The Council Has Spoken!! Our Watcher’s Council Results 03.20.15

The Council Has Spoken! The votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

“”You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” – Adolf Hitler

“I studied the Qu’ran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself” – Alexis de Tocqueville

“All this talk of people who burn the Koran and nothing about the people who reacted in such a stupid way. We are always blaming the victim and not holding them — not most Muslims, but at least a large part of Muslim culture that doesn’t condemn their people… There is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them and they say ‘look, we are a religion of peace and if you disagree we’ll f**king cut your head off, and nobody calls them on it — there are very few people that will call them on it. It’s like if Dad is a violent drunk and beats his kids, you don’t blame the kid because he set Dad off. You blame Dad because he’s a violent drunk” - Bill Maher

This week’s winning essay, Joshuapundit’s The Chicken Or The Egg? looks at some elements of Islamic culture and asks: is it Islam that promotes the extreme violence and misogyny associated with Muslim societies? Or is that just [art of a tribal society that persists in spite of Islam? Here’s a slice:

Unless you’re in a coma, you’ve probably noticed that a great many of the violent and barbaric acts in our modern world can be attributed to followers of Islam.

In the Islamic world today, aside from homicide bombings, jihad and terrorism directed against dar harb ( the part of the world not ruled by Islam), honor killings, female genital circumcision and other forms of violence against women are commonplace, and homosexuals are routinely brutalized and murdered. Non-Muslims are treated as barely human in much of the Islamic world, if they’re allowed to exist at all. Warfare carried out by Muslims is done with modern tools of the trade provided by the despised infidels, but is a relic of the good ol’ primitive and tribal days. Hostages, beheadings and the deliberate killing of civilians are all fair game, and the language of jihad is essentially the same heady stuff used back in the 7th century against the infidel. And through it all, there remains the miasma of seething violent rage at things like the Danish cartoons that simply doesn’t exist in other religious groups.

The question nobody wants to ask keeps floating to the surface: Is Islam to blame? Or, to put it another way, are the perpetrators simply bad Muslims or are they actually good ones who are simply more in tune with Mohammed’s message than the majority? Does Islam itself promote violence? Or are the acts simply a product of primitive tribal society that persists in spite of Islam?

Actually, this is a trick question. I personally believe that Islam and the primitive tribal culture combined back in the day to sustain each other and can’t be separated by their very nature…even though some valiant attempts have been made in the past, and are being made today.

Let’s look at honor killings, for example. Probably the oldest recorded one is in Genesis 34, when Jacob’s daughter Dinah was seduced (or raped, depending on how you interpret the text) by a man from the town of Shechem (modern day Nablus). Afterwards, Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi instigated the killing of the town’s men in revenge. But the Torah also tells us how Jacob denounced the killings and actually took the time to bad mouth his sons for the deed from his deathbed. Not only that, but you’ll notice a profound difference from the Islamic way of handling this – the onus of punishment fell on the male, not the female.

his isn’t the only honor killing mentioned in the Bible, but they were never condoned or part of Jewish law, just merely reported.

Islam, on the other hand, not only sanctions honor killings but is quite clear about its position in the matter. Killing or flogging an adulteress or a female that has relations with a non-Muslim male are part of sharia ( Qu’ran: 4:15, for example) – provided an Islamic court orders the punishment rather than an individual male family member going off on his own.

Even at that, Islamic courts today in the Muslim world frequently view male family members taking the law into their own hands fairly leniently. In Jordan, for example, many brutal honor killings have been punished by as little as a three month sentence under Jordanian Public Law 340. Moreover, in the context of Islamic society such murderers are often celebrated and held up as role models. Just as homicide bombers and terrorists who kill infidel civilians often are.

But what if a Muslim feels himself disrespected and lives in say, Britain or New Jersey? If no Islamic courts are available, is it permissible to take the law into one’s own hands? Probably. There’s not much in the way of Islamic rulings or commentary on that particular subject, but the near silence of most Muslim clergy in the West when it comes to denouncing honor killings speaks volumes…one of those little inconvenient truths Western apologists for multiculturalism and Islam constantly run up against when a number of Muslim clerics themselves insist that honor killing, female genital mutilation, and stoning of adulterers are mandated by Islam. And, as you’ve probably guessed by now , that’s one of the unspoken reasons behind the push among many Muslims in the West for sharia courts to handle those messy domestic problems that come up with uppity females from time to time.

Violent death penalties for women caught in adultery is fairly typical of a primitive society, but only Islam continues the practice into the present day. No Christian court has ever condemned a woman to death for adultery. And although the death penalty for adultery is found in the Book of Leviticus, there is no record of such a sentence ever carried out by any Jewish court. The same is true of homosexuality; while both Christianity and Judaism consider it ‘a sin and an abomination’ only Islam clearly mandates the death penalty for such activities and carries it out in our present day.

So why does Islamic society persist in these practices ?

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Daniel Greenfield’s – Obama’s Treason Is The New Patriotism submitted by The Noisy Room. Daniel has some very hard hitting things to say about President Obama and a number of his questionable actions..and the tendency by the usual suspects to name anyone whom disagrees with the Regime a ‘traitor.’

Here are this week’s full results. GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD and Rhymes With Right were unable to vote this week, but were not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

• *First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Joshuapundit - The Chicken Or The Egg?
• Second place with 2 votes – Bookworm Room – Trevor Loudon tells enthralled Marin County audience that victory in 2016 requires uniting and inspiring conservative base
• Third place with 1 1/3 votes – VA Right! - Is the Location of Hillary Clinton’s Email Server 75 Broad St New York, NY 10004?
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Nice Deb – President Bystander Blames Bush For ISIS – Even Though He Funded Them and They Metastasized On His Watch
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Ask Marion – Beating The Odds
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Don Surber – Prime Minister: “Australians are sick of being lectured to by the United Nations”
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – The Right Planet – The Silencers
• Fifth place with 2/3 votes – The Noisy Room – The Faustian Pact Between Obama And Iran
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 votes – The Glittering Eye - The History of ‘Advice and Consent’
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 votes – Rhymes With Right – But The Obama Administration Assured Us These Folks Were Poor People Who Just Needed Jobs!

