State Department spokesperson: We can’t stop ISIS by killing them, we need to give them jobs

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Joshua Riddle:

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For some people, liberalism is truly a mental disorder.

State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf told Chris Matthews that ISIS can be stopped if we just create jobs for them. She is literally living in an alternate reality. Guess what happens if we stop trying to kill ISIS? They grow stronger and keep killing the infidels.

From the Right Scoop via Weasel Zippers:

MATTHEWS: How do we stop this? I don’t see it. I see the Shia militias coming out of Baghdad who are all Shia. The Sunnis hate them. The Sunnis are loyal to ISIS rather than going in with the Shia. You’ve got the Kurds, the Jordanian air force and now the Egyptian air force. But i don’t see any — If i were ISIS, I wouldn’t be afraid right now. I can figure there is no existential threat to these people. They can keep finding places where they can hold executions and putting the camera work together, getting their props ready and killing people for show. And nothing we do right now seems to be directed at stopping this.

HARF: Well, I think there’s a few stages here. Right now what we’re doing is trying to take their leaders and their fighters off the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. That’s really where they flourish.

MATTHEWS: Are we killing enough of them?

HARF: We’re killing a lot of them and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians. They’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs, whether —

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I have never been in a fight, but if I remember correctly, the idea of war WAS to kill as many of THEM as fast as you can before they kill you. Which ever side kills enough of the other side so they figure there is no use fighting any more, wins.

Harf said,

We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups….

Again, I have never been in a fight, but wouldn’t the fact that if you join something, you will probably be killed, be a good deterrent to keep you from joining it in the first place?

This administration can not even create jobs in our own country let alone in any of the Moslem countries! This Manchurian president and his staff are so out of touch with reality. The president is even making funny faces and playing golf while others are losing their heads to terrorists. How many Americans have lost their heads due to climate change? Yet that is the number one threat to the US.

General Philip Sheridan said, during the Indian Wars, “The more we kill this year, the fewer we will have to kill next year.”. Of course, the tribes were not recruiting the white man to fight on his side, but this is still a truism of war to live by.

The basic problem faced in the war on terror is that these radicals are teaching their children to hate and want to kill and die. First things first, this has to stop and only Muslims can stop it. Those kids belong to someone and those parents are who can stop this madness… if they wanted to.

Furthermore, as long as these Muslims spend all their time and energy hating and fighting, there IS no economy. Who has time to manufacture goods (aside from suicide vests and IED’s) when they are training to kill? Who would invest in such a mad world? No doubt a CIA analyst knows far more about this than I, but what this twit is saying is a long way down the road.

First, kill them by the thousands. Then recruitment will dry up. Propagandize them into despondency. Show them who the “strong horse” is. Defeat them, soundly, to gain their respect; they are leftist bleeding hearts, they are killers.

Good grief. I wish there was a market for stupidity; we could pay off the national debt with this administration alone.

Islam has a system in place for ”protecting” non-Muslims who don’t convert or die.
It is called DHIMMITUDE and it requires a JIZYA TAX.
Under dhimmitude a non-Muslim people are allowed to live with many restrictions to their previous way of life.
They lose the right to worship their own way (in public).
No new non-Muslim religious buildings can be built.
They lose the right to vote in political leadership.
They lose the right to meeting together in large groups.
They lose the right to own certain weapons.
They lose 1/2 to 3/4 their weight in court cases against Muslims.
But they live in relative peace as long as they do all this (and more) plus pay the jizya tax.
A jizya tax insures no non-Muslim can ever rise to real wealth among his Muslim overlord class.
It can be confiscated by any Muslim who sees something he wants from any non-Muslim.
It can be money, shoes, household goods, the house itself and anything else.

Muslims don’t have time to work full-time jobs.*
They must change clothes, bathe, pray and change clothes back 5 times a day.
They keep dhimmis around to do all the work.

All Maria Harf is doing is suggesting the entire USA go into dhimmitude to Islam and pay the jizya.
Just that.

*The article jumps from workers taking time of to pray to making a strenuous link between a study which suggests that ‘A recent government study found that Egypt’s 6 million government employees, a massive platoon of Muslim bureaucracy, are each estimated to spend only 27 minutes a day working.’ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/egypt-less-pray.html

These Muzzies have jobs. They murder and desecrate christians. Burning and destroying christian homes and churches also creates work. What a wonderful place to live, if you’re christian.

That video is the most concentrated distillation of the contemptible insanity of the left, and should become part of the campaign commercial for the conservative candidate for president in 2016.

