ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Allen West says Shut Your Mouth, In Reference To Marine’s Video

War Is Hell

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines’ video, and has given us permission to publish it.

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged throughMogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted inIraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

 

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MICHAEL SAVAGE CRITICIZES THE CONDEMNATION OF MARINES

Why In The Hell Are The Media Upset Over Some Terrorist Being Urinating On By Our Marines

“Whatever Happen To Common Sense”

The Defense Department and top Marine Corps brass responding to a video that
apparently shows four U.S. Marines urinating on bloodied bodies in Afghanistan should be standing up for brave American warriors instead of kowtowing to radical Islamic lobby groups and Afghan leaders, says talk-radio host Michael Savage.

“What have the Taliban done to our troops? What have the Taliban
done to the Afghanis? What are they responsible for in terms of human
degradation?” Savage asked his “Savage Nation” listeners last night. “Why is
our government punishing our Marines instead of saluting them?”

As military officials investigate the 39-second video, which
surfaced amid attempts by Washington to engage
in peace talks with the Taliban, U.S. officials already are
condemning the Marines.

You’ve always known that “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder”: Get Savage Solutions

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was said to be “deeply
troubled” by the “utterly deplorable” video, telephoned Afghan President Hamid
Karzai and vowed in a statement that those “found to have engaged in such
conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent.”

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations – a D.C.-based group tied to a scheme to fund Hamas
– faxed a letter to Panetta condemning “this apparent desecration of the dead
as a violation of our nation’s military regulations and of international laws
of war prohibiting such disgusting and immoral actions.”

Savage noted that CAIR “is the same hate group that overturned a
law passed by the majority of people in Oklahoma”
to ban consideration of international or Islamic law in the state’s courts.

“Apparently they were distressed that the Marines were not dead
and that the Taliban was dead, and they got back at the Marines in any way they
could,” Savage said of CAIR’s reaction.

Savage also took aim at the response of “cowardly” Marine Corps
Commandant Gen. John Amos, who said in a statement the behavior shown in the
video is “wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior
ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history” and that the Marine
Corps remains “fully committed to upholding the Geneva Convention, the laws of
war and our own core values.”

“I think one of your core values, General Amos, would be to be a
general who supports your boys who you’ve put in harm’s way while you sit on
your fat behind there in North
Carolina,” Savage said.

Savage insisted there’s a better way to respond.

“And that is to say,” he suggested, “‘We don’t know what
happened, however, we are U.S. Marines first, and we support our boys. Whatever
happened in the heat of battle will be looked into. Now go away, and cover Newt
Gingrich’s waistline. Leave us alone. Leave it to the military.’”

Savage noted there is little media coverage when Marines are mutilated.

“The Taliban are barbarians; they cut people’s heads off; they
kill women and children. But, of course, there is no mention of any of that,”
he said.

None other than a Taliban spokesman himself use the term
“barbaric,” but it was to describe the scene of Marines urinating on bodies.

“No religion that follows a holy text would accept such
conduct,” Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said via text message, according to CNN. “This
inhuman act reveals their real face to the world.”

Karzai called on the U.S.government to investigate and
issue the harshest punishment possible, calling the “act” by American soldiers
“simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.”

Savage wondered, “If we strip away all of the brave ones, who
will be left?”

“What kind of men would have the guts to enlist in the Marine
Corps to begin with – to choose to go into combat against these 15th-century
throwbacks and to face them eye to eye, man to man, blade to blade, gun to gun,
bullet for bullet?” he asked.

“And we’re supposed to expect nice guys like Wolf Blitzer to
enlist in the military?” Savage asked, referring to the CNN host.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is the lead
investigative agency, CNN reported, citing a U.S.
official who said the desecration of a body by U.S. troops could be considered a
potential war crime.

Savage summed up for his listeners the fate of the four Marines.

“Should they be given a medal or a court martial in this
cowardly new world we live in where the generals throw their boys overboard …
to the wolves of the media?”

