Sons Of Liberty

OWS Protesters: Rush More Dangerous Than Al-Qaeda

2011-10-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

Hippie Dances on Soldiers' Memorial

2011-10-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

Former Soviet Citizen Confronts Socialists at Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Joe Biden Becomes Upset After Being Asked About Controversial Rape Comments

2011-10-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

Poor Biden thinks that cops interrupt a rape in progress. This kind of delusional reasoning posits that the rape victim has both the time and opportunity while being assaulted for a phone call to be placed to the police department. Additionally, this brilliant thinking believes that the assailant will sit still to wait while not only the rape victim takes a break to call the police, but for the ensuing squad car to be dispatched and arrive at his location.

This is what happens when you've had a brain anyuerism and/or spent too many years "serving the people":

OWS Supporter Rants Against Israel, Jews

2011-10-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

OccupyWallSt Poster Boy A Trust Fund Baby, Attempted Stowaway At JFK

2011-10-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

Why I Can't Take Ron Paul Seriously

2011-09-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is why I can't take Ron Paul seriously:

WINTERSET, Ia. – Two weeks away from the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul says that U.S. intervention in the Middle East is a main motivation behind terrorist hostilities toward America, and that Islam is not a threat to the nation.

At a campaign stop on Saturday in Winterset, one man asked Paul how terrorist groups would react if the U.S. removed its military presence in Middle Eastern nations, a move the candidate advocates.

“Which enemy are you worried that will attack our national security?” Paul asked.

“If you’re looking for specifics, I’m talking about Islam. Radical Islam,” the man answered.

“I don’t see Islam as our enemy,” Paul said. “I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.”

Regarding 9/11, Paul said that attacks against the U.S. from Middle Eastern groups at home and abroad can be traced to the foreign presence of U.S. troops, as well as America’s relationships with dictator regimes.

Paul referred to a military base in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, as a key motivator in the Sept. 11th attacks. Osama bin Laden viewed it as an American desecration of holy land.

“After 9/11, (people said) ‘Oh yeah, it’s those very bad people who hate us,’ but 15 of (the hijackers) came from Saudi Arabia,” said Paul. “One of the reasons they attacked us, is we propped up this Sharia government and the fundamentalists hated us for it.”

The congressman particularly decried U.S.-led bombings in foreign nations, saying that “almost always those individuals that they are trying to kill did not have any direct relationship” with threats to the U.S.

Accordingly, his expectations for the rebels in Libya, who were assisted by American-led bombing efforts, aren’t very bright.

“Remember ‘Mission Accomplished’? That’s probably about where we are right now,” Paul told The Des Moines Register, “and (the U.S.) better be very cautious about bragging about anything.”

The crumbling of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s regime wouldn’t amount to a significant victory because al-Qaeda forces would arise there soon, Paul said.

“As bad as Gadaffi was, he didn’t like the al-Qaeda,” Paul said. “He kicked those people out.”

Paul cited a University of Chicago professor, Robert Pape, whose research argues that most of the suicide terrorism in the past 30 years was caused by military occupation. Pape’s research, funded by the Defense Department, shows that suicide bombings in Afghanistan went up one third after the Obama administration surged 30,000 troops into the country.

“(9/11) was one of the main motivations for getting your attention on why they hate us and want to kill us,” he said. “You could send 20 million people over there and all it would do is make our problems worse.”(source)

Ron is on the side of our enemy and the rest of the blame-America-first crowd with this kind of rhetoric. In one amazingly obtuse moment, he gives aid and comfort to the enemy, and denies that we gave away the lives of good American men and women in the defense of millions of people worldwide for their causes, and still do to this day.

To hear him talk, you would think that there is nothing in the heart of this worldwide movement of jihadists except simple revenge for wrong-headed global imperialism by the bully Uncle Sam, compounded by every bootstep that Johnny takes on their holy soil.

Sounds as plain as the nose on your face, doesn’t it? Let’s just do what Yuseff says, ok? After all, the jihadists speak for all Muslims and Arabs, right? We should base our foreign policy on the thinking of these war-driven lunatics who imagine an offense at everything we do from allowing our women to walk around without complete cover to giving voice to homosexuals.

Good move, there, Ron. You’ve succeeded in pulling the wool over the Americans’ eyes that have no knowledge of history. Your attempt to lull them to sleep is working with a surprising amount of naive folks. A little more of your philosophy on foreign policy is all we need to be on our knees again, begging for our way of life.

But there’s just a few nagging questions left that don’t fit into your “revenge for-stepping-on-our-soil” explanation:

When jihadists tried to assassinate the Pope repeated times in the past 30 years, what was his crime?

When jihadists have murdered, raped, and evacuated Buddhists in Bangladesh, Thailand, and India, what imperialism had they committed?

When jihadists in the 7th century invaded and destroyed the Zoroastrians, what did they do to deserve eradication?

When Iran’s Supreme Ruler, the Ayatollah Khomeni called for any good Muslim to kill Salman Rushdie on sight, what imperialism had he committed?

Ron’s woefully undereducated comments border on the bizarre, of course. It’s almost as if he’s not getting enough oxygen to his brain anymore. How can you square this non-sequitur: “One of the reasons they attacked us, is we propped up this Sharia government and the fundamentalists hated us for it.”

The Islamic fundamentalists WANT Shariah Law, Ron. You need to sit down and catch your breath, now. You’re embarrassing yourself.

Ron’s also been known to step on that good ship Lollypop known as Jew-hatin’, from time to time in the past. He has good company these days with the American Left, who resent our support of Israel and like to blame all Middle Eastern tension on such, as well. When you hear them use the word neo-con, you know you’re listening to someone who drinks from the same well as the Islamic Fundamentalists who kill Americans any chance they get.

You can chose to believe Ron and his brand of foreign policy that seeks to blame every US soldier’s death from Islamic Fundamentalists on our relationship with a tiny little speck of a nation, surrounded by hostile neighbors that have repeatedly tried to “push them into the Mediterranean” known as Israel (the only democracy in the Arab Empire), but can you answer these questions?:

Is Jemmaah Islamiya attempting to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia because the US supports Israel?

Are the Chechyan jihadists waging Jihad against Russia because the US supports Israel?

Is Abu Sayyef attempting to establish an Islamic state on Mindanao because the US supports Israel?

Are Jihadists attempting to establish an Islamic state in southern Thailand because the US supports Israel?

Have Nigerian Jihadists attacked innocent Christians repeatedly because the US supports Israel?

Is Al Shabaad conducting terrorist attacks in Kenya and Somalia on innocent civilians because the US supports Israel?

Are Jihadists attempting to create an Islamic state in India’s Kashmir because the US supports Israel?

Have Jihadists killed thousands in attacks on innocent civilians in Morocco, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Spain, Jordan and Bangladesh because the US supports Israel?

Are young Jihadis rioting in France because the US supports Israel?

Ron is right on about 99% of what he says concerning domestic spending, in my opinion. But it’s this 1% that completely paints him as your “crazy Uncle Ron” who likes to believe that he can hear aliens transmitting signals through the fillings in his teeth for me. And it’s a shame, too. But at 76 years old, you have to accept a little senility, I guess.

Barack O'Bully Wants To End Israel

2011-06-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

"Racism" is a killing hatred for an ethnos, a people or nation. It could be cold hatred, where you just want all those people to disappear from the face of the earth, or red-hot hatred, where you're just itching to bring out your Turkish scimitar and start chopping innocent men, women and children. It doesn't matter if racism is cold or hot. It's the "final solution" that defines it.

Obama just demanded that seven million Jews in Israel abandon their homes to live inside the cease-fire lines of their War of Independence. Those cease-fire lines are not borders, and were never meant to be borders. They are so weirdly drawn that Israel becomes nine miles wide at the waist. For Israel to withdraw to those lines is to "commit suicide" as a nation, as Newt Gingrich has just said. Gingrich is right. This is what radical Islamists keep shouting about, in one, vast industrialized stream of oil-fueled hate propaganda.

And now, ten years after 9/11/01, Obama has joined them.

I don't think Americans really understand that yet. It's obvious that many American Jews don't understand it either. There's a kind of culture shock when radicals express their real beliefs. Nobody wants to believe it.

I can't read minds, and I don't know if Obama has a visceral hatred for Israel. It's not even the right question to ask. The real, practical question is whether Obama is trying to sabotage and ultimately destroy that country. It's "practical racism" that's the issue.

The Left is always trying to draw an imaginary line between Israel hatred and Jew hatred. But it's a distinction without a difference. It's like saying that you love Americans -- but the country named "America" has to be destroyed.

Barack Hussein Obama is therefore a practical racist -- he can proclaim all the lovely sentiments he wants to, finely tuned to whichever audience he wants to sucker, but his stated, practical goal is to shrink Israel into the tiniest and least defensible borders possible. It's like telling America to go back to the original thirteen colonies.

In a world of reality, not high-flown rhetoric, Obama wants to terminate a viable Jewish State in Israel, just as, deep down, he wants to terminate a viable nation of America. That's the program of the Left, and has been since Karl Marx. It's a utopian, one-world fantasy, that always sounds better than anything real. So Barack Hussein Obama, the President of the United States, has come out against the existence of a viable State of Israel. That would be Progress, he seems to think.

If you haven't understood that, your eyes are closed. Consider lifting your eyelids.

The word "racist" has become a word of abuse without real meaning, like the ancient word "bastard." It used to mean something, and then it became just a fuzzy thing meaning "really bad." The Left makes use of race to smear people it wants to oppress and control. It's a verbal club for beating people over the head. But there really are practical racists, people who dream of actually destroying an entire ethnos, a people. The other word for that is "genocide."

We now hear that Hillary Clinton and the Administration have again repeated that demand to commit national suicide. This is what O'Bully did to Hosni Mubarak during the phony "Egyptian Spring." He demanded that Mubarak must resign, and "Now means Now!!" But Mubarak had been our ally for almost 30 years, the man who kept the Egypt-Israel peace treaty alive. O'Bully humiliated Mubarak in public, a tremendous loss of face for an Arab leader, and he resigned.

Now the Muslim Brotherhood is making a grab for power in Egypt.

We've seen this totalitarian movie before. The last time it cost 100 million people their lives. Like Communists during the Soviet Union, Obama never talks about those 100 million victims of Marxist regimes in the 20th century.

Obama has apologized for America on numerous occasions, but he has never deplored the murderous record of Marxist-Leninism. That is significant.

Twenty years ago the Berlin Wall came down, after Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, John Paul II, and a host of freedom activists like Poland's Solidarity fought for human freedom.

Today Barack O'Bully is trying to reverse history by empowering the reactionary Muslim Brotherhood -- which now controls Turkey, Gaza, and maybe Egypt. The other brand of radical Islam is now in control of Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

Iran is getting nukes, and Obama is doing nothing to stop them. Some reports say it's a matter of weeks or months. The Syrians have been revealed as building two more nuclear sites, beside the one the Israelis identified and smashed several years ago. The Saudis, who are radical Sunnis, are due to buy their own nukes from Pakistan (where they helped to finance Pakistan's nukes).

It's happening right in front of our eyes. The facts are no longer in dispute.

They are what they are.

You can keep your eyes shut tight, like a hundred million liberals do every single day.

Or you can open your eyes.

The choice is yours.(source)

Barry As President: GOOGLE GIVES SPECIAL FAVOR TO THEIR MAN FOR UPCOMING ELECTION SEASON

2011-06-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Google denied Wednesday that it gave President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign special access to a new advertising program, something a sales representative from the search and advertising giant had claimed in an email to customers.

The new ad program would charge clients for every email address (or other piece of user data) they collect. The program is attractive to campaigns eager for that information, so when a staffer at the National Republican Senatorial Committee saw what appeared to be an Obama ad built on this technology on the RealClearPolitics website last month, she emailed a Google sales rep to ask about creating a similar ad campaign for Republicans.

The saleswoman, Sirene Abou-Chakra, replied by suggesting that Obama had a special deal.

“This is a pre-alpha product that is being released to a select few clients,” she wrote in an email, referring to the first stage of a product’s roll-out. “I’d be happy to get you into the beta if you’re interested.”

A similar email went out to at least one other Republican digital media firm, a Republican source said.

“It certainly raises some red flags that the Obama campaign appears to have been given special access to a new online advertising product,” said NRSC communications director Brian Walsh in response to an inquiry from POLITICO.

But Google spokesman Jake Parrilo denied strenuously that the Obama campaign had been granted special access to the pilot program, and chalked the email up to inaccurate “puffery” by the sales representative. The ad that appeared on RealClearPolitics, he said, was not a Google ad at all.

“This is an experiment and while we generally do not comment on those experiments we can tell you that we have not sold a single CPL [cost-per-lead] ad unit to any political candidates or committees,” said Parrillo.

And Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt seconded the company’s account that the campaign had not purchased any ads or enrolled in the Google pilot program.

Google, whose chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt was an informal adviser and support of Obama and sits on the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, has been accused in the past of favoring the White House. The Federal Trade Commission dropped an investigation into the company after a major privacy breach, leading some Republican groups to cry for an investigation — even as Google agreed to a tough 20-year FTC settlement on a second privacy breach.

After POLTICO asked Google about the suggestion of a special deal for the campaign, a Google spokesman forwarded a reporter correspondence between the company and the NRSC, charging - inaccurately - that the committee had been the source of POLITICO’s information.

The forward prompted Walsh to add that he is “concerned that Google shared a private email exchange with our committee and their company with the media.”

The pilot program at issue is a new type of digital advertising that Google appears to be preparing to launch in the third quarter of 2011.

“It’s a cost-effective, easy and scalable way to generate leads,” boasted Google in a marketing document about their new product. “Fewer steps for users means they’re more likely to complete your lead form.”

Parrillo told POLITICO that the Republican and the Democratic political ad sales teams at Google are kept separate and are unaware of the other side’s projects or deals.(source)

MSM Diary: Owned By The Drudge Report, Which Is More Fair And Balanced Than The Mainstream Press

2011-06-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

The liberal bias of the mainstream media tilts so far left that any outlets not in that political lane, like the Drudge Report and Fox News Channel, look far more conservative than they really are, according to a UCLA professor's new book out next month.

