Re-Blog: "The Islamic Roots of the Yellow Badge of Shame"

Editor’s note: The following account was written for RaymondIbrahim.com by an American teacher in the Muslim world.

Last week, while reading different articles on the Islamic State’s persecution of Christians in the Middle East, I was made aware for the first time that following the fall of the Iraqi city of Mosul in July of 2014, the Islamic State spray painted in red the symbol – –  ن on Christian homes and businesses throughout the city.

For those unfamiliar with the character ن  (pronounced noon), it represents the 14th letter of the Arabic alphabet  and is the equivalent of the Roman letter N. For many Muslims around the world, the ن  stands for Nazarene, a demeaning Arabic word for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or Christians.

why NOT Hillary?... because, FACTS

Political Integrity:

1. More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.
1. The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed
2. While Clinton was secretary of state, her department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors.
3. The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that gave to the Clinton Foundation. That was a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. The 143 percent increase in U.S. arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors compares to an 80 percent increase in such sales to all countries over the same time period.
4. [I]n its 2011 Human Rights Report, Clinton’s State Department slammed Algeria’s government for imposing “restrictions on freedom of assembly and association,” tolerating “arbitrary killing,” “widespread corruption” and a “lack of judicial independence.” That year, the Algerian government donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation and the next year Clinton’s State Department approved a one-year 70 percent increase in military export authorizations to the country. The jump included authorizations for almost 50,000 items classified as “toxicological agents, including chemical agents, biological agents and associated equipment.” The State Department had not authorized the export of any of such items to Algeria the year before.
2. "Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," Comey said in a July 5 statement.
1. "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time." - HRC
2. "I had not sent classified material nor received anything marked classified" - HRC
3. "I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified materials" - HRC
4. "There was classified material emailed." - FBI Director Comey
3. "I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work related" to the State Department. Comey said that when his forensic team examined Clinton's server it found there were "several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000" that had been returned by Clinton to the State Department.
4. “She and her lawyers had those emails deleted. And they didn’t just push the delete button; they had them deleted where even God can’t read them,” Gowdy said Thursday morning during an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “They were using something called BleachBit. You don’t use BleachBit for yoga emails or bridemaids emails. When you’re using BleachBit, it is something you really do not want the world to see.”
5. Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee claimed Tuesday that the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton lied repeatedly to the American people about the nature of and reasons for the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, even as they privately acknowledged what caused them.
1. “None of the Diplomatic Security agents on the ground reported anything about a protest in Benghazi. None of the Diplomatic Security agents on the ground reported anything about a video,” the report said. By contrast, just five days after the attack, then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice told “Fox News Sunday,” “What sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.”
2. Republicans released a new email at the Benghazi hearing written by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her daughter Chelsea Clinton late on the night of the attacks in Benghazi. In the email, Mrs. Clinton tells her daughter that the attacks were undertaken by an “Al Queda-like group.” (E-mail was from the day of the attack, 9/11/2012)
3. "What difference at this point does it make?"

Personal Integrity:

1. Whitewater
2. Travelgate
3. ~$48,000 worth of "gifts" that had to be returned to the White House after Bill Clinton left office. Included furniture intended for White House remodel. Also, $86,000 worth of "gifts" for which the Clintons reimbursed the White House.
4. Former President Bill Clinton and his staff used money from a federal pension program to subsidize staffers for the Clinton Foundation, according to newly available government documents.

Professional Integrity:

1. The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.
2. Witnesses from the Rose Law Firm say Hillary Clinton requested the destruction of Madison land contract files.
3. “Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”
1. “Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred. The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Foreign Policy Failures:

1. "We recognize that these transitions are not America's to manage, and certainly not ours to win or lose," Clinton said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
2. The Syrian civil war has gotten almost unimaginably worse since early 2012 (from 7,000 dead to 250,000), but we’re debating much the same thing we were debating back then: to enact safe zones and no-fly zones in the country, or not to.
3. So, sure, Libya, Egypt and Syria didn’t work out. But maybe little Tunisia is Clinton’s State Department success story, the example of a foreign policy accomplishment that has proven so elusive, even to her supporters.
4. She told the reporter: 'We came, we saw, he died' as she learned of the dictator's grisly end. When the TV reporter asked if her recent visit to Libya had anything to do with Gaddafi's downfall, the Secretary of State quipped: 'No,' then rolled her eyes before adding 'I'm sure it did.'
1. Her conviction would be critical in persuading Mr. Obama to join allies in bombing Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. In fact, Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, would later say that in a “51-49” decision, it was Mrs. Clinton’s support that put the ambivalent president over the line.
5. Just as in Libya, where Mrs. Clinton championed the strategy of arming Islamist “rebels,” the Syrian “rebels” who ultimately received weapons included the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and ISIS.

