Turkish Military Steps Up Air blockade ~ Forces a Syrian 35-passenger Airbus A320 from Moscow to Damascus To Land

Via DebkaFile

Turkish air force jets forced a Syrian 35-passenger Airbus A320 bound from Moscow to Damascus  to land in Ankara Wednesday night, Oct. 10, on suspicion it was carrying arms. Its cargo compartment was subjected to checks by Turkish officials. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke of information that it may be carrying “certain equipment in breach of civil aviation rules.”

At the same time, the Turkish foreign ministry released this statement: “All civilian flights in Syrian airspace have been stopped since it is not safe.”  TRT television said a Turkish plane that had already taken off for Saudi Arabia made a detour and landed at a Turkish airport.

debkafile’s military sources: By forcing down the Syrian airbus, Ankara has signaled Damascus that it will henceforth stop civilian air traffic flying through Syrian air space. There is still a question about whether Turkey will extend this aerial blockade to Syrian military air traffic. Furthermore, Iranian civilian aircraft have been running an almost daily airlift of military and logistical equipment from Tehran to Damascus. The new Turkish step, to which Damascus has not yet responded, may portend a clash between Turkey and Iran in the skies over Syria.

Our sources add: The Erdogan government, in defiance of the Obama administration’s wishes, looks like moving towards imposing its own unilateral protected no-fly zone over Syria to break out of the stalemate of the 18-month civil war.

They do not rule out the possibility that more anti-Assad governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf emirates may send air strength to back up Turkey’s opening move.

To discuss this, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan paid an unannounced visit to Doha and went straight into a meeting with the Qatari ruler, Emir al-Thani.

Stopping a Syrian plane from Moscow was also a Turkish message to the Russians to stay out of the conflict now in full spate between Ankara and Damascus and not interfere in any no-fly zone. The Russians have not so far commented on the incident.

For the past two days, Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Ozel Necdet, has been touring his forces along the Syrian border to inspect their readiness for a full-scale clash with Syria. Military sources in Ankara also disclosed that at least 25 F16 fighter jets had been transferred to the Diyarbakir air base near the Syrian border.

It now transpires that this transfer was planned as part of the operation to close Syrian air space.

Earlier, Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that American troops are helping build a headquarters in Jordan to bolster its military capabilities in case violence spills over from Syria.

Do You Have Free Will? ~ PragerU (Frank Pastore)

Video Description:

Do you have free will? Do you have the ability to shape your own destiny? Is there a difference between your mind and your brain? Or is free will just a convenient delusion? Are you really just a product of physical forces beyond your control? Best-selling author an acclaimed theologian Frank Pastore frames the debate the outcome of which may reshape the way you look at your life.

`Obama Misrepresenting My Work` ~ Princeton Professor Harvey Rosen (Plus: Eulogizing Killers)

…the United States is actually more dependent on rich people to pay taxes than even many of the more socialized economies of Europe. According to the Tax Foundation, the United States gets 45 percent of its total taxes from the top 10 percent of tax filers, whereas the international average in industrialized nations is 32 percent. America’s rich carry a larger share of the tax burden than do the rich in Belgium (25 percent), Germany (31 percent), France (28 percent), and even Sweden (27 percent). ~ Washington Times

To set the stage for lowering taxes and Mitt Romney’s tax plan — the rich… the American rich specifically, pay the most taxes when compared to the rest of the world

This lack of understanding by the left leads to how they fight and lie and misrepresent what Mitt Romney says and will even twist other peoples work to win the day:

Here is the Weekly Standard’s “blurb” of the Obama Campaign lie:

Last night, the Obama campaign blasted out another email claiming that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would either require raising taxes on the middle class or blowing a hole in the deficit. “Even the studies that Romney has cited to claim his plan adds up still show he would need to raise middle-class taxes,” said the Obama campaign press release. “In fact, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen both concede that paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require large tax increases on families making between $100,000 and $200,000.”

But that’s not true. Princeton professor Harvey Rosen tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his paper on Romney’s tax plan:

I can’t tell exactly how the Obama campaign reached that characterization of my work.  It might be that they assume that Governor Romney wants to keep the taxes from the Affordable Care Act in place, despite the fact that the Governor has called for its complete repeal.  The main conclusion of my study is that  under plausible assumptions, a proposal along the lines suggested by Governor Romney can both be revenue neutral and keep the net tax burden on taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 about the same.  That is, an increase in the tax burden on lower and middle income individuals is not required in order to make the overall plan revenue neutral.