In a crushing body blow to the pushers of the so-called "Fox Effect," which claims the conservative media is dragging the left into the center, UCLA political science professor Tim Groseclose in Left Turn claims that "all" mainstream news outlets have a liberal bias in their reporting that makes even moderate organizations appear out of the mainstream and decidedly right-wing to news consumers who are influenced by the slant. [Read Fox's Huckabee slams MSNBC's Matthews, Scarborough over bias.]

"Fox News is clearly more conservative than ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and National Public Radio. Some will conclude that 'therefore, this means that Fox News has a conservative bias,'" he writes in an advance copy provided to Washington Whispers. "Instead, maybe it is centrist, and possibly even left-leaning, while all the others are far left. It's like concluding that six-three is short just because it is short compared to professional basketball players."

What's more, he says, "this point illustrates a common misconception about the Drudge Report. According to my analysis, the Drudge Report is approximately the most fair, balanced, and centrist news outlet in the United States. Yet, the overwhelming majority of media commentators claim that it has a conservative bias. The problem, I believe, is that such commentators mistake relative bias for absolute bias. Yes, the Drudge Report is more conservative than the average U.S. news outlet. But it is a logical mistake to use that to infer that it is based on an absolute scale."

And in further analysis sure to enrage critics of conservative media, Groseclose determines that Drudge, on a conservative to liberal scale of 0-100, with 50 being centrist, actually leans a bit left of center with a score of 60.4. The reason: Drudge mostly links to the sites of the mainstream media, with just a few written by Matt Drudge himself. "Since these links come from a broad mix of media outlets, and since the news in general is left-leaning, it should not be surprising that the slant quotient of the Drudge Report leans left," he writes. [Read Poll: Fox, O'Reilly most trusted news sources.]

The author developed a calculation to figure out the "political quotient" to find the bias of media outlets and the average slant of an organization.

Groseclose opens his book quoting a well-known poll in which Washington correspondents declared that they vote Democratic 93 percent to 7 percent, while the nation is split about 50-50. As a result, he says, most reporters write with a liberal filter. "Using objective, social-scientific methods, the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it actually is. Instead, we see only a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see." [Check out political cartoons about the Democratic Party.]

He adds: "That bias makes us more liberal, which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which makes us even more liberal."

Some key points:

"Every mainstream national news outlet in the United States has a liberal bias."

"Supposedly conservative news outlets are not far right. For instance, the conservative bias of [Fox's] Special Report is significantly less than the liberal bias of CBS Evening News."

"Media bias aids Democratic candidates by about 8 to 10 percentage points in a typical election. I find, for instance, that if media bias didn't exist, John McCain would have defeated Barack Obama 56 percent to 42 percent, instead of losing 53-46." [See editorial cartoons about Barack Obama.]

Perhaps the most useful part of his book is the slant ratings of the media. The numbers are based on a conservative-to-liberal 0-100 rating, with 50 being centrist:

•New York Times-73.7.
•CBS Evening News-73.7.
•NPR Morning Edition-66.3.
•U.S. News & World Report-65.8.
•Drudge Report-60.4.
•ABC Good Morning America-56.1.
•Washington Times-35.4.

Left Turn, How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, published by St. Martin's Press, is due out July 19.

THE REWARDS OF BEING A SOCIALIST: Pelosi's Wealth Grows By 62 Percent

2011-06-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saw her net worth rise 62 percent last year, cementing her status as one of the wealthiest members of Congress.

Pelosi was worth at least $35.2 million in the 2010 calendar year, according to a financial disclosure report released Wednesday. She reported a minimum of $43.4 million in assets and about $8.2 milion in liabilities.

For 2009, Pelosi reported a minimum net worth of $21.7 million.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) also remained a multimillionaire. He reported that his minimum net worth in 2010 was close to $2.1 million, with zero liabilities. His 2009 minimum net worth was more than $1.8 million.

Forms disclosing the assets and liabilities of lawmakers for the 2010 calendar year were released Wednesday. The forms give a good estimate of lawmaker wealth, though they show ranges and not precise values for stocks, pension plans, vacation homes and other assets of lawmakers.

Pelosi saw her wealth rise due to some stock gains and real estate investments made by her husband, Paul.

Apple stock owned by Pelosi's spouse rose from at least $500,000 in 2009 to $1 million in 2010. The minority leader's husband also took a bigger stake in Matthews International Capital Management — worth at least $5 million last year, compared to $1 million in 2009 — and his investment in some undeveloped residential real estate in Sacramento, Calif., jumped to at least $5 million in value.

Paul Pelosi also has sizable assets in the United Football League, including $1 million in a partnership interest in a Jacksonville, Fla., franchise and $5 million in a partnership interest for the Sacramento Lions. (source)

Barry As President: JUST AS NIXON HAD HIS CAMBODIA OPERATION, Obama Orders The CIA To Operate Drones Over Yemen

2011-06-14T15:54:00.001-07:00

The CIA is expected to begin operating armed drone aircraft over Yemen, expanding the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in a country where counter-terrorism efforts have been disrupted by political chaos, U.S. officials said.

The plan to move CIA-operated Predator and other unmanned aircraft into the region reflects a decision by President Obama that the al-Qaeda threat in Yemen has grown so serious that patrols by U.S. military drones are not enough.

U.S. officials said the CIA would operate alongside, and in close coordination with, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which has been flying Predators and other remotely piloted planes over Yemen for much of the past year.

Because it operates under different legal authorities than the military, the CIA may have greater latitude to carry out strikes if the political climate shifts in Yemen and cooperation with American forces is diminished or cut off.

The expanded drone campaign will make use of “a mix of U.S. assets,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan. “It’s not like you’re going to have a change of command ceremony that goes from U.S. military to CIA.”

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment when asked Monday about the Yemen plans. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said the White House also would not comment. The CIA’s plans were first reported by the Wall Street Journal Monday night.

The new tasking for the agency marks a major escalation of the clandestine American war in Yemen, as well as a substantial expansion of the CIA’s drone war.

The agency pioneered the use of armed drones in Afghanistan a decade ago and has carried out hundreds of strikes in Pakistan in recent years. As a result, officials said, the CIA has developed substantial expertise in using a combination of drone surveillance and the cultivation of human source networks on the ground to carry out strikes inside a country where the U.S. military has limited ability to operate.

The addition of CIA drones also addresses a growing concern inside the Joint Special Operations Command that the military-run drone campaign in Yemen was not getting adequate resources, given the seriousness of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen-based offshoot of the terrorist group is known.

Fewer than a dozen JSOC drones have been available to conduct patrols over Yemen for much of the past year, far fewer than have been used in Afghanistan or Iraq, said a second U.S. official.

The official, and others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding operations in Yemen. The decision to deploy CIA drones to Yemen comes as cooperation between U.S. special operations forces and Yemeni counter-terrorism units have collapsed amid political turmoil.

Yemen’s dictator for the past three decades, Ali Abdullah Saleh, flew to Saudi Arabia recently after being injured in an attack. Some Yemeni counter-terrorism teams, which are led by Saleh relatives, have been diverted from the pursuit of AQAP.

The turmoil has put pressure on the White House to use other means to locate AQAP operatives, who are seen as taking advantage of the chaos to improve their position in the country and potentially launch new attacks.

In recent months, some JSOC officers have complained to officials visiting from Washington that their paucity of resources was puzzling, given the concern expressed by the nation’s top intelligence officials about AQAP.

White House officials disputed that characterization. U.S. officials have testified repeatedly in recent months that AQAP represents the most immediate terrorism threat to American targets. At a hearing before a Senate committee Thursday, CIA Director Leon Panetta confirmed that the agency had expanded its counter-terrorism programs in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

“Our approach has been to develop operations in each of these areas that will contain al-Qaeda and go after them so they have no place to escape,” he said.

The group is responsible for plots that have included the unsuccessful attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009 and an effort to send packages packed with explosives to addresses in the United States last year.

One of the key figures in the group is an American-born cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, who escaped a drone strike targeting him in Yemen last month. That strike was the first by the United States in Yemen since 2002, punctuating a long drought that U.S. officials have attributed to a lack of solid intelligence on the whereabouts of AQAP operatives who went into hiding after a flurry of conventional airstrikes in late 2009 and early 2010.

Another constraint on the Yemen campaign has been the availability of runway capacity at a U.S.-operated airfield in Djibouti, where the JSOC drones are based. It is not clear whether the CIA aircraft will operate from the same facility.(source)

Puerto Rican Independentistas Burn US Flag in San Juan During Obama Visit

2011-06-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

Obama Heckeled At Miami Fundraiser

2011-06-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Barry As President: Unable To Make A Moral Call, White House Won't Say Weiner Should Resign

2011-06-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

Remember how easily it was for Barry to make a judgement on the entire police department of Cambride, Mass, and how "stupidly" they acted? Even more time for review has elapsed in the Weiner scandal case than was allowed the Cambridge Police Dept in the Henry Gates case, but poor little Barry seems paralyzed with fear to make a smilar judgement about Weiner's actions.

A White House spokesman said Monday that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) is a "distraction" from important issues, but he stopped short of calling for Weiner's resignation.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, who refused to comment on the scandal last week, said Monday that "the president feels, we feel at the White House this is a distraction."

"As Congressman Weiner has said himself, his behavior was inappropriate, dishonesty was inappropriate," Carney said, briefing reporters aboard Air Force One. "But the president is focused on his job, which is getting this economy continuing to grow, creating jobs and ensuring the safety and security of the American people."

Several senior Democrats including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and Democratic Campaign Congressional Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), called on Weiner to resign over the weekend.

When pressed on whether Obama would like to see Weiner resign, Carney demurred.

"I answered that question," Carney said. "We think it's a distraction from the important business that this president needs to conduct and Congress need to conduct. Beyond that I don't have any more comment."

Weiner entered a rehab facility over the weekend and has requested a leave of absence from the House while he seeks treatment.

MSM Diary: Weiner Scandal Is The Result Of "Culturally Backwards" Rural Americans, Says Chris Matthews

2011-06-13T14:50:00.001-07:00

Palin Email Frenzy Backfires On Her Media Antagonists

2011-06-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

The trove of more than 13,000 emails detailing almost every aspect of Sarah Palin’s governorship of Alaska, released late on Friday, paints a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics.

One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.

If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as “an embarrassment for legacy media”.

Mrs Palin, who suddenly resigned as Alaska governor in July 2009, is no longer a public official. She holds no position in the Republican party. Despite the media hubbub that surrounds her every move, she is unlikely to be a candidate for the White House in 2012.

She is, however, viewed with a kind of horrified fascination by many in the media, who faithfully records everything she says and does while at the same time decrying her as ignorant and even evil.

Whether or not she runs for the White House – and the solid consensus among Republican leaders is that she won’t – the scramble over the Palin emails confirms her status as a pivotal figure in the race to challenge President Barack Obama next year.

It comes at a moment when the battle for the Republican nomination appears set to be transformed by the late entry of Governor Rick Perry of Texas, a social conservative and Palin ally who could almost immediately leap to the front of a currently lacklustre field.

Sources close to Mr Perry have confirmed that he is “highly likely” to announce a presidential run in the coming days. Intriguingly, they have also hinted at a something they believe would increase immeasurably Mr Perry’s chances of winning the White House – an endorsement from Mrs Palin.

On policy, Mrs Palin and Mr Perry, who succeeded George W Bush in 2000 and has since become the longest-serving governor in Texas history, are in almost perfect alignment. In addition, they are both beloved of the Tea Party, highly suspicious of Washington and physically attractive (Mr Perry is often likened to the Marlboro Man), charismatic figures.

Mrs Palin has repeatedly said that she believes Mr Obama can be defeated and that she will do everything to achieve that. With her popularity among independent voters very low, despite the intensity of her core support, throwing her weight behind a stronger candidate would be a better way of preserving her political capital and earning power than being one of the losing candidates in the Republican primaries.

The notion of Mrs Palin as White House kingmaker would have seemed wildly improbable if anyone had raised it before August 2008.

It was then that she was catapulted to international fame by Senator John McCain’s surprise decision to make her his vice-presidential running mate. Her reaction? “Can you flippinbelieveit?!”

This was a world, as the emails reveal, in which the then Alaska governor fretted about things like there being alcohol in her official residence, that might be a temptation to the teenage friends of her children.

In May 2007, she sought help from her staff in keeping the alcohol in the governor’s mansion away from young people, stating that it should be boxed up and “removed from the People’s House” – both for practical reasons and as a statement about her administration.

“Here’s my thinking: with so many kids and teens coming and going in that house, esp during this season of celebrations for young people – proms, graduations, etc, I want to send the msg that we can be – and ‘the People’s House’ needs to be – alcohol-free. There’s a lot of booze there – its too accessible and may be too tempting to any number of all those teens coming and going.”

In a February 2007 exchange, one adviser recommended that when she was in Washington she meet Pete Rouse, a Senate official who had lived in Alaska. “He’s now chief-of-staff for a guy named Barack Obama,” the aide wrote, adding that Mr Rouse “wants to help Alaska however he can”. Far from shrinking at the idea of conferring with a Democrat, Mrs Palin replied: “I’m game to meet him.”

The emails will finally confirm – in all but the darkest recesses of the world of Left-wing conspiracy theories – that Mrs Palin is, in fact, the mother of her youngest son Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome.

After relentless promotion by Andrew Sullivan, the British blogger who now works for Daily Beast/Newsweek, of the proposition that the mother was in fact Mrs Palin’s daughter Bristol, a teenager at the time, the subject had become part of mainstream debate.

The emails show Mrs Palin’s determination to protect Bristol but also her desire for a degree of privacy. “I wish I could shame people into ceasing such gossip about a teen, but I can’t figure out how to do that,” she wrote.
Communications from her children and husband make her family appear close and loving.

An email from Bristol, referring to her younger sister, said: “Hello Mother, Um, I’m sitting in library and I really thing you need to get Piper a cell phone!! Wouldn’t that be so adorable! She could text me while she was in class!! It’s a done deal right?! Perfect! Ok, I will talk to you later and I need some cash flow! Love ya!”

