Book Depicts Cranky Obama On Baghdad Visit

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Michael Hastings' new book, The Operators, jabs at what could be a vulnerable spot for the Obama Administration, the president's relationship with the troops.

The book describes a visit to Baghdad:

After the talk, out of earshot from the soldiers and diplomats, he starts to complain. He starts to act very un-Obamalike, according to a U.S. embassy official who helped organize the trip in Baghdad.

He’s asked to go out to take a few more pictures with soldiers and embassy staffers. He’s asked to sign copies of his book. “He didn’t want to take pictures with any more soldiers; he was complaining about it,” a State Department official tells me. “Look, I was excited to meet him. I wanted to like him. Let’s just say the scales fell from my eyes after I did. These are people over here who’ve been fighting the war, or working every day for the war effort, and he didn’t want to take fucking pictures with them?"

North Carolina’s Legal Holiday Observes Lee’s Birthday on Thursday, January 19th

Via Bernhard

Remembering Robert E. Lee: A Week-Long Observance

The early 1890’s saw the creation of public observances in honor of General Robert E. Lee in many Southern States.

The Nineteenth of January: The Second Public Observance of the Anniversary of the Birth of Robert E. Lee

The anniversary of the birth of Robert Edward Lee was again observed throughout Virginia on January 19th, 1892. In many of the cities and towns there were military parades, and the banks and public offices in all were closed. The Confederate Veterans Corps of the city of New York, and the Confederate Army and Navy Association of Baltimore, Maryland, each commemorated the occasion by a banquet with reverential exercises. The day is now by statute, a legal holiday in the States of North Carolina and Georgia as well as Virginia, and the day was observed in Raleigh and Atlanta, and doubtless in other Southern cities…

Business in the (Richmond) city offices was at a standstill yesterday and matters at the Capitol yesterday were dull. Many wholesale houses closed their establishments at noon and the freight depots of the railroads were also closed after that hour. The scholars of the public schools had half holiday, and the banks were closed throughout the day. Although the intensely discomforting weather materially interfered with the proposed open air demonstration, it could not dampen the ardent regard in which the memory of the glorious leader is held.

Richmond) Mayor Ellyson:

"Ladies, Comrades, and Fellow-Citizens: We have met today under the auspices of Lee and Pickett Camps to do honor to the memory of one of Virginia's noble sons. Robert E. Lee is forever enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen, and as we contemplate his virtues and heroism we are made better and purer men, and I trust the time will never come when Virginians shall fail on this, his natal day, to recount the valor and patriotism of their greatest chieftain, whose noblest aspiration in life found its completest realization in the doing of his duty to his God, and his fellow man.

There is no danger, comrades, that the men who wore the grey will ever prove recreant to the principles that actuated them in time of war, but there is danger that our children may, and so we wish on these recurring anniversaries to tell of the chivalrous deeds of such leaders as Lee, Jackson, Stuart and Pickett, and to teach coming generations that the soldiers of the Southern Confederacy were not rebels, but were Americans who loved liberty as something dearer than life itself."

(Lee’s Birthday, Southern Historical Papers, Volume XIX, R.A. Brock, Editor, 1891/1990, pp. 389-392)

NC: Remembering Robert E. Lee

A Ron Paul convert questions how to play a role in a future he sees as bleak

Via Survival

The libertarian prophet of American decline arrived at a Granite State auditorium Friday evening with no fanfare and few bodyguards.

“Dr. Paul?” said a man near the door, who in the past three years had gone from believing in Barack Obama to believing that the country is sliding toward total economic and social collapse. Christopher Way, 32, a technician for the event, held out a microphone to the man he hopes will become president.

“Is this mine?” Ron Paul asked, taking it, smiling slightly at the new convert and walking onstage, where he drew long cheers from an audience full of Christopher Ways, an eclectic mix of young and mostly white men who were not just undeterred by the candidate’s third-place finish in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, but somehow more motivated by it.

“The job of a president is to protect your freedom,” Paul told them. “It isn’t to run the world, it isn’t to run the economy, and it isn’t to run your life.”

MORE with video and 20 great pictures.

California Legislative Analyst Says Not Enough Rich People to Fund State's Bloated Government

Via Theo Spark

American Power
Verbatim Post

At some point you just run out of obscene 1 percenters people to rape and plunder.

At Los Angeles Times, "Tax hikes won't stop school cuts, California budget advisor says."

Even if the Governor Brown's confiscatory ballot initiative passes, Mac Tayler, the Legislative Analyst, warns that:

...state revenue will become increasingly unpredictable if government relies more on tax receipts from high earners, whose income can fluctuate dramatically. That reliance would grow under Brown's tax plan.

"Already, California's budget is dependent on volatile income tax payments by the state's wealthiest individuals, and the governor proposes that these Californians pay more for the next few years," Taylor's report said. "As has become evident in recent years, differing fortunes for these upper-income taxpayers can create or eliminate billions of dollars of projected state revenues."

Ben Stein Sues: Ad Agency Replaced Me Over My Global-Warming Position

A Trainwreck in Maxwell

Good to go! Sock it to them.

