ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Can The World Afford to Allow Iran To Get Nuclear Capability

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Israel’s military confirmed Sunday that Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey will travel to the Mideast nation this week for
talks, as Israel’s No. 2 public official suggested that President Obama is
being meek about Iran ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

The content of the coming discussion between the U.S.
general and Israel’s top military commander was not stated, but Iran is first
and foremost in Israel’s mind as the Islamic Republic takes a step closer to
going nuclear.

Can Iran be Contained?

If Iran obtains nuclear weapons can it ever truly be
contained?

“There is very close cooperation between Israel, the
Israeli military and the U.S. military, and General Dempsey is a close friend,
and I’m sure that he and our chief of staff will have very serious discussions
about all the options,” said former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dan
Gillerman.

With Dempsey scheduled to visit Israel this week — his
first official trip to the country since he assumed command of the joint chiefs
on Sept. 30 — the occasion may be used to urge Israel to stay calm and let
sanctions work.

Israel has grown antsy about Iran’s nuclear program and has
repeatedly hinted it might take military action if international sanctions fail
to stop Iran’s nuclear development, which is moving at a fast clip. Reports are
that Iran will have 20 percent concentration of enriched uranium by next month.
That level of enrichment is not used for energy production but toward weapons
development.

The U.S. has imposed a series of economic sanctions against
the regime, and U.S. officials — as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu — have suggested that the tough sanctions are starting to break down
support for the regime.

But Israeli Cabinet Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Sunday he
was disappointed that the U.S. has not expanded sanctions to further damage
Iran’s central bank and its energy industry. He also suggested that the Obama
administration hasn’t been as forceful as Britain and France in imposing
sanctions.

“In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-1, to impose these sanctions, and in the U.S. administration there is hesitation for fear of
oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations,” Ya’alon
told Israel Radio, according to Haaretz newspaper. “In that regard, this
is certainly a disappointment, for now.”

The Obama administration is concerned that Iran’s verbosity about its expanding nuclear operation will drive Israel to strike. President Obama spoke Thursday with
Netanyahu, and Iran was part of the conversation, said White House spokesman
Jay Carney, without detailing the content of the call.

Dempsey spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told Fox News that the
trip was not orchestrated in light of recent events. He said Dempsey’s office
has been planning a series of talks with his counterparts, and the trip
includes a stop in Paris and Brussels as well as Tel Aviv.

“This whole trip has been in the works for months,” Lapan said. “Much as some want to
read the Israel stop as connected to Iran, that’s not the case.” Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz is also headed abroad this week — to Brussels for talks with NATO officials that are expected to focus on Iran. Gantz was quoted last week telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of
“things that happen to it unnaturally.”

Gantz’s comment came one day after the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, an occasion that Iran’s leaders have used to stir up anti-Israel and anti-American
sentiment. The U.S. has denied any role in the assassination, though leaders
have left the impression they know how it happened. Israel has not commented on
the killing.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes,
and has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit, though several
observers say it is likely merely a delay tactic.

Gillerman said Dempsey’s visit may allow the Israeli
military to impress upon Dempsey the need for some distinct solution to Iran.

“What we hope very much is the U.S. will realize that
time is running out, the clock is ticking and action must be taken,”
Gillerman told Fox News. “And if military action is necessary, we hope
very much the U.S. and the rest of the world will take it because, as I said,
it’s a threat to civilization as we know it, not just to Israel.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/15/joint-chiefs-chairman-headed-to-israel-amid-iran-threat/

 

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Just Tell It Like It Is

 

Promoting Common Sense

 

Excerpt from the Book “Whatever Happen To COMMON SENSE”

By: Elmer Thomas Williams Jr.

The definition that has been ascribed to tolerance is that everybody’s lifestyle or opinion is true and carries equal weight, no matter how outrageous it may be. This just isn’t so. I hear people speak about diversity as if it is the highest form of virtue. If I have fifty-two fragrances of cow manure, does this make it smell like roses? I think not. Diversity without substance or standards still stinks.

Most proponents of diversity laud it just as long as it suits their argument. If you suggest that you should be able to say the name of Jesus in a public forum, they will say that this goes against the concept of separation of church and state. They make this argument even though the Constitution does not actually specify that church and state should be separate. If they are so into diversity, why don’t they have an open mind with regard to this aspect of it?

The first amendment says that ([i]) “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” You will notice that the separation of church and state is not specifically referred to. It does say that Congress cannot institute a religion, but it also says Congress cannot make a law “prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” or “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” So if I want to invoke Jesus’ name, you have no right to scream, “Separation of church and state” because I am not attempting to establish a specific religion. Furthermore, I do not work for the government, so do not attempt to violate my first amendment rights.

We have allowed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and partisan organizations to take our rights without a fight. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” We are in need of a good rebellion in the greatUnited States of America. This is the only way to stop a hostile takeover by ungodly men and women.

Look at what ([ii]) Thomas Jefferson said about rebellion in a letter to William Smith in 1787:

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

It might be time to fertilize this country with patriots, saints, tyrants, and dictators.

A man is always more famous after he dies. He has a vision of dying for a cause that is bigger than he is. Most of the time, he never sees the vision come to the light. Historians usually write about a man’s zeal and drive for his particular cause.

Adults always tell children not to give in to peer pressure, but it seems to me that adults are far worse than children when it comes to succumbing to pressures from their friends and family. We buy things we don’t even want in an effort to impress people we don’t even like. You might be at work or at family gathering and sense that something is wrong, but if the majority says everything is all right, you tend to go with the flow. The average person will suppress his or her own convictions just to get along with the views of the majority.

 

                                From The Book: “Whatever Happen To Common Sense”

                               Chapter 1 “Just Tell It Like It Is” – Buy Your Copy Now @

                                https://www.createspace.com/3686750

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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