That insipidly ignorant mindset is the EXACT reason the US should NEVER EVER EVER elect a democrat to the Oval Office again. That kind of constitutional imbecility is a sign of weak minded, pathetic absence of character that is the hallmark of the leftist. If you cannot define that which is evil as evil, but rather attempt Moebius-level excuse-mongering in order to avoid having to act like a responsible adult, then you are a worthless cur undeserving of the sacrifice made by those Americans who enable us to be free.

I fought in V.N. where we kept killing and counting. Westy had KIA’S at close to the total population of NVM—Yet they kept coming. The CIVILIZED WORLD has to turn on these ISIS cretins.
Bombs are not the answer—they need to be pictured for what they are—not what they claim to be.

The MSM is right. obama is a genius, …… well at least when compared to Harf and Psaki.

The entire discussion between Chris Matthews with Marie Harf, if anyone wants to see the comment in context. Matthews is only the adult in the room. Harf isn’t ready for the job she’s been given. Reality hasn’t yet caught up with her idealism.

The people of this administration are merely looking for that magic explaination of why they can pretend there is no terror. This is just the latest, like the Gatling-gun excuses for how we allowed our consulate to be sacked.

@Greg:

Well, Greg, we’re much along the same line of thinking here, but I find her to be a complete idiot.

@Greg:

Matthews is only the adult in the room.

That’s an amazing statement. On the edge of unbelievable.

@drjohn: Tells you more about the other occupants of the room.

@Bill: #10

The people of this administration are merely looking for that magic explaination of why they can pretend there is no terror. This is just the latest, like the Gatling-gun excuses for how we allowed our consulate to be sacked.

What if the intention of the obama administration is to turn the USA into a muslim country? Would what they are doing and not doing make since then?

@Rich Wheeler #7:
Your point regarding the endless leakage of enemy combatants into North Vietnam during the Vietnam War is well taken, and indeed there was a point beyond which more bombs were not the answer. The brutal truth is that bombs ceased to be the answer to the spread of Communism in South East Asia well before we got there. We simply got our extremities stuck in the same tar-baby that the French had just freed themselves from.

Unfortunately, had either Johnson or Nixon tried handing out love-beads, food stamps, welfare checks or government jobs to win over the hearts and minds of the Viet Cong, we would have been laughed out of South East Asia faster than a military evacuation C-141. Hindsight revealed what we could not see at the time – that the best-case scenario for American military intervention in Vietnam was a lose-lose situation. Unfortunately, there are more than a few signs that the present situation in the Middle East is unfolding in much the same pattern.

Democrats complain that Republicans rattle swords too often, and that their aggressive foreign policies entangle us in wars that we cannot win. Republicans counter that Democrats win national elections from Republican presidents who start righteous wars, and then squander the efforts by sabotaging said wars in an effort to discredit the Republicans who started them. It really doesn’t matter which side is MORE culpable in this intrigue. It is enough that it happens at all. It points up the fact that our system of holding national elections every four years and thus frequently changing controlling parties lends itself VERY poorly to the conduct of military adventures that last more than a short time. There is no escape from this predicament. The military might of the United States is definitely not the answer.

Islamic extremism and the terrorism it foments is spreading like a malignancy against which the body has no natural defense. The United States is not the immune system of the planet. The whole world will need to apply itself with AT LEAST as much resolve as Jordan and Egypt have demonstrated, and the world will have to sustain that effort until this destructive and deadly pathogen is exterminated. Before it is over, this will indeed become a “world war.” The longer the world waits before undertaking this task, the larger the cost in money and lives. The world can ill-afford to wait.

@drjohn: @George Wells:

The world can ill-afford to wait.

I don’t see any significant moves within the remainder of my lifetime. I think you assessed it well.

It is entirely possible Obama has already given work permits to members of ISIS (or members from some other terrorist organization,) and possibly set the stage for them to become citizen to boot.

US Officials Admit Concern Over Syrian Refugee Effort

Top U.S. counterterrorism officials say they worry a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees who are looking to come to the United States after escaping the brutal war in Syria.

“It’s clearly a population of concern,” the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, went further, saying it would be a “huge mistake” to bring refugees from the conflict to the U.S. – even as an estimated 4 million children, women and men have been forced to flee Syria and another 7 million have been displaced from their homes there, unable to leave.

Senior officials leading the State Department’s refugee efforts say the U.S. government has a long history of caring for the innocent victims of war.