To an extent, the emails remind Americans of the person they saw take the stage at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota nearly three years ago – refreshing, plain-speaking, open and uncomplicated.

Since then, her image has hardened into one of a brittle, even paranoid, politician who seethes with resentment, feels aggrieved and entitled and is intent on pursuing celebrity even at the expense of her family.

Mrs Palin as a person has become so remote that it is hard to assess how much, if any, of that widely-held caricature has a basis in truth. The email release could mark the end of a chapter of what conservatives have termed “Palin Derangement Syndrome”. Her enemies in the media appear to have overplayed their hand.

Expressing a sentiment that will resonate with many, Greta Van Susteren, a Fox News anchor who is close to Mrs Palin, argued that she had been subjected to “a media colonoscopy” by news organisations on “a mission to destroy”.
With a film entitled The Undefeated, chronicling Mrs Palin’s rise to prominence, about to air, the former Alaska governor is doubtless hoping that harsher perceptions of her can be blunted.

Probably the person who has damaged her most, apart from perhaps the CBS anchor Katie Couric who elicited blank stares when she asked what Mrs Palin read, was Tina Fey, the Saturday Night Live comedienne and impersonator.

It was Fey who seared into the popular imagination the Palin phrase: “I can see Russia from my house!” Mrs Palin had never said any such thing but it encapsulated the feeling that she was frivolous and lacked any foreign policy credentials.

Three days later, a staffer called Patrick Galvin emailed Mrs Palin saying: “My suggestion is you offer to go on SNL and play Tina Fey, and you interview her as she plays you.”

Fey’s impersonation was so powerful that the two women are inseparable in some minds. Fox News, for which Mrs Palin works on a lucrative contract as a commentator, recently aired a picture of fey instead of Mrs Palin by mistake.
Mrs Palin did go on the show back in October 2008. But perhaps now might the time for Mrs Palin to take up Mr Galvin’s suggestion and return for a proper head-to-head.(source)

Obama's Failed Diplomacy At Work: Iran Speaks Nakedly About Testing Its First Nuclear Bomb

2011-06-09T16:52:00.001-07:00

'The day after Iran's first nuclear test is a normal day'
A bizarre article on a Revolutionary Guard website breaks a taboo by anticipating the impact of an Iranian bomb

Any mention of an Iranian nuclear weapon is taboo in the Islamic Republic, which insists that its nuclear programme is entirely for peaceful, civil purposes. So it is remarkable, to say the least, that an article has appeared on the Gerdab website, run by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, anticipating the day after Iran's first test of a nuclear warhead. Here is a translation of the text:

The day after Iran's first nuclear test is a normal day.
The day after Islamic Republic of Iran's first nuclear test will be an ordinary day for us Iranians but in the eyes of some of us there will be a new sparkle.
It's a good day. It's seven in the morning. The sun is not fully up yet but everywhere is bright. In the northern hemisphere many countries are beginning the day...

The day before, probably in central deserts of Iran, where once Americans and some other Western countries wanted to bury their nuclear waste, an underground nuclear explosion has taken place. The strength of the explosion was not so great as to cause severe damage to the region nor so weak that Iranian scientists face any problems in running their tests.

Today is a normal day like any other. Like 90% of the year, there is news about Iran, and these are the headlines which can be seen on foreign news sites:

Reuters: Iran detonated its nuclear bomb
CNN: Iran detonated nuclear bomb
Al-Jazeera: The second Islamic nuclear bomb was tested
Al-Arabia: The Shia nuclear bomb was tested
Yahoo! News: Nuclear explosion in Iran
Jerusalem Post: Mullahs obtained nuclear weapon
Washington Post: Nuclear explosion in Iran, Shock and despair in Tel Aviv

Meanwhile, the domestic media will offer many congratulations to the Hidden Imam and the Supreme Leader:

Keyhan: Iran's first nuclear bomb was tested
Jomhoori-e-eslami: Iran successfully carried out a nuclear test
Iran: By order of the president, Iran's 100% homemade nuclear bomb was tested
Ettela'at: Iran's much anticipated nuclear bomb exploded

This strange, hypothetical, article, which first appeared on April 24, hammers home again and again the message that an Iranian nuclear test will not lead to disaster. On the contrary, life will go as before except that Iranians will feel better about themselves.

The news commotion will not knock life in Iran off balance. Civil servants will punch in at work on time as always, while some will be late as always. ...The day after the Islamic Republic of Iran's first nuclear test will be an ordinary day for us Iranians but in the eyes of some of us there will be a new sparkle. A sparkle of national pride and strength.

This has the look of a kite being flown, but for whom? It could be intended to get Iranians used to the idea of a nuclear test, and less fearful of international reaction. It could be a gesture of defiance to the world by hardline elements - according to independent experts, Gerdab is run by the Revolutionary Guards' cyber defence command, which is presumably still smarting from the Stuxnet attack.

Opposition websites describe it as an enforcement tool for the regime, identifying and threatening independent bloggers inside Iran.
The article comes during a period when Tehran's official stance is particularly defiant and assertive, announcing today that it will triple its production of 20% enriched uranium and shift it to the underground Fordow site, near Qom.

Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli expert on the Tehran regime currently lecturing in Colombia, described the Gerdab article as "unbelievable".

I have never seen anything like this report. It's breaking a major taboo. For now we have to treat it as a one off. However if this report is followed by others similar to it, then it would signify a major change in the way Iran refers to its nuclear program. It would mean that Iran has decided to use the idea of a nuclear bomb as a deterrence against further sanctions and the possibility of a military attack by the West. It could also be a tool for the regime to boost its waning popularity at home.

Such a change could prove to be very damaging in the short and long term, as it would be a significant boost for western efforts to isolate Iran and to consolidate the international consensus against the Islamic Republic and its nuclear program. Such isolation and deteriorating economic situation could be more damaging to the regime's top priority, which is its survival, than a military attack by the West.(source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Obama's Undeclared War on America

2011-06-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Cloward-Piven Strategy
Republican US House Speaker John Boehner, and US Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking minority member Richard Lugar, are both obsessed with bringing President Obama to account under the War Powers Act for his intervention in Libya.

Libya is typical of Obama's foreign policy: timid, tardy, aloof, and counterproductive. Accordingly, the outcome from Obama's Libyan humanitarian adventure has been predictable, needlessly adding over $1 billion to the US federal deficit while emboldening a stalemate benefitting Gaddafi, who continues to inflict civilian casualties with impunity.

Whatever Obama's disposition of the War Powers Act concerning Libya, it is still trivial stuff compared with Obama's undeclared War on America. Boehner and Lugar need to stand down from the snipe hunt over Libya and pay attention to Obama's destruction here at home.

Obama's undeclared War on America has been as intense, unrelenting, costly, and devastating as any undeclared war since Korea. Obama's carpet-bombing through taxes, regulations, energy policies, and pledging to do more of the same has paralyzed and bankrupted the nation, plunging it into a despondency not seen since eight decades ago.

Apart from James Buchanan, no president has been so ill-prepared and willfully ignorant as Obama when presented with an unprecedented national crisis. We are now mired in the 21st century Great Gloom, our nation's 2nd Great Depression, having identical features with the first one: millions of Americans are out of work with few prospects for any; millions more Americans have lost their homes with even more facing foreclosure and owing more on their mortgages than the homes are worth; the private sector is calcified; high taxes and regulations frustrate capital formation and job creation.

Obama's inability or unwillingness to read history, compounded by his stubborn big government ideology, has led him to adopt or advocate for the single most devastating tactic that doomed Herbert Hoover when the Great Depression began and plagued FDR as the wretchedness of the 1930s persisted for nearly another decade: higher taxes.

The Great Depression's illiquidity closed thousands of banks, wiped out savings, and obliterated home and farm ownership. High tariffs choked international trade, idling more businesses and spoiling more stockpiles of foodstuffs.

Today's analog -- regulatory fever -- has strangled job creation, demolished the real estate markets, and crushed any hope to restore self-confidence by heaping nearly $2 trillion of unrelieved costs on American business.

Except for taxes and tariffs -- as David M. Kennedy argues in his Freedom From Fear-The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945, at least President Herbert Hoover didn't deliberately make the Depression worse. Hoover was physically exhausted and mentally drained in tirelessly applying any remedy that would ease the suffering and stop the economic bleeding.

Says Kennedy ( p. 94) "He kept up a punishing regimen of rising at six and working without interruption until nearly midnight. His clothes were disheveled, his hair rumpled, his eyes bloodshot, complexion ashen.

"By the fall of 1932 he had lost all stomach for political campaigning...seemed to campaign more for vindication of the historical record than for the affection in the hearts of voters.

"Just four years earlier he had won one of the most lopsided victories in the history of presidential elections...The Great Engineer, so recently the most revered American, was the most loathed and scorned figure in the country."

Contrast that scene with Obama on another golf outing, wolfing down chilidogs and cheeseburgers, and launching his 2012 re-election campaign eighteen months in advance.

Hoover gets a bum rap for allowing a recession to turn into the Great Depression. He tried everything at his disposal that contemporaneous economists and banker/financiers thought would work. But as Kennedy further observes, through the lens of economist Herbert Stein, the federal government at the time was too small to be leveraged; state and local governments had collective budgets five times larger than the federal government and some states had statutory restrictions on incurring more indebtedness. According to Kennedy, even Pennsylvania by its own constitution could not borrow more than $1 million.

The federal budget in 1929 was only 3% of GDP. Obama's 2012 budget would approach 25% of GDP. Obama sees no limit to bloated bureaucracies, the size of government tenfold larger and growing even more immense than Hoover could ever have imagined, and the debt to go with it flirting with sovereign default.

In the beginning Hoover, not gregarious by nature, engaged every politician and business leader who he thought could be enlisted for advice or action. Only after exhausting all possibilities, while the nation's fortunes plummeted further, did Hoover become isolated and withdrawn. Kennedy relates a dark joke circulating at the lowest point of Hoover's presidency: "the president asked for a nickel to make a telephone call to a friend, an aide flipped him a dime and said 'call them both'."

Hoover was a man of broad and deep intellect, a voracious student of economics and finance. Kennedy (p 94) recounts a quote from Theodore Joslin, a secretary to Hoover:

His was a mathematical brain...Let banking officials for example come into his office and he would rattle off the number of banks in the country, list their liabilities and assets, describe the trend of fiscal affairs, and go into the liquidity or lack of it, of individual institutions, all from memory.

What a contrast to Obama's teleprompter presidency, uttering shopworn political clichés with it, occasionally unable to string together anything coherent without it.

Prior to becoming president, Hoover was regarded as the most experienced organization titan, ironically owing to his single-handed leadership in the acclaimed Belgian food relief program upon the outset of WWI. As Kennedy notes, at the end of the War, Hoover was President Wilson's personal advisor, "as much as any one man could he got the credit for reorganizing the war-shattered European economy."

Yes, Hoover is tagged with failure. Yet he was serious, purposeful, and above all, even willing to abandon his own ideology in search for a cure. Hoover's acquiescence to the formation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation capped a sequence of measures harnessing the potential power of government intervention when it was clear private means were insufficient. In fact, as Kennedy continues, noted Columbia University economist Rexford Tugwell, FDR's behind-the-scenes architect for much of the New Deal, "later conceded that practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started[.]"

Obama shares but two likenesses with Hoover. The first one in public utterances prone to underestimating the severity of the crisis.

Remarked Hoover in his famous understatement in May 1930, "I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued effort we shall rapidly recover...the depression is over[.]" Last week we heard from Obama that "the economy is taking a while to mend...and faces bumps on the road to recovery."

Hoover's comments were accidents of timing, Obama's deliberate obfuscations.

And second, not unlike Hoover's (and later FDR's) addiction to tax hikes, Obama has overseen piles of costs heaped on everyday Americans from deliberately high energy prices to environmental regulatory roadblocks on energy production to $1 trillion in taxes and mandates under ObamaCare.

Who can objectively deny Obama has made the extant condition worse? Whether he has purposefully made things worse is up for some debate; after all he has no expertise in anything from which to conjure a sinister plan. Yet economic destruction derived from ignorance, folly, and neglect is still destruction. At least Hoover, by contrast, was a self-made economist who understood capital formation and liquidity, monetary and fiscal theory, and international trade, debt, and currency flows.

Arguably, international isolationism contributed to and prolonged the Great Depression. Obama's own personal isolationism, evidenced by his contempt for regular Americans and standoffish relations with foreign leaders, handmaiden to the scorn and hostility he shows towards Republicans, is a continual roadblock in finding solutions.

Even Obama's own erstwhile cheerleader for doomed Obamanomics, Austan Goolsbee, chief economic advisor to the president, has found either the task overwhelming or the companionship insufferable -- take your pick -- after only 10 months on the job.

Temperamentally Obama is a drone unleashing as much destruction on the American psyche as his drones have done to destroy military targets in Afghanistan. Devoid of honest analytics, Obama continues to issue phony reports from the domestic battlefront. Even the Washington Post, fiercely loyal to Obama's personality and politics, has had enough of his lies about the success from the auto industry bailouts.

If Obama's game is to perfect an undeclared War on America, he is succeeding. It remains to be seen whether the Republicans can summon enough nerve to reprise Gen McAuliffe's famous retort to the German demand for surrender at Bastogne in December of 1944, "Nuts."

Only Congress can now do what the voters sent them to do -- disarm and defund Obama's undeclared War on America. And for 2012, who shall be the Republicans' Gen Patton, coming to America's rescue?(source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: US Is Nearing Even Worse Financial Crisis

2011-06-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

The U.S. is approaching a financial crisis worse than 2008, Jim Rogers, chief executive, Rogers Holdings, warned CNBC Wednesday.

"The debts that are in this country are skyrocketing," he said. "In the last three years the government has spent staggering amounts of money and the Federal Reserve is taking on staggering amounts of debt.

"When the problems arise next time…what are they going to do? They can’t quadruple the debt again. They cannot print that much more money. It’s gonna be worse the next time around."

The well-known investor believes the government won't shut down in August if agreement isn't reached on raising the debt ceiling, but he did say "draconian cuts" are needed in taxes and spending, especially military spending.