 

http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/savage-rips-cowardly-condemnation-of-marines-in-video/

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Obama Administration What’s to Create Internet ID for All Americans

Obey and Don't Ask Questions

(Big Brother is watching)

  President Obama talks about the latest reports showing a decline in the unemployment rate as he highlights his economic policies in a speech on the factory floor of the Thompson Creek Window Company in Landover, Md.

President Obama is putting plans in motion to give the Commerce Department authority to create an Internet ID for all Americans, a White House official told CNET.com.

White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt told the website it is “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet.

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is currently being drafted by the Obama administration and will be released by the president in a few months.

 “We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at an event Friday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, according to CNET.com.

Locke added that the Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project.

The move has raised eyebrows about privacy issues.

“The government cannot create that identity infrastructure,” Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology told the website. “If I tried to, I wouldn’t be trusted.”

Schmidt stresses that anonymity will remain on the Internet, saying there’s no chance that “a centralized database will emerge.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/08/report-obama-administration-plans-create-internet-id-americans/

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Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi pleaded no contest to shoplifting

I Was Going To Pay Later

She Had A Great Excuse!

WHATEVER HAPPEN TO COMMON SENSE

By: Vivian Ho, Chronicle Staff Writer

Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi pleaded no contest Friday to
stealing nearly $2,500 in clothing from the Neiman Marcus store on San
Francisco’s Union Square after a judge reduced the felony grand theft charge
against her to a misdemeanor.

Outside court, her attorney said Hayashi had been diagnosed
with a benign brain tumor before the shoplifting, and that the condition may
have influenced her behavior.

Hayashi, 45, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor grand theft.
She was sentenced to three years’ probation, ordered to pay $120 to a
restitution fund and $60 in court costs, and told to stay at least 50 feet away
from the Union Square store.

Security guards at Neiman Marcus detained the Castro Valley
Democrat on Oct. 25 after she allegedly walked out of the store with a white
blouse, black skirt and leather pants in a shopping bag without paying for
them.

A spokesman for Hayashi had insisted she intended to pay for
the items, but was distracted in the store by cell phone calls and text
messages and forgot she was carrying them in the bag.

Hayashi was smiling when she walked into San Francisco
Superior Court on Friday wearing a green jacket, black pants and leopard-print
pumps, and carrying a black Chanel purse. She stood quietly during the brief
hearing, whispering at times to her attorney and pleading “no
contest” in a clear voice.

Judge Gerardo Sandoval reduced the charge at the request of
Assistant District Attorney Paul Brennan.

Stephanie Ong Stillman, a spokesman for the district
attorney, said the charge had been reduced because Hayashi had no criminal
history and admitted her guilt early in the legal process, and because the
crime was nonviolent.

Hayashi’s attorney, Douglas Rappaport, said the
assemblywoman was receiving medication for a benign brain tumor, which he said
had been diagnosed before the incident at Neiman Marcus. He said medical
experts had advised the defense that the tumor could have affected her
behavior.

“It is being treated, so it is no longer affecting her
concentration and her judgment,” Rappaport said.

Hayashi declined requests for an interview.

Stillman said Hayashi’s medical condition was not behind
prosecutors’ decision to drop the felony charge, and that her attorney had
never addressed it in court.

“Her defense attorney never said that on the
record,” Stillman said. “Her condition never factored into our
decision.”

Hayashi chairs the Assembly Committee on Business,
Professions and Consumer Protections and is married to Alameda County Superior
Court Judge Dennis Hayashi.

Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, issued a
statement after the hearing saying Hayashi had “owned up to her
actions.”

“I am confident that with the close of these
proceedings, she will continue to ably serve her constituents with the same
talent and passion she has displayed throughout her time in office,” Pérez
said.

There are no sanctions against Assembly members convicted of
misdemeanors. Those convicted of felonies are barred from serving as committee
chairs.