Dennis Prager touched on the “wonderful eulogy” the New York Times gave the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, and how the left loves killers, dictators, and Communists. Here is the Wall Street Journals take on all this:

In 1987, Jean-Marie Le Pen called the gas chambers of Nazi concentration camps “just a detail in the history of World War II.” Explaining himself a few years later, the head of France’s National Front said: “If you take a 1,000-page book on World War II, the concentration camps take up only two pages and the gas chambers 10 to 15 lines. This is what one calls a detail.”

Such remarks cemented Mr. Le Pen’s reputation as Europe’s leading fascist. So what was one to make of the reception accorded the publication, in 1994, of “The Age of Extremes,” by the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm?

The book—subtitled “a history of the world, 1914-1991″—was hailed as “bracing and magisterial” by the New York Times. “Facts roll off Hobsbawm’s pages like thunderbolts,” gushed the New Republic. But search the index, and the words “Holocaust” and “Auschwitz” never appear. Nazi concentration camps get about 10 or 15 lines. As for the Soviet gulags, Hobsbawm devoted exactly two paragraphs to them.

Hobsbawm, who died in London Monday at age 95, was no Holocaust denier. Nor was he ignorant of the human toll imposed by communism, the ideology to which he remained faithful nearly his whole life. He acknowledged that the victims of Stalin’s tyranny “must be measured in eight rather than seven digits,” adding that the numbers are “shameful and beyond palliation, let alone justification.”

Yet Hobsbawm did justify them. “Like military enterprises which have genuine popular moral legitimacy, the breakneck industrialization of [Stalin’s] first Five-Year Plans (1929-41) generated support by the very ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’ it imposed on the people,” he wrote. “Difficult though it may be to believe, the Stalinist system . . . almost certainly enjoyed substantial support.”

The rest of the book is shot through with similar rationalizations. That included the observation that “for most Soviet citizens the Brezhnev era spelled not ‘stagnation’ but the best times they and their parents, or even grandparents, had ever known.” As for Soviet dissidents, they were “anti-plebeian” elitists who “found themselves up against Soviet humanity as well as Soviet bureaucracy.”

None of this should have been surprising coming from a man who, over the years, gave his political assent to everything from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Asked by the BBC whether the achievement of a communist utopia would have justified “the loss of fifteen, twenty million people,” he answered “Yes.”

Yet what are we to make of the warmth with which Hobsbawm is now being eulogized? Only this: That the world is far from recognizing that the crimes of communism were no less monstrous than those of Nazism. In treating the gulag as a detail of his history, Hobsbawm proved himself to be the moral equivalent of Mr. Le Pen. And in treating Hobsbawm as a paragon among historians, his admirers prove they’ve learned nothing from history itself.

Mitt Romney Storms Into The Lead Over Obama

Business Insider zeroes in on this LARGE jump

In a shocking one-month swing, Mitt Romney stormed into the lead over President Barack Obama in a new  Pew Research poll conducted after Romney’s consensus victory in the first presidential debate.

The poll finds a 12-point swing among likely voters. In Pew’s last poll, conducted in the middle of September, Obama led Romney 51-43 among likely voters. Now, Romney leads 49-45. 

The shift is due to Romney shoring up key areas of strength among likely voters and improving his overall image, much of which can be attributed to his strong debate performance. Sixty-six percent of voters thought Romney won the debate, compared with just 20 percent who said Obama won. Among Independents, Romney won by an astounding 78-14 margin.

…read more…

Business Insider notes as well Andrew Sullivan’s despair:

Daily Beast blogger Andrew Sullivan is not happy about the latest Pew Research poll, which shows Republican presidential candidate surging 12 points to hold a 49 percent to 46 percent lead over President Barack Obama. 

Here’s what Sullivan had to say about the poll: 

“The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51 – 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 – 45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in all of them. Obama’s performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.

Romney’s favorables are above Obama’s now. Yes, you read that right. Romney’s favorables are higher than Obama’s right now. That gender gap that was Obama’s firewall?”

He continues: 

“Seriously: has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever? And we are told that when Obama left the stage that night, he was feeling good. That’s terrifying. On every single issue, Obama has instantly plummeted into near-oblivion. He still has some personal advantages over Romney – even though they are all much diminished. Obama still has an edge on Medicare, scores much higher on relating to ordinary people, is ahead on foreign policy, and on being moderate, consistent and honest (only 14 percent of swing voters believe Romney is honest). But on the core issues of the economy and the deficit, Romney is now kicking the president’s ass.” 

He ends: 

“I’ve never seen a candidate self-destruct for no external reason this late in a campaign before. Gore was better in his first debate – and he threw a solid lead into the trash that night. Even Bush was better in 1984 than Obama last week. Even Reagan’s meandering mess in 1984 was better – and he had approaching Alzheimer’s to blame.”

