{"id":24053,"date":"2013-12-10T21:23:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T02:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=24053"},"modified":"2013-12-10T21:24:32","modified_gmt":"2013-12-11T02:24:32","slug":"the-daily-gouge-wednesday-december-11th-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=24053","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge, Wednesday, December 11th, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Wednesday, December 11th, 2013…but before we begin, a brief public service announcement brought to you by Speed Mach, this station and the Ad Council:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Now, here’s The Gouge!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, Shannon Wood Bush forwarded…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The six contradictions of socialism in the United States of America*<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

* We’ve added a few of our own, in no particular order!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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– America is capitalist and greedy – yet half of the population is subsidized.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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–<\/strong><\/span> Half of the population is subsidized – yet they think they are victims.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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– They think they are victims – yet their representatives run the government.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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– Their representatives run the government – yet the poor keep getting poorer<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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– The poor keep getting poorer – yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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– They have things that people in other countries only dream about – yet they want America to be more like those other countries<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Got<\/em><\/span> it?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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For more on the subject of Liberal Illogic, we turn to <\/strong>The Washington Free Beacon<\/strong><\/em> via\u00a0The New Media Journal<\/em>, and this story highlighting the nature of the regime Team Tick-Tock’s touting as trustworthy:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Iran Refuses to Recognize Israel at U.N.<\/span><\/h1>\n

U.N. member states unfazed <\/span><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Iran publicly refused to recognize \u201cthe Israeli regime\u201d during a full meeting on Thursday of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The UNGA meeting was held to mark a procedural\u2014and typically uneventful\u2014vote in which nations meet to approve the credentials of various U.N. member states. The move appeared to stun not a single onlooker at the United Nations, but prompted a sharp response from Israel\u2019s ambassador to the U.N.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

While Iran, like every other nation, voted in favor of the measure, its representative sought to explain that its support should not be interpreted as recognition of Israel. \u201cWe would like to reiterate my government\u2019s position that our support for this document should be in no way be considered as the recognition of the Israeli regime,\u201d Iran\u2019s representative said.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> \u201cI wish my statement in this regard to be recorded and registered in the final recording of this meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran was the only<\/em><\/span> member state to offer an on-the-record statement regarding the vote.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Likely because Chavez, Castro and General Francisco Franco are all still dead!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a related item demonstrating anew The Obamao’s inability, either through utter naivete or purposeful policy, to differentiate between America’s fast friends and implacable foes (particularly after having dissed Maggie Thatcher’s funeral but find the time (and money) to jet over for Nelson Mandela’s),…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama shakes hands with Cuba’s Castro at Mandela memorial<\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

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“Please give my best to your brother!”<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday shook hands with Raul Castro, leader of long-time Cold War foe Cuba, at the memorial service in South Africa for Nelson Mandela. Obama offered the handshake before taking the stage to give his speech at the ceremony, in a new sign of his willingness to reach out to US enemies, a US official told AFP.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…The handshake was seen by millions around the world watching the memorial being broadcast live and comes as Obama tries to make good on his vow to reach out even to the most implacable of US foes.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0(Except, of course, Republicans!)<\/strong><\/span> In September, the US leader spoke by telephone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in the first such gesture since the 1979 revolution in the Islamic republic.<\/p>\n

…As a presidential candidate Obama was pilloried as naive and dangerous by rivals from both parties for suggesting that as president he would be willing to talk to foes without preconditions.<\/p>\n

But here’s<\/em> the kicker<\/em><\/span><\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama’s ability to track down and kill Osama bin Laden and a series of drone strikes has largely insulated him from allegations of weakness in foreign and security policy<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/span>, but the president was careful to pointedly call out oppressive leaders in his speech Tuesday, with Castro just feet away.<\/p>\n

Really?\u00a0 No…REALLY<\/em><\/span>?!?\u00a0 Where’s this Yahoo News<\/em> reporter been<\/em><\/span> that he’s never heard Syria, Libya or Benghazi; or perhaps he has<\/em><\/span>, and is simply unwilling to let such inconvenient facts get in the way of his predetermined storyline.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of predetermined storylines, back in the once-and-future USSR, as <\/strong>The<\/strong> Washington Times<\/strong><\/em> again via The New Media Journal<\/em> reports, the Man-Who-Would-Be-Czar hits upon an old favorite of despots everywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Ministry of Truth?\u2019: Putin creates new Russian news agency led by firebrand broadcaster<\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday dissolved a state-run news service that sought to provide balanced coverage of Russian politics, including interviews with opposition figures, and ordered the creation of an agency to be led by a firebrand broadcaster known for on-air attacks against the \u201cdecadent\u201d West.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Mr. Putin had created an \u201cenormous state propaganda agency with a multimillion budget.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The new state news agency will be known as Russia Today and will cover \u201cRussian state politics and public life for foreign audiences,\u201d according to Mr. Putin\u2019s decree. The agency shares its name with a state-funded English-language TV channel widely seen as the Kremlin\u2019s mouthpiece, but no merger is expected.<\/p>\n

