Obama sends US forces to protect Jordan, bypasses Congress to fund Iraq

Published October 11, 2012 | By Iowadawg

U.S. borders, U.S. embassies and consulates – fugettaboutit. Protecting the ummah, from itself, done. via Panetta: US sends forces to Jordan – Yahoo! News.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States has sent military troops to the Jordan-Syria border to bolster that country’s military capabilities in the event that violence escalates along its border with Syria, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday.

Speaking at a NATO conference of defense ministers in Brussels, Panetta said the U.S. has been working with Jordan to monitor chemical and biological weapons sites in Syria and also to help Jordan deal with refugees pouring over the border from Syria. The troops are also building a headquarters for themselves.

But the revelation of U.S. military personnel so close to the 19-month-old Syrian conflict suggests an escalation in the U.S. military involvement in the conflict, even as Washington pushes back on any suggestion of a direct intervention in Syria.

It also follows several days of shelling between Turkey and Syria, an indication that the civil war could spill across Syria’s borders and become a regional conflict.

“We have a group of our forces there working to help build a headquarters there and to insure that we make the relationship between the United States and Jordan a strong one so that we can deal with all the possible consequences of what’s happening in Syria,” Panetta said.

The development comes with the U.S. presidential election less than a month away, and at a time when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has been criticizing President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, accusing the administration of embracing too passive a stance in the convulsive Mideast region.

Congress? What Congress. via Pentagon finds funding to continue Iraq training – KNOE 8 News; KNOE-TV; KNOE.com

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Pentagon says it will be able to fund the training of Iraqi security forces for the next 90 days, even though Congress did not include money for the program in its temporary budget resolution that took effect Monday.

Pentagon press secretary George Little says $1.7 million will be used from a special combatant commanders initiative fund to continue the training. Officials say there are roughly 160 military personnel doing the training in Iraq.

The money will also allow the U.S. to continue a separate program that trains Iraq’s counterterrorism forces.

The funding is a temporary solution while officials seek a longer term fix in the 2013 budget bill.

Congress has left Washington until after the election. Lawmakers were only able to pass a six-month stopgap spending measure.

What’s that? You didn’t hear anything in the U.S. media about Obama sending troops to yet another country nor the bi-partisan budget resolution – an absolute gift by so-called “conservatives” including Paul Ryan to a failed president during the most critical point in the election.

Found HERE.

###

###

From HERE.

###

Weather.com “The Weather Channel and weather.com provide a national and local weather forecast for cities, as well as weather radar, report and hurricane coverage.”

The sun sneeze is called ‘photic sneeze reflex’ which occurs in one-sixth to one-quarter of the population. Nobody is sure what causes it, but there are many nerves in your head and there can be leakage from one nerve pathway to another, which could cause a sneeze from looking at sunlight. – Provided by Reference.com

###

Man Returns 114k in Discarded Bonds

Guarente, owner of Junk Depot, was cleaning out the house of Medford woman Marie Veloso’s recently deceased mother when he discovered the 21 saving bonds, with a date mark from 1972.

At the time the bonds cost $20,000, but in today’s money are worth a significant amount more.

Despite the temptation – Guarente told reporters at The Boston Globe he hasn’t been on vacation in 10 years – he had no doubts about returning the money.

“I did not think for one minute I was going to keep the money. I sleep well at night” Guarente said.

###

“October Surprise” Will Obama Attack Iran?

I’ve been telling audiences around the US for some time, that I think that President Obama’s much feared “October Surprise” could be a US led attack on Iran.

I think that if it happens, it will not be all out war, but a comparatively small, surgical assault.

Here is my logic.

Obama loves Russia. Moscow loves Obama, because he is destroying the United States military, just as Moscow has always wanted. If Obama gets four more years, America’s once mighty military will become nothing more than a strike force for the United Nations – which is effectively controlled by Russia and China.

Russia wants Obama to win this election to finish off the US military as an effective counter force to Moscow and Beijing’s joint program for world domination.

Russia is allied with Iran, through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and through their shared hatred of the United States.

Obama will never seriously damage Iran, because Tehran is allied to his friends in Moscow.

However, if Obama attacks Iran – just enough to give them a bloody nose – this could well be enough to give him the lift in the polls he needs to win the upcoming election.

Moscow orders Iran to take a small hit, Obama wins four more years. He then guts the US military, leaving Moscow, Beijing and Tehran to do whatever they like, with no fear of retaliation.

A win/win situation for the Axis of Evil.

The Moscow funded propaganda station Russia Today, seems to think that such an attack is very likely.

Finish reading HERE.

###

Raising minimum wage is sure bet to create more jobless young Americans

The unemployment rate for 16 to 19 year olds was an astonishingly high 23.8 percent last month. The United States is facing a youth employment crisis.

Young workers are finding it increasingly difficult to enter the labor market, get their first job and work their way up the career ladder. Yet, during this time of persistently high youth unemployment, there have been calls to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to as high as $10 per hour.

America’s youth are having a hard time reaching the first rung on their career ladders. Now is a bad time to increase minimum wages and make that important step more difficult.

Higher minimum wages generate a tradeoff between higher wages for the employed and higher rates of unemployment. When minimum wages increase, many workers who earn less than the new higher minimum wage lose their jobs. Firms often decide that they can get by with fewer workers instead of paying higher wages.

As one might expect, David Neumark of the University of California’s Irvine campus and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve Board survey recent research on minimum wages and find that the least-skilled workers are hurt the most by minimum wages.

Minimum wages are particularly damaging for the future prospects of young workers as they typically earn the low wages that are impacted by the change in the minimum wage law.

More HERE.

###

In an often heated congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and witnesses alike pointed to State Department official Charlene Lamb as the person most directly responsible for rejecting multiple requests for increased security at the U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya prior to the Sept. 11 attack.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) excoriated the State Department for rejecting requests from the U.S. Embassy in Libya for an extension of temporary security forces that were withdrawn in the months prior to the attack that killed Amb.Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

In a dramatic moment at the hearing, Issa released unclassified cables from March and July that the State Department had refused to release, detailing those requests.

One cable, written by then Amb. Gene Cretz, noted that three Mobile Security Detachments [MSD], consisting of 18 personnel, and the Site Security Team [SST], consisting of 16 personnel, were about to leave their temporary assignments. He said that the Libya mission needed both an extension of those forces and an increase in the number of permanent security officials in Libya.

The SST is a team of U.S. military personnel that was deployed to assist the embassy staff on a temporary basis for 60 days and then extended for another 60 days, but not extended for a third 60-day tour.

During the hearing, the top regional security officer in Libya over the summer, Eric Nordstrom, and Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guardsman who was leading a security team in Libya until August, placed the blame squarely on Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international programs, whom they said was the official who denied those requests.

###