Sullivan, a moderate conservative-turned-Obama fan, was one of the harshest critics of the President’s debate performance last week, and the Pew numbers bear out his doomsday take on Obama’s onstage collapse. 

…read more…

The Tolerant, Open-Minded, Pro-Choice Left Doing What They Do Best, Hating #ISupportStaceyDash (Language Warning)

After the always beautiful Stacey Dash came out for Romney… the tolerant left came out and supported her views which may have differed from theirs. Yeah Right! Via The Blaze:

“Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future. @mittromney @teamromney #mittromney #VOTE #voteromney,” Dash wrote on her official Twitter page, accompanied by a photo of herself with an American flag.

Not long after, presumed Obama supporters began insulting Dash for her opinion, saying she isn’t “black” enough, several even asking if the actress would just “kill herself.”

One man wrote: “This hurts but you a Romney lover and you slutting yourself to the white man only proves why no black man married u @REALStaceyDash.”

…read more…

Here are a couple of the tweets from the religion political position of peace:

Maybe Stacey got tired of this crap? I don’t know?

LANGUAGE WARNING!

Lewiston, Maine`s Mayor Talks Assimilation, and Gets The Left All Riled Up

Via Libertarian Republican

Notice the local ultra-liberal media spin, implying the Mayor is a bigot. He simply commented that if you come to our country you should assimilate to the local culture rather than wanting indigenous residents to change for yours.

The bigots outright racists are the Somalis, who spit on America and our American culture.

A Challenge On the Southern Strategy [Myth], Via FaceBook

(Reagan’s “Southern Strategy” – 1980)

The extreme leftist (since he classifies me as an right-wing-extremist, as you will see) said this to me:

  • sad, sean, ignoring the well documented southern strategy of the GOP .. and the way it has led to the current, party, no longer Republican in anything but name ….most likely because them thar Dixiecrats fled the dems and signed up as gooperrs

To which I responded with this:

NEWSBUSTERS: Every presidential election cycle, we have to hear about the “Republican Southern Strategy.” In your book, you exposed that there’s really no such thing. It’s actually a media fabrication.

COULTER: The striking thing about that, which I think few people have noticed, is the general and untrue point made over and over and over again that the segregationists were Democrats, but the Republicans decided to appeal to them to win the south. To put it in Bill Clinton’s words, “How Republicans think they started winning the south anyway if it wasn’t through appealing to racists.” We were supposed to have these secret little code words – unlike the Democrats who just actually come out and said racist things like Bill Clinton’s pal Orville Saubus or William Fulbright or Bull Connor or George Wallace – Democrats all. No, they just come out and go straight for the racist jugular, whereas Republicans say, “Let’s cut taxes,” and that’s supposed to be the equivalent of a Klan yelp.

The truth is Republicans didn’t win the Goldwater states. The southern strategy is supposedly based on the 1964 presidential election. But in 1948, Strom Thurmond – the one Democrat segregationist in the Senate to ever become a Republican – ran on a segregationist ticket, the Dixiecrat ticket. Note that was called the “Dixiecrats” and not the “Dixiecans.” This was a spinoff from the Democratic Party. He lost, but he won a handful of southern states. He went back to the Democratic Party, where he was warmly welcomed back, by the way, staying a Democrat for another two decades.

In 1964, Barry Goldwater was a strong integrationist but also a little bit of a nutty libertarian and very serious about the Constitution – what Congress could do and what it couldn’t do. He voted for every prior civil rights bill unlike the Democrats who voted against the ’64 act. Goldwater voted against the 1964 civil rights bill on principle, and he lost a landslide election winning mostly the same southern states that Thurmond had won in 1948. So that is the entire theory of the southern strategy, and now, today, of course the south is mostly Republican.

The truth of the matter is Republicans didn’t start winning those Goldwater states for another 30 years, and the reason we did was because the Dixiecrats, aka the Democrat segregationists, died.

NEWSBUSTERS: Yet when a Democrat candidate wins those states, it’s not part of a “racist southern strategy.”

COULTER: No, that’s right, but truth is Republicans had been winning the same Republican states since the 1920s. Allegedly Goldwater was a game-changing election. No, Republicans had been winning the outer south – Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, one of the Carolinas, and Florida – since 1928. You can’t really tell much from the ’30s and ’40s because FDR and Truman dominated the entire country during that period. But then the next Republican to win any presidential election was Eisenhower, and he won basically those same southern states.

I have maps in the back of the book showing how Republicans keep winning the same outer circle of southern states. That is what Nixon picked up in 1960. Same thing in 1968. It’s hard to tell from the 1972 and 1980 elections because the Republicans really had a “landslide strategy.” It wasn’t just a southern strategy, but was a strategy for taking the entire country. In 1972, the entire country voted for Nixon other than Massachusetts – poor Scott Brown. And basically the same thing happened in 1980.