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes! – Daniel Greenfield/FrontPage Mag – Obama’s Treason Is The New Patriotism submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – Michael Totten – Let Iraq Die: A Case for Partition submitted by Joshuapundit
• Third place with 2 votes – James Rosen/Playboy – Dick Cheney Interview: ‘Obama is The Worst President Of My Lifetime’ submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place with 1 vote – Walter Russell Mead – The Way Forward on Iran submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Michael Douglas/LA Times – Michael Douglas finds Judaism and faces anti-Semitism submitted by Don Surber
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Richard Epstein/Hoover Institution - Race Baiting And Ferguson submitted by Nice Deb
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Veronique de Rugy/The Daily Beast – On Ex-Im Bank, the Democrats Are the Real Corporate Shills submitted by The Razor
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Victor Davis Hanson/PJ Media - A Tale of Four Droughts submitted by Bookworm Room

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks’ nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y’know?

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Snowed In Edition 01.28.15

Video: Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer - Baby Its Cold Outside

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

The Council In Action!

*Terresa Monroe-Hamilton of The Noisy Room was quoted from coast to coast on Christian radio for a post at Right Wing News For God and country’ recruiting poster was ordered removed by the US Army; ‘God’ is a problem in Obama’s military

*This week, Trevor Loudon, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, The Political Commentator and The Pirate’s Cove earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have for you this week….

Council Submissions

• The Noisy Room – The Shadow of Crisis Engulfs the United States
• Simply Jews – Charlie Hebdo murders and three paragons of hypocrisy
• Ask Marion – Saudi Arabia King Abdullah dies at age 90 as Yemeni President Resigns –
• Bookworm Room – “American Sniper” — a Rorschach test separating the wheat from the chaff
• Joshuapundit - Obama, Netanyahu And Congress: The Real Inside Story Raises Further Questions
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Shia Crescent
• The Right Planet – The Sudden Friends Of Charley Hebdo
• Rhymes With Right – How The GOP Base Views The GOP Field
• Nice Deb – Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer: Bowe Bergdahl Has Been Charged With Desertion
• The Razor – To My Wife’s Patients: Things She Can’t Say To You – But I Can
• The Glittering Eye  Declaring Victory
• VA Right! - Does RPV General Council Opinion Prevent Speaker Howell and Others from Running as Republicans?
• The Independent Sentinel – Medicare Won’t Pay Fees for Services Next Year

Honorable Mentions

• Trevor Loudon – Top Communist Admits How CPUSA Uses the Democrat Party
• Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – Argentine Prosecutor Death in Iran Terror Case Gets Curiouser
• The Political Commentator – Epilogue: Bowe Bergdahl…Deserter! (Video)
• The Pirate’s Cove – Crazy Warmists Continue To Blame Blizzard On “Climate Change”

Non-Council Submissions

• Andrew McCarthy/NRO – What Bobby Jindal Gets about Islam — and Most People Still Don’t submitted by The Noisy Room,
• Howard Jacobson – Try ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ and you’ll find that America and Israel are not to blame for all the world’s atrocities submitted by Simply Jews
• Adriana Cohen/Boston Herald - Sarah Palin is the Perfect Foil to Take on Hillary Clinton submitted by Ask Marion
• David Daoud/The Tower- Replacement Theory: The Administration’s Crazy New Middle East Illusion submitted by Bookworm Room
• Ruben Diaz Jr – Why I Am Visiting Israel submitted by Joshuapundit
• Daily Beast – Spy General Unloads on Obama’s ISIS War Plan submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) – A Reply to Michael Moore and the Left on Military Snipers submitted by The Right Planet
• Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – Finally Obtained: David Gregory Arrest Warrant Affidavit submitted by Rhymes with Right
• James Delingpole/Breitbart London - 2014 Was Not The ‘Hottest Year on Record’. So Why Did NASA Claim It Was? submitted by Nice Deb
• Jakub Grygiel/The American Interest  – Know Thy Enemy submitted by The Razor
• Sic Semper Tyrannis – Yemen (Arizona in 1870 Reborn) submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Pariot Update – Liberals are rewriting America’s History to Create an Ignorant Electorate
  submitted by VA Right!
• Dennis Prager/NRO – If Obama Gave the State of the Union without Telling a Lie submitted by The Watcher
• Bill Whittle/Truth Revolt – Terrorist Nation submitted by The Watcher
• Stephen Moore/Washington Times – Obama’s illusory economic recovery submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!And don’t forget to tune in Friday for the results!

Emboldened Iran Is Making War Moves

Illustrative photo of an Iranian warship in the Strait of Hormuz
(photo credit: Alex Hicks, Wikimedia Commons)

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton  -  the NoisyRoom

Gee, it’s just peachy that we are giving Iran additional time to go completely nuclear. And we are giving them billions in dollars to help them out. Don’t want them to run short when they get ready to take out Israel, you know… Iran could have a bomb in as short a time as 2 to 3 weeks – Israel estimates 1 to 2 months. As we give them trust and money, they are vowing to annihilate Israel. That makes us complicit in the planning and carrying out of genocide.

It’s not just Israel though… the Great Satan is definitely in Iran’s battle plans for war. They have been strengthening ties with Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia – guaranteed to bring terrorism to our homefront and Obama will have American blood all over his hands – again.

Solidly, over the past week, Iranian media outlets have been highlighting a 10-day visit to Latin America by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs, Majid Takht Ravanchi. The Cuban government can’t wait to cuddle with the Iranian theocrats and become ‘strategic partners.’ They are spouting the same tired old rhetoric that the Iranians have every right to nuclear power. What they really mean is, they have every right to a nuclear bomb and global aggression. The line is long to join the Axis of Evil these days apparently.