(Snip)

“The continued civil war and destabilization in Syria undeniably make it more difficult to acquire the information needed to conduct reliable threat assessments on specific refugees,” they wrote in the letter two weeks ago.

With tens of thousands of Syrians joining groups in the region like the Islamic State, the U.S. government “cannot allow the refugee process to become a backdoor for jihadists,” they added.

At the hearing Wednesday, an FBI official also questioned whether the U.S. intelligence community – with few assets on the ground in Syria and little insight into the country from elsewhere – can provide authorities with the information they need to properly determine whether any refugee could pose a threat.

Judicial Watch: Feds’ Bulletin Describes Threat of Imminent Terrorist Attack on Southern Border

Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.

Specifically, Judicial Watch sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Violent crimes are so rampant in Juarez that the U.S. State Department has issued a number of travel warnings for anyone planning to go there. The last one was issued just a few days ago.

Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to “carry out an attack on the border,” according to one JW source. “It’s coming very soon,” according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as “ISIS and Al Qaeda.” An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed, another source confirms. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to multiple inquiries from Judicial Watch, both telephonic and in writing, about this information.

The disturbing inside intelligence comes on the heels of news reports revealing that U.S. intelligence has picked up increased chatter among Islamist terror networks approaching the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. While these terrorists reportedly plan their attack just outside the U.S., President Obama admits that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat ISIS. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” the commander-in-chief said this week during a White House press briefing. “I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.”

Feds Warn Of Terrorists Sneaking Into U.S. Through Mexico

While alarming, this case is hardly unique but rather part of a growing trend among Islamic terrorists to slip into the U.S. through a notoriously vulnerable 2,000-mile stretch. Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern extremists have for years joined forces to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the U.S., though the mainstream media coverage has largely ignored it to focus on the humble, poverty-stricken Mexicans who simply come to seek a better life.

A few years ago the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) revealed details of how Islamic terrorists and violent Mexican drug gangs have teamed up to successfully penetrate the U.S. as well as finance terror networks in the Middle East. Additionally, the top Homeland Security official in Texas confirmed that indeed terrorists—with ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda—have been arrested crossing into the state through the Mexican border.

This proves that the U.S. government has known for years that terrorists are using Mexico as a pathway into the country. In this week’s alert, Homeland Security officials warn Houston authorities to be on the lookout for a member of a Somalia-based Al Qaeda group called Al Shabab who plans to cross the Mexican border. Evidently, he has ties to a Somali man in Texas who was recently indicted for operating a large-scale enterprise that smuggled hundreds of Somalis with terrorist ties from Brazil, through South America and across the Mexican border.

If we were led by students of history we would be cutting the heads off the hydra that is ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hezb’allah, Hamas and so on.
Israel did this with Hamas three times in a row.
It led to years of quiescence from Gaza.
When Israel tried to do it to Hezb’allah’s leader he chose to go into hiding…..sort of leading from behind.
They meant not much terror from Hezb’allah until Iran came to Nasralah’s rescue.
Iran is definitely part of the problem.
But, shiite or sunni, it is the behavior that needs to be tamped down.
And the way that has worked to do this in the past has been targeted assassination of any and all charismatic leaders who rile up sadistic followers.

:
Thanks.
Once criminals discover how EASY it is to live off crime, there is rarely any turning them back to honest hard work. Once rats discover the addictive appeal of crack cocaine, there is no distracting them from its deadly effects. Between the near-effortless thefts, the ransoms, the rapes and the undoubtedly intoxicating power that murdering innocents on a whim gives them, the terrorists are irreversibly addicted to what they do and will never be rehabilitated. They must die.

This is why democrats can never ever again be allowed control of the Oval Office. from Obama’s vapid, irrational op-ed piece in the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-obama-terrorism-conference-20150218-story.html

Governments that deny human rights play into the hands of extremists who claim that violence is the only way to achieve change. Efforts to counter violent extremism will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves through strong civil societies. Those efforts must be matched by economic, educational and entrepreneurial development so people have hope for a life of dignity.

What possible “legitimate grievances” can ISIS possibly have that justifies burning a POW alive in a cage? Crucifying thousands? Beheading kidnapped Christians on videotape? Sorry – this is the epitome of the teachings of the koran, and a continuation of the 1400 years of savagery since the mentally unstable epileptic illiterate pedophile began this satanic death cult.

Obama is absolutely despicable. The coming battle is going to be more horrific the longer this goes on.