Republicans did not start winning a plurality of votes for the House of Representatives – which is voted on every two years – until 1994. That’s 30 years after Goldwater’s 1964 run. In 1980, Reagan did the worst in the Goldwater states. Even the ones he won, he won by the smallest margin, and lost Georgia outright, whereas he crushed in the southern states Republicans had been winning off and on since 1928. Also in 1980, Reagan won with younger voters in the south. He lost with their elders, i.e. the Dixiecrats.

Part of the evidence of that was from polls taken at the time. At Yale, Reagan got about seventeen percent. John Anderson was crushing in the Ivy League followed by Carter, with Reagan coming in between fourteen and seventeen percent. At Louisiana Tech, Reagan was winning by like 80 percent. So, it was young voters who weren’t alive in 1964 supporting Ronald Reagan in the south in 1980.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/8frfswo

To which John responded:

  • good grief, do you have ANY sources that are not already known as extreme right wing propaganda machines?

Firstly, john wouldn’t know if propaganda hit him like a 64 Buick LeSabre at 60-miles per hour! I respond with more:

Did you read the interview? History is being mentioned… the only person spinning (and are acting extreme) is you. What can I recommend for you John? Maybe instead of tuning into Rachel “Left of Moa” Maddow or other crazy leftist beliefs, you should take a hiatus, pick up a book or two, and learn a bit about history, worldviews, and the like. Stop labeling people and ideas. Like I told a youg person on my son’s FB:

★ I just wanted to point out how easy it is for people to label (what is called S.I.X.H.I.R.B. ~ sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, and bigoted), rather that engage in dialogue. [http://tinyurl.com/8nvg5ke]

You have once again done this. You rejected Ann Coulter’s stating of facts by connecting her to the right. An easy way to dismiss an argument… which makes my job easy because many on the Cultural Left do this instead of inculcating knowledge. Which is why you seem to merely respond with an ad hominem attack and then get spanked.

And then I ended with this:

Bam!

Governor George Wallace, Democrat of Alabama, sought to exploit the rising racial tensions.’ Along with Governor Lester Maddox, the Georgia Democrat, Wallace hoped to lead a white backlash against integration that would at least slow its advance. In 1964, Wallace had run unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination, leading him to conclude that the deck was too heavily stacked against him to win that way. So he made plans to run for president in 1968 as a third-party candidate opposed to the pro-civil rights policies of both the Republicans and Democrats. Wallace often said there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two major parties.

Richard Nixon was well aware of Wallace’s intentions when he made his own plans to run for president in 1968 and, consequently, conceded the Deep South to Wallace right off the bat. According to Theodore White, “Nixon conspicuously, conscientiously, calculatedly denied himself all racist votes, yielding them to Wallace.” Indeed, Wallace often attacked Nixon during the campaign for supporting civil rights. Said Wallace, “It started under a Republican administration in 1954 when they appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren and the [Senate] confirmation was presided over by [Vice President] Nixon.”

Therefore, contrary to popular belief, Nixon had no “Southern strategy” designed to carry racist votes through coded messages about crime and welfare, as is often alleged. It would have made no sense politically with Wallace in the race. Perhaps if Wallace had not been a candidate, it might have paid for Nixon to court conservative Southerners. But with Wallace running, it was clear that the Alabaman was going to get most of the votes of Southern whites concerned about issues such as black crime and welfare. “Wallace split the conservative electorate,” Nixon political adviser Kevin Phillips explained, and “siphoned off a flow of ballots that otherwise would have gone heavily for Nixon, and garnered many of his backers — Northern or Southern, blue-collar or white-collar — from the ranks of 1964 GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater.” This meant that Nixon had no choice but to find his votes in the more racially tolerant North and West. As historian Glen Moore explains:

✪ The biggest fallacy in the Southern strategy viewpoint is that it ignores the fact that Nixon had to win in other regions in order to get the 270 electoral votes necessary for winning the presidency. If Nixon emphasized winning southern votes, then he risked losing support in the major industrial states, which would be committing political suicide.

This reality forced Nixon to run in 1968 as a classic centrist-splitting the difference between the ultra-liberal Humphrey and the ultraconservative Wallace. Thus Nixon actually emphasized his support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and began his presidential campaign with a strenuous attack on racism!’ As he explained in a 1966 newspaper column: “Southern Republicans must not climb aboard the sinking ship of racial injustice. Any Republican victory that would come from courting racists, black or white, would be a defeat for our future in the South and our party in the nation.”

Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 170-171