Under the guise of strengthening trade and economic expansion, despots will unite across the globe with a common goal. The destruction of the free world and the rise of communism and theocratic totalitarianism. Iran’s Fars News blathered on about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who “described Iran as a great power that deserves special respect.” That’s communist respect. Mass murdering asshats have to stick together after all. A hot topic was ending the hegemonic powers’ monopoly on world resources. In other words, taking what is America’s and giving it to the more deserving communists. That is what redistribution of wealth is all about. It’s not helping the poor… it’s helping communist regimes.

To further their goals, Iran will use Hezbollah as their terrorist weapon of choice:

But some have warned that greater Iranian engagement in Latin American could also spur more terrorist activity from its proxy Shiite terrorist group, Hezbollah.

U.S. officials and national security experts told TheBlaze in September that they believe Iran is recruiting an “invisible army” of revolutionary sympathizers in Latin America to one day infiltrate the U.S. through the “soft belly” of the southern border.

As TheBlaze reported, “The Iranian regime’s conversion efforts are becoming increasingly aggressive, especially over the Internet, with the goal of conducting operations against United States interests in the Western Hemisphere, according to U.S. government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the nature of their work in the region.”

During a March hearing of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Roger F. Noriega, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under President George W. Bush, testified, “It is said that wherever Iran goes, Hezbollah is not far behind.”

“Hezbollah is not a lone wolf. In this Hemisphere it counts on the political, diplomatic, material and logistical support of governments – principally Venezuela and Iran – that have little in common but their hostility to the United States,” said Noriega, who is now with the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

The terrorist group uses smuggling, money laundering, and fundraising in collaboration with Latin American “well-financed narcotraffickers and guerrilla groups,” Noriega said. Furthermore, the Venezuelan state airline, Conviasa, runs regular flights from Caracas to Damascus and Tehran, “providing Iran, Hezbollah, and associated narcotraffickers a surreptitious means to move personnel, weapons, contraband and other materiel.”

As Amnesty is shoved down our throats to make the wealthy, wealthier, while providing a permanent slave class for big business and a cemented, never ending get out the Marxist vote; our open borders will enable these terrorists to strike constantly at the US with very little to stop them. Blood will flow and the body count will rise… our government will blame it on the Second Amendment and TEA Party extremists. But they won’t blame it on Hezbollah, Iran, radical Jihadists, communists, Progressives or anything that it actually is. Progressive Republicans and Democrats will wring their blood stained hands and flout their impotence while hiding within their fortified retreats and places of power. The rest of us will be on our own and fighting not only for our country, but for our lives and the lives of those we care about. And so it will go until we either fall as a country or wrest control back into the hands of patriots from the Marxist ruling class. If you don’t want this to become reality, we had better stop this Amnesty push and fast. Obamacare has already destroyed the greatest health system in the world and our economy – Amnesty will finish us off.

While this drama unfolds, Iran is now sending two warships into the Atlantic on a feigned ‘good will tour.’ And pigs fly. This is a first for Iran, who has long wanted to expand their military presence across the globe. All the better to launch EMPs with, don’t ya know.

From TheBlaze:

Iran is moving a group of warships to the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in the country’s history, as its navy held a ceremony on Tuesday in honor of the launch, Iranian media are reporting.

The semi-official Fars News Agency reported that Iranian Navy Deputy Commander Rear Admiral Seyed Mahmoud Moussavi told the sailors gathered in southern Iran that the flotilla bears a message of peace and friendship to the world and aims to demonstrate the Islamic Republic’s defensive power.

“The flotilla, which is the first dispatched to the Atlantic, but the 29th one dispatched to the international waters, consists of Khark logistic and helicopter-carrier warship and Sabalan destroyer. The warships should sail 25,000 nautical kilometers in the next three months,” Fars reported on Tuesday.

The ships will also carry some 30 navy academy cadets in training, according to the Associated Press, which quoted Iranian television.

The Iranian news service says that this is the first flotilla of warships heading to the Atlantic, though Iran has long expressed a desire to make its naval mark in the western hemisphere.

Neither Fars nor Iranian TV said if the ships would be docking in any countries on the Atlantic shores.

As justification (very, very weak at that), Iran says this is in response to the US naval deployment near Iran’s coast in the Persian Gulf. Don’t forget that Iran threatened to deploy ships off the US coast in 2011. So, this has been on the drawing board for a long time.

An emboldened Iran is making war moves and forging alliances in Latin America, while we do nothing. This is far worse than the Cuban missile crisis. Don’t our leaders have a responsibility, morally and strategically, to protect us from terrorism rather than welcoming it into our country? Why would you do away with the Monroe Doctrine unless you wanted America attacked from across the border (or you were on drugs and dreaming of Lotus land — anyone seen Biden lately). Why aren’t more in the halls of Congress demanding action on this? Sometimes I wonder if Americans are so detached from reality that we have lost our sense of survival – our gift of fear of what is real and threatening us. Since our current leadership seems unwilling to protect Americans and their families, we need to put true conservatives in power in 2014 and 2016 who have a spine and will do what needs to be done. This time, we dare not settle for less.

Video: Two Iranian Warships Set Sail For The Atlantic Ocean – John Bolton 

Iran 2-3 Weeks Away From Nuclear Bomb Capability, Says Fmr Head Of U.N. Nuclear Watchdog 

Louie Gohmert: Let’s Blow Up All Iran Nuclear Sites

Obama To Pave Way For 30,000 Syrian Islamists To "Resettle" In America

Technorati Tags: Iran,History,Military,Politics,Religion,Survival,John Bolton,Terrorism,Obamaland,War,Nuclear Iran,Foreign Policy,Middle East,Wake-Up America

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Global Warming Edition

Global Warming Hits Michigan…

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

This week, Ask Marion, The Blue Ridge Forum, The Pirate’s Cove and The Independent Sentinel earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

So, let’s see what we have this week….

