this.
More @ SHTF School
If It Wasn’t Syria, It Would Have Been Something Else
Via WiscoDave
It is very possible that the president will not obtain a join authorization to bomb Syria; if he chooses to go ahead and attack anyway, Obama will incite a constitutional crisis—the first time in history that a president has decided to go to war against the declared wishes of Congress. The public and the courts will adjudicate the legality of that act, and it would be contentious.
So the corner that Obama has painted himself into is now inescapable. Defying Congress will put the country into a Watergate/Monicagate mess. Not doing anything will confirm the administration’s impotence and only enhance Russia, Iran, Assad, China, Islamists, and almost anyone else who does not like the U.S. Doing something small, with or without congressional approval, will be looked upon as a cynical waste of human lives to restore Obama’s credibility, the sort of craven, immoral political act that a younger Obama made a career out of mocking. Doing something big will invite public and global outrage if only moderately successful, and doom the Obama presidency if unsuccessful.
How did Obama get himself into this mess? It was bound to happen, given his past habits. All we are seeing now is the melodramatic fulfillment of vero possumus, lowering the rising seas, faux Corinthian columns, hope and change, the bows, the Cairo speech, and the audacity of hope. Hubris does earn Nemesis.
It is very possible that the president will not obtain a join authorization to bomb Syria; if he chooses to go ahead and attack anyway, Obama will incite a constitutional crisis—the first time in history that a president has decided to go to war against the declared wishes of Congress. The public and the courts will adjudicate the legality of that act, and it would be contentious.
So the corner that Obama has painted himself into is now inescapable. Defying Congress will put the country into a Watergate/Monicagate mess. Not doing anything will confirm the administration’s impotence and only enhance Russia, Iran, Assad, China, Islamists, and almost anyone else who does not like the U.S. Doing something small, with or without congressional approval, will be looked upon as a cynical waste of human lives to restore Obama’s credibility, the sort of craven, immoral political act that a younger Obama made a career out of mocking. Doing something big will invite public and global outrage if only moderately successful, and doom the Obama presidency if unsuccessful.
How did Obama get himself into this mess? It was bound to happen, given his past habits. All we are seeing now is the melodramatic fulfillment of vero possumus, lowering the rising seas, faux Corinthian columns, hope and change, the bows, the Cairo speech, and the audacity of hope. Hubris does earn Nemesis.
More @ NRO
Practical Plastic Surgery for Nonsurgeons
Via WiscoDave
Practical Plastic Surgery for Nonsurgeons was written to bring plastic surgical expertise to areas with little access to plastic surgeons. Please feel free to download/print as much of the book as you desire. And please, tell others about this site!
To purchase a hard copy of the book, click here.
To download the entire book, click here.
To download an individual chapter, click the corresponding link below.
Practical Plastic Surgery for Nonsurgeons was written to bring plastic surgical expertise to areas with little access to plastic surgeons. Please feel free to download/print as much of the book as you desire. And please, tell others about this site!
To purchase a hard copy of the book, click here.
To download the entire book, click here.
To download an individual chapter, click the corresponding link below.
More @ Practical Plastic Surgery
AIPAC, Defense Contractors Promise to Go ‘All-Out’ Pushing Syria War
Via Jadinardo
The word on the House of Representatives is clear: President Obama doesn’t have the votes to push through a resolution endorsing his planned attack on Syria, and he may in fact lose big.
It’s going to take a lot of backroom deals and lobbying to convince Representatives to go against the will of the American public, overwhelmingly opposed to the war, just a year ahead of the elections, but that lobbying may be coming.
AIPAC and its usual auxiliaries in the Israel Lobby are looking to turn the tide toward war, promising to “go all-out” next week in lobbying Congress to support the war, along with a “major mobilization” of US Jewish leaders.
The Israel Lobby’s uncanny knack for getting its way in the US Congress is almost legendary, and if there’s one group that rivals them in influence, it’s defense industry PACs. They haven’t been publicly pro-war, but their beneficiaries have been, and with military contractors seeing their stock prices surge on talk of war, it’s not hard to imagine why.
It’s going to take a lot of backroom deals and lobbying to convince Representatives to go against the will of the American public, overwhelmingly opposed to the war, just a year ahead of the elections, but that lobbying may be coming.
AIPAC and its usual auxiliaries in the Israel Lobby are looking to turn the tide toward war, promising to “go all-out” next week in lobbying Congress to support the war, along with a “major mobilization” of US Jewish leaders.
The Israel Lobby’s uncanny knack for getting its way in the US Congress is almost legendary, and if there’s one group that rivals them in influence, it’s defense industry PACs. They haven’t been publicly pro-war, but their beneficiaries have been, and with military contractors seeing their stock prices surge on talk of war, it’s not hard to imagine why.
More @ ANTIWAR
Man Brain-Dead Following Random Rampage. Witness: Suspect Vowed To Attack 'Next White Person Who Walks By'
Via Pirate Morgan
It came out of nowhere.
A man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process.
Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime.
Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that left the gentle, retired train conductor in a coma, CBS 2′s Dave Carlin reported on Friday.
“I don’t believe that. I don’t know why that happened. He is very nice,” Igor Sapozhnikov said.
Babbitt was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said.
“He said ‘the next white person who walks by I’m going to [expletive],’” one woman said. “His fist went in and the man’s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.”
It came out of nowhere.
A man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process.
Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime.
Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that left the gentle, retired train conductor in a coma, CBS 2′s Dave Carlin reported on Friday.
“I don’t believe that. I don’t know why that happened. He is very nice,” Igor Sapozhnikov said.
Babbitt was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said.
“He said ‘the next white person who walks by I’m going to [expletive],’” one woman said. “His fist went in and the man’s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.”
More with video @ CBS
‘Dominant’ Obama :)
Via Daily Timewaster
Today, the headlines were about (Click on it. Hilarious!) “dominant” Obama. NBC described the moment Obama met Putin:
But before you laugh at Obama’s misery, before you even think of laughing, remember that the humiliation of Barack Obama is perforce a humiliation of America. Whether one likes it or not, he represents the country. And he’s turned it into a doormat.
Today, the headlines were about (Click on it. Hilarious!) “dominant” Obama. NBC described the moment Obama met Putin:
“It was very odd. Obama is treating him like he was greeting a doorman,” she said. … “This is a show of power,” she said. “In addition, he leans in toward Putin with his upper body, placing himself slightly into Putin’s personal zone. Notice Putin pulls back ever so slightly, which indicates that Obama has the upper hand.”Some of you may be less impressed by these games, recalling, no doubt, the times on the grade-school playground when this ploy was used to show the bully just who was boss, usually with unfortunate results. This is greasy kid stuff, not the demeanor of presidents.
But before you laugh at Obama’s misery, before you even think of laughing, remember that the humiliation of Barack Obama is perforce a humiliation of America. Whether one likes it or not, he represents the country. And he’s turned it into a doormat.
More @ The Belmont Club
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)