"We’ve got troops in 150 countries around the world. They’re not doing us any good, they’re making enemies. They’re costing us a fortune," he said.

Rogers said he is "not long anything in the U.S." and short on American tech stocks. He owns Chinese stocks as well as commodities and would love the world price of silver and gold to come down so he could "pick up the phone and buy more."

He said he owns Chinese stocks, currencies and commodities, adding the Chinese yuan will be a safer currency than the dollar.

"The U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world," he said. "The debts are going through the roof. Would you keep lending money to somebody who's spending money and not doing anything about it? No you wouldn't."

The pound sterling lost 90% of its value when it was no longer the world's reserve currency, he said, and the dollar will, too. In keeping with his philosophy he said he owns the U.S. dollar and is waiting for a rally. "If it doesn't happen I'll have to sell and take my losses."

He called Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke a "disaster" who has "never been right about anything" since he's been in Washington. "I hope he doesn't come back with QE3 but that's all he knows. The only thing he knows is to print money."

He predicted that after the Fed ends its quantitative easing program, known as QE2, this month, it may come back under another name.

"They're gonna bring it back because [Bernanke will] be terrified and Washington will be terrified," he said. "There's an election coming in November 2012. Washington's gonna print more money."(source)

UNION TRUTH REVEALED: Crashing A Special Olympics Ceremony To Show Their Hate

2011-06-09T10:16:00.001-07:00

Barry As President: Last Week Claims For State Jobless Benefits Increased 1,000 to 427,000

2011-06-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Record exports in April tempered fears that the economic recovery was running off the rails, even though first-time claims for jobless benefits edged higher last week.

A Commerce Department report on Thursday showed the trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly in April, as exports rose to a new record and imports from Japan tumbled more than 25 percent after its earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

The trade gap totaled $43.7 billion despite a jump in oil prices to the highest since September 2008, down 6.7 percent from a revised estimate of $46.8 billion in March, suggesting stronger second-quarter economic growth than economists had expected.

"A lot of forecasters, ourselves included, had lowered expectations for the second quarter, and this will reverse some of that reduction in expectations," said David Resler, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities International in New York.

Oil prices slid in May from April peaks but are creeping higher again after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Wednesday failed to agree on production increases.

A second report from the Labor Department, however, showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid unexpectedly edged higher last week, reinforcing a view that the job market recovery has stalled.

Initial claims for state jobless benefits increased 1,000 to 427,000. Economists had forecast claims to drop.

First-time claims have now been perched above the 400,000 mark for nine weeks in a row. Analysts normally associate a level below that with steady job growth.

"It's the same dismal trend continuing. It's not getting worse, but it's not getting better either," said Keith Hembre, chief economist at Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis.

The U.S. government said on Friday the U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent in May while nonfarm employers added a paltry 54,000 workers to their payrolls. The report was the latest and most stark sign of economic weakness.

Hembre said the unemployment rate could rise to 9.2 percent in the June report. That would add to President Barack Obama's political woes heading into the 2012 race for the White House.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday acknowledged the economy had slowed but offered no hint the central bank was considering more stimulus to boost growth.

JAPAN SUPPLY DISRUPTIONS

The $3 billion drop in imports from Japan from March to April was the largest on record. U.S. auto and auto parts imports from Japan and other suppliers fell $2.8 billion, partly reflecting supply chain disruptions in the aftermath of the triple disaster.

Once those problems are worked through, many analysts expect the trade gap to widen again.

"Right now (the trade report) looks like it's going to be positive for Q2 GDP, but by the end of June the bounce back will be obvious I think," said Thomas Simons, money market economist for Jefferies & Co in New York.

A separate Commerce Department report showed U.S. wholesale inventories rose a less-than-expected 0.8 percent in April, as automotive stocks fell the most since December 2009.

After the reports, U.S. stocks edged higher after six days of losses while Treasury debt was mostly flat and the dollar was higher against the euro.

The trade gap narrowed despite the biggest month-to-month jump in prices for imported oil in nearly three years. The average price rose to $103.18 per barrel, the highest since September 2008.

However, the volume of crude oil imports fell, pushing the overall U.S. oil import bill lower in April. That, combined with the lower imports from Japan, helped trim total U.S. imports 0.4 percent to $219.2 billion, even as imports of foods, feeds and beverages set a record, the report showed.

U.S. crude futures extended gains in trading on Thursday, touching $101.74 per barrel.

U.S. exports, buoyed by a weakening of the U.S. dollar, rose 1.3 percent to a record $175.6 billion, led by record shipments of industrial supplies and materials and capital goods and smaller gains for food, feeds and beverages, consumer goods and autos and auto parts.

The closely watched U.S. trade deficit with China jumped nearly 20 percent in April to $21.6 billion. It continues at a pace to exceed last year's record of about $273 billion.(source)

A Lesson To Ralph Stanley

2011-06-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

I was broken-hearted when I saw this ad for the first time in the Fall of 2008. A regional legend by the name of Ralph Stanley, bluegrass hero to millions of us from the Appalachian Mountains and beyond, actually endorsed Obama for president. If you know anything about the coal-mining territory in those mountains, it isn't surprising to learn that Democrat politics appeal to these poverty-stricken communities.

Despite living a rugged agrarian life in rocky terrain, forced to supplant their meager incomes by raising their own livestock, growing their own corn, and even by selling moonshine, many of these folks secretly yearn for any kind of government relief in whatever form it might take: a welfare check, food stamps, etc.

For those of us who have looked out past the horizon, though, we know that relying on government handouts is the road to ruin. The same politician who says, "I feel your pain", and offers no more than a 16 dollar increase in annual welfare payments to a family of four is also the same politician who wants to destroy your coal mining jobs.

When a misguided Ralph Stanley sits here and says, "I think I know a little something about the families of Southwest Virginia,...and we need a change from the past 8 years", I sadly shake my head and say, "Ralph, Ralph, Ralph. I hardly knew ya'. Don't you know that you're getting in bed with the devil?"

Coal Regs Would Kill Jobs, Boost Energy Bills

By Paul Bedard

Posted: June 8, 2011

Two new EPA pollution regulations will slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost, and electric rates will skyrocket 11 percent to over 23 percent, according to a new study based on government data.

Overall, the rules aimed at making the air cleaner could cost the coal-fired power plant industry $180 billion, warns a trade group.

“Many of these severe impacts would hit families living in states already facing serious economic challenges,” said Steve Miller, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “Because of these impacts, EPA should make major changes to the proposed regulations before they are finalized,” he said.

The EPA, however, tells Whispers that the hit the industry will suffer is worth the health benefits. “EPA has taken a number of sensible steps to protect public health, while also working with industry and other stakeholders to ensure that these important Clean Air Act standards—such as the first ever national Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for coal-fired power plants—are reasonable, common-sense, and achievable,” said spokesman Brendan Gilfillan. [Read Rep. Darrell Issa: Obama's Bad Policy, Harmful Regulations Add to Gas Prices.]

What’s more, officials said that just one of the rules to cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions will would yield up to $290 billion in annual health and welfare benefits in 2014. They say that amounts to preventing up to 36,000 premature deaths, 26,000 hospital and emergency room visits, and 240,000 cases of aggravated asthma. “This far outweighs the estimated annual costs,” says an official on background.

Still, the EPA did note that the two new antipollution rules are “pending” and that the agency has “accepted and are considering feedback” from the industry.

The industry says the costs and potential to lose four jobs for every new clean energy job created isn’t worth the rules, especially in a job-starved economy.

Referring to the analysis of the EPA regulations from National Economic Research Associates, Miller said they would be the most expensive rules ever imposed on power plants.

Coal-fired energy plants currently fuel about half of the nation’s energy supply.(source)

Arab spring: An Interactive Timeline of Middle East Protests

2011-06-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

The Predictable Middle East Crisis

2011-06-08T13:44:00.001-07:00

Can we know what will happen in the Middle East? William Gibson, an author and prophet of the information age, who, among other things, coined the word cyberspace, says that the future is predictable: "The future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed."

Contemporary Jewish-Muslim relations are distributed so grotesquely unevenly that they provide plenty of hints at future trends. These relations vary wildly with the setting, numerical strength of each group, and context. Let us take four examples, moving from one extreme to the other.

Context 1. When prominent American Muslims appear on English-language TV to discuss issues like the Ground Zero Mosque, they love to play the Jewish card. They equate contemporary American society's treatment of the Muslims with what the American Jews experienced back in the '20s and '30s, hoping that this comparison will gain them more sympathy. Generally, when they face a largely skeptical Western audience, they project an enlightened and friendly attitude toward their Jewish brothers.

Context 2. This attitude changes drastically on American college campuses, where the Muslim groups feel emboldened by the left-wing professors and students. But they still have nothing against the Jewish people per se. They just demonize the Jewish state, which they call "criticism."

Context 3. The distinction between the Jews and Israel completely disappears when the Muslims become a sizable minority. For example, this is the case in Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, where the Muslims make up 25% of the total population. Jew-hatred in Malmo has reached a point that even the BBC abandoned its usual political correctness and devoted one of its reports in December of 2010 specifically to the verbal and physical harassment of Malmo's tiny Jewish community by Muslim immigrants.

Context 4. If you think that the situation cannot get any uglier, you are mistaken. Let us go to a place where the Muslims are a majority. The screams "Jew! Jew!" served as a battle cry for the gang-rape of liberal journalist Lara Logan in Egypt. It was not an ordinary rape carried out in a secluded location. It took place in crowded Tahrir Square, and it went on for 25 minutes. She is not a Jew, but the mere labeling her as such was reason enough for the viciousness unleashed on her.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the West, fueled by immigration, higher birth rates and proselytizing, especially in prisons. If you are pondering the future of Jewish-Muslim relations, remember that the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

Because of their relatively small numbers, Jews are a convenient target. But Christian-Muslim relations follow the same trajectory, to which the Egyptian Copts will readily attest. An Iraqi Christian has been quoted by the Christian Science Monitor as saying, "What's happening to us is what happened to the Jews."

Speaking of predictions, the Internet is currently abuzz with a recent report titled "The Next Middle East War." Its author, Chuck DeVore, has an impressive resume. He attended the American University in Cairo in the '80s. Then, he served as a US Army lieutenant colonel in military intelligence and worked as a Reagan-appointed special assistant for foreign affairs in the Pentagon. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, DeVore "beat the CIA" to predicting the current Arab crisis, a.k.a. the Arab Spring. In a word, his new report is definitely worth a brief review.

The report defies the conventional wisdom that a direct military attack on Israel will have to await the next presidential election in the US in 2012. It argues that two other events will precipitate the attack. They are the parliamentary elections in Egypt in September, where the Brotherhood wants to boost its popularity, and the pending release of the Hariri report by the UN, which Hezb'allah wants to prevent. Even though Hamas and Hezb'allah represent two opposing wings in the Muslim world, the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality will bring them together.

Hence, the attack will occur in August of 2011, asserts the report. Here is the way it will unfold. Hamas and Hezb'allah declare a maritime blockade on Israel. They install anti-ship missile batteries in residential areas in Gaza and Lebanon, which attack Israeli ships. When Israel responds by hitting the batteries, the two terrorist groups invite Western media to report on casualties among civilians. International TV networks broadcast footage of bloodied women and children in Gaza.

The ensuing international indignation aroused by the Israeli 'atrocities' gives Hamas and Hezb'allah a "justification" to unleash a massive "retaliatory" rocket attack on major Israeli cities. Huge crowds in Tahrir Square in Cairo chant "Death to Israel, death to America!" The Obama administration calls for a "comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian question" and demands that Israel show more restraint. The UN Security Council calls for a ceasefire, while Egyptian parties pressure the military council to "teach Israel a lesson." Palestinian Authority President Abbas and Hamas leaders announce the creation of the Palestinian state. The media overlooks the part of the new state's charter proclaiming the intent to destroy Israel and institute Islamic law.

That was just the gist of Chuck DeVore's scenario. It sounds like a déjà vu, since we have already seen its main features, such as playing the victim card and using women and children for that reason. Another familiar feature is the dual role of the media. First, it is shamelessly manipulated to present a distorted view of reality. And second, once the distorted view is presented, this view actually shapes the reality by further inflaming Jew-hatred. In summary, the report paints a picture that is both chillingly dark and painfully familiar.

Eugene Veklerov is a scientist living in the Bay Area. (source)

Are Democratic Elections Feasible in the Middle East?

2011-06-08T13:35:00.001-07:00

Americans are hopelessly infatuated with "democracy" and relentlessly try to export it. The recent "Arab Spring" testifies to the seductive power of our proselytizing. Protestors often demand "freedom and democracy" but mesmerizing slogans aside, why is "democracy" so valuable or what it does it mean to those risking life and limb for it? The hard truth is that tribalism prone Arab nations will not become democratic. Democracy cannot be commanded into existence; it requires a complex culture to flourish and that culture is in short supply in today's Middle East.

When American leaders implore others to embrace democracy they usually mean free, regular elections. Then add multiple political parties, a reasonably independent media to report events, and an honest counting of the vote, and voilà, there you have it -- instant democracy. What could be simpler? And, from time-to-time, thanks to American pressure (and bribery) such instant election-based democracies momentarily emerge (e.g., Afghanistan) before reverting to violence-filled, corrupt authoritarianism.

American champions of democracy ignore harsh cultural realities and without certain habits of mind, democracy is just brief interlude. Failures far outnumber successes. The democratic Weimar Republic lasted less than 15 years and was easily toppled by Hitler. In Italy Mussolini similarly almost effortlessly pushed aside a democracy with shallow roots. In innumerable Third World nations, from Zimbabwe to Venezuela, Kenya to Egypt, the pattern is "One Person, One Vote, One Time."