Council Submissions

• Liberty’s Spirit – New York City: Melting Pot or Plantation
• The Noisy Room – New York Gets The Communist Leader It Deserves
• Rhymes With Right – Archdiocese Of New York Explains What’s Wrong With ObamaCare Birth Control Mandate Intransigence
• Joshuapundit - Al-Qaeda Wins A Major Victory Over The Iraqi Army
• Simply Jews – PressTV, Gordon Duff and Quenelle
• The Political Commentator – An Amsterdam good time is giving beer to alcoholics!
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Merely saying “I’m not gay” isn’t enough
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Losing Iraq
• The Right Planet – All Incandescent Light Bulbs Declared ‘Enemies of the State’
• Bookworm Room – Solidarity with the nuns — a tipping point moment?
• Nice Deb – Video: Priests for Life Wins Emergency Relief From HHS mandate
• The Glittering Eye - Chicago’s Public Pension Problem
• VA Right! - Obamacare Targets Women: Pregnant Women Forced to Pay In Full BEFORE Delivery
• The Razor – The Entitlement Mindset
• The Mellow Jihadi – Business ethics & credibility BZ…

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – Election 2014 and 2016… All Sewn-Up or the Battle(s) for Americas Life
• Blue Ridge Forum – Stop The President’s Lawlessness Before It Stops Us
• The Pirate’s Cove – Good Grief: Cold Weather Events More Likely Due To “Climate Change”
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama Administration’s Hostile Takeover of the Little Sisters of the Poor

Non-Council Submissions

• Sandra Stotsky/WSJ – Common Core Doesn’t Add Up to STEM Success submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
• Matthew Vadum/FrontPage Mag – Comrade De Blasio Takes Over submitted by The Noisy Room
• Red State – Why Faith submitted by Rhymes with Right
• Powerline – Rachel Maddow Is Crazy, Too submitted by Joshuapundit
• The Sad Red Earth – Wrong on Both Counts: Academic Boycotts and Israel submitted by Simply Jews
• American Thinker - Leftist Jew-Hatred: From Marx to Dieudonne submitted by The Political Commentator
• National Affairs – The Brooklyn Burkeans submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• War On The Rocks – It’s an Anbar Thing submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Bleeding Heart Libertarians – Immigration, Eugenics, and the Minimum Wage submitted by The Right Planet
• Andrew McCarthy/NRO - Down the Times’ Benghazi Rabbit Hole submitted by Bookworm Room
• John Sexton, The Conversation - Now It Can Be Told: Obamacare Paves the Way for Single Payer submitted by Nice Deb
• Sean Davis/The Federalist – “Sorry, Comrade, But You Didn’t Just Discover The Secret To Making Communism Work” submitted by The Glittering Eye
• The Other McCain – Al Gore and the Big Climate Lie submitted by VA Right!
• Megan McArdle – Another Problem Obamacare Won’t Solve: Health Costs submitted by The Razor
• JustOneMinute – Obama Quit In Afghanistan submitted by Watcher

Enjoy! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that!

Technorati Tags: Watcher’s Council,Alternative media,News nuggets,News,Bloggers,Blogosphere,Politics,Collection of Articles,Obamaland,Get-Involved,Knowledge,Global Warming,Middle East,New York

28 Pages Later: Shrouding an Act of War

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton -  Cross-Posted at Right Side News

A scandal that spans three presidencies and more is coming to light. In a non-defined conflict against terrorism, we have lost over 6,750 U.S. service members who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. American blood spilled in wars that do not attack those who attacked us on 9-11. To put this in perspective, fewer died in Pearl Harbor and we nuked the Japanese. We were told after 9-11, that it was al Qaeda, with no other state sponsors. If the allegations prove accurate, 9-11 was nothing less than an act of war by Saudi Arabia.

“It’s classified because if it were released, the people would demand war against Saudi Arabia, and the entire US policy of having the Sunni Arabs price their oil in US dollars in exchange for supporting their dictatorships would fall apart.”
– Comment left at Hot Air (Hat Tip: The Radio Patriot)

According to the New York Post, Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch and Republican Rep. Walter Jones have come forward with solid accusations claiming that 28 pages from the 2002 report on 9-11, were not only redacted, they were blank except for an on-going ellipsis. The 28 pages were purportedly removed by President Bush when the report was released, but are now leaking out 12 years later:

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).

A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.

Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.

The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.

As Ed Morrissey of Hot Air points out, the intel Sperry cites will eventually be discredited or the executive branch will be implicated in the interference with one or both reports.

Three Strikes And You Are Out

Buck Sexton at TheBlaze last night said that he thought that the redaction was either to cover embarrassment for incompetency on the part of our intelligence agencies (the fact that no one was minding the store), or that our government was complicit in aiding and abetting the Saudis. Here are some facts for you:

1. Clinton and his intelligence agencies knew full well what bin Laden intended. Bin Laden stated it in 1998 and carried it out in 2001. I see no way that our agencies didn’t know it was a grave possibility.

2. Bush put the Saudis on a plane right after 9-11 and sent them home. No questions asked, right after the murder of 3,000 Americans and the largest terrorist attack on US soil ever.

3. At least one Saudi was involved in the Boston bombing. He was hurt and hospitalized. Michelle Obama visited him in the hospital. He was given safe passage back to Saudi Arabia and he visited the White House afterwards.

Three strikes and you are out.

I believed in President Bush when 9-11 happened. He seemed a hero for his actions right after the attack. Now those actions are clouded and it would seem that those branded conspiracy nuts on both sides of the aisle, were in part right. I still don’t buy the wackier conspiracy theories that you will find out there and I will never be a Truther. But, I have for a long time pointed out the involvement of Saudi Arabia and Iran as well in the attacks. Now there seems to be strong evidence against Saudi Arabia who has denied their involvement since the beginning. Denials that were suspect to begin with since 15 of the 19 bombers were from Saudi Arabia.

