Need to Know is a short roundup of key stories that shouldn’t be missed on your cruise through the blogosphere. The number of links in the roundup may vary but if you find it here you can trust that it’s must-read material.

Axis of Right
I’ve complained for months that liberals and certain Republicans tend to exaggerate when portraying Mitt Romney as a serial flip-flopper because the former Massachusetts Governor is not as guilty as his opponents would have us believe. Unfortunately, these exaggerations usually carry a badge of credibility. For that, Romney has no one to blame but himself.

Dean’s World
I’d like to see a debate on whether converting to a single-payer system alone i.e. without further healthcare reforms will correct the fiscal problems posed by aging Baby Boomers participating in the Medicare system.

Blackfive
I can’t name the sources for this SWAG (ref?) but I am stating with near metaphysical certitude that Fidel Castro has assumed room temperature and over the past week he and his brother Raoul have determined that Chavez should rule. So in a huge ceremony currently being planned Raoul will announce Fidel’s demise and show a video Fidel recorded asking that the country accept Raoul’s resignation as leader and that they greet Hugo Chavez as the New Commandante.

Counterterrorism Blog
This report is intended to offer readers a short history of the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in the United States-as well as its goals and structure-as revealed by evidence recently presented during the ongoing criminal trial in the Northern District of Texas (Dallas): United States of America v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The prosecution in the case has presented many internal Muslim Brotherhood documents from the 1980’s and early 1990’s that give a first-ever public view of the history and ideology behind the operations of the Muslim Brothers (known as the Ikhwan or The Group) in the U.S. over the past four decades.

David Limbaugh
The Democrats’ latest ploy of shifting the goal posts to dampen Gen. Petraeus’s anticipated report of military successes in Iraq by emphasizing the slow progress on the political side makes it increasingly hard to deny they are working for defeat at all costs.

One Hand Clapping
Bush became a hero out here with the Galileans when he refused to talk with Arafat. Then, he strode the landscape like a real master of the Bazaar. He simply turned the tables in the influence market and followed Nancy Reagan’s advice to addiction—“Just say no!” Here, they said, is a man who understands how to bargain — say nothing until you hear what you want to hear. It was very refreshing.

OPFOR
Black PSYOP is fun, but also illegal (well, for us anyway… you know how it is… the bad guys get to have ALL the fun). Black PSYOP is produced so that the target audience believes the source is someone who it is not. For example, say I go into a Sunni area one night or early one morning and I spray-paint, “Sunnis suck” on the homes and walls in the area. Sunnis wake up, see the graffiti, and think, “damn Shi’ites… let’s go kill them.” That’s black PSYOP.

SoCal Pundit
Anti-military slurs have been on the rise since the Communism-inspired Korean War. The Communists, knowing that support for the war in America depended on the people believing the war was just were very successful in infiltrating the disaffected youth and convincing them that our men in uniform are guilty of war crimes and the like. In Vietnam, the sentiment hit a fever pitch and continues to this day with people like Beauchamp & The New Republic leading the charges.

The Captain’s Journal
Sometimes our efforts at counterinsurgency by winning hearts and minds simply have to go through kinetic operations — in this case, combat action — to “close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver.” There are no easy ways to do this, and we cannot throw enough money at or deploy enough engineers on this problem to make it go away.

You Served
Now that I am back from an Active Duty tour in Afghanistan I had to re-engage the VA again. I had to get my disability payments started back up and I have some leftover issues from my tour that need to get addressed. I had talked with several guys that were on my team in Afghanistan whom said their experience was really good and it was nothing like they had heard (which was similar to what I had experienced). One of them told me that in recent years many people had retired, been forced out or whatever and that the new staffs of VA hospitals were much better to deal with. Due to this new information I figured I would give them another chance and I am glad I did. I have been there twice and what I have seen is remarkably better than what I ever saw before.

The D-Ring
Next month, INSA will be hosting a conference with DNI to glean new media lessons from the private sector and academia, and develop additional ways to use these technologies to support the goals and objectives of the intelligence community. Not being a part of the intellegista, I can’t go. But if you are there, would love to hear about it.

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