Why Maria Harf is amazingly wrong……

Six men detained for more than 12 years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and then sent to Montevideo have upset Uruguay’s government after officials offered them jobs — and they said no.

President Jose Mujica agreed to help resettle the ex-inmates as a goodwill gesture, The Associated Press reported. But a labor union in the country said the men have turned down several job offers. And now Mr. Mujica is characterizing them as somewhat lazy.

He made a personal visit to the homes of five of the men to encourage them to accept one of the jobs they’d be offered by a local union, but left disillusioned with their work ethic, telling a local radio station that they were about as different from hard-working Uruguayan nationals as they could get.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/19/guantanamo-bay-detainees-sent-to-uruguay-turn-down/#ixzz3SEZKtpxe

I think the point was actually that seriously alienated young males who can find no place or purpose for themselves in modern society are easily exploited by extremist organizations and fanatical cults. The risk to society rises along with the numbers of such people, and there are now a an enormous number of them.

It’s a valid observation, and something that should be noted and considered in the context of long-term problem solving. It’s not an observation that’s especially useful in dealing with the immediate situation, however. No one is really suggesting that the appropriate response to ISIS is a job program.

We have to be very careful and thoughtful in choosing our military responses. The most serious danger is being drawn into an open-ended, large scale conflict lacking clearly defined, achievable objectives, that gradually bleeds us dry of both will and resources. This is a very real danger, more serious than any posed by localized terrorist attacks. Localized terrorist attacks might arguably be looked upon as bait. They keep upping the nature of the outrages to provoke unmeasured responses that will move them closer to their own goals. It’s better to carefully calculate responses that target and destroy the mechanisms they’re using against us. You try to kill their gathered forces, their leaders, their propagandists, their sources of funding, and persistently attack their credibility with an opposing message.

@Greg: I think the point was actually that seriously alienated young males who can find no place or purpose for themselves in modern society are easily exploited by extremist organizations and fanatical cults. The risk to society rises along with the numbers of such people, and there are now a an enormous number of them.

Great point, Greg.
I have repeatedly pointed out how Muslim countries in the ME refuse to allow their refugee population to ever be assimilated within their borders.
12 million men (plus women and children) live in countries where they were born, where their fathers, even their grandfathers were born but live as 2nd class non-citizens.
The reason they are ”seriously alienated” has to do with the country where they were born failing to accept them, failing to educate them, failing to treat them as full-fledged citizens.
Our offering these men jobs won’t change this pattern.*
The countries of their births MUST be forced to grant citizenship to their natural-born people and let them assimilate instead of penning them up in refugee camps with no options.
But, the problem underlying this all is that ALL Islamic (Sharia) states are failed states that cannot even support their own smaller populations (except through oil revenues.)

*Good example was the trash diggers of Egypt who used pigs to eat all the organic garbage so they could safely recycle the plastics, glass, paper, metal and electronics. What did Egypt do under the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government? They killed all the pigs. They put tens of thousands of people out of work and caused a trash disaster that looked like a scene from Idiocracy. SEE:

@Greg #22:

I sincerely hope that members of Obama’s administration look on this “job” idea in the same, somewhat nuanced way that you do, but if that is the case, they should be VERY cautious to NOT give the impression that they are advocating either a New Deal Jobs Program or a Marshall-Style Recovery Plan for the Muslim World. A Democrat who uses the word “jobs” in the same sentence with the word “Muslim,” “Arab,” or “Islam” is tossing a Republican match onto their own funeral pyre.

It is a very gracious gesture to point out the structural flaws of Muslim society (any society, for that matter) but doing so runs the risk of appearing either meddlesome or condescending, neither of which is ever appreciated. Young, unemployed males juiced up on their own testosterone are a perennial problem in every society, and those societies that have figured out a way to export these problems happily do so. But the problem doesn’t really go away. Some of them survive the ordeal to return, bringing home with them whatever brainwashing, criminal education and terrorist plans their “mentors” have successfully implanted in them. Is there a solution?

A vastly more restrictive policy regarding travel to “subversive” destinations might reduce the number of co-opted misfits, but would shred individual liberties in the process, would run the risk of misidentifying what is “subversive,” and would never really solve the problem, as the “enemy” would simply relocate. The only really effective measure a country like the United States can take is to increase the severity of its punitive response to terrorism to the point that either the source is eliminated or it is effectively deterred. Given the insanity of the current situation, there probably isn’t much difference between the two. Yes, full employment world-wide might help, but it’s rather insane to imagine that ever happening. With technology, mechanization, computerization, robotization, drones and the like, “workers” are becoming obsolete. The planet doesn’t NEED 7 billion people. Better get used to the idea that the world needs a way to bleed off some of the excess population, and I’m not entirely convinced that this ISIS crisis (ooooh, I LIKE that one!) isn’t really nothing more than Mother Nature’s way of helping us do that.