Hayashi cannot run for re-election because she is termed out
after this year. John Vigna, a spokesman for Pérez, said he expected Hayashi to
complete her term.

“We consider the issue closed,” Vigna said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/06/BAB81MLUPJ.DTL

 

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The Federal Reserve wants more of Your Money

 

Where’s Occupy When You Need Them? (Corruption)

By: Jonathan Spicer

 

ISELIN, New Jersey  —
Two top Federal Reserve officials on Friday pushed the case for more stimulus
from the U.S. central bank to help the economic recovery, each zeroing in on
the country’s weak housing market.

Policymakers need to consider more action to kick-start the
housing sector and help the country’s “frustratingly slow” economic
recovery and “unacceptably high” unemployment, William Dudley,
president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, said in a speech in New Jersey.

Monetary policy should work to complement actions by other
U.S. government policymakers, which together could help to stabilize home
prices and turn around the housing market within a year or two under good
conditions, said Dudley.

Speaking in Hartford, Connecticut, the president of the
Boston Fed, Eric Rosengren, said one way to shore up housing would be for the
central bank to buy more mortgage-backed securities.

“Given the low inflation rate and weak labor markets
that are both likely to persist this year, I believe the Federal Reserve should
continue to explore ways to promote more rapid recovery through stronger
growth,” Rosengren told a business group.

The speeches from Dudley and Rosengren, both of whom are
considered part of the Fed’s “dovish” wing — more concerned with
strengthening the economy than trying to contain inflation — made similar
arguments and could set the tone for the central bank’s more activist wing this
year. Dudley, as the president of the New York Fed, holds a permanent vote on the
central bank’s policy-setting committee; Rosengren will rotate into a voting
seat in 2013.

The Fed has bought Treasury debt and, to a lesser extent,
mortgage-backed securities as part of its so-called quantitative easing efforts
over the last three years, totaling $2.3 trillion in purchases. In response to
the worst recession in decades, the Fed late in 2008 also slashed interest
rates to near zero. .

 

The purchase of mortgage securities, however, was a
controversial part of the first round of easing in 2009, known as QE1, drawing
criticism from some officials for propping up a specific sector of the economy.

Dudley has in the past suggested the Fed could potentially
do more to drive down mortgage rates to support the housing sector, which was
at the heart of the financial crisis and recession and has continued to hamper
the recovery.

“I believe it is also appropriate to continue to
evaluate whether we could provide additional (policy) accommodation in a manner
that produces more benefits than costs, regardless of whether action in housing
is undertaken or not,” Dudley told the New Jersey Bankers Association
Economic Forum.

“Monetary policy and housing policy are much more
complements than substitutes.”

The Fed is to hold its next policy-setting meeting January
24-25, when a new slate of four regional Fed bank presidents will rotate into
voting seats. Any further action could hinge tightly to prospects for the
United States’ stubbornly high unemployment.

 

The Labor Department on Friday reported that nonfarm
payrolls added 200,000 jobs in December, the biggest gain in three month, and
the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, offering the
strongest evidence yet of an acceleration in economic activity.

Asked about the news, Rosengren said that while the job
growth is better than had been seen recently, it is still not enough to return
the country to full employment.

The moribund housing market and the European debt crisis,
which is dragging on the European economy, continue to pose a threat to the
U.S. recovery.

The Fed waded into the debate over what to do with the two
main government-run mortgage finance firms this week, arguing in a paper sent
to Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could play a bigger role in turning
around the housing market if they were allowed to provide cheaper mortgages to
a broader pool of homeowners.

On Friday, Dudley called the white paper “a thoughtful
analysis of housing policy.”

A “truly comprehensive approach,” he added,
“would also include long-term reform — including reform of Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac — to put housing finance on a more stable footing and to equip the
market to deal more effectively with any future systemic shocks.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45901332/ns/business-real_estate/#.TwngM29rMpl

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Iran begins uranium development- Defies White House

 

I Will Be World Ruler

 

By: ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a
new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes, a leading
hardline newspaper reported Sunday in another show of defiance against Western
pressure to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful
Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran’s leadership has decided to order
the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country’s
petroleum exports are blocked. Revolutionary Guard ground forces also staged
war games in eastern Iran in an apparent display of resolve against U.S. forces
just over the border in Afghanistan.