So, what are the extra ingredients necessary for an enduring election-based democracy? Three in particular strand out. For one, the election's outcome ends the battle for power until the next election -- losers don't continue on with suicide bombers. Political quarrels don't vanish, but the key question of who won is settled and the loser publicly concedes, thanks supporters, congratulates the winner, and then fades into the background. Think of the razor thin 1960 Kennedy/Nixon election in which Nixon graciously conceded despite clear irregularities in the Illinois vote. Recent violence in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and countless places elsewhere exemplify this problem -- the loser just fights on regardless of the verdict. A mini version of this occurred in the US after the 2000 presidential election. When the Senate, as per Constitution, was certifying Bush's victory, a few disgruntled Democratic House members vocally disrupted Senate proceedings, and refused to leave the Senate floor until threatened with forcible removal by Capitol security (and the Gore camp encouraged this culturally aberrant behavior with all the talk of a "stolen election").

Democracy also requires that campaigns show self-restraint. Democratic elections are not about annihilating enemies. This is a murky line but there must be some limits lest conflicts escalate into civil war. Democratic elections are peaceful, routinized forms of civil conflict, not opportunities to settle scores violently. Yes, in some American states and cities voters may be enticed by free food and booze, even stuffing a ballot box or two, but bombing and kidnapping are impermissible. Not even our worst cases of voter intimidation, e.g., what occurred in Philadelphia with the New Black Panther Party, entails actually killing opponents.

Functioning democracies also possess what is called a "loyal opposition." That is, the defeated faction accepts its loss but still plays by the democratic rules, i.e., try again the next election. Winners must therefore restrain themselves when dealing with losers, a norm that rests on the supposition that today's winners may be tomorrow's losers. Even when electoral victories are decisive, majorities don't push too hard and in return expect the losers to behave themselves. The power of this norm becomes clear when it is violated. Conceivably, much of the public opposition to ObamaCare reflected the belief that the Democratic congressional majority, though technically within its rights, had over-stepped its power with backroom parliamentary maneuvers to enact hazy bloated legislation by razor thin margins that affected one-sixth of the US economy.

Lastly, democratic elections are not about replacing one kleptocracy with another. Think Zimbabwe where those elected to power enrich friends at the expense of the defeated. Again, moderation is essential. Yes, the winning side in democratic outcomes gains some economic advantages (e.g., Obama's tilt toward labor unions) but democracy and kleptocracies are incompatible. To proceed as if the winner deserves all the property of the loser almost guarantees elections that will quickly escalate into violence and ultimately, the end of democracy.

All of these necessary traits (and several others) are cultural, the results of decades of experience and punishing violators, and cannot be created by paper proclamations. Acculturating these norms runs counter to human nature. Modern humans have existed for perhaps 180,000 years and during that period, with tiny exceptions, power rested on naked force. Violent repression in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain are reactions rooted in 9,000 generations of human existence, and are not aberrations. In evolutionary terms, the penchant for peaceful democratic elections might be likened to an exceedingly rare genetic mutation.

Americans seldom recognize how we have been "trained" toward a culture undergirding electoral democracy. We take the immense and successful effort for granted. Most Americans grew up regularly voting in well-scripted school elections and watching them on TV, and "let's vote and abide by majority rule" was the mechanism to settle disputes. Beauty pageants and award ceremonies (e.g., the Oscars) display a reoccurring pattern -- secret ballot votes, limits on campaign tactics while losers graciously accept the verdict. Moderation was learned via sports -- "good sportsmanship" included post-game rituals such as shaking hands to cool lingering animosities. I tell my political science graduate students that the informal pick-up basketball game usually typifies the strength of democratic norms -- players from both teams observe unwritten rules of fairness, quickly forget the game, even if a little rough, and then go off for beer and pizza. Conflict is restrained, bounded, and transitory, just as it is in the political realm.

I seriously doubt whether Arab nations possess this facilitating culture. Just observe hair-trigger recourse to violence, the infatuation with guns and militias, a willingness to fight to the death, cruelty toward defeated foes, and how the passion for revenge can trump everything, including peace and prosperity. The British wisely understood the region -- after the Ottoman Empire's demise following WWI, Britain installed monarchies in the region as the "natural" political arrangement. Judged by the subsequent peace, monarchy, not democracy, was the correct choice.

Though "democracy" is a popular slogan among rebellious Arabs, I suspect that they really want is not democracy but a more equitable re-distribution of wealth coupled with less brutal authoritarian rule -- more cars and TVs, fewer secret police. "Economic populism" is a more accurate description and this hardly requires the institutional bric-a-brac of electoral democracy. A benign tyrant will suffice. In the final analysis, then, election-based democracy should not be the gold standard when judging Middle East political progress. Let us not be blinded by political fantasies.

Robert Weissberg is professor of political science-emeritus, University of Illinois-Urbana. His latest book is Bad Students Not Bad Schools.(source)

Prospects for Liberal Democracy in the Middle East

2011-06-08T13:29:00.001-07:00

The world has been mesmerized by the uprisings taking place in the Middle East against authoritarian regimes. Some speculation is that this effect was caused by the example of Iraq sustaining multiple democratic cycles. By force, the Bush administration annihilated Saddam's brutal regime and forced into place a democratic process. The speculation is that people in neighboring countries have been observant of the changes and now seek democracy for themselves. However, a liberal democracy is comprised of particular attributes such as representative government, rule of law, equality before the law, just punishment, property rights, and certain freedoms (e.g. religion, speech, association, etc.). It remains to be seen what the Iraqis and, for that matter, the rest of the Middle Eastern revolutionaries make of their opportunity.

Liberal democracy grows only in certain cultures. History has empirically demonstrated that cultures stemming from Christian, Eastern, and Far Eastern religions are compatible with stable, long term liberal democracies. On the other hand, it is not obvious that cultures emanating from an Islamic foundation are compatible with liberal democracy. This uncertainty is a key reason the European Union has resisted integrating Turkey. It may explain why there are no Muslim liberal democracies.

After World War I, Mustafa Ataturk brought the power of the Turkish state to bear against fundamentalist Islam. In an attempt to modernize, Ataturk forcibly introduced Western systems and required a secular bent. However, in current times, Recep Erdogan has leveraged public disapproval of government corruption, incompetence, and ineffectiveness to make gains in legislative representation. His Justice and Development Party, with ties to an earlier Islamist party, have been leading Turkey since 2002. While shair'a has not been formally declared the law of the land, a cultural shift is apparent by observing the effects of increased pressure on women to conform to Islamic dress styles (e.g. head scarves, veils) and public behaviors (fewer single women about, fewer women intermingling with men socially, etc.). In a downward trend, Freedom House notes the loss of freedoms of speech and the press. Even Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, admits civil liberties are endangered. Within the last year, in foreign affairs, Turkey has distanced itself from Israel and moved closer to Syria, a client state of Iran. Also, Turkey instigated the attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza in order to aid the Muslim Brotherhood progeny Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood aims to install totalitarian Islamist governments in all Muslim countries; oppression and persecution of non-believers is conjoined with their goals and not incidental.

New constitutions for both Afghanistan and Iraq were catalyzed by the United States. Unfortunately, both of their constitutions include diametrically opposed ideas. For example, both constitutions convey freedom of religion to citizens. But both also recognize the supremacy of Islamic law known as shair'a. Shair'a is opposed to freedom of religion. This tension suggests shair'a or the constitution must give. So far, in both countries, illiberal shair'a has prevailed. On several occasions, Afghanistan has attempted to impose the shair'a penalty of death on Afghans who converted to Christianity from Islam. And Iraq's Christian population has been targeted for violence to the extent that a small fraction of believers remain in their country today compared to several years ago.

Iran purports to be a democracy. But the current repression against the Green Movement after the corrupted 2009 presidential election indicates little tolerance for dissent against the theocracy. Following the fall in 1979 of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi by the Iranian Revolution, Khomeinists established a theocratic constitution. This has prevented any effective liberal opposition from forming legally. Now, that opposition is being brutally repressed even to the point of civilian deaths.

It is difficult to establish causality for the reason Muslim countries are inhospitable to liberal democracies. But there are many reasons shair'a is incompatible with classical liberalism. A leading reason is that shair'a is a totalitarian system brooking no dissent. Submission is required by shair'a of believers and non-believers alike. There is no quarter given for debate or reasoning.

One feature of liberal democracy is representative government. Juxtaposed against this is shair'a's imposition of poll taxes on non-believers in order to discourage participation. Also, there can be prohibitions against non-believers holding government office or judicial positions. Shair'a does not recognize the separation of mosque and state, so only particular political parties are allowed to form.

The rule of law is central to liberal democracy. However, shair'a doesn't consist of codified statutes per se. Rather, shair'a includes Koranic content and practices of Mohammed (sunna). Any fatwa, or religious ruling, issued by innumerous individuals, could result in an ex post facto hazard. Also, there are no trials by jury, but only trials before religious officials.

Equality before the law means that men and women have equal legal standing in a liberal democracy. But shair'a devalues the worth of women. As witnesses, a woman has half the value of a man. This means two women must contest one man's claims. A wife must prove her innocence if a husband accuses her of adultery, but a wife must prove her husband's guilt if she accuses. Wife beating is the prerogative of her husband's governance. Females are entitled to half the inheritance of males. Also, drawing the greatest distinction in inequality, shair'a countenances slavery. Enslavement can range from servitude to treatment as chattel (i.e. the slave does not retain even rights over his/her own body).

Liberal democracies eschew cruel and unusual punishments. But shair'a requires imprisonment and even severing of a hand of a thief, stoning to death for adultery by married men or women, and lashings for other sexual transgressions. Homosexual behavior and sodomy are punishable by death.

Property rights are not uniform under shair'a. For example, Saudi Arabia has no churches anywhere in the country. Elsewhere, in Muslim countries, it is not uncommon that Christians may not build churches. For churches that already exist, approval might be withheld to effect repairs.

Shair'a does not sanction freedom of speech or the press. The orchestrated worldwide violence protesting the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of September 30, 2005 depicting Mohammed is consistent with Islamic fundamentalism. Contesting Islamic beliefs is considered heresy and punishable by death. This is consistent with the lack of freedom of religion imposed by shair'a. Apostasy is a capital offense. The Koran encourages conversion at the point of the sword and permits killing non-believers who won't convert.

Optimists, multiculturalists, ignoramuses, and naifs think protesters in the Middle East will replace tyrannies with liberal democracies. Unfortunately, you can't get to there from where the protesters are starting. With the sole exception of Israel, cultures in the Middle East, dominated as they are by shair'a, are inimical to liberal democracy and liberty. Tyrants may fall, but any democracies that are established will devolve sooner or later into the totalitarian state that shair'a demands. In general, American foreign policy decisions should be informed by the constraints shair'a imposes on movement into modernity in the Middle East. In particular, Americans should not expend one drop of blood or any treasure on current or future uprisings in the Middle East. (source)

The Samson Option: Israel and Middle East Nuclear Strategy

2011-06-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

In the always arcane discourse of nuclear strategy, dialectical thinking is a "net." Only those who cast will catch. To calculate Israel's best strategic options following President Barack Obama's plans for "Palestine," therefore, the capable strategist must continue to ask and answer difficult questions -- sequentially, persistently, patiently, and above all, systematically. Only by seamlessly drawing together this complex body of interrelated queries and replies can the serious strategist ever hope for a coherent and comprehensive body of military and diplomatic theory. The only alternative is the usual patchwork quilt of journalistic or reportorial "explanation," an arbitrary mélange of more or less disjointed information and factoids lacking even the rudiments of predictive thought. Now, after Mr. Obama's speech, more than ever, Israel needs "wise counsel."

Stubbornly following the twisted cartography of his Middle East Road Map, President Barack Obama remains determined to midwife the birth of a twenty-third Arab state. This certain-to-be fragmented and radically unstable country called "Palestine" would promptly become a bitter and irreconcilable enemy of the United States.

There is further irony here. On the very same day that he praised members of the U.S. intelligence community for assassinating Osama bin Laden, Obama spoke forcefully on behalf of creating a new anti-American terror state. Should he succeed, the long-term security costs to this country from "Palestine" will likely outweigh even the most grievous new harms being conceived by al-Qaeda.

There is even a generally unrecognized nuclear dimension to probable "Palestine"-related harms. Despite Mr. Obama's expressly broad and plainly generic dislike of nuclear weapons -- a dislike based much more on visceral emotion and clichéd "wisdom" than on dialectical logic or considered reason -- any American-assisted birth of "Palestine" would substantially enlarge regional and worldwide risks of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. In essence, before any such portentous birth could be performed, a gravedigger would have to wield the forceps.

In the best of all possible worlds, Prime Minister Netanyahu, guided by lucidity, would strongly oppose all forms of Palestinian statehood. This would include opposition to even Netanyahu's own proposal for a "demilitarized" Palestinian state. Disingenuous even to Israel's allies, intra-national and international, this idealized proposal for bilateral coexistence with "Palestine" stood no chance of success from the start. Inevitably, the new Palestinian government, supported by both codified and customary international law, would correctly assert its "inherent" right to national armed forces for "self defense." Palestine, after all, with President Obama's utterly misconceived blessing, would now be a fully sovereign state.

It is possible, of course, going forward, that persistently crude and not-so-subtle pressure from Washington to accept Palestine could prove geopolitically irresistible to Mr. Netanyahu. A basic question thus presents itself: in such threatening circumstances, what should Israel's operational and doctrinal response be? Importantly, one possible answer would concern Israel's nuclear strategy, especially its so-called "Samson Option."

On its face, a Palestinian state should have no direct bearing on Israel's nuclear posture. Yet, although non-nuclear itself, Palestine could still critically impair Israel's indispensable capacity to wage essential forms of conventional war. In turn, this impairment could enlarge the Jewish State's incentive to rely on unconventional weapons in certain assorted and dangerous strategic circumstances.

Significantly, a primary cause of any such impairment is apt to be the current and ongoing training of Palestinian Authority "security forces" by the United States. Recently underway in Jordan, this flagrantly self-defeating military program, commanded by U.S. Lt. General Keith Dayton, could contribute mightily to any post-state aggression by Palestinian fighters always determined to destroy Israel.

Credo quia absurdum. "I believe because it is absurd." Barack Obama is now creating conditions on the ground in which designated IDF units, in any post-Palestinian independence Middle East, would have to fight desperately against Fatah elements trained by the United States. With this incomprehensible program, therefore, we are arming and preparing the next generation of anti-Israel and anti-U.S. terrorists.