@Greg:

No one is really suggesting that the appropriate response to ISIS is a job program.

I went to your link and actually, that is pretty much what State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf is suggesting, and most of those those commenting on your MSNBC link recognize this also as what she was suggesting.

What many fail to understand, is that terrorist groups (like ISIS or Boko Haram) count on high employment as a means of increasing their number. When you are poor with no money, a criminal organization that promises that recruits will share in the plunder, that they will receive perks as members of the terror group (to include the excitement of killing the men and raping the wives, daughters, children, etc.. rather than the alternative of not joining and becoming victims themselves.) Well, it’s not unlike that which draws young punks to joining a Crip, Blood, (or any other) gangsta street gang in the US.

If you ignore these terrorist groups and just toss jobs and money at the problem, all you do is create more locals with money (targets). Victims for the terrorists groups to prey on. First you must take out the terrorists groups. Then you can consider helping to re-establish their economy. Only then can you foster a local economy.

@George Wells:

I sincerely hope that members of Obama’s administration look on this “job” idea in the same, somewhat nuanced way that you do, but if that is the case, they should be VERY cautious to NOT give the impression that they are advocating either a New Deal Jobs Program or a Marshall-Style Recovery Plan for the Muslim World.

Should the Administration advocate such programs it would not only raise the ire of Republicans. It would justifiably anger the majority of the US public as a whole, who have for over the last last six years been naming the lack of good jobs and the need of an economy that creates jobs as their number one issue. Yet, Obama and the progressives of both parties have refused to listen to what the public wants and instead continually battle over everything else. The final straw has been the administration’s advocacy of open borders, encouragement of illegal immigration, and refusal to enforce immigration laws. Even worse is Obama’s policy scheme to bring in “Syrian refugees” to compete for US jobs. If Obama’s administration even considers backing a Marshall Plan for the Middle East or puts forward a globalist free trade agreement for the region, while continuing in it’s job-killing flooding our nation with out of control heavy handed regulations, the Democratic party might throw in the towel for the 2016 elections.

@Ditto #25:
I really DON’T think the Obama administration gets it at all. I HOPE that they do, but all of the signs are that they don’t. We should know better than waste our breath talking about how much jobs are needed over there (in the Middle East). It’s not our business to built or stimulate economies around the world while ours stagnates under an ever-increasing deficit burden. And the rescued almost NEVER appreciate the help given or return the favor.

What you said to Greg was fairly accurate.
What you said to me I think ignores the fact that WE don’t have any way to make OUR unemployed masses take the jobs that illegals are now filling. We’ve given ours a cushion to sit on for as long as they want. We have an economy that needs workers, but our unemployed don’t want the work, and our businesses don’t REALLY want their illegal workers deported. The solution is to make the system do what you want it to do. You can’t cut one of the table’s legs off and expect it to remain standing; you have to have a replacement leg ready before you start cutting.
Yeah, I keep hearing that the illegal immigration problem is a result of Democrats pandering to legal Mexican-Americans for their votes. It’s not that simple. Republicans have more than their fair share of reasons NOT to deport 17 million illegals. Both parties have been playing this game, blaming each other as if they’re innocent victims. I’m not interested in who you blame.

@George Wells:

You will note that I wrote “and the progressives of both parties” purposely and not just Democrats.

Claiming that all the unemployed just don’t want to work, in a economy with low job creation is exactly the kind of fraudulent bull-crap I expect from those progressives of both parties who advocate both “immigration reform” and open borders. It’s a false rendering of the facts. The construction industry is one which greedy business operators who can hire illegal immigrant “day workers” off the books (or with falsified ID’s and/or stolen Social Security Numbers,) at far below the typical wage of a US construction worker. Business that hire immigrants typically do so because they will work at far below the going rate. There is an incentive built into Obamacare that favors hiring illegal immigrants, as the Obamacare mandate does not apply to them, that means that an employer saves money by employing an immigrant. Look at the California utility that will be laying off their US workers once these workers have trained the newly hired foreign tech H-1B visa workers. Yet those Democrats who are all for bringing in illegal immigrants to keep wages depressed are often the same counting on union support and a higher minimum wage.