The New York Post has laid out the now expanding evidence that Saudi agents, officials and operatives in several states, including Virginia, Florida, California and DC, gave funding and/or intelligence to the hijackers in 2001. If true, explain to me how that is not an act of war?

Karl Denninger put it better than I can and got right to the heart of the matter:

It’s obvious given what happened, the logistical and funding requirements and where the hijackers came from along with inexplicable actions immediately following the attacks – unless our government explicitly let certain people flee.

Yet we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan while helping the Saudis — the very people who attacked us.

And Obama, to this day, kisses the Saudi King.

[...]

It makes a very convincing case that the Saudi Government was involved in an act of war against the United States. Not simply terrorism — remember, the Pentagon, a military target, was one of the locations hit. The other intended target for the plane that went down in PA was the Capitol.

You awake yet America?

You damn well should be.

It’s about damn time that the mainstream media started talking about this — you’re only a decade late, *******s. And no, people like myself who have been saying this all along are not nuts.

We’re right.

And American blood flows, while we protect those who kill us. Sheer insanity. Obama literally bows to the Saudi King and it would appear that Bush and Clinton did as well. I can’t get the image out of my head of Bush holding hands with the King of Saudi Arabia. That blood is as black as oil. No one has ever solved or revealed who made the killing in the stock market by shorting airline stocks during all this. That needs to be answered.

Eight Trillion has been spent on security since 9-11 and we are less secure now than we were then. Does anyone really believe this is not on purpose? Incompetency only goes so far; evil intent is forever. We have been lied to over and over and over again. We see it going on every day and feel helpless to stop it. We must put a stop to this. These elite Progressives are getting wealthy off the deaths of our people and are redistributing every last dime America has. By design, they are bringing us to our knees and forcing us into a dictatorship. They have no reverence for the Constitution, for our laws or our branches of government. Do you trust our government anymore? I don’t – not on either side of the political spectrum.

Inside The Saudi 9/11 Coverup

Read the New York Post’s investigative piece in its entirety: Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup. I would very much like to know what is in those 28 pages. I want to know if this is another contrived attempt to smear Bush and Republicans, or if they were complicit in aiding the Saudis. I want the truth:

Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “cover-up.”

Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.

Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 — just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.

Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a “cover-up beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e-mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.

Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.

Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a month-long letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.

But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant ­today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.

As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more ­lethal attacks within the United States.”

Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.

Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.

If any of this is true, America will never be the same. Our leaders should be forewarned that the public will not be pleased – the woodshed will have a long line on this one and tar and feathers will be handed out judiciously. We always knew that Saudi Arabia was involved, but this takes it to a new level. When a country’s government sanctions and helps with a terrorist attack of another country, ally or not, it is an act of war. Thanks to Obama, we are too weak after gutting our military to go to war. But if Saudi Arabia’s government was involved, then America needs to clean out our government now, beef up our military and go on a road trip to the land of oil and do a smack down of epic proportions.

The enemies within and without seem to have been shrouding an act of war and Americans need to wrest control of our Republic back into the hands of patriots. As Judson Phillips says, we should remember there are certain crimes that have no statute of limitations.

Glenn Beck: What Do They Have On Us?

Technorati Tags: History,Military,Politics,Religion,Survival,Terrorism,Remembering,9/11,Saudis,Congressional Reports,Scandals,Cover-ups,CIA,FBI,Congressional Hearings,Crimes,Sexton,TheBlaze,Bush,Lies. War,Iraq

Watcher’s Council Results – 11.15.13

Alea iacta est… The Council Has Spoken!, the votes have been cast, and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

But before we get to that, we have some important business to take care of... likely celebrating our compadre Tom White of VA Right’s birthday!

Aside from his prodigious writing talents featured on one of Virginia’s top blogs (which includes some pretty good songs and musicianship by the way as well as his writing),Tom has many of the qualities that makes a great friend..a great sense of humor, clear insight and the rare quality of being there when you need him. He’s always there to share his IT expertise and help out someone in the Council with a techie problem, and he’s someone I can always rely on to give me an honest and common sense answer whenever I’ve asked his advice. Ever since he joined our posse, I’ve always felt like I’ve known him for years, which might seem odd to some people since we’ve never met in person yet, (although we’ve yakked on the phone) but that’s just how it is.

We have carrot cake today with chocolate pralines ( be sure and take a hunk home for Mrs.Tom,OK?)

To go with the cake, in honor of the Old Dominion we have a nice couple of bottles of Williamsburg Winery’s 2011  Vintage Reserve Chardonay to share around. Yes,  I’m told by reliable sources that they actually make good wine in Virginia.

For those of you who prefer grain to grape…some wondrous Virginia moonshine, made by men who despise both the revenooers and the idea of turning good corn into ethanol and go their own way. Pure heaven, and dandy for the sinuses:

And I arranged for a special express delivery to get it here on time:

One of the best parts of being involved in the blogosphere isn’t the fame and huge amounts of money involved,but the great people you meet. Tom is definitely one of them. Have an absolutely wonderful birthday my friend..many more

OK, down those shots and let’s look at this weeks results…

Last week in Geneva, the permanent members of the UN Security Council met with the Iranians on their illegal nuclear program . We heard a number of versions of what happened, especially from our Secretary of State John Kerry, who assured us that a wonderful deal was all ready to be signed, but..

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s What No One’s telling You About Iran’s Big Victory In Geneva  is the real story of what actually happened inGeneva, why the French opposed the deal, and why it ended up as a huge victory for Iran for reasons that are simply not being reported here in the West, probably because a lot of Americans would be shocked at what went down. Here’s a slice:

What exactly happened in Geneva?

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s tells us that the Iranians ‘walked away’ from the impending deal:

According to Mr Kerry the P5+1 group, representing the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, were united when the proposed deal was presented to the Iranian negotiating team on Saturday.

“But Iran couldn’t take it, at that particular moment they weren’t able to accept,” Mr Kerry said.

Our hope is that in the next months we can find an agreement that meets everyone’s standards.”