Credo quia absurdum. The guiding U.S. presumption is that these Fatah elements are relatively "moderate." A similar and equally foolish U.S. presumption is that there are now identifiably "moderate" elements functioning within the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Extending erroneous American strategic thinking to Lebanon, this curious idea has been expressed on several occasions by John Brennan, advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism to President Obama.

What is Israel to do? Confronting a new enemy Arab state that could act collaboratively and capably (thanks to the U.S.) with other Arab states, or possibly even with non-Arab Iran, and also confronting potentially serious synergies between the birth of Palestine and renewed terrorism from Lebanon, Israel could feel itself compelled to bring hitherto clandestine elements of its "ambiguous" nuclear strategy into the light of day. Here, leaving the "bomb in the basement" would no longer make strategic sense. For Israel, of course, the geostrategic rationale for some level of nuclear disclosure would lie not in stating the obvious (merely that Israel has the bomb), but rather, inter alia, in persuading all prospective attackers that Israel's nuclear weapons are usable, secure, and penetration-capable.

Palestine, too -- even if it would not actively seek collaboration with other Arab or Islamic countries -- could still be exploited militarily and geographically against Israel by different regional enemies of the Jewish State. Iran and Syria, of course, represent the most obvious candidates to carry out any such exploitations. One year ago, Iran reportedly transferred an undetermined number of Scud missiles to Syria. In Damascus, the "Arab Spring" notwithstanding, plans are being made to smuggle these Scuds into northern Lebanon, from where they could then strike any major city in Israel.

Israel's core nuclear strategy, however secret and ambiguous, must always remain oriented toward deterrence. The Samson Option refers to a presumed Israeli policy that is necessarily based upon an implicit threat of massive nuclear retaliation for certain specific enemy aggressions. This policy, to be sure, could be invoked credibly only where such aggressions would threaten Israel's very existence. For anticipated lesser harms, Samson threats would likely not appear believable.

In Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv, the main point of any Samson Option would not be to communicate the availability of any graduated Israeli nuclear deterrent -- that is, a deterrent (resembling what was once called "flexible response" in the U.S.) in which all possible reprisals would be more or less specifically calibrated to different and determinable levels of enemy aggression. Rather, it would intend to signal the more-or-less unstated promise of a counter-city ("counter value" in military parlance) reprisal.

The Samson Option, then, would be unlikely to deter any aggressions short of nuclear and/or certain biological first strike attacks upon the Jewish State.

In essence, Samson would "say" the following to all potential attackers: "We (Israel) may have to 'die,' but, this time, we don't intend to die alone."

A Samson Option could serve Israel better as an adjunct to particular deterrence and preemption options than as a core nuclear strategy. The Samson Option, therefore, should never be confused with Israel's main security objective. This core objective must always be to seek effective deterrence at the lowest possible levels of conflict.

To suitably strengthen Israeli nuclear deterrence, visible preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince enemy states that aggression would not be gainful. This would be most convincing if (1) Israeli Samson preparations were coupled with some level of visible nuclear disclosure (e.g., ending Israel's posture of nuclear ambiguity); (2) Israel's Samson weapons appeared sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first strikes; and (3) Israel's Samson weapons were recognizably "counter value" in mission function.

Samson could also support Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating a greater Israeli willingness to take existential risks. In matters of nuclear strategy, it may sometimes be better to feign irrationality than to purposefully project complete rationality. Earlier, in IDF history, Moshe Dayan had genuinely understood this strangely counterintuitive injunction: "Israel must be like a mad dog," said Dayan, "too dangerous to bother."

In our topsy-turvy nuclear world, it can be perfectly rational to pretend irrationality. But in any given Middle East conflict situation, the precise nuclear deterrence benefits of pretended irrationality would have to depend in large part upon prior enemy state awareness of Israel's counter value targeting posture. Rejecting nuclear war as a purposeful strategic option, the Project Daniel Group, in its then-confidential report to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon more than seven years ago (January 16, 2003), recommended exactly such a deterrence posture.

To strengthen possible strategies of preemption, preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince Israel's own leadership that certain defensive first strikes would be cost-effective. These leaders would then expect that any Israeli preemptive strikes, known under international law as expressions of "anticipatory self-defense," could be launched with reduced apprehensions of unacceptably damaging enemy retaliations. This complex expectation would depend upon many pertinent factors, including (1) previous Israeli decisions on nuclear disclosure; (2) Israeli perceptions of the effects of such nuclear disclosure on enemy retaliatory intentions; (3) Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons vulnerability; and (4) a presumed enemy awareness of Samson's counter value force posture.

As with Samson-based enhancements of Israeli nuclear deterrence, any identifiably last-resort nuclear preparations could support Israel's critical preemption options by displaying a bold national willingness to take existential risks. In this connection, the steady and undisturbed nuclearization of Iran should come immediately to mind.

But pretended irrationality can be a double-edged sword. Brandished too "irrationally," Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could encourage enemy preemptions. Here, again, the specter of a nuclear Iran should emerge front and center.

Left to themselves, neither deterred nor preempted, certain Arab and/or other Islamic enemies of Israel, especially after the U.S.-assisted creation of a Palestinian state, could bring the Jewish State face-to-face with the palpable torments of Dante's Inferno, "[i]nto the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice." Israeli strategic planners and political leaders, therefore, should soon begin to acknowledge an absolutely primary obligation to (a) strengthen their country's nuclear security posture and (b) ensure that any failure of nuclear deterrence would not spark nuclear war or nuclear terror.

One way for Israel to partially meet this obligation, particularly after President Obama's undimmed support for Palestine and equally misguided support for "a world free of nuclear weapons," would be to focus more openly and precisely on the Samson Option. In so doing, considerable attention will need to be directed to the presumed rationality of enemy leaderships, both state and sub-state. How can the capable IDF strategist recognize the difference between real and pretended irrationality?

This will become an urgent question. In those rare cases where an enemy state or terror group might not value its own physical survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences, the standard logic of deterrence would be rendered inoperable. In such cases, all bets would be off regarding probable enemy reactions to Israeli threats of retaliation. The probability of any such case arising may be very low, but the attendant disutility of any single case could still be intolerably high.

IDF planners and other interested strategists should now consider also the cumulative capabilities and intentions of Israel's non-state enemies -- that is, the entire configuration of anti-Israel terrorist groups. Such assessments should now offer more than a simple group by group inventory of enemy assets and intentions. These groups should also now be considered in their entirety, collectively, as they may interrelate with one another vis-à-vis Israel.

These several hostile non-state organizations will also need to be examined in their interactive relationships with core enemy states. Recalling, for example, the discussion of Palestine (above), it is important to recognize and understand all possible synergies with Iran and Syria in particular.

In the matter of synergies, interested strategists will also need to consider critical "force multipliers." A force multiplier is a collection of related characteristics, other than weapons and size of force, that may make any military organization more effective in combat. A force multiplier may be generalship, tactical surprise, tactical mobility, or particular command/control system enhancements.

Seeking improved force multipliers for Israel, strategic thinkers should now assess well-integrated elements of cyber-warfare, and a reciprocal capacity to prevent and blunt any incoming cyber-attacks. Today, this particular force multiplier could even prove to be decisive.

In a world of growing international anarchy, IDF planners should now investigate all pertinent enemy force multipliers, challenging and undermining enemy force multipliers, and developing/refining its own force multipliers. More specifically, this means an appropriately heavy IDF emphasis on air superiority, communications, intelligence, and surprise. Again, recalling Moshe Dayan's counterintuitive injunction, it may also mean a heightened awareness of the possible benefits of pretended irrationality (Samson Option).

The state system of international statecraft came into being in the 17 th century, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. For the most part, our "Westphalian" system remains almost entirely anarchic. Several emerging hazards to Israeli national security will be shaped by this primary condition.

Nonetheless, to observant strategists, there will also be a discernible geometry of chaos, and calculating the implications of this particular "geometry" will prove to be an important and cost-effective task. Before this can happen, interested strategists must take steps to ensure that their analyses and recommendations are detached from any false hopes. Recalling Thucydides, writing prophetically (416 BCE) on the ultimatum of the Athenians to the Melians during the Peloponnesian War: "Hope is by nature an expensive commodity, and those who are risking their all on one cast find out what it means only when they are already ruined[.]"

To the extent that these forthcoming strategic difficulties are related to the now-impending creation of a Palestinian state, they are problems largely created by U.S. President Barack Obama. For Israel, it follows that the very best current path to prevent existentially perilous interactions between enemy state nuclearization and Palestinian statehood is to oppose the latter immediately and totally.

Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is Professor of International Law at Purdue. He is the author of some of the earliest major books on Israeli nuclear strategy. (source)

The Left In Action: WI Democrat Demonstrators Against A 14 Yr-Old Girl

2011-04-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

LIBYAN MELTDOWN: France is First To Recognize Libyan Rebels

2011-03-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

In a major diplomatic victory for the Libyan opposition, France has become the first country to formally recognise Libya’s rebel leadership, pledging to exchange ambassadors between Paris and the Libyan opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

France became the first country to formally recognize the Libyan opposition – the Interim Transitional National Council – as legitimate representatives of the Libyan people on Thursday, pledging to exchange ambassadors with the country’s newly created transitional council in a major diplomatic victory for the Libyan opposition.

The announcement followed a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and two representatives of Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council in Paris Thursday

Speaking to reporters at the Elysée presidential palace in Paris, Ali al Issawi, a former Libyan ambassador to India who quit his post last month, announced that, “France recognises the National Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

"There will be an exchange of ambassadors between Paris and Benghazi," he added, referring to the eastern Libyan city that has emerged as a rebel stronghold over the past few weeks.

The recognition comes as European Union foreign ministers meet in Brussels Thursday and defense ministers of NATO’s 28 member states also gathered in the Belgian capital to consider the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.

Ahead of the Brussels meeting, AFP reported that Sarkozy would propose “targeted airstrikes” in Libya as a way to end the violence.

Reacting to the news of France’s diplomatic recognition, Imane Boughaighis, media organizer for Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council, said the Libyan people were “very grateful” to the French government.

“We thank the French government and the people of Libya will never forget that they (the French government) were the first country to recognize us and they stood with us in our difficult time.”

In Benghazi, people gathered near the National Council's headquarters, honking cars and cheering as some fired celebratory gunshot rounds, according to Reuters.

In a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from Benghazi, Boughaighis said she hoped France’s formal recognition of the opposition would trigger a domino effect across Europe.

Diplomatic dominoes or diplomatic tit-for-tat?

In a sign of a likely diplomatic tit-for-tat between Paris and Tripoli, the official Libyan news agency Jana quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying Libya “will think about severing its relations with France because of information being circulated about France's damaging intervention in Libya's internal affairs.”

When asked whether Italy would follow France’s example, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said his government would seek the opinion of other European countries before deciding whether to recognise Libyan rebels as the country's legitimate representatives.

"That's a decision by a single government," Berlusconi told a news conference Thursday. "I think it's better for us to listen to the stance of the entire European community."

The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, underlined the point by saying that that Italy "will not participate in air strikes on Libyan territory”.

Italy, Libya’s former colonial power, is Tripoli’s main European trading partner, importing about 25 percent of its oil and 12 percent of its gas from the North African nation.

Hours after the announcement at the Elysée presidential palace, a British Foreign Office spokesman said members of the Interim Transitional National Council were "valid interlocutors with whom we wish to work closely".

Gaddafi in the image race

As the search for a coordinated international response to the Libyan conflict has gained momentum, embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has also sent envoys to a number of European countries, according to numerous reports.

On Wednesday, the Portuguese foreign ministry confirmed that Foreign Minister Luis Amado had “an informal meeting in a Lisbon hotel with a Libyan emissary, on the request of the latter”. No further details of the meeting were revealed.

Portugal chairs the UN Security Council's committee on sanctions for Libya starting this week.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has also confirmed that Gaddafi’s regime "is moving towards contact" with the international community after a senior Gaddafi aide arrived in Cairo Wednesday.

Mainstream Media Diary: BEHIND THE SCENES AT NPR (Public Radio VP reveals how Tea Party taxpayers are viewed after their contributions are counted)

2011-03-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

Barry As President: Agrees To Tell Russia Britain's Nuclear Secrets

2011-02-05T12:35:00.000-08:00

Obama secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty

Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

The fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip also sheds new light on the so-called “special relationship”, which is shown often to be a one-sided affair by US diplomatic communications obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

Details of the behind-the-scenes talks are contained in more than 1,400 US embassy cables published to date by the Telegraph, including almost 800 sent from the London Embassy, which are published online today. The documents also show that:

• America spied on Foreign Office ministers by gathering gossip on their private lives and professional relationships.

• Intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US became strained after the controversy over Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantánamo Bay detainee who sued the Government over his alleged torture.

• David Miliband disowned the Duchess of York by saying she could not “be controlled” after she made an undercover TV documentary.

• Tens of millions of pounds of overseas aid was stolen and spent on plasma televisions and luxury goods by corrupt regimes.

A series of classified messages sent to Washington by US negotiators show how information on Britain’s nuclear capability was crucial to securing Russia’s support for the “New START” deal.

Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.

Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers said: “This appears to be significant because while the UK has announced how many missiles it possesses, there has been no way for the Russians to verify this. Over time, the unique identifiers will provide them with another data point to gauge the size of the British arsenal.”

Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems, said: “They want to find out whether Britain has more missiles than we say we have, and having the unique identifiers might help them.”

While the US and Russia have long permitted inspections of each other’s nuclear weapons, Britain has sought to maintain some secrecy to compensate for the relatively small size of its arsenal.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, last year disclosed that “up to 160” warheads are operational at any one time, but did not confirm the number of missiles.(source)

FRANCES FOX PIVEN And The "Orchestrated Crisis" Strategy

2011-02-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Born in Alberta, Canada in 1932, Frances Fox Piven earned a Ph.D. in social science from the University of Chicago in l962. Today she is a professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982. She was formerly a professor at Columbia University.

Piven and her late husband, Columbia social-work professor Richard Cloward, are best known for having outlined, in 1966, the so-called Cloward-Piven Strategy – a tactic which seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading government bureaucracies with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level."

