Alan Caruba; The Absent Superpower

Warning Signs   

"Just as in the past, the threat of Islamic fanaticism looms large again and just as in the past we are seeing its most potent instrument of conquest, terror, being used. From 9/11 to the slaughters in Sudan’s Darfur region, the attacks in Nigeria, and tumult everywhere the Muslim population reaches a tipping point, the headlines are a reminder of its former history. Islam and bloodshed are synonymous."

....

"What is astonishing and dismaying is that Obama recently said that the world is more stable now than in the last five years. What world is he talking about?

"His foreign policy failures in the Middle East are ceding much of it and the African Maghreb to militant Islamists."

National Park Service Gone Wild; Fed-up Vacationers Fight Back

Rosslyn Smith  "Top of the World is a residential development around Lake in the Sky in Blount County, Tennessee.  It borders Smoky Mountain National Park.  Foothills Parkway, a national scenic parkway managed by the National Park Service, is the only major road  to the development.  There are school children in this development.  As part of the shutdown, Bambi's Brownshirts have barricaded Foothills Parkway, effectively stranding this community and its children.  
....
"Can you imagine the outrage among the media/government complex if this had happened under a Republican President or a Republican governor.  They'd be accused of being anti-public education and child endangerment."  Read More

National parks invaded by fearless family vacationers

"It turns out families on vacation are enjoying America’s national parks even without the government’s blessing. Families are throwing orange cones aside at Mount Rushmore, ignoring barricades at Zion National Park and taking grinning selfies next to signs in the Badlands announcing the National Park Service facility is closed. ...determined dads driving straight over traffic cones or throwing them aside to clear the way for the family vacations they’ve been planning long before a government shutdown was announced."

 

Defying government shutdown, national park visitors play ‘catch me if you can’  “We’ve gone from ‘this land is your land, this land is my land,’ to the government saying this land is its land,” writes University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds in an e-mail. “President Obama said that government is just a word for the things we do together. Apparently that includes kicking WWII veterans off their memorial.” 

UPDATE: How's this for pure arrogance? Obama demands Boehner stop the shutdown.

 

The leaks of thousands of files by CIA spy Edward Snowden have caused “enormous damage” and handed terrorists the “gift” to attack the UK “at will”.

Some call Snowden a hero : “Snowden did what he did because he recognised the NSA’s surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity. This wholesale invasion of Americans’ and foreign citizens’ privacy does not contribute to our security; it puts in danger the very liberties we’re trying to protect.”

But others see the damage Snowden has done to our security and the help he has given to those who want to kill us by the millions:
UK Telegraph  "It is feared around Whitehall that the revelations have resulted in a “guidebook for terrorists” while there is frustration that the American is being heralded as some kind of heroic whistleblower. 

"Sources find it incomprehensible that exposing spy agency techniques for tracking terrorists has been argued to be in the public interest."....

Dershowitz: Ted Cruz one of Harvard Law’s smartest students

Daily Caller  "Famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz ranks Sen. Ted Cruz among the school’s smartest students, adding that the Canada-born Texan can run for president in 2016.
Cruz was a “terrific student,” Dershowitz told The Daily Caller. “He was always very active in class, presenting a libertarian point of view. He didn’t strike me as a social conservative, more of a libertarian.”
“He had brilliant insights and he was clearly among the top students, as revealed by his class responses,” Dershowitz added.
Ouch! This one hurts:
"Dershowitz also gave a high estimate of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has decidedly different political views than Cruz." And remember Warren's claim that she is, well, a redskin and thereby rating two notches above Cruz's Hispanicness.

....Cruz “wa s an outstanding student in my class,” Dershowitz said. “Without a doubt he is among the smartest students I’ve ever had… I’ve had great students but he has to be at the top of anyone’s short list, in terms of raw brain power.”

The father of Ted Cruz gives this stirring speech that gives us the perspective of someone who has seen this country from a socialist country.

 Hat tip to Don Standlee, Arlington, TX

The Roots of the Government Shutdown and International Consequences

STRATFOR  "In general, Stratfor deals with U.S. domestic politics only to the extent that it affects international affairs. Certainly, this topic has been argued and analyzed extensively. Nevertheless, the shutdown of the American government is a topic that must be understood from our point of view, because it raises the issue of whether the leading global power is involved in a political crisis so profound that it is both losing its internal cohesion and the capacity to govern. If that were so, it would mean the United States would not be able to act in global affairs, and that in turn would mean that the international system would undergo a profound change."   Emphasis added,TD
....
Mr. Friedman sums up the issue with this pessimistic conclusion:
"Each faction is deeply committed to its beliefs, and feels it would be corrupt to abandon them. Even if it means closing the government, even if it means defaulting on debt, ideology is a demanding mistress who permits no other lovers. Anyone who reads this will recognize his enemy at work. I, however, am holding everyone responsible, from left to right -- and especially the indifferent center. I hold myself accountable as well: I have no idea what I could do to help change matters, but I am sure there is something."
Full article.

George Friedman is the Chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996 that is now a leader in the field of global intelligence. Friedman guides Stratfor’s strategic vision and oversees the development and training of the company’s intelligence unit.

Double Down: Obamacare Will Increase Avg. Individual-Market Insurance Premiums By 99% For Men, 62% For Women

Forbes  via the Galen Institute   ....HHS releases a trickle of data and a load of spin
"Earlier this month, I and two colleagues from the Manhattan Institute—Yevgeniy Feyman and Paul Howard—published an interactive map that detailed Obamacare’s impact on individually-purchased health insurance premiums in 13 states plus D.C. As the accompanying article described, Obamacare increased premiums in those states by an average of 24 percent.

