THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN ARMING AL-QAIDA LINKED RADICAL ISLAMIC JIHADISTS IN ORDER TO OVERTHROW MIDDLE EASTERN GOVERNMENTS

While echoes of the “Fast and Furious” scandal still resound in the White House, another administration decision at the heart of Obama’s Mideast policy may prove even more explosive.

Almost entirely missing from the debate surrounding the anti-U.S. attacks in Libya is the administration’s policy of arming jihadists to overthrow Mideast governments. But in the case of Libya, the arming of jihadists may have directly resulted in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the subsequent murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, private security employees and former U.S. Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

After changing its story multiple times, the White House finally conceded the deadly assault on the U.S. consulate was a planned attack linked to al-Qaida, as per information released by national intelligence agencies.

The admission prompted Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., to call for the resignation of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice for pushing the narrative that the attacks were part of a spontaneous uprising.

King may instead want to focus his investigative energies on the larger story: How the Obama administration armed Libyan rebels who were known to include al-Qaida and other anti-Western jihadists, and how the White House is currently continuing that same policy in Syria.

During the revolution against Muammar Gadhafi’s regime, the U.S. admitted to directly arming the rebel groups.

At the time, rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi boasted in an interview that a significant number of the Libyan rebels were al-Qaida gunmen, many of whom had fought U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but he added that the “members of al-Qaida are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader.”

Read more: http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_32322.php

Thousands of Bombs Dumped in Gulf of Mexico Pose Huge Threat to Oil Rigs

After World War II the US government dumped millions of kilograms of unexploded bombs into the Gulf of Mexico. This is no secret; many governments dumped their unexploded ordnance into oceans and lakes from 1946 up until the 1970s when it was made illegal under international treaty.

Now that technology has advanced enough for oil companies to drill deep sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, those forgotten payloads have become a real hazard.

The US designated certain areas around its coast for the safe dumping of explosives, nerve gas, and mustard gas. The problem is that the records of where these munitions were dumped are incomplete, and many experts believe that a lot of cargo was dumped outside of the designated areas. Now, decades later, no one has any idea of where the bombs are, exactly how many were dumped, or if they still pose a threat to humans or marine life.

William Bryant, a Texas A&M University professor of oceanography, summarised the situation by saying that the “bombs are a threat today and no one knows how to deal with the situation. If chemical agents are leaking from some of them, that's a real problem. If many of them are still capable of exploding, that's another big problem.”

Read more: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Thousands-of-Bombs-Dumped-in-Gulf-of-Mexico-Pose-Huge-Threat-to-Oil-Rigs.html

Euro zone September factory data flags "new recession": PMI

Euro zone manufacturing put in its worst performance in the three months to September since the depths of the Great Recession, with factories hit by falling demand despite cutting prices, a business survey showed on Monday -- pointing to a new recession.
Factories helped lift the 17-nation bloc out of its last recession but the survey suggests a downturn that began in smaller periphery countries has taken root in core members Germany and France.
"Despite seeing some easing in the rate of decline last month, manufacturers across the euro area suffered the worst quarter for three years in the three months to September," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at data collator Markit.
"The sector will act as a severe drag on economic growth. It therefore seems inevitable that the region will have fallen back into a new recession in the third quarter."
Markit's Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 46.1 in September from 45.1 in August and above the preliminary reading of 46.0. But that was its 14th month below the 50 mark that divides growth from contraction.
The output index rose to 45.9 from August's 44.4 but chalked up its seventh month of decline.
The euro zone escaped from the last recession in 2009 but a debt crisis that began in Greece almost three years ago has wreaked havoc across the region and threatened to bring the whole currency union crashing down.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/us-poll-euro-zone-sept-factory-data-flag-idUSBRE89008720121001

Thanks to Eagle Ford Shale, oil output in Texas surged to a 23-year high in July

Monthly oil production in Texas reached a 23-year high in July, when the state produced almost 60 million barrels of crude oil, the highest output in any month since March of 1989 according to new data from the Department of Energy (see chart above).  On a daily basis, Texas produced an average of 1.925 million barrels every day in July, the highest daily output of Texas crude since February 1991.
The exponential increases in Texas crude oil over the last two years have been largely the result of the dramatic increases in oil being produced in the state’s 400-mile long Eagle Ford shale formation in south central Texas, which was only recently discovered in 2008.  Eagle Ford crude production has more than doubled over the last year, from 120,532 barrels per day in July 2011 to more than 310,000 barrels per day in July of this year, according to a recent Reuters report, and now accounts for about 16% of the state’s monthly oil output.  Advanced drilling technologies like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have also contributed to an almost doubling of the Lone Star State’s oil production over the last three years.   At the current exponential pace of production increases, it’s possible that Texas will set a new record for state oil output by the end of next year, surpassing the previous record output set in the early 1980s of 2.6 million barrels per day.

Read more: http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/09/thanks-to-eagle-ford-shale-oil-output-in-texas-surged-to-a-23-year-high-in-july-bringing-jobs-and-prosperity-to-the-state/

America’s future: California or Texas?

