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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Qaeda in Yemen offers bounty for killing US ambassador, troops
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
1 16:52 lord garth [336083] 
4 16:57 swksvolFF [336086] 
1 19:33 Besoeker [336108] 
7 11:14 Au Auric [336076] 
1 12:59 Skidmark [336090] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
11 20:39 Airandee [336113]
9 21:13 Barbara [336089]
3 19:08 ex-lib [336094]
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11 23:51 trailing wife [336083]
3 16:37 Shipman [336097]
6 04:09 GolfBravoUSMC [336085]
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7 23:13 Pappy [336090]
1 07:05 American Delight [336127]
1 07:45 Glenmore [336078]
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3 11:51 Jack is Back! [336092]
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2 18:32 Redneck Jim [336074]
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1 00:58 Besoeker [336068]
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Page 2: WoT Background
5 21:20 Christopher Stevens [336099]
1 18:57 ex-lib [336068]
4 16:19 tu3031 [336069]
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1 00:56 Besoeker [336085]
3 18:25 USN,Ret. [336069]
1 18:16 Redneck Jim [336072]
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3 19:35 Rambler in Virginia [336092]
1 16:50 Shipman [336075]
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Page 3: Non-WoT
2 21:16 Grunter [336127]
2 16:03 tipover [336076]
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3 17:00 SteveS [336073]
2 16:57 Injun Stalin7884 [336068]
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2 17:26 Injun Stalin7884 [336073]
1 08:40 Dale [336068]
3 18:04 Redneck Jim [336071]
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1 00:47 Besoeker [336068]
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6 23:19 Pappy [336110]
3 09:52 Mullah Richard [336073]
Page 6: Politix
9 23:24 Pappy [336103]
26 19:49 Frank G [336106]
12 20:57 newc [336084]
Africa North
Cairo: the city vanquished? The Muslim Brotherhood and the ruralisation of Egypt
Posted by: tipper || 12/31/2012 13:00 || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hani Shukrallah has been traveling in leftist circles for his entire journalist career. He occasionally has moments of islamorealist clarity but they are generally quickly replaced by a desire to see a western plot or a zionist plot or exploitation of the workers by capitalists. This editorial leans toward a bit toward realism but it will fade.
Posted by: lord garth || 12/31/2012 16:52 Comments || Top||


Economy
Tax Refund On Hold Possibly
Posted by: Dale || 12/31/2012 06:01 || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I know several in the auto industry drooling over tax refund monies. They have invested allot in the used car sales. Hundreds of cars purchased at auctions. Many expensive repairs to pass state inspections(State Inspectors are aggressively looking over everything). People in distress are letting repairs go. Walking away from monthly payment so repossession process is big now. People are even walking away when repair bill can't be paid.
Posted by: Dale || 12/31/2012 6:12 Comments || Top||

#2  .. then up to 100 million taxpayers..

There are about 315 million in the population. It's just not a 47vs53 thingy.

Nothing better to motivate the American taxpayer to adjust his/her withholding so he/she only owes a couple hundred every year rather than let the Treasury sit on his/her money like a interest free loan.
Posted by: P2Kontheroad || 12/31/2012 8:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Somehow I suspect that people who don't pay any taxes but are expecting a big Earned Income Credit 'refund' won't have to wait.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/31/2012 8:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I have my payroll deductions set up so that the government didn't get much of anything until I wrote a check to go with my 1040 and State filings. Put the equivalent $$ for payroll tax withholdings into a separate banking account to earn interest (well, they used to anyway). That way I didn't have to 'wait' on IRS to issue refund, plus they don't get to use MY money until I say so.

Some folks may find this dangerous and, for a person who doesn't manage their money well, it can be.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/31/2012 9:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Nothing better to motivate the American taxpayer to adjust his/her withholding so he/she only owes a couple hundred every year rather than let the Treasury sit on his/her money like a interest free loan.

Damn straight, the withholding angle was set up during WW Deuce (never let a crisis go to waste)to keep the boys from worrying. Send it in, then get it all back.... not many soldats had income tax due... but hey!