I thought that Secretary Kerry spoke fluent French,but somehow it seems he’s lost the ability.French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was fairly and publicly open about France’s opposition to the Iran deal, and the French refused to sign on. What France wanted was the Iranians agreeing to halt work on their Arak heavy water reactor, which can produce plutonium and has no peaceful application. The French also insisted that the Iranians ‘downblend’ their stockpile of 20% uranium to 5%, which could still be used for nuclear fuel but was much further away from weaponization. The French also wanted the Iranians to cease enrichment during the talks, as well as the inclusion of far better plans for verifying Iranian compliance.

France’s motivation for opposing the proposed deal was their country’s own self interest,nothing more.

France has always had major trade and diplomatic interests in the Arab world, and they aspire to a larger role in the region, especially since the U.S. is retreating. And France has particularly close trade and security relationships with to Sunni Arab countries in the Middle East that oppose Iranian domination and a Shi’ite nuclear power. Saudi Arabia, for example, is the Middle East’s foremost buyer of French arms. Last August, the French signed a €1 billion ($1.34 billion) defense contract with Saudi Arabia, which included overhaul work on four frigates and two refueling ships in the Saudi navy, and the French reportedly have arms sales contracts with other Sunni countries in the GCE and throughout the region.At the same time the Saudis and others are investing heavily in France’s farming, food and industrial sectors. Given France’s economy, all this represents a substantial and important financial interest for the French. And in terms of their influence, a nuclear armed Shi’ite Iran undermines France’s long standing Mediterranean Union’ project with the Arab world. This explains why the French have consistently been fairly tough on Iran in general.

France’s stance on Iran is also affected by domestic politics. Almost all of France’s Muslims – whom voted for the ruling Socialists and Hollande by a 90% margin or so – are Sunni and fear Iran’s dominance over Islam.

And while the French could hardly be said to be Israel’s best friend, France and Israel have substantial trade relations as well as a number of French nationals who hold dual French-Israeli citizenship, which added up to one more reason for the French.

So when Secretary Kerry says that the P5+1 group were united….we can only assume something got lost in translation.

The real story is the huge victory in Geneva the Iranians walked away with that no one’s reporting on.

You see, the Iranians have their own version of what went on in Geneva. As the Iranian government organ Fars reports, the Iranians consider what happened in Geneva as a huge win, and an important development. I can certainly see why.

More at the link

In our non-Council category, the winner was the one and only Mark Steyn with  The Drift Towards Depotism  submitted by Liberty’s Spirit. It’s Steyn at his best looking at certain disturbing trends in our Republic and  the reality of Barack Obama’s presidency.. Do read it.

OK, OK, here are this week’s full results. Only Rhymes With Right was unable to vote this week, but was not affected by th e2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 1/3 votes! Joshuapundit – What No One’s telling You About Iran’s Big Victory In Geneva
• Second place *t* with 2  votes – The Razor - The Siren Song of the Moderate Republican Presidential Candidate
• Second place *t* with 2 votes – Simply Jews - A topsy turvy review of A Plague: Contesting Syria, in Context by A.J. Adler
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Noisy Room - Obama’s Betrayal of Israel and Arming of Iran
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Nice Deb - Gingrich Compares Obama to Clinton: “Obama Wants You To Feel His Pain”
• Third place *t* with 1  1/3 votes – Liberty’s Spirit - Newsflash: The Demise of America is Premature
• Fourth place with 1 vote – Bookworm Room - As Obamacare defines America’s economic landscape, are we going to see a new trend of Soviet-era jokes?
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet – It Only Works with Internet Explorer
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Thank v Schlieffen”s Plan For Monday Off?
• Sixth place  with 1/3 vote – The Political Commentator – Kristallnacht tutorial for Jews (and anyone else) with a short memory!

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 votes! – Mark Steyn - The Drift Towards Depotism  submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
• Second place  with 2 2/3 votes – Nick Cohen/The Spectator – Why Can’t We Admit We’re Scared Of Islamism?  submitted by The Watcher
• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Sultan Knish – The American Iron Curtain submitted by The Noisy Room
• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes - The Chicago Boyz - Under The Flag submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fourth place with 1 1/3 vote – Sultan Knish - Bad Apple President   submitted by The Political Commentator
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Michael Totten – Why the US Can’t Leave the Middle East submitted by The Razor
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - The Passing Parade – Proud and prejudiced, or was Lot’s wife the victim of a salt intensive diet?   submitted by Simply Jews
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - YouTube/ Project Veritas – Obamacare Navigators Counsel Applicants to “Lie”    submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - House Of Marathon – Heeding The Heretics   submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Matt Walsh – The positive side of Obamacare that Fox News doesn’t want you to see    submitted by Nice Deb
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion –Typhoon Haiyan: How you can help    submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Douglas Ernst – New York Times finds ‘some’ Catholics upset with Pope — slow clap for NYT   submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – Be a Mensch… Inform Yourself
• Right Truth – Don’t believe a word he says
• Tina Trent.Com – Varieties of Self-Pity and Murder: Aaron Alexis and The New York Times
• The Pirate’s Cove – Surprise: Ethanol Creates Environmental Problems  

Forum: What’s Your Reaction To The News Of The Pending Deal With Iran 

Miley metaphor: McCain likens Kerry's diplomacy to 'wrecking ball'

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!

The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results 11.08.13

Alea iacta est…The Council Has Spoken!, the votes have been cast, and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

There’s an old saying, attributed to Albert Einstein that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s Endgame: Abbas And The PLO Get Ready To Launch The Third Intifada is my look at what’s going on lately in the so-called Middle East peace process, what the Palestinians have planned, Israel’s options and where it’s likely to end up. Here’s a slice:

It appears the that farce of the so-called peace process is nearing its end. And as you’ll see, this is exactly how Abbas and company planned it.

It started with an uptick in Palestinian violence directed against Israelis emanating from the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria, and a corresponding decrease in security cooperation between the IDF and Abbas’ security forces in the last several weeks.