It is oft said that if you want a glimpse of America’s future, look to California. The home to Hollywood has led the way in national trends from the first no-fault divorce law and the permissive Therapeutic Abortion Act of 1967 (both were signed into law by Ronald Reagan) to the great Proposition 13 property tax cut of 1978. It was California’s populist tax revolt, stoked by then-former Governor Reagan, which reframed the debate about the proper size of government and helped propel Reagan to the presidency in 1980.
Today California offers a different vision of America’s future: high taxes, burgeoning government debt, crushing regulations, rapidly growing welfare rolls, soaring energy costs, and a heavy lawsuit burden have taken a grinding toll on the once-Golden State.
From 2004 to 2010, as a state assemblyman representing almost a half-million Californians, I had a front-row seat in what was to be California’s great comeback under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It wasn’t to be. Schwarzenegger was elected in an historic 2003 recall with the promise to “cut up the state’s credit card.” Not only did Schwarzenegger not rein in California’s spending, he presided over a growth in government spending and debt even more rapid than the torrid pace set by the Democrat he replaced, then capped it off with the largest state tax increase in U.S. history combined with a cap-and-trade law that could increase energy costs on the average California family of four by $9,330 per year by 2020 — equivalent to a 48 percent increase in state and local taxes.
California’s current governor, Jerry Brown, has two goals: a train and a tax.
Appropriately recycled into office, making him at once California’s oldest and youngest governor, Brown has gone all-in on a money-losing high-speed government train costing $65 billion the state doesn’t have. If it’s ever built — I co-authored the losing ballot argument against it — unemployed Californians will be able to ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles and pay twice as much as a Southwest Airlines ticket for the privilege of taking more than double the time to get there.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/30/americas-future-california-or-texas/#ixzz282SiKR3w

Despite turmoil, election seen yielding status quo in Washington

In forecasting what the U.S. Congress will look like after the November 6 elections, Princeton University's Sam Wang is what his fellow analysts call an "outlier."
Wang, one of a dozen or so leading academics who use statistical data to forecast elections, says there is a 74 percent probability that the Democrats will gain the net 25 seats they need to take control of the 435-seat House of Representatives from the Republicans.
He cites President Barack Obama's recent rise in the polls, which Wang says could help other Democrats on House ballots. Wang says his estimate "suggests that in coming weeks, we might look for (congressional) district polls to move in the Democrats' direction."
Since Obama jumped to a significant lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney during the past two weeks, there has been an increasing chance that the presidential race could create a larger-than-expected ripple across the congressional elections in the Democrats' favor. That has triggered anxiety among Republicans and raised hopes among Democrats.
It remains a minority view, however.
The conventional wisdom in Washington is that on November 6, a politically divided nation is likely to reinstall a largely familiar cast of characters at each end of Pennsylvania Avenue: a Democratic president, a Republican-led House, and a Democratic-led Senate.
For all the turbulence of the last few years - including the rise of the conservative, compromise-resistant Tea Party movement and the resulting gridlock in Washington that led to historically low approval ratings for Congress, Americans are on course to keep most of the same people in charge, most analysts say.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/us-usa-campaign-congress-idUSBRE89004Z20121001

The Swedish Model: Government Austerity

Sweden, like Norway, is often held up as a country which is "socialist and successful."  For example, Sweden has high taxes yet also has had healthy economic growth recently.  In this century so far, Sweden's total tax bite amounted to 52% of GDP, while the U.S.'s was 32%.  Yet Sweden's real GDP grew 2.3% per year from 2001 to 2011, and ours grew only 1.6% per year.  Prima facie evidence that high taxes don't kill an economy, right?
In July I deconstructed the Norwegian "Miracle," the other "socialist and successful" country.  It's Sweden's turn now.
Sweden, like Norway, consists of a small, not very diverse, mostly white and Christian people.  Its population is 9.1 million -- a bit less than North Carolina's.  (There are 13 cities in the world with bigger populations.)  Not only are native Swedes white, but so are most of Sweden's immigrants.  The CIA World Factbook lists its immigrants as "Finns, Yugoslavs, Danes, Norwegians, Greeks, Turks."  And 85% of that population is Lutheran; 85% live in cities -- 22% in the Stockholm area itself.
But unlike Norway, which is swimming in oil, Sweden is not richer than the U.S.  On a GDP per capita basis (Purchasing Power Parity), the U.S. is 20% richer than Sweden.  So Sweden has enjoyed somewhat faster growth than the U.S., at least over some cherry-picked periods of time, but it has not caught up to us in over three decades.
In 1980, Sweden was 81% as rich as us; 31 years later, 83%.  That's not much movement on Sweden's part.  In fact, even that 2% difference all came in the last year, 2011 (the last year of available data), not exactly a banner year for the U.S.
The real story of Sweden is the exact opposite of a "socialist success story."  The real story is that big government stifles growth and that what works is austerity.  The real story of Sweden comes in two parts: pre-1993 and post-1993, or the quasi-socialist years and the austerity years.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/the_swedish_model_government_austerity.html#ixzz282RtygpL