THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Turning back the tide of information overload with a digest of the latest developments in news conservatives need to pay attention to:

† Is Hasan A Crazy Terrorist, Or A Terrorist Crazy?: To the Department of Defense, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s shooting spree that killed 13 soldiers and wounded dozens more at Fort Hood in 2009 wasn’t a jihad perpetrated by a radicalized Muslim (related article, last item on the page), but a workplace violence incident. This willful distortion of reality is even more bizarre when you consider that there is evidence that our soldiers are serving alongside an unknowable number of Islamofascists waiting for the right moment to strike, The Washington Times reports:

"The Fort Hood attack was not an anomaly," said [Rep. Peter King (R-NY)]. "It was part of al Qaeda's two-decade success at infiltrating the U.S. military for terrorism – an effort that is increasing in scope and threat."

The Congressional Research Service has identified 54 homegrown terrorism plots and attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. Of those, 33 were directed against the U.S. military, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security Committee. …

The publicly disclosed plots and attacks by military insiders "represent the leading edge of al Qaeda's ongoing effort to infiltrate the U.S. military and to recruit or radicalize vulnerable servicemen to commit future acts of terror," according to a report published Wednesday by Mr. King's staff.

There is "reason to believe that the actual number of radicalized troops is far more than publicly realized or acknowledged," the report states.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: Toygaroo  – a website described by customers as “the Netflix of toys – enables cash-strapped parents rent toys for a fraction of what they would cost to buy, CBSBoston.com reports:

The cheapest option is $24.99/month for a box of four toys.

We chose The Toy Story 3 Speedway, The Thomas the Tank Engine laptop, Chicco’s radio controlled ATV and the Rolling Round Jungle.

The retail value of those toys is $112.96.

If there is something your child just can’t bear to send back, or if something gets lost or broken, you can purchase the toy at a discounted price.

One mom we talked with liked the concept, but wasn’t thrilled about the idea of her kids playing with toys that had already been around the block with who knows how many other kids. Toygaroo says all the toys are carefully sanitized and re-sealed in plastic before they are shipped to a new home.

The selection of toys is largely geared for preschool through second grade.

† Only The Little People Pay Taxes: Tying an extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits to a pay freeze on federal workers and a reduction in the federal workforce through attrition by 10 percent (200,000 jobs), “would make working for the government increasingly painful,” according to David Firestone of The New York Times:

The party’s presidential candidates routinely refer to the federal workforce of 2.6 million as “bloated,” the largest since the 1960s. What they don’t tell you is that that there are now actually far fewer federal workers relative to the size of the nation’s population than at any point since the 1960s – 8.4 workers per 1,000 residents, compared to 13.3 workers per 1,000 in 1962.

It is arguable whether the entire machinery of federal government will come to a screeching halt if 1 in 10 positions were eliminated, but when comes to the local level Steven Malanga, senior editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, argues that “[h]iring increases have so rapidly outpaced the growth in the population that retrenchment is inevitable.” Even so, “local governments are well-staffed by historical standards and have the troops to do the job at hand”:

[L]ocal education employment is back to about where it was in 2006 after recent cutbacks. Sound terrible? Maybe not so much when you consider that public-school enrollment has been stagnant since 2006. …

America has also made a big investment in public safety, and there the facts suggest the spending has paid off. They also suggest we need hardly fear unprecedented spikes in crime of the sort the vice president warned about. …

New York City's experience is illuminating. Gotham made a big commitment to expand its police force as murders hit an all-time high in 1990. An income-tax surcharge provided the resources to boost police hiring by about 15%, or 5,000 officers, to nearly 40,000 over the next several years. The city's crime rate then plunged, falling 70% in the 1990s.

But the city never intended to maintain those police levels, and after 2000 it began slowly cutting back its force. The force has since shrunk to nearly its 1990 level, yet crime has continued to decline by another 35% [due to] better tools, including sophisticated crime-mapping technology, and smarter police work, like new strategies that deploy officers rapidly based on where crime seems to be rising.

The New York Times lets the cat out of the bag about why Dems and libs are fighting so hard to maintain bloat in the ranks of public employees at the local and federal level is really about (related article, fourth item on the page):

[T]ens of thousands of once solidly middle-class African-American government workers … have been laid off since the recession ended in June 2009. Such job losses have blunted gains made in employment and wealth during the previous decade and undermined the stability of neighborhoods where there are now fewer black professionals who own homes or who get up every morning to go to work. …

About one in five black workers have public-sector jobs, and African-American workers are one-third more likely than white ones to be employed in the public sector. …

A study by the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California this spring concluded, “Any analysis of the impact to society of additional layoffs in the public sector as a strategy to address the fiscal crisis should take into account the disproportionate impact the reductions in government employment have on the black community.”

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: In a trend that began five years ago and has accelerated since April 2008, the number of illegal immigrants apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border continues to decline sharply, and have now fallen to 1970s levels. The lower number of border apprehensions is due in part to fewer illegals from Mexico coming to the U.S. for work, The Washington Post reports:

The Border Patrol apprehended 327,577 illegal crossers along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2011, which ended Sept. 30, numbers not seen since Richard Nixon was president, and a precipitous drop from the peak in 2000, when 1.6 million unauthorized migrants were caught. More than 90 percent of the migrants apprehended on the southwest border are Mexican.