At the same time, this was coordinated with a massive outpouring of calls from PLO officials to halt the peace talks and formulate what they called an “overall national strategic revolution”.

Meanwhile, Palestine’s unelected dictator Mahmoud Abbas has been blatantly violating the conditions under which the peace negotiations were started. He’s been making the rounds in Europe urging EU countries to enact sanctions against Israel and avoid conducting any economic, academic or cultural activity with Israel that might involve East Jerusalem or the Jewish communities in Judea or Samaria, referring to East Jerusalem as “the capitol of our state, Palestine.”

In an ominous twist, Abbas called for EU countries to take legal action against their nationals whom have dual citizenship and live in these areas. London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that the PA has demanded of a number of EU countries that the citizens they have currently living in “illegal” communities should be either pressured to leave or be stripped of their citizenship.

As a final move, Saeb Erekat, formerly the right fork of Yasser Arafat’s tongue and now the chief Palestinian negotiator ‘resigned’ (and later retracted his ‘resignation’) presented Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni with an ultimatum that is the PLO’s final position. It pretty much lines up with what Mahmoud Abbas has always said, that no concessions at all will be made to Israel in any peace settlement.

There was an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinian negotiators to keep the negotiations quiet, but PLO sources have leaked the details, and there’s really no surprise here.

The Palestinians are demanding over half of Jerusalem, including control of all of the major Jewish holy sites. They claim all of Judea and Samaria, although they’ve agreed to consider a land swap of no more than 1.9 percent with Israel in exchange for money and an equivalent amount of Israeli land.That 1.9 percent would essentially be meaningless since it isn’t anywhere near the amount of land necessary to incorporate the majority of Jewish communities into Israel. Geographically, it would amount to a defenseless enclave surrounded on two sides by the Palestinians.

The PLO’s demands further include the Hula Valley and the Valley of Elah, and the strategic Latrun area, the chokepoint that overlooks the road to Jerusalem and could isolate Jerusalem in the event of war. And They want all of these areas handed over to them judenrein, Jew free. They want full control of all the aquifers in the area, thus retaining the ability to threaten Israel’s water supply. And they demand that Israel formally give up any claims under international law to the area by agreeing that these areas are ‘occupied territory’.

They refuse, on the other hand, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,paving the way for further demands later. And they insist not only that all of the convicted terrorists now in Israeli jails be freed, but that all Palestinian refugees be given the right to settle in what’s left of Israel.

Six months after Israel creates 500,000 Jewish refugees, retreats to indefensible borders, allows what’s left of the country to be swamped by genocidal ‘refugees’ and redivides Jerusalem, they will receive in exchange a piece of paper signed by an unelected 75-year-old dictator who doesn’t even come close to controlling all the Palestinian factions – even his own Fatah.And someone who might very well be overthrown by Hamas if left to his own devices, which would make the agreement even more meaningless than it already is.

In our non-Council category, the winner was a fine piece written by Council Alumnus David Gerstman for Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion , LBJ: Return to pre-1967 borders “not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities” submitted by Rhymes With Right. It’s proof, if it were needed, that when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, nothing really ever changes.

OK then, here are this week’s full results. Both The Mellow Jihadi and The Right Planet were unable to vote this week, but neither was subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty :

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes! Joshuapundit – Endgame: Abbas And The PLO Get Ready To Launch The Third Intifada
• Second place with 3 votes – The Razor  – Failure – The Obama Administration’s Foreign Policy Legacy
• Third place  with 2 votes – Bookworm Room - Having been caught engaged in out-and-out fraud, Obama engages in a familiar pattern to cover up his lies
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey - “Chilling Repercussions?”
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD  - Killing Monsters
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Liberty’s Spirit - Self-Important Intellectuals are Neither Important nor Intelligent: Autism Meme and Dehumanization @Guardian
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room - Back Door Gun Control Moves Forward
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet – Folks, They Don’t Care About You!
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – Venezuelan MISHAP (Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness)
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Political Commentator – Screw the Obamacare lies, here’s an Obamacare true story!
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi – Made In China…

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 votes! – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - LBJ: Return to pre-1967 borders “not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities” submitted by Rhymes With Right
• Second place  *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Sultan Knish - It’s De Blasio Time   submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second Place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Keith Hennessy – Flowchart of President Obama’s “You can keep your plan, period” defenses  submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes - Pressure Points - Kerry Foreign Policy: Does The United States Stand For Anything At All? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes Victor Davis Hanson – The Double-Dealing Middle East Is Double-Dealt   submitted by The Razor
• Fourth place  with 1 vote - Charles Krauthammer – ObamaCare Laid Bare  submitted by Nice Deb
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - The Contentious Centrist –The Open Liberalism at Open Zion    submitted by Simply Jews
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Fred Barnes/Weekly Standard – Point Of No Return   submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Blaze – The Psychology Behind Leftist Lies  submitted by The Right Planet
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Gates Of Vienna – The Left, the Right and the March of Death    submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Michelle Malkin – First Crony Michelle Obama   submitted by The Watcher
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Doug Ross – The 10 Commandments of Government  submitted by Joshuapundit
• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote - Seth Adam Smith – Marriage Isn’t For You  submitted by Bookworm Worm

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – Common Sense – Almost Lost
• Aewl’s Abode – GOP Establishment vs. Tea Party

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!

The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results – 10/25/13

The Watcher’s Council:

South Carolina Tea Party Coalition: The Tea Party movement may only be a few years old, but the beginning of the movement is often misunderstood and misreported. While the tea party is often portrayed as being purely an anti-Obama movement, the truth is that the Republican Party has always been as much a target as President Obama and his administration.

Once again, the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

This week we had a tie in our Council category between Joshuapundit’s The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About and The Right Planet’s ObamaSoft — The World’s Worst Rollout in History, who applied his knowledge of software engineering to give us a wonderful and well written in-depth look at exactly how big the colossal failure of the ObamaCare rollout was.