The Russia Today news agency is to be headed by Dmitry Kiselyov, a state television anchor man and media manager. Earlier this month, Mr. Kiselyov claimed pro-European demonstrations in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine were Polish-Swedish \u201crevenge\u201d for a battle their combined forces lost to Russia in 1709.<\/span> He has also called for, on-air, gay people\u2019s hearts to be burned rather than used in transplants.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Which of course got Barack thinking…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…about forming his own state-run media…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…before realizing… <\/strong><\/p>\n

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…it’s already in place!<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

And in International News of Note, despite an ever-tightening defense budget which barely provides adequate security for America…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama calls for peace as Hagel orders US support in Central African Republic mission<\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, you know, “peace”…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…through the business end of a drone!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since we’re on the subject of our rapidly retreating Military, courtesy of the WSJ<\/em>, former SecNav John Lehman details perhaps the biggest problem currently facing our Armed Forces…other than…
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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More Bureaucrats, Fewer Jets and Ships<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

More than half of our active-duty servicemen and women serve in offices on staffs.<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

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…Although current U.S. spending on defense adjusted for inflation has been higher than at the height of the Reagan administration, it has been producing less than half of the forces and capabilities of those years.<\/strong><\/span> Instead of a 600-ship Navy, we now have a 280-ship Navy, although the world’s seas have not shrunk and our global dependence has grown. Instead of Reagan’s 20-division Army, we have only 10-division equivalents. The Air Force has fewer than half the number of fighters and bombers it had 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

Apologists for the shrinkage argue that today’s ships and aircraft are far more capable than those of the ’80s and ’90s. That is as true as “you can keep your health insurance<\/em><\/span>.”<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…The Pentagon, like Marley’s ghost, must drag this ever-growing burden of chains without relief. As a result something close to paralysis is approaching. The suffocating bloat of overstaffing in an overly centralized web of bureaucracies drives runaway cost growth in weapons systems great and small. Whereas the immensely complex Polaris missile and submarine system took four years<\/em><\/span> from a draft requirement until its first operational patrol in February 1960, today the average time for all weapons procured under Defense Department acquisition regulations is 22 years<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The latest Government Accountability Office report, released in October, estimates that there is $411 billion of unfunded cost growth in current Pentagon programs, almost as much as the entire 10 years of sequester cuts if they continue. The result has been unilateral disarmament<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Which, along with women in combat slots and the rescission of Don’t Ask\/Don’t Tell, is just what the doctor…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…ordered!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there’s today’s entry in the Matt Hooper Memorial “<\/strong>I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this<\/span> <\/em>particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass<\/em>!<\/span>” segment, courtesy of James Taranto and the Land-O-Lakes Cover Girl:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don’t Worry, We’ll All Be Dead in 90 Years<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Is there a Social Security crisis? No, and there won’t be for a very long time, according to the leftist magazine Mother Jones:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, the president and vice-president of the centrist think-tank Third Way accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) of ignoring what they call Social Security’s “undebatable solvency crisis.” In an interview with Mother Jones, Warren fired back, countering the charge, and elaborating on how Social Security could be expanded.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“If we made no changes at all to Social Security,” Warren said, “it would continue to make payments at the current level for about 20 years,” meaning there is no immediate crisis facing the program, which assists some 58 million Americans. “Modest adjustments,” she added, “will make certain\u2026 we could increase benefits for those who need it most.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twenty years from now it’ll be 2033–way into the future! Which raises an interesting question: How soon is<\/span> soon enough to take a foreseen problem seriously<\/em>?<\/span> According to another Mother Jones article<\/span>, the answer is 83 years:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s a list of some of the most dreaded abrupt changes (where abrupt means occurring within a period of a few decades or even years), and the probability that they’ll happen–even if nothing like the Hollywood version–before the year 2100.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe they can blame global warming when Social Security becomes insolvent because 20 years seemed impossibly far in the future.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n