In 1966 Piven was a panel member at a Socialist Scholars Conference in New York. There, she and her husband presented a paper proposing that the poor should engage in "irregular and disruptive tactics" designed to overburden city and state governments with demands for welfare money – the ultimate objective being to force those governments to turn to the federal government for assistance. Such “disruption of the system,” said Piven, would result in a situation where:

“Welfare rolls will begin to go up; welfare payments will begin to go up – the impact will be very, very sharp. The mounting welfare budget will increase taxes, force cities to turn to the federal government. We have to help people to make claims; for this they will organize and act."

Beginning in 1967, Piven served as an advisor to the newly formed National Welfare Rights Organization.

In their 1977 book, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, Piven and Cloward reemphasized that because the poor and unemployed were politically powerless in America, they would be well advised to withhold “quiescence in civil life: they can riot.” The authors stated, approvingly, that in the 1930s, violent disruptions such as “mob looting” and “rent riots” – fomented by leftist and Communist-party organizers – had enabled the first great expansion of the welfare state to take place. Likewise, Cloward and Piven credited the urban riots of the 1960s for helping to further grow the welfare state by forcing changes in traditional procedures for investigating and verifying applicants’ eligibility for welfare benefits.

In 1979-80, Piven served as a “lecturer on U. S. political activities” with the Institute for Policy Studies.

In October 1983 Piven was a New York delegate to a conference of the newly formed Democratic Socialists of America. In subsequent years, she served on DSA's Feminist Commission. To this day, she remains an honorary DSA chair.

In 1983 Piven and Cloward co-founded Human SERVE, an organization that sought to register voters at social-service agencies and Departments of Motor Vehicles. Piven's hope was that federal and state governments would eventually try to rein in the efforts of politicized welfare workers who were registering new voters, and that this, in turn, would cause welfare recipients to rise up in a massive protest movement -- rendering society “disrupted and transformed.”

That same year, Piven delivered the opening remarks at the Socialist Scholars Conference (SSC) in New York City, an event that was likely attended by a young Barack Obama. The conference commemorated the 100-year anniversary of Karl Marx’s death. Piven described Marx as the man whose ideas had enabled “common people” around the globe to become “historical actors.” She urged her listeners to “stand within the intellectual and political tradition Marx bequeathed,” treating it not as a “dead inheritance” but rather as a “living tradition—the creation of thinking, active people.” In subsequent years, Piven would appear at numerous additional SSCs.

In the fall of 1994, a publication of the pro-socialist New Party (NP) listed Piven among the more than 100 activists “who are building the NP.” Other notable names on the list were John Cavanagh, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Randall Forsberg, Maude Hurd, Manning Marable, Zach Polett, Wade Rathke, Mark Ritchie, Gloria Steinem, Cornel West, Quentin Young, and Howard Zinn.

In 1996, Piven was one of the 130 individuals who played key roles in founding the Campaign for America's Future. Among the other notables were Mary Frances Berry, Julian Bond, Heather Booth, Robert Borosage, John Cavanagh, Richard Cloward, Peter Dreier, Barbara Ehrenreich, Betty Friedan, Todd Gitlin, Tom Hayden, Denis Hayes, Roger Hickey, Patricia Ireland, Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowery, Robert Reich, Mark Ritchie, Arlie Schardt, Susan Shaer, Andrew Stern, John Sweeney, and Richard Trumka.

On September 20, 2001, Piven was a guest speaker at a New York City gathering to honor the work of her husband, Richard Cloward, who had died a month earlier. Other speakers included Barbara Ehrenreich, Howard Zinn, June Jordan, Gus Newport, Tim Sampson, Joel Rogers, Miles Rappaport, and Cornel West.

In January 2002, Piven endorsed the founding of War Times, a national anti-Iraq War newspaper established by a group of San Francisco leftists affiliated with such organizations as STORM, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Among the more prominent founders of the publication was Van Jones. Along with Piven, key individual and organizational endorsers of War Times included Phyllis Bennis, Paul Buhle, Noam Chomsky, Kathleen Cleaver, Winona LaDuke, Tim Wise, Howard Zinn, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

In August 2004, Piven endorsed a New York City demonstration at the site of the Republican National Convention in New York, protesting President George W. Bush's “endless war and repression.” The rally was organized by Not In Our Name, a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Fellow endorsers of the event included Ed Asner, Medea Benjamin, Eve Ensler, Danny Glover, Tom Hayden, C. Clark Kissinger, Barbara Lubin, Michael Parenti, Rev. George Regas, Leonard Weinglass, Howard Zinn, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Code Pink, the Freedom Socialist Party, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the  Women's International League for Peace & Freedom.

During 2006-07, Piven served as president of the American Sociological Association.

On December 22, 2010, Piven published an article in The Nation titled "Mobilizing the Jobless," where, after noting that some 15 million Americans were unemployed, she asked: “So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs?” Admonishing the Left not to wait patiently for “the end of the American empire and even the end of neoliberal capitalism,” she called for active measures to bring about “big new [government] initiatives in infrastructure and green energy.” Such measures, she explained, should take the form of “mass protests” that could pressure President Obama “hard from his base.” Piven urged that the disruptions begin on the local and state levels, where governments that were “strapped for funds” would look, by necessity, for “federal action” to help them. Wrote Piven:

“An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.”

Before the unemployed or any other disadvantaged group “can mobilize for collective action,” added Piven, “they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant …. [A] kind of psychological transformation has to take place; the out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.”

As of January 2011, Piven was a sponsor of New Politics, a self-described “independent socialist forum.” Other sponsors included Stanley Aronowitz, Derrick Bell, Paul Buhle, Noam Chomsky, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jesse Lemisch, and Cornel West. The late Howard Zinn had previously been a sponsor.

In addition to Poor People's Movements, Piven has authored such books as: Regulating the Poor (1972, co-authored with Richard Cloward); Why Americans Don't Vote (1988); The War at Home (2004); Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (2008), and Keeping Down the Black Vote (2009). (source)

THE LEFT: How They Really Feel (American Leftists Call For Thomas To Be Lynched Or Enslaved)

2011-02-03T12:35:00.000-08:00

At a rally this past weekend in Palm Springs, proud, noble Leftists and Progressives assembled to protest the Koch brothers. Listen to the way random attendees express their feelings about American members of the Supreme Court and other citizens:

Mubarak Says He Won’t Run for President Again

2011-02-01T17:36:00.001-08:00

President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not run for another term in elections scheduled for the fall, appearing on state television to promise an orderly transition but saying he would serve out his term. In comments translated by CNN, he swore that he would never leave Egypt but would “die on its soil.”

Television cameras showed the vast crowds gathered in Tahrir Square in central Cairo roaring, but not necessarily in approval. The protesters have made the president’s immediate and unconditional resignation a bedrock demand of their movement, and it did not appear that the concession mollified them. Reports said that thousands of protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square chanted "Leave! Leave!" after the speech.

Mr. Mubarak’s announcement came after President Obama urged him not to run, effectively withdrawing America’s support for its closest Arab ally, according to American diplomats in Cairo and Washington.

The message was delivered by Frank G. Wisner, a seasoned envoy with deep ties to Egypt, the American diplomats said. Mr. Wisner’s message, they said, was not a blunt demand for Mr. Mubarak to step aside now, but rather firm counsel that he should make way for a reform process that would culminate in free and fair elections in September to elect a new Egyptian leader.

This back channel message, authorized directly by Mr. Obama, appeared to tip the administration beyond the delicate balancing act it has performed in the last week — resisting calls for Mr. Mubarak to step down, even as it has called for an “orderly transition” to a more politically open Egypt.

In remarks after Mr. Mubarak’s announcement, Mr. Obama said he spoke directly to the Egyptian leader. “He recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable,” Mr. Obama said. The president said he told Mr. Mubarak an orderly transition ”must begin now” and “include opposition parties.” And to the young people protesting the government, Mr. Obama said, “We hear your voices.”

It was not clear whether the administration favored Mr. Mubarak’s turning over the reins to a transitional government, composed of leaders of the opposition movement and perhaps under the leadership of Mohamed ElBaradei, or to a caretaker government led by members of the existing government, including the newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman.

The decision to nudge Mr. Mubarak in the direction of leaving is a critical step for the United States in defining its dealings not just with its most critical ally in the Arab world, but also with the rising swell of popular anger on the streets of Cairo and in countries like Jordan, Yemen, Algeria and Tunisia.

Mr. Wisner, who had been expected to leave Egypt on Tuesday but decided to extend his stay, is among the United States’ most experienced diplomats, and a friend of Mr. Mubarak. His mission was to “keep a conversation going,” according to a close friend of Mr. Wisner.

As a result, this person said, the administration’s first message to the Egyptian leader was not that he had to leave office, but rather that his time in office was quickly coming to a close. Mr. Wisner, who consulted closely with the White House, is expected to be the point person dealing with Mr. Mubarak as the situation evolves, and perhaps as the administration’s message hardens.

Mr. Wisner’s mission took shape over the weekend in a White House meeting, after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recommended him to the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon.

Reinforcing the administration’s message to Mr. Mubarak was an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Tuesday by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he advised Mr. Mubarak to bow out gracefully “to make way for a new political structure.”

Egyptians turned out around the country on Tuesday in the largest demonstrations yet to demand Mr. Mubarak’s ouster. They may hold to that demand and want even more far-reaching change, as Tunisians did after their strongman president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled in mid-January.

In Tahrir Square earlier in the day, the chants of perhaps 200,000 protesters had suggested that the demonstrators would not stop at Mr. Mubarak’s departure.

“The people of Egypt want the president on trial,” some chanted for the first time, shadowed by the burned headquarters of Mr. Mubarak’s ruling party and a vast complex housing a bureaucracy many Egyptians have accused of endlessly humiliating them.

Others chorused: “The people of Egypt want the government to fall.”

“Nobody wants him, nobody,” said El-Mahdy Mohamed, one of the demonstrators. “Can’t he see on the TV what’s happening?”

While the numbers fell short of the million called for at the square, the protest rivaled some of the most epic moments in Egypt’s tumultuous modern history, from the wars with Israel to a coup that sent a corpulent monarch packing on his yacht in 1952.

With little regard, protesters defied a curfew that has become a joke to residents here and overcame attempts by the government to keep protesters away by closing roads, suspending train service and shutting down public transportation to Cairo. Some walked miles to the square, whose name means liberation. Others woke up there in the muddy patches where they had slept for days.

“No one would have imagined a week before that this would happen in Egypt,” said Bassem Ramsis, 37, a director who returned from Spain for the uprising.

The momentous events in Egypt, the most populous Arab country and once the axis on which the Arab world revolved, have reverberated across the region. Earlier in the day, King Abdullah II of Jordan fired his cabinet after protests there, and organizers in Yemen and Syria, with their own authoritarian rulers, have called for protests.

In scale and message, the protests in Egypt were a remarkable expression of unity in a country that once represented the Arab world’s nexus but stagnated under Mr. Mubarak’s withering authoritarianism. Peasants from southern Egypt joined Islamists from the Nile Delta and businessmen from upper-class suburbs rubbed shoulders with street-smart youths from gritty Bulaq in a square that served as a vast tapestry of a country’s diversity joined in a blunt message: Mr. Mubarak must surrender power.

“Go already,” read one sign held aloft. “My arm’s starting to hurt.”

Tens of thousands of people also took to the streets of Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, north of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast.

Meanwhile, the thousands of foreigners seeking to flee the country led to chaotic scenes at the Cairo airport. The United States ordered all nonemergency embassy and other American government personnel to leave the country, fearing unrest as the protests continue.

The breadth of the uprising, organized by youthful activists and driven by the legions of poor and dispossessed in Egypt, a country of 80 million, stunned even those most critical of Mr. Mubarak’s government. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful opposition movement, has largely stayed in the background. Other opposition leaders — the Nobel laureate, Mohamed ElBaradei among them — have struggled to cultivate support among the protesters, whose demands seem to grow as the uprising gathers force.

Margaret Scobey, the American ambassador to Egypt, spoke by telephone to Mr. ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who has emerged as a potential rallying point for opposition, as American officials sought to navigate an uprising that has not only challenged their most loyal ally in the region but also posed a threat to a broader American-backed order in Jordan, Yemen and the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

Mr. ElBaradei told Reuters that Mr. Mubarak must leave the country before any dialogue could start between the opposition and the government.

“There can be dialogue but it has to come after the demands of the people are met and the first of those is that President Mubarak leaves,” Mr. ElBaradei told Al Arabiya television. “I hope to see Egypt peaceful and that’s going to require as a first step the departure of President Mubarak. If President Mubarak leaves, then everything will progress correctly.”

Calls for Mr. Mubarak to step aside had been growing. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — a predominantly Islamic country often held up as a model of Western-style democracy — canceled a visit to Egypt planned for next week, urging Mr. Mubarak to “listen to people’s outcries and extremely humanistic demands” and to “meet the freedom demands of people without a doubt,” Reuters reported.(source)

'Al-Qaida on brink of using nuclear bomb'

2011-02-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

Al-Qaida members participate in military training in Afghanistan

Al-Qaida is on the verge of producing radioactive weapons after sourcing nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build "dirty" bombs, according to leaked diplomatic documents.

A leading atomic regulator has privately warned that the world stands on the brink of a "nuclear 9/11".

Security briefings suggest that jihadi groups are also close to producing "workable and efficient" biological and chemical weapons that could kill thousands if unleashed in attacks on the West.

Thousands of classified American cables obtained by the WikiLeaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph detail the international struggle to stop the spread of weapons-grade nuclear, chemical and biological material around the globe.

At a Nato meeting in January 2009, security chiefs briefed member states that al-Qaida was plotting a program of "dirty radioactive IEDs", makeshift nuclear roadside bombs that could be used against British troops in Afghanistan.

As well as causing a large explosion, a "dirty bomb" attack would contaminate the area for many years.

The briefings also state that al-Qaida documents found in Afghanistan in 2007 revealed that "greater advances" had been made in bioterrorism than was previously realized. An Indian national security adviser told American security personnel in June 2008 that terrorists had made a "manifest attempt to get fissile material" and "have the technical competence to manufacture an explosive device beyond a mere dirty bomb".