In accordance to our by-laws, that means I get to put on my Watcher’s hat and break the tie, and there’s no question – The Right Planet takes the honors this week!

Here’s a slice:

Watching the disastrous rollout of the online healthcare exchanges has really left me shaking my head, and not just for the obvious reasons. The rollout of Obamacare has been described as nothing short of abysmal, leaving some to question why the administration would go ahead with the launch of a busted site. Numerous problems have plagued the debut of the Obamacare healthcare exchanges; and a number of experts are questioning the soundness of the site’s architecture.

But Obamacare supporters are attempting to slough off all the errors associated with the online exchanges as simple “glitches”–to be “expected” with such a revolutionary, comprehensive web-based system.

Well, if there’s something I do know a bit about, it’s software engineering. My background is in client-server development with an emphasis on web applications. Developing distributed applications that must communicate with multiple servers and clients was my field of expertise. I designed relational datebase schemas and ER diagrams; I modeled and mapped the application layers to the data layers using UML and OOD, I wrote the complex SQL queries and stored procedures to access the data layer from application layer; and I dealt with the interface issues and graphical design on the front-end as well. It’s been about five years since I worked for a consulting firm as a software engineer. So forgive me if I may use some “old school” terms in this article. But I’d like to take a deeper look at this whole healthcare software disaster known as healthcare.gov from purely the software engineering perspective.

First, on a bit of a sidenote, I’m surprised by the reliance on a web interface to implement the state healthcare exchanges. Is the assumption that the 30-40 million that are allegedly uninsured and desperately need Obamacare have access to an iPad, laptop or computer? Ironically, in spite of Obamacare (a.k.a Affordable Care Act) and all promises contrary, estimates are there will still be 30 million left uninsured. But I digress.

The debut of healthcare.gov is one of the worst software rollouts I’ve ever witnessed. The president was forced to hold an emergency press conference in the Rose Garden, playing the part of Salesman-in-Chief. The administration and the liberal media are portraying all the software errors as “glitches.” Well, FYI to the liberal media and the CEO of Obamasoft, we don’t refer to fatal program errors as “glitches,” not in software world.

The preferred description for a so-called software “glitch” is a bug. Almost all software contains bugs of some kind. That’s why updates, patches and new versions of software will always be the norm. People aren’t perfect, nor is technology. Software is “alive.” You can’t just code it once and leave it at that; it must constantly be refactored and improved, since technology constantly changes. The big difference between a bug and an error is, typically, a bug will not cause the application (program) to freeze or crash.

For those who have no clue about the software development process, it might help to start off with a bit off a primer on some technical terms and concepts that will hopefully give a better understanding on the challenges of developing and implementing the healthcare.gov online exchanges.

The term application has an important meaning in software engineering. In a general sense, a software application can be thought of as a computer program. But, in a strictly technical sense, a software application is commonly comprised of numerous computer programs.

There are significant differences between what is called a stand-alone application and a web application. A stand-alone application is a computer program like Microsoft Word that installs directly to your computer’s local hard-drive (HD). A web application resides on a remote computer (server), not the client computer’s local hard-drive, and must be accessed via an internet connection. Typically a web application is accessed via a web browser like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, etc. This is referred to as a client-server architecture–meaning: two separate computer programs communicating with each other.

Much more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Mark Steyn with Whose Islam? submitted by Joshuapundit… in which Steyn wonders out loud at the West’s strange insistence that terrorism fomented in the name of Islam has nothing to do with Islam. Do read it.

Okay, here are this week’s full results. Only Rhymes With Right was unable to vote this time, but was not subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 4 1/3 votes! – The Right Planet – ObamaSoft — The World’s Worst Rollout in History
• Second place with 3 1/3 votes – Joshuapundit – The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes – Liberty’s Spirit – Cultural Relativism and the Decline in Societal Decency
• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Yale Prof. offers a revealing glimpse into the Ivy League’s epistemic closure
• Fifth place with 1 vote – VA Right! – Obamacare Now Officially a Laughing Stock – Time to Pile On!
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi – Sefton, a cavalry horse who refused to die
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Noisy Room – The Tea Party And The Mad Hatter
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Nice Deb – ACORN Offshoot Tapped To Help With Multi-State ObamaCare ‘Navigator’ Drive
• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator – Bill de Blasio for Mayor? Will the official color of NYC be changed to red?
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – The Future of Counter Terrorism
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Razor – League of Denial Seals The Deal For This NFL Fan

Non-Council Winners

• *First place with 4 votes! – Mark Steyn – Whose Islam? submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place *t* with 2 2/3 votes – Caroline Glick – Israel and the new Munich submitted by Noisy Room
• Second place *t* with 2 2/3 votes – Yuval Levin/NRO – Assessing The Exchanges submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Tower – Iranian President, Supreme Leader Rail Against “Zionist Regime” submitted by Simply Jews
• Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Sarah Palin – D.C’s ‘Corrupt Bastards Club’ submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Yale Global Online – The Dragon’s Spear: China’s Asymmetric Strategy submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Strata-Sphere – Anatomy Of A Government FUBAR ObamaCare Style submitted by The Right Planet
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Narratively – Nick Brown Smelled Bull submitted by The Razor
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Newsbusters – Dem Rep. Steve Cohen: Tea Party Republicans Are ‘Domestic Enemies’ We Took Oath To Defend Against submitted by Rhymes With Right

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – Hypocrisy… And the Devil
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama Plans to Give Billions to Iran If They Keep Talking to Him
• The Pirate’s Cove – If You Won’t Reduce Your Big Carbon Footprint You Hate Children

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!

Technorati Tags: Watcher’s Council,Choices,bloggers,blogosphere,Veterans,collection of articles,news,news nuggets,alternative media,Progressivism,you be the judge,Educate Yourself,Get-involved,knowledge,Obamaland,Hypocrisy,ObamaCare,Trainwreck,Middle East,Tea Party