Free Energy!... for the low, low price of $1,100,000,000,000

there's an idea going around that the US could provide "free energy" in the form of solar panels for every household in America... and while i'm completely for this idea, as a general rule, there are some nasty facts out there to deal with... let's begin.

there are, at best account, around 316,000,000 people in America.

averaging about four people per household (discounting all arguments regarding apartment dwellers, the homeless, and hermits), we have about 79,000,000 homes to furnish with solar panels.

each solar panel will cost about $10,000 in material, and we can estimate (on the low side) $5,000 to install... we all know that electricians charge a lot (no pun intended), so that is probably really low.

79 million X $15K = $1,185,000,000,000... that's $1.1 trillion.

"Well that's what we spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined! Make solar, not war!"

well, aside from the costs of NOT going to war, like allowing terrorists to train in these regions, the continued slaughter of the innocents by Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, and additional strikes on US foreign and domestic target, we'll tentatively agree that we could use a similar amount of money to provide solar panels... we're talking possibility here, not ideology.

so, if it's possible, why aren't we funding that?

well, because we have a small problem:

Thin, cheap solar panels need tellurium, which makes up a scant 0.0000001 percent of the earth’s crust, making it three times rarer than gold.

when the rush to build solar panels increases, the value of these "rare earth" materials will rise exponentially... the cost will be much more than those simple numbers above, because a high demand and a low supply will increase costs dramatically.

so, while, on the surface, it sounds like a great idea, one i'm totally behind... in reality, it's not that easy.

but nothing worthwhile ever is.

Rs vs. Ds - Questionist - Re-Blog

re-blog post of The Questionist... some formatting and all emphasis are mine... no edits of content.

Every once in a while a post comes along that shines a very bright spotlight on just how profoundly insulated some people's personal echo chambers are. This one is mind boggling in its contempt for reality. Before I deconstruct this fantastical narrative, I need to clarify that this is NOT a defense of Republicans, nor is it an indictment of Democrats.

Claim #1:
Democrats are responsible for 65 straight months of economic growth.
Facts: The economic collapse of 2008 resulted in economic indicators that reach 75 year lows. These numbers were so far from average that the chances of them improving were near 100%, no matter what the government did or who was in charge. This results from a statistical phenomenon called “regression toward the mean.”
One famous example of this phenomenon in action is the “Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx.” Athletes or teams that are featured on the cover are chosen only following extremely good performances. Regression toward the mean all but assures that their performance will not be as good as the exceptional performance responsible for getting them on the cover. The same phenomenon holds true for any variable metric.
The economic growth that we have realized is much smaller and slower than expected, and the evidence that Democratic policies are responsible is non-existent, especially considering more than half of that growth was realized under a Republican House.

Claim #2:
Democrats are responsible for record 56 months of private sector job growth.
Facts: See #1.

Claim #3:
Democrats are responsible for unemployment falling from 10.1% to 5.9%.
Facts: Both the Employment to Population Ratio (also called simply the employment rate) and the Labor Force Participation Rate have dropped to 30+ year lows.
The unemployment rate of 5.9% that we see on the news does not give us the entire picture. If you add those actively seeking employment + short term discouraged workers + long term discouraged workers + part time workers who want to work full time, the number is closer to 23%. And if we used the same unemployment measurement we used prior to 1994, unemployment would be around 18%.
Add to this that people who are reentering the labor force are getting jobs with lower wages and fewer hours, and add to this that income inequality is increasing, and add to this that wages are not keeping pace with inflation; and the 5.9% unemployment rate we see in the headlines is not particularly meaningful. And... See #1 – regression toward the mean.

Claim #4:
Democrats are responsible for the budget deficit being reduced by two-thirds.
Facts: This one is more complicated, and I'm not going to pretend to understand all the reasons for this. What we do know from looking at revenue compared to spending is that spending has largely leveled off, and revenue has slowly increased since a $500 billion dip following the collapse; so part of this reduction is due again to regression toward the mean. Spending under Bush increased at a faster than normal rate due to increased military spending and, because for most of his term, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Any time the same party is in control of both the executive and legislative branches, spending increases.
I'll conclude that this claim has some truth to it, but keep in mind that the National Debt has increased from $10.7 trillion to $18 trillion under Obama. In terms of debt as a percentage of GDP, it has increased under Obama from 65% to over 100%. As a comparison, under Bush it increased from 55% to 65%. This is a long term trend that has little to do with who is President or who is in control of Congress, but it is a distinctly unhealthy trend.

Claim #5:
Democrats are responsible for fewer Americans in harm's way in war zones.
Facts: The reduction in troops in Iraq was the direct result of the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement signed by Bush in 2008.
Yes, there are fewer troops overseas, but what Americans wanted and expected when they voted for Obama was a drastic reduction in military interventionism, not just the number of troops on the ground.
What we did NOT want or expect was hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan, an invasion of Libya, American citizens killed in Yemen, 17,000 residual forces, diplomats, and defense contractors left in Iraq, and 10,000 troops left in Afghanistan after the end of 2014.
As recently as September of 2012 Obama said. “We are bringing our troops home from Afghanistan. And I've set a timetable. We will have them all out of there by 2014. And when I say I'm going to bring them home, you know they're going to come home.” This is clearly not the case.
We did not want or expect an escalation in Iraq that included renewed airstrikes. We did not want or expect a new war in Iraq and Syria.

Claim #6:
Democrats are responsible for zero attacks by al Qaeda on US soil.
Facts: I'm not sure how Democrats are responsible for this, and there are far too few data points to draw any conclusions about which party is better or worse at preventing terrorist attacks.

Claim #7:
Democrats are responsible for record stock market growth.
Facts: This is perhaps the most clear example of regression to the mean. A stock market at rock bottom has nowhere else to go but up. In addition, the Federal Reserve dumped 16 trillion printed US Dollars into the market in 2008-2009, and has continued to pump 85 billion printed US Dollars into the market ever since. There is no possible way that the stock market could NOT have gone up under these conditions, and the negative effects are a dramatic increase in wealth inequality, a huge stock market bubble, and economic growth that is supported almost exclusively by debt. Despite the record stock market numbers, the US economy is very sick in a very real and long term sense.
Again, this has nothing to do with which party is in power, and much to do with short-sighted monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve. Almost all politicians focus on short term solutions with complete disregard to long term effects. This cliff will be very difficult, if not impossible, to retreat from.

Claim #8:
Republicans are responsible for two economic recessions.
Facts: Recessions are largely the result of natural economic fluctuations, and the only influence that politicians can hope for is to reduce the effect or shorten the duration. The recession of 2002 was a direct result of the bursting of the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
The collapse of 2008 was the result of several factors, none of them having anything to do with which party was in power. The precipitating factor was the collapse of the housing bubble which was, in turn, precipitated by artificially low interest rates by the Federal Reserve and ridiculously easy lending terms which resulted in millions of people getting mortgages that were above their abilities to maintain.
Another factor was the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial and investment banking. This allowed commercial banks to, effectively, gamble with our money. The repeal of this act was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and signed by Bill Clinton.

Claim #9:
Republicans were responsible for the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression.
Facts: See #8.

Claim #10:
Republicans were responsible for the worst terrorist attack in history.
Facts: This claim is probably the most disconnected from reality of any of the claims on this list. One only needs to read exactly what Osama bin Laden himself explained as the reasons for the attack. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver]
Among the motivations stated by bin Laden for the attack were: long term US aggression in the Middle East, US attacks on Somalia, US support for Russian atrocities in Chechnya, Guantanamo Bay, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, immorality of Americans (including the President), US support for Israel, and US sanctions against Iraq. (People seem to forget that Clinton was bombing Iraq throughout his term on a regular basis.)
None of these alleged provocations had anything to do with which party was in power, although the most immediate of them (and infuriating for bin Laden) happened on Clinton's watch.
Another possible motivation for the 9/11 attack offered by terrorism experts is that bin Laden wanted to provoke America into a war that would incite a pan-Islamist revolution. Considering what is currently happening with the Islamic State, one can only conclude that this strategy has been largely successful.

Claim # 11:
Republicans were responsible for the two longest wars in US history.
Facts: This claim regarding the war in Iraq is mostly true. This happened on Bush's watch with fabricated claims made by his administration, and a large majority of Republicans supporting the Iraq War Authorization. Note that a majority of Democratic Senators also voted in favor of the resolution.
This claim regarding the war in Afghanistan is, however, completely false. Only three members of Congress did not vote in favor of this, one Democrat and two Republicans.

Claim #12:
Republicans are responsible for the worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover.
Facts: It is true that job creation under Bush was the worst since Hoover, and a certain amount of blame can be placed at the feet of Republicans. Another factor is (you guessed it) regression to the mean. After the dot-com boom, employment was exceptionally high, and it was a statistical near certainty that job creation would slow down or decrease.
Another factor is that the forces that led to the 2008 collapse were working against the economy well before the actual collapse itself. It's also worth a reminder that governmental actions have limited effects on job creation, and what small effects there are can lag several years behind the action.

Claim #13:
Republicans are responsible for a complete collapse of the stock market.
Facts: See #8. (It's interesting that three of the seven claims against Republicans are essentially the exact same claim. I could have come up with a lot more legitimate complaints against Republicans.)

Claim #14:
A budget surplus turned into a trillion dollar deficit.
Facts: It's true that Republican led spending on military intervention added to the deficits experienced under Bush. But yet again this can, to a large degree, be explained by regression to the mean. The 1990s saw an unprecedented information revolution, and a dot-com bubble that was further inflated by a badly timed reduction in capital gains taxes (which was supported by both Democrats and Republicans and signed by Clinton).

https://www.facebook.com/janisianpage/photos/a.357587427661315.87486.357191544367570/736868986399822/?type=1&theater

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Source:
The Questionist on Facebook - post

check your memory, and vote informed

'I REMEMBER, SO I'M VOTING, AND NOT REPUBLICAN.'

let the debunking begin:

• "Tax breaks for corporations" - we addressed this in another post, but corporations are the vehicles who create jobs, not the government... and President Clinton signed NAFTA.
• "Katrina / levee failures" - while Bush did cut funds to the Corp of Engineers (who build the levees), that project would not have been completed until 2015... Clinton, however, cut funds to ALL military, from 1992 through 2000... THOSE projects would have finished before 2005 and "might" have saved portions of New Orleans.
• "Needless war in Iraq" - well, if you count harboring terrorists (proven as early as 1999 in Al-Majallah, the London arabic language magazine; to Missouri's own Dick Gephardt (D) saying in a 2002 This Week interview, "There's lots of intelligence and it's additive as you go along, of meetings between Iraqi military and intelligence officials and members of al Qaeda.")... or the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that Iraq had and USED... if the gassing of 3000 Kurds wasn't enough proof (dead bodies don't lie), how about the uranium (a.k.a. Yellowcake) which CNN reported being found (July 7, 2008) in Iraq?... how about 500 TONS of it?... funny, they don't have those kind of reactors.
• "Record Deficit" - do we have to talk about record deficits?... Obama has you beat, buddy... and he's still passing spending bills (not to mention the Healthcare takeover).
• "Spending money on our nation is wasted money" - wait... what?... i guess you can make any spurious claim you want.
• "Wall Street Bailout" - if the Democrats hadn't placed lending rules which forced banks to give marginal loans to get FICA backing, causing banks to sell these loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (government institutions), causing Wall Street traders to trade these loans with the expectation of them collapsing (betting against them)... i won't go on... a Ponzi scheme only can run for so long before it collapses and destroys the lowest tier... and you can't secure a loan when it is a no-credit, no-collateral, no-SIGNATURE contract... ridiculous.
• "State rights / narrow point of view" - right... so when the populous votes against [homosexual marriage][marijuanna legalization][insert other liberal agenda], then it's up to the liberal judges (often appointed) to overturn the will of the majority... wait, that's the Democrats... how about when a state votes to uphold federal immigration statutes?... it was the Democrats who took the state to court; imposing their "narrow point of view" on the sovereign state.
• "Blocked healthcare for 9/11 responders" - why did the Democrats suspend House rules in an attempt to pass this bill without debate or amendments?... by doing so (suspending rules) they caused the bill to require a 2/3 majority... NOW needing 291 votes, they got 255... had they not played rule-games, they would have needed 218 votes, well below what they got... maybe it's not the Republicans who blocked the bill... they just wanted a hand in it... the Dem's were hoist of their own petard.
• "Dismantled agencies which protect food supply" - yeah, cutting government waste causes salmonella... i wonder what dismantling the US Military does?... or the CIA, FBI, DHS, ICE and Border Patrol.
• "Wealthy" - again, they make the jobs and pay the majority of the taxes... figure out economics.
• "Social Sec / Medicare" - agreed... we should funnel more money into these bottomless pits of inefficiency and fraud... they're working so well... oh, and why did the Democrats refuse to increase Social Security payments in line with inflation this year?... did we not have inflation?
• "Civil Rights" - those damn Republicans... always against Civil Rights... especially those Republicans like these guys:

Frederick Douglass
Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth
Booker T. Washington
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• "Civil Rights, continued" - how about these notable Democrats?

Nathan Bedford Forrest - KKK Grand Dragon
Robert Byrd - Senator
Harry S. Truman (joined the KKK in Kansas City to garner votes)
Hugo Black (FDR's first appointment to the Supreme Court and lifelong KKK member)
Albert Gore, Sr (Al's dad) opposed the '64 Civil Rights Act
AL Governor George Wallace (declared there would be segregation forever)

• "Less money = More money" - it's economics, guys!... learn the Laffer Curve... i just did an entire post on this... if you can't look that up, watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off... Ben Stein defines it well.
• "In power / Banking crisis" - yeah, arrest the paramedics at the scene of the accident... hang the janitor for cleaning up other people's messes.
• "Take our country back" - wasn't this the slogan of Obama?