The number of illegal migrants arrested at the border has been dropping over the past few years but appears to be down by more than 25 percent this year.

Experts say that Border Patrol apprehensions are a useful marker for estimating the total flow of illegal migrants, though imprecise because the U.S. government has no idea how many are not caught (emphasis, The Stiletto). …

The lower number of apprehensions supports the Obama administration’s contention that the border is more secure than ever – that the doubling of Border Patrol agents since 2004, along with hundreds of miles of new fence, cameras, lights, sensors and Predator drones, has helped slow the illegal flow northward.

But those who say the border remains out of control can point to the fact that hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants still try to make the crossing every year.

More evidence that there are fewer illegals coming to or staying in the U.S.: Mexico’s Central Bank estimates that remittances sent to Mexico declined from a peak of $24 billion in 2007 to $21 billion last year.

† Is It Too Soon To Discuss The “I Word”?: Just as right-thinking Americans suspected, new documents released in the Fast and Furious investigation prove that the Obama Administration wanted to trump up evidence of rampant gunwalking by U.S. gun dealers to justify imposing additional firearms regulations (related article, eight item on the page), CBS News reports:

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. …

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."

Several gun dealers who cooperated with ATF told CBS News and Congressional investigators they only went through with suspicious sales because ATF asked them to.

† Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech: A couple of years back, Egypt's top Islamic cleric, Sheik of al-Azhar Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, wanted to ban wearing head-to-toe veils by female students in school because he – unlike our non-Muslim president – deemed hijabs and niqabs to be a sign of Islamic radicalism (related article, fourth item on the page). With “democracy” coming to Egypt, this is a battle he will lose, The Washington Times reports:

Islamist parties topped the rolls in recent elections in Tunisia and Morocco, and Egypt appears to be following suit. Projected results show that the bloc led by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) was expected to win around 40 percent of the vote, the Islamist Nour Party bloc is predicted to have taken a surprising 30 percent of the vote, with other parties dividing up the remainder. If accurate, these results show that the Egyptian electorate has chosen an Islamic identity for the country.

The surprise success of the Nour Party bloc is most alarming. One member of the bloc, the Building and Development Party, is the political arm of Jamaah al Islamaya, a former terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda. It does not differ with the Muslim Brotherhood on strategic objectives for Egypt, such as the Koran being the only legitimate basis for government. They only disagree on tactics.

The Nour bloc seeks to impose Shariah law more swiftly and severely that [sic] the FJP.

Get that? The imposition of Sharia law in Egypt is only a matter of time, regardless of which Islamist party wins. Italian parliamentarian Fiamma Nirenstein warns, "Women, prepare your scarves."

† Chicago On The Potomac: It took two trials to convict him of political corruption, but former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) was sentenced to 14 years in prison – among the longest sentences for the crime in state history (related article, fifth item on the page), CBSChicago.com reports:

Where Blagojevich will serve his time is still to be determined, although his defense team asked that he serve his sentence in a prison camp.

Normally, defendants sentenced to more than 10 years in prison don’t go to prison camps, instead being sent to more traditional prisons, but Zagel said he was likely to recommend a prison camp for Blagojevich. The final decision will be determined by the federal Bureau of Prisons.

At his retrial earlier this year, Blagojevich, 54, was convicted of 17 charges, including allegations he tried to sell or trade an appointment to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama. …

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 15 to 20 years, noting that Blagojevich showed no remorse for his actions and has repeatedly painted the prosecution of him as a political witch hunt. 

† You Can’t Make Fun Of Obama? Sez Who?: It took a long time before comedians felt comfortable -- or compelled -- to poke fun at President Barack Hussein Obama (related article, fifth item on the page). But now, some observers are questioning whether some of them have been pulling their punches, The New York Times’ Jason Zinoman reports:

[A]s we head into another general election campaign, “Saturday Night Live,” the biggest national stage for presidential parody, still has not figured out how to make Barack Obama funny. In its long history of mocking presidents, no impression has made less of one.

To be fair Fred Armisen, who has played the president more than 30 times since early 2008, has a more difficult challenge than his predecessors. Mr. Obama doesn’t have a thick accent or easily mocked tics (lip biting, eye squinting). When not delivering a speech, his affect is flavorless or elegant, neither very funny. …

Mr. Armisen’s relatively understated performance is too shackled to the real world. He nicely captures the president’s cadence and his habit of starting sentences with an exasperatedly reasonable “Look,” and ending emphatically. But accuracy is not insight, nor is it the goal.

Zinoman’s solution: Armisen should take his inspiration from Dana Carvey’s “physically mannered and antic” portrayal of Bush 41.

Editorial Note: As The Stiletto has previously pointed out (second item on the page), Obama does have a very distinctive verbal tic that, for some reason, is inaudible to liberal comedians and TV critics.