In many respects the progressive elite’s forcing US workers to compete with lower wage immigrant workers is similar to the situation of the Civil War era: Where the Northern and Southern elite and plantation owners who were crony capitalist cohorts with the politically powerful, played the nation’s desperate poorer workforce against imported slave labor in the South, and against indentured servants (a technical variation on slavery) in the north.

It isn’t that all the unemployed don’t want the jobs, you know that’s a damn lie. Some are lazy and don’t want to work, that is true. But the majority of the US workforce does want to work and your declaring that they do not is an further insult to them that I find abhorrent. The true problem is that jobs are few, the wages offered are crappy and job seekers are in fierce competition with foreign born workers. If it wasn’t for entitlement programs I think the US workforce would have revolted decades ago. Globalist-progressives of both parties have taken control of our government, have betrayed and forsaken US workforce, and are pushing this nation farther into a caste system where the wealthy and political elite prosper from their greed, and the middle-worker class is taxed into oblivion to join the poor in a continual decline into a pseudo-capitalist feudal system.

I think if you calculate the unemployment rate of those in the regions threatened by terrorism the same way the administration likes to calculate it here, by only counting those that are LOOKING for work, their unemployment rate is very, very low. No problem, then.

@Ditto #27:
“the majority of the US workforce does want to work and your declaring that they do not is an further insult to them that I find abhorrent.”

Oh, GEE, Ditto. I didn’t mean to upset you.
Recent labor statistics and an up-surge in compensation rates suggest that the numbers of unemployed who still want to work are declining. The job market is getting tight, in case you missed it. I wouldn’t go getting all abhorrent on us just now.

“Claiming that all the unemployed just don’t want to work, in a economy with low job creation”
I didn’t claim that “ALL” unemployed didn’t want work, now did I? And the fact is that for the past several years, job creation hasn’t been slow enough to stunt a remarkable economic recovery that has generously inflated the stock market – a good barometer of economic health. The insistence that our economy is in the gutter doesn’t convince the people with money to invest in it, apparently.

“There is an incentive built into Obamacare that favors hiring illegal immigrants.’
There are all SORTS of incentives to hiring illegal immigrants that are built into our economy. I wouldn’t bother blaming the employment of illegals on ObamaCare unless your sole objective is to unfairly sully the Affordable Care Act.

I was working in New Orleans immediately after Katrina, and the labor scene there was telling. Each street corner was lousy with help-wanted signs begging for applicants for jobs that were paying twice the normal rate. The streets were lined with the local unemployed – Blacks who were already on the dole and who had no interest in bettering themselves. American workers were NOT bussing or trucking themselves in to take these jobs, either. It was Mexican workers who came, and THEY took the jobs that nobody else even bothered to apply for. They took them by the THOUSANDS. Don’t cry to me about insulting America’s unemployed. Yes, some of them want work, but huge numbers of them would rather remain exactly as they are, doing nothing for their support checks. That’s a mess that neither party has had the stomach to correct.

“If it wasn’t for entitlement programs I think the US workforce would have revolted decades ago.”

Let me get this straight… you SUPPORT entitlement programs?
I agree with you that US workers would have revolted decades ago without them, and I have argued that those safety net programs are necessary – not for humanitarian reasons so much as for a means to prevent the rebellion of desperate people. But such Band-Aids should never have become they end-stage solutions that they now are. They should (and were intended to) be an interim measure meant to give the government and the people being helped time to re-educate or otherwise correct whatever the deficiency was that required assistance in the first place. But we all failed to adequately incentivize that part of the program, and the creation of a welfare state was the result. In the meantime, both Democratic and Republican administrations plowed ahead tearing down trade barriers that protected American workers from cheap foreign labor markets, effectively insuring that most of our manufacturing base would be exported to Mexico and China. We all wanted cheap air conditioners and television sets, remember? The disappearance of those jobs wasn’t Obama’s fault, and there is nothing he can do to get them back. Without that base of manufacturing jobs, how robust did you expect the recovery from the 2008-2011 collapse to be?

You are so close to being right that it pains me to object to what you explain. But I still find it disconcerting that so much of your discussion focuses on assigning blame. It seems like an approach that guarantees an uncooperative response from political opponents, with the result that nothing will ever get fixed. If that’s really your goal, then why even bother talking about it?

There’s a joke form for jihadis to apply for appropriate jobs somewhere.
I haven’t seen a joke fill-in-the-blanks where the jihadist asked to be paid as a ”Death Panel Enforcer,” but it should be created.