31,487 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs

The conservative pundit and actor -- and former Nixon speechwriter -- alleges that his position on climate change had him kicked off a $300,000 acting gig, only to be replaced by a lookalike.

Stein filed a discrimination suit against Japanese company Kyocera Corporation and New York ad agency Seiter & Miller Advertising, in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday.

He is claiming breach of contract, wrongful discharge and emotional distress, among other charges.

Also read: 'WS2' Reviewed: It's More Like 'Ferris Bueller's Day on Wall Street'

In the suit, which was obtained by TheWrap, Stein says Kyocera reneged on the deal and replaced him after the company found out that he isn't sure humans are responsible for climate change. (What "climate change?" There ain't nothing different than has been going since it has been tracked. The charts tell no lies, only Collectivists.)

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NYT Caught Lying about Iran & IAEA Report on Civilian Nuclear Program

Via The Excavator

Warning!

Via Home on the Range

Rehash: Leaked Docs Show FBI And SPLC Infiltrated Group In OK Bombing Case

In a January 5, 1996 teletype to select FBI field offices, FBI Director Louis Freeh revealed that the Southern Poverty Law Center, the radical left-wing group run by civil rights lawyer Morris Dees, had an informant living in Elohim City. Elohim City is a white supremacist compound whose inhabitants have been closely linked to the Oklahoma City bombing. And that informant was dutifully reporting to Bill Clinton’s FBI.[1]

It’s thanks to Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue that we have this information, which proves “the SPLC was engaged in an undercover role where they monitored subjects for the FBI believed to be linked to …Tim McVeigh.” [2]

Upon being leaked a redacted copy of the Freeh teletype, Trentadue filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the full document and any other information held by the Oklahoma City FBI field office pertaining to the SPLC, specifically, “all documents about any connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center and eight named individuals from the OKBOMB and BOMBROB investigations or a white supremacist compound in Elohim City, Okla.”[3]

When the FBI declared no such Freeh teletype existed, Trentadue produce his copy and an enraged U.S. district court Judge Dale Kimball ordered the FBI to produce all responsive documentation.

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GOP Should Let Paul Speak at Convention

I don't think they will have any choice as he will go there with maybe 400-500 delegates; however I don't want him endorsing Romney which is what the writer wishes.

NEWSMAX
Verbatim Post

Writing in the British Guardian, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said Republicans will have no choice but to let Rep. Ron Paul speak at the GOP convention. Paul's positions -- especially his views on foreign policy and America's "empire" abroad -- have alienated many in the GOP establishment.

Here's what Norquist wrote:

"There will be no more surprises in the 2012 Republican race for the presidential nomination. After New Hampshire we know the following: Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee; Jon Huntsman's strategy of putting all his eggs in the New Hampshire basket did not work well; Ron Paul, who came in second in New Hampshire, will not win the GOP nomination.

"However, Ron Paul is the only candidate for the Republican nomination whose endorsement will matter to Mitt Romney. It is the only endorsement that will bring votes and the only endorsement, if withheld, that could cost Romney the general election.

"If Ron Paul speaks at the GOP convention (as he was not invited to do in 2008), the party will be united and Romney will win in November 2012. If Ron Paul speaks only at his own rally in Tampa, Florida (as happened at the 2008 GOP convention in Minnesota) the party will not be at full strength.

"Gingrich, Santorum and Rick Perry divided up 20% of the New Hampshire vote – less than either Romney or Ron Paul received. They will now divide the non-Romney, non-Ron Paul vote in South Carolina.

"Unless something else happens."

© Newsmax. All rights reserved.

What War With Iran Might Look Like

I don't think that Russia will sit by and twiddle their thumbs.

Via Tom

Back in September 2007 I wrote an article for Antiwar.com called “What World War III May Look Like.” The article, which presumed that an incident involving U.S. troops on the border between Iraq and Iran could easily escalate into what would eventually become a global conflict, was widely replayed in the alternative media and even in the mainstream. Well, I am pleased to report that no such war has yet started, though there has been a disturbing expansion of U.S. military activity through the deployment of drones to hit targets in assorted countries without having to worry about American casualties or niceties like declarations of war. Other geopolitical elements that figured in my 2007 analysis have also changed, so I believe that the time has come for an update.

Iran is clearly the target of choice, just as it was in 2007. Despite President Barack Obama’s assertion that he would open up avenues to talk to the Iranians, he has failed to do so, he has rejected Iranian initiatives to start a dialogue, and he is showing every sign of unwillingness to negotiate on any level. Congress has even moved to block any contact between American and Iranian diplomats. The sanctions that recently took effect against the Iranian banking system can be construed as an act of war, particularly as Iran has not provided any casus belli. Further sanctions that will restrict energy imports are impending and will bring the country’s economy to a halt. There are already signs that the Iranian government feels itself compelled to demonstrate to its people that it is doing something about the situation. That “something” might well be a confrontation with the U.S. Navy that will have unfortunate results. In light of all that, it might be useful to imagine just how war with Iran could play out if the Iranians don’t roll over and surrender at the first whiff of grapeshot.

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