“The supreme authorities … have insisted that if
enemies block the export of our oil, we won’t allow a drop of oil to pass
through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the strategy of the Islamic Republic in
countering such threats,” Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Ali Ashraf
Nouri was quoted as saying by the Khorasan daily.

Iranian politicians have issued similar threats in the past,
but this is the strongest statement yet by a top commander in the security
establishment.

The latest statements are certain to fuel tensions with the
U.S. and its allies, which are trying to turn up pressure on Iran with new
sanctions to punish it over its disputed nuclear program. The West suspects
Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons, but Iran denies this.

The United Nations has already sanctioned Iran for refusing
to stop uranium enrichment – which can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile
warhead material. Tehran says its nuclear program is only for energy and
medical research, and refuses to halt uranium enrichment.

Kayhan daily, which is close to Iran’s ruling clerics, said
Tehran has begun injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the
Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom.

“Kayhan received reports yesterday that show Iran has
begun uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility amid heightened foreign enemy
threats,” the paper said in a front-page report. Kayhan’s manager is a
representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the
final word on all important matters of state.

Iran’s nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, said late Saturday
that his country will “soon” begin enrichment at Fordo. It was
impossible to immediately reconcile the two reports.

Iran has a major uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in
central Iran, where nearly 8,000 centrifuges are operating. Tehran began
enrichment at Natanz in April 2006.

The Fordo centrifuges, however, are reportedly more
efficient. And the site better shielded from aerial attack.

Nouri said Iran’s leadership has made a strategic decision
to close the Strait of Hormuz, should the country’s exports be blocked.
One-sixth of the world’s oil flows to market through the Strait of Hormuz, at
the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

President Barack Obama approved new sanctions against Iran a
week ago, targeting the central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad.
The U.S. has delayed implementing the sanctions for at least six months,
worried about sending the price of oil higher at a time when the global economy
is already struggling. But the new sanctions nevertheless prompted a series of
threats from Iranian officials about closing the Strait of Hormuz.

The newspaper paraphrased Nouri as saying that a 10-day
naval war game which ended Tuesday was preparation for such a closure. The
Guard, which is Iran’s most powerful military force and which has its own naval
arm, has planned more sea maneuvers for February.

“The exalted leader (Khamenei) determined a new
strategy for the armed forces, by which any threat from enemies will be
responded to with threats,” Nouri said.

The U.S. and Israel have said that all options remain open,
including military action, should Iran continue with its enrichment program.

Tehran says it needs the program to produce fuel for future
nuclear reactors and medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients.

The country has been enriching uranium to less than 5
percent for years, but it began to further enrich part of its uranium stockpile
to nearly 20 percent as of February 2010, saying it needs the higher grade
material to produce fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes medical radioisotopes
needed for cancer patients. Weapons-grade uranium is usually about 90 percent
enriched.

Iran says the higher enrichment activities – to nearly 20
percent – will be carried out at Fordo. These operations are of particular
concern to the West because uranium at 20 percent enrichment can be converted
into fissile material for a nuclear warhead much more quickly than that at 3.5
percent.

Built next to a military complex, Fordo was long kept secret
and was only acknowledged by Iran after it was identified by Western
intelligence agencies in September 2009.

Buried under 300 feet (90 meters) of rock, the facility is a
hardened tunnel and is protected by air defense missile batteries and the
Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s most powerful military force. The site is located
about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Qom, the religious nerve center of
Iran’s ruling system.

“The Fordo facility, like Natanz, has been designed and
built underground. The enemy doesn’t have the ability to damage it,” the
semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted nuclear chief Abbasi as saying Sunday.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120108/D9S4OUI80.html