"But those states were largely blue states that had set up their own, state-based insurance exchanges. The big data dump that we’ve been waiting for, since then, is from the majority of states that didn’t set up their own state-based exchange. That data is the responsibility of the Obama administration, namely HHS. Finally, with less than a week to go before the exchanges are supposed to go on-line, HHS has released a slim, 15-page report and a press release that summarize some of the premium data."

Interactive map to help you estimate What Will Obamacare Cost You?

ABOUT THE MAP from the Manhattan Institute:

 

Vindictive Shutdown Theater

Vindictive Shutdown Theater

"This may simply be an extreme version of the Democrats’ usual strategy of closing the Washington Monument, but it is notable extremism: throwing people out of their homes and forcing the shutdown of non-federal facilities. It is, if anything, an excellent illustration of why conservatives believe that the tentacles of the federal government are too long and too many."

Chris Wallace Does a Job on Jack Lew

Jeannie DeAngelis  "Kudos to Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday  for doing his patriotic - and journalistic - duty during a verbal wrestling match with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.  The bout resulted in Jackie boy being pinned to the mat.
"Much to his chagrin, Jack came up against a logical, fair and smart journalist who, on behalf of America, outlined the incongruous series of statements coming from the Obama administration, which were accompanied by simple questions to the befuddled Lew."
....
"Let's face it; much like his boss, Mr. Lew isn't used to being forced by a responsible journalist to give honest answers to questions he'd rather not answer, but Chris Wallace, who's unafraid, soldiered on:"...  

This vindictive president

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 

National Mall To Magically Re-Open For Left Wing Immigration Rally  

"The petty, vindictive Obama administration shut down open air war memorials to American veterans and closed part of a road so people couldn’t pull over to look at Mount Rushmore."   But.....

Rand Paul lays the responsibility for shutdown on Obama   [Savannah] "Guthrie attempted to force Paul to admit the GOP wanted to shut down the government or should be blamed for it. Paul quickly reminded Guthrie it is President Obama's fault for the shutdown because he will not negotiate."

Veterans at the Memorial: Showing Us What It Means to Be American  "A question Americans should answer for themselves is the one I am thinking through while standing at the National World War II Memorial on the Washington Mall this week. What kind of president doesn't do everything he can to ensure that the elderly American men in wheelchairs I see before me have access to "their" memorial--even during a government shutdown?"

Obama reportedly opens National Mall for amnesty rally Tuesday
"If this report is true, this sort of outrage ought to be sparking revulsion across the political spectrum, and probably would if low information voters were not shielded from knowledge of it by the media weasels." 

The Civil War in COLOR for the first time: Painstakingly remastered images of a divided America that recreate era in amazing detail

UK Mail "Two professional colorists have combined their skills with photographs and fascination with the American Civil War to create a remarkable series of color photographs from the era.
"British colorist Jordan Lloyd, 27, met fellow colorist Mads Madsen, 19, from Denmark when he started posting on Madsen's subreddit 'Colorized History'.
"Initially it was Madsen who was colorizing images from the Civil War era, but Lloyd eventually got interested and now the two work together restoring the images, improving their technique by giving each other critiques.

 

"Regard the face of Major General George Armstrong Custer - who was reportedly so enamored of himself that he would wear his own personalized uniform that displayed the same 'Austrian Knots' that the Confederates used, a bright red cravat, and underneath his shirt, a sailor shirt with his rank stars sewn on, even in the presence of officers of superior rank.
C"uster's flamboyance was much noted in his time, and his arrogance may be explained by the fact that he was a fearless leader who was promoted to General at the tender age of 24.

"His demise in 1876, which would become known as Custer's Last Stand, was due to the failure of his fellow commanders and not for lack of Custer's courage."

Below: "Flying colors: Major General Joshua Chamberlain, the 'Hero of Little Round Top' "

"Brought to life: Lewis Powell (pictured) conspired with John Wilkes Booth to kill President Lincoln - Powell's job was to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, a job at which he failed."

More on this at their Facebook page

Some people actually believed this and contacted Snopes

Thomas Lifson   "Let me save Snopes some time. This image from iOwnTheWorld.com and Conservative Treehouse is also satirical. No, Obama has not yet capped Old Faithful. It's a joke!"

An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews by Yaakov Ariel.

What this author calls "mainstream Christians" are those who come from denominations that have generally rejected the authority of Scripture. Remember there are far too many evangelicals for them  to be considered out of the mainstream. Tunnel Dweller

  By Shmuel Ben-Gad in The American Culture.

"Dr. Ariel stresses that this form of Christianity is markedly different from prior forms  in holding that  the Christian church has not replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people.   Its followers are biblical literalists and oppose a ‘spiritualized” interpretation of scripture.  Thus they see the Hebrew nation as still chosen with  an important role to play in salvation history and are (or will be again) God’s first nation.  Dr. Ariel shows that, as this theology has become stronger it has also evolved.  For example, it used to be thought that the Antichrist would be a Jew.  This is no longer held to be the case by everyone in the evangelical world.  Another example is the attitude towards the rebuilding of the Temple.  While traditionally it has been thought this  was  simply a necessary prelude  to the return of Jesus,  some evangelical thinkers  today believe the Temple will serve a positive function in the millennial kingdom."