Alerts about the smuggling of nuclear material, sent to Washington from foreign U.S. embassies, document how criminal and terrorist gangs were trafficking large amounts of highly radioactive material across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The alerts explain how customs guards at remote border crossings used radiation alarms to identify and seize cargoes of uranium and plutonium.

Freight trains were found to be carrying weapons-grade nuclear material across the Kazakhstan-Russia border, highly enriched uranium was transported across Uganda by bus, and a "small time hustler" in Lisbon offered to sell radioactive plates stolen from Chernobyl.

In one incident in September 2009, two employees at the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia smuggled almost half a ton of uranium concentrate powder - yellowcake - out of the compound in plastic bags.

"Acute safety and security concerns" were even raised in 2008 about the uranium and plutonium laboratory of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear safety watchdog.

Tomihiro Taniguchi, the deputy director general of the IAEA, has privately warned America that the world faces the threat of a "nuclear 9/11" if stores of uranium and plutonium were not secured against terrorists.

But diplomats visiting the IAEA's Austrian headquarters in April 2008 said that there was "no way to provide perimeter security" to its own laboratory because it has windows that leave it vulnerable to break-ins.

Senior British defence officials have raised "deep concerns" that a rogue scientist in the Pakistani nuclear program "could gradually smuggle enough material out to make a weapon", according to a document detailing official talks in London in February 2009.

Agricultural stores of deadly biological pathogens in Pakistan are also vulnerable to "extremists" who could use supplies of anthrax, foot and mouth disease and avian flu to develop lethal biological weapons.

Anthrax and other biological agents including smallpox, and avian flu could be sprayed from a shop-bought aerosol can in a crowded area, leaked security briefings warn.

The security of the world's only two declared smallpox stores in Atlanta, America, and Novosibirsk, Russia, has repeatedly been called into doubt by "a growing chorus of voices" at meetings of the World Health Assembly documented in the leaked cables.

The alarming disclosures come after Barack Obama, the U.S. president, last year declared nuclear terrorism "the single biggest threat" to international security with the potential to cause "extraordinary loss of life". (source)

Muslim Brotherhood: ‘Prepare Egyptians for war with Israel'

2011-02-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam on Monday that he would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel, according to the Hebrew-language business newspaper Calcalist.

Muhammad Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease “in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.” He added that “the people should be prepared for war against Israel,” saying the world should understand that “the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime.”

Ghannem praised Egyptian soldiers deployed by President Hosni Mubarak to Egyptian cities, saying they “would not kill their brothers.” He added that Washington was forced to abandon plans to help Mubarak stay in power after “seeing millions head for the streets.”(source)

The Muslim Brotherhood At Work In More Places Than Just Egypt: Jordanian President King Abdullah II Fires His Cabinet Amidst Protests

2011-02-01T17:00:00.001-08:00

This is a Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2006 file photo of the then Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit as he speaks during a press conference in Amman, Jordan. Jordan's King Abdullah has asked Tuesday Feb. 1, 2011 Marouf al-Bakhit to form a new Cabinet. The nomination of Marouf al-Bakhit follows street protests calling on the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai, blamed for a rise in fuel and food.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, bowing to public pressure, fired his government on Tuesday and tasked a new prime minister with quickly boosting economic opportunities and giving Jordanians a greater say in politics.

The country's powerful Muslim opposition, which had demanded the dismissal of Prime Minister Samir Rifai in several nationwide protests inspired by those in Tunisia and Egypt, said the changes didn't go far enough.

Rifai, 45, who has been widely blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slow-moving political reforms, tendered his resignation early Tuesday to the king, who accepted it immediately, a Royal Palace statement said.

Abdullah named Marouf al-Bakhit, 63, as Rifai's replacement. Al-Bakhit, an ex-general who supports strong ties with the U.S. and Jordan's peace treaty with Israel, previously served as prime minister from 2005-2007.

Abdullah ordered al-Bakhit to "undertake quick and tangible steps for real political reforms, which reflect our vision for comprehensive modernization and development in Jordan."

"Economic reform is a necessity to provide a better life for our people," the king said in the statement. "But we won't be able to attain that without real political reforms, which must increase popular participation in the decision-making."

Abdullah also demanded an "immediate revision of laws governing politics and public freedoms," including legislation governing political parties, public meetings and elections.

Jordan's most powerful opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, dismissed the changes as cosmetic.

"We reject the new prime minister and we will continue our protests until our demands are met," said Hamza Mansour, leader of the Islamic Action Front, the Brotherhood's political arm.

Mansour repeated his call for constitutional amendments to curb the king's power in naming prime ministers, arguing that the post should go to the elected leader of the parliamentary majority.

Jordan's constitution gives the king the exclusive powers to appoint prime ministers, dismiss parliament and rule by decree.

"Unlike Egypt, we don't want a regime change in Jordan and we recognize the Hashemites' rule in Jordan," he said, referring to Jordan's ruling family. "But we want to see real political reforms introduced."

When he ascended to the throne in 1999, King Abdullah vowed to press ahead with political reforms initiated by his late father, King Hussein. Those reforms paved the way for the first parliamentary election in 1989 after a 22-year gap, the revival of a multiparty system and the suspension of martial law, which had been in effect since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

But little has been done since then. Although laws were enacted to ensure greater press freedom, journalists are still routinely prosecuted for expressing their opinion or for comments considered slanderous of the king and the royal family.

Some gains been made in women's rights, but many say they have not gone far enough. Abdullah has pressed for stiffer penalties for perpetrators of "honor killings," but courts often hand down lenient sentences.

Still, Jordan's human rights record is generally considered a notch above that of Tunisia and Egypt. Although some critics of the king are prosecuted, they frequently are pardoned and some are even rewarded with government posts.

It was not immediately clear when al-Bakhit will name his Cabinet.

A government official said al-Bakhit was consulting with lawmakers, opposition groups, unionists and civil society institutions on the makeup of his Cabinet.

The official, who is involved in the consultations, said al-Bakhit may name some opposition leaders in the new government. He declined to say whether al-Bakhit may approach the Muslim Brotherhood and insisted on anonymity because he is not allowed to brief the media.

Al-Bakhit is a moderate politician, who served as Jordan's ambassador to Israel earlier this decade.

Like Abdullah, he supports close ties with Israel under a peace treaty signed in 1994 and strong relations with the United States, Jordan's largest aid donor and longtime ally.

In 2005, Abdullah named al-Bakhit as his prime minister days after a triple bombing on Amman hotels claimed by the al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

During his 2005-2007 tenure, al-Bakhit - an ex-army major general and top intelligence adviser - was credited with maintaining security and stability following the attack, which killed 60 people and labeled as the worst in Jordan's modern history. (source)

The American Left and the Crisis in Egypt

2011-01-30T14:15:00.000-08:00

by David Horowitz
Posted on January 30 2011 4:41 pm
David Horowitz is the editor-in-chief of NewsReal Blog and FrontPage Magazine. He is the President and CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His most recent book is Reforming Our Universities

The Mubarak dictatorship is crumbling, the Muslim Brotherhood is warning that regimes will fall all over the Middle East and the radical left in America and internationally is cheering them on. Of course. The unholy alliance between the radical secular left and the forces of the Islamic jihad was forged a long time ago in the crucial of the Palestinian Islamic jihad against Israel and the West. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood as are the Muslim Students Association, CAIR and every major Muslim organization in America. The MSA and the pro-Palestinian left was part of the coalition of radical organizations that defended the Saddam regime during the lead up to the Iraq war and was on the steering committee of the International Answer demonstrations. Yassir Arafat was one of Saddam’s leading cheerleaders when Iraq tried to swallow Kuwait, triggering the first Gulf War. The roots of the alliance we see shaping up in the Egyptian struggle are deep.

We saw the unholy alliance at work in the Hamas inspired campaign to break the Gaza blockade. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were leaders of the American wing of the Hamas coalition against the blockade and went to Gaza to meet with Hamas shortly before the terrorist Flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces. The Gaza blockade was jointly instituted by Israel and Egypt – by the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood’s army. If the Muslim Brotherhood topples the Mubarak regime, Hamas’s war against the Jews will be immeasureably strengthened. The radical left in America and internationally is committed to Hamas and its genocidal campaign against the Jews and its general war against the United States. That is why the fate of Egypt in this crisis resonates for all of us.(source)

The Left's Pitiful Attempts to Rewrite The History Of Reagan

2011-01-30T12:04:00.000-08:00

The other day I heard a caller on CSPAN's Washington Journal trumpet the Left's proudest example that CONSERVATIVES ARE RACISTS: the Neshoba County speech of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The under-educated caller spewed, "Well everyone knows that Reagan chose to start his presidential campaign where those three civil rights workers were killed in 1964." For him, the proof was in the pudding: a white Republican talking to whites in Mississippi equals a Klan meeting. If the speech doesn't come right out and say, "When it comes down to good whites like you and those blacks, we're with you", then there has to be some coded phrase or tone that means the same.

This sad instance of looking-for-a-racist-under-every-rock is typical in today's impoverished understanding of history. With hateful people in our universities who are intent upon brainwashing the last three generations of teachers, this is the natural result. The entire beauty and grandeur of America has been reduced to a Howard Zinn bumper-sticker.

Here is a column from David Brooks which details the facts about Reagan's speech in Neshoba County, MS, in 1980 (but, unfortunately, for simple-minded haters like Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman, never let the facts get in the way of a good fairy tale):

History And Calumny

Today, I’m going to write about a slur. It’s a distortion that’s been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months. It was concocted for partisan reasons: to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other and to simplify a complicated reality into a political nursery tale.

The distortion concerns a speech Ronald Reagan gave during the 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., which is where three civil rights workers had been murdered 16 years earlier. An increasing number of left-wing commentators assert that Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign with a states’ rights speech in Philadelphia to send a signal to white racists that he was on their side. The speech is taken as proof that the Republican majority was built on racism.

The truth is more complicated.

In reality, Reagan strategists decided to spend the week following the 1980 Republican convention courting African-American votes. Reagan delivered a major address at the Urban League, visited Vernon Jordan in the hospital where he was recovering from gunshot wounds, toured the South Bronx and traveled to Chicago to meet with the editorial boards of Ebony and Jet magazines.

Lou Cannon of The Washington Post reported at the time that this schedule reflected a shift in Republican strategy. Some inside the campaign wanted to move away from the Southern strategy used by Nixon, believing there were more votes available in the northern suburbs and among working-class urban voters.

But there was another event going on that week, the Neshoba County Fair, seven miles southwest of Philadelphia. The Neshoba County Fair was a major political rallying spot in Mississippi (Michael Dukakis would campaign there in 1988). Mississippi was a state that Republican strategists hoped to pick up. They’d recently done well in the upper South, but they still lagged in the Deep South, where racial tensions had been strongest. Jimmy Carter had carried Mississippi in 1976 by 14,000 votes.

So the decision was made to go to Neshoba. Exactly who made the decision is unclear. The campaign was famously disorganized, and Cannon reported: “The Reagan campaign’s hand had been forced to some degree by local announcement that he would go to the fair.” Reagan’s pollster Richard Wirthlin urged him not to go, but Reagan angrily countered that once the commitment had been made, he couldn’t back out.

The Reaganites then had an internal debate over whether to do the Urban League speech and then go to the fair, or to do the fair first. They decided to do the fair first, believing it would send the wrong message to go straight from the Urban League to Philadelphia, Miss.

Reagan’s speech at the fair was short and cheerful, and can be heard at: www.onlinemadison.com/ftp/reagan/reaganneshoba.mp3. He told several jokes, and remarked: “I know speaking to this crowd, I’m speaking to a crowd that’s 90 percent Democrat.”

He spoke mostly about inflation and the economy, but in the middle of a section on schools, he said this: “Programs like education and others should be turned back to the states and local communities with the tax sources to fund them. I believe in states’ rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can at the community level and the private level.”

The use of the phrase “states’ rights” didn’t spark any reaction in the crowd, but it led the coverage in The Times and The Post the next day.

Reagan flew to New York and delivered his address to the Urban League, in which he unveiled an urban agenda, including enterprise zones and an increase in the minimum wage. He was received warmly, but not effusively. Much of the commentary that week was about whether Reagan’s outreach to black voters would work.

You can look back on this history in many ways. It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase “states’ rights” in any context in Philadelphia. Reagan could have done something wonderful if he’d mentioned civil rights at the fair. He didn’t. And it’s obviously true that race played a role in the G.O.P.’s ascent.

Still, the agitprop version of this week — that Reagan opened his campaign with an appeal to racism — is a distortion, as honest investigators ranging from Bruce Bartlett, who worked for the Reagan administration and is the author of “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” to Kevin Drum, who writes for Washington Monthly, have concluded.

But still the slur spreads. It’s spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldn’t even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence. It posits that there was a master conspiracy to play on the alleged Klan-like prejudices of American voters, when there is no evidence of that conspiracy. And, of course, in a partisan age there are always people eager to believe this stuff. (source)

The CSPAN caller can't be blamed by himsef, of course. Listening to Pied Pipers like Bob Herbert obviously kept the man from thinking for himself. Here is an example of the kind of propaganda that the NYT has been pushing for years, now (ironically, you are about to witness an African American mention a Jewish person without the same Crown Heights-type hate and animosity that accompanies much of African America's regard of them today):

Righting Reagan's Wrongs

Let’s set the record straight on Ronald Reagan’s campaign kickoff in 1980.

Early one morning in the late spring of 1964, Dr. Carolyn Goodman, her husband, Robert, and their 17-year-old son, David, said goodbye to David’s brother, Andrew, who was 20.

They hugged in the family’s apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and Andrew left. He was on his way to the racial hell of Mississippi to join in the effort to encourage local blacks to register and vote.

It was a dangerous mission, and Andrew’s parents were reluctant to let him go. But the family had always believed strongly in equal rights and the benefits of social activism. “I didn’t have the right,” Dr. Goodman would tell me many years later, “to tell him not to go.”

After a brief stopover in Ohio, Andrew traveled to the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi, a vicious white-supremacist stronghold. Just days earlier, members of the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed a black church in the county and had