Posted by: Shipman || 12/31/2012 10:33 Comments || Top||

#6  not many soldats had income tax due... but hey! My dad told me he knew of some redneck GIs in WWII who were OK with serving, but would not tolerate having money sent to the revenooers.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 12/31/2012 10:39 Comments || Top||

#7  The IRS has yet to publish an instruction booklet for filling out the tax forms, leaving tax preparers in a holding pattern.

"How they are going to handle this?" said John Roth, senior federal tax analyst for CCH, a tax services company. "We are in virgin territory."


Somehow, the American Virgin Islands spring to my mind, you know one of the 57 States of the United States. The last tax haven of the banking and insurance industry, 87% Democrat, pay no taxes into the US System, a pure welfare state.
Posted by: Au Auric || 12/31/2012 11:14 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Kaul: Nation needs a new agenda on guns
The thing missing from the debate so far is anger -- anger that we live in a society where something like the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre can happen and our main concern is not offending the NRA's sensibilities.

That's obscene. Here, then, is my "madder-than-hell-and-I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore" program for ending gun violence in America:
  • Repeal the Second Amendment, the part about guns anyway. It's badly written, confusing and more trouble than it's worth. It offers an absolute right to gun ownership, but it puts it in the context of the need for a "well-regulated militia." We don't make our militia bring their own guns to battles. And surely the Founders couldn't have envisioned weapons like those used in the Newtown shooting when they guaranteed gun rights. Owning a gun should be a privilege, not a right.
    The men at Breed's Hill and at Valley Forge, the ones who fought against the Redcoats, were militiamen. The brought their own guns. There's nothing at all badly written in the second amendment. The Founders were thinking in terms of what happens if government starts imposing Stamp Acts or something.
  • Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. (I would also raze the organization's headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that's optional.) Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that "prying the guns from their cold, dead hands" thing works for me.
    We never did declare the CPUSA a terrorist organization. As a matter of fact, it wasn't and isn't illegal to join the CPUSA. Both they and the NRA is a good example of the first amendment right to peacefully assemble and associate. But those of a dictatorial preference will be in favor of repealing the first amendment, too.
  • Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.
    The writer documents himself as being a vicious brute who shouldn't be allowed close to any position of power or even influence. He should seek therapy. And the fifth amendment guarantees against anyone being tied to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and dragged, or in fact any other cruel and unusual punishment. But the writer probably wants to repeal that, too, it being so badly written and such.
And if that didn't work, I'd adopt radical measures. None of that is going to happen, of course. But I'll bet gun sales will rise.
The writer's bitch is about the Sandy Hook school shootings. He's in favor of banning guns despite the empirical evidence that shows that crime rates go down in concealed carry states.

That massacre of babies was a horror. I still don't like to contemplate it and when I saw those little faces on the cover of a magazine I almost bawled. Despite the fact that that guy killed himself I consider it to be a strong argument in favor of the death penalty.

Even more, I'd call it a strong argument in favor of public mental health institutions -- what we used to call "crazy houses" back in the heady days of my youth. Those were emptied in response to another really neat liberal idea, that of "mainstreaming." I don't think they permanently institutionalize anyone but the catatonic and the guy who shot President Reagan, and every once in a while they talk about letting him out. Instead we have crazy old ladies walking the streets shouting at invisible beings, lots and lots of homeless people, and potential baby killers living their self-centered lives among us, just waiting.
Posted by: Beavis || 12/31/2012 12:14 || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I posted a few retorts to the various commenters there via Facebook. I won't bore you with reproducing them, they are the sorts of things you've heard from me before.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/31/2012 14:50 Comments || Top||

#2  For those who haven't seen the Demand a Plan pushback.
Posted by: KBK || 12/31/2012 16:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Kaul is a scary individual with what he advocates. He cares little for freedoms or for law.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/31/2012 16:53 Comments || Top||

#4  No, gun sales rise because of rhetoric this this, Kaul. This article of badly written, and Kaul's lack of understanding on the 2nd is a symptom of a lack of education, especially in History. Also there were some pretty nasty weapons around back in the day, and men hardened to the realities of life, without the option of picking up nicely pressed and packaged candied tofu from the Des Moines alternative grocery store.

If a heeler would get rid of the 2nd, getting rid of the 1st is easy and then you could start banning NRA, and Bingo Night (competes with the lotto doncyaknow), not the right kind of Unions, VA centers, you know whatever it is peeving you at the moment Kaul.

I guess after you get everyone disarmed and, just going to take a wild guess that you personally will not be able to apprehend either member you mentioned, mob tie them to a truck and drag them, you will miss the point that loose mobs and people will find a way to harm others they do not like, and will fail to denounce yourself and file papers to ban trucks.

We could as an exercise use the same language is different for the 3rd. Sure it says soldiers, but does that not also include other federal agents? It should, should it not Kaul? Perhaps next time the olde river floods and a cadre of federal agents and employees decend upon Iowa will they be billeted in private homes? Any children at home Kaus? Any interest in hosting a FEMA Youth fresh out of boot who has nothing but contempt for his post, for midwesterners, for people who do not think the Fed is the supreme. One agent per bedroom, you get the couch, make sure that frige is full, hope they don't notice the heirloom trinketbox. Or your green legislation error or dangerous weapons. Or your daughter.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 12/31/2012 16:57 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Preener in Chief
Barack Obama is, of course, very far from a deft executive, and in the course of 2011 and 2012, especially on fiscal issues, we learned that it was the latter outcome that would come to pass. Our various budget showdowns have all begun with attempts at a House-White House deal and have all ended with a House-Senate process (or more precisely a Senate-House process, with apologies to the Constitution's origination clause). Obviously the fact that Obama is a Democrat and not a Republican has given these deals their general direction, but the details have been worked out in Congress. This has been in part because both Boehner and Obama seem to think a House-White House deal has to a big bargain, but it's also in part because a divided congress just naturally makes such deals difficult.

The election apparently hasn't changed that, and the fiscal cliff "process" now seems to be making its way toward roughly the same conclusion. This has to do with the president's ineptness at negotiation (and indeed at much of anything except self-congratulation and campaigning) but, again, it also has to do with the dynamics of a divided congress, which would take a truly exceptional chief executive to overcome. But you wouldn't have to be all that exceptional to accept this reality and make the most of it, rather than spend the days leading up to the conclusion of each of these fiscal showdowns desperately trying to draw attention to yourself and make your role look more central and significant than it is. The president's appearance on Meet the Press today was downright pathetic in this regard, as have been his various press statements in the past few days. This sort of preening and lecturing from a politician who has basically just failed to do his job is bizarre.
Posted by: Beavis || 12/31/2012 09:23 || Comments || Link || [336108 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The president's appearance on Meet the Press today was downright pathetic in this regard

ALL his appearances are pathetic! ALL!
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/31/2012 19:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
U.S. covering up and revising radical Islamic ties to terrorism
Posted by: tipper || 12/31/2012 01:48 || Comments || Link || [336090 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ridiculess.
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/31/2012 12:59 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2012-12-31
  Qaeda in Yemen offers bounty for killing US ambassador, troops
Sun 2012-12-30
  Pakistan reports 21 tribal policemen kidnapped, found dead
Sat 2012-12-29
  At Least 15 Killed in Sect Attack in North Nigeria
Fri 2012-12-28
  Militants kill two, kidnap 22 Pakistani soldiers
Thu 2012-12-27
  Somalia sets 100 days for Al Shabab militants to surrender
Wed 2012-12-26
  6 Killed in Attack on Nigerian Church
Tue 2012-12-25
  Drone Strikes Kill Six Qaida Suspects in Yemen
Mon 2012-12-24
  Tunisia arrests 16 al-Qaeda suspects
Sun 2012-12-23
  Egypt vice-president resigns on final day of referendum
Sat 2012-12-22
  Scuds pummel Syrian rebel positions
Fri 2012-12-21
  U.N. Security Council Approves Mali Intervention Force
Thu 2012-12-20
  Yemeni President Restructures Army, Removes Saleh Cronies
Wed 2012-12-19
  Three more polio workers shot in Pakistan; eight dead in 48 hours
Tue 2012-12-18
  Syrian rebels take control of Damascus Palestinian camp
Mon 2012-12-17
  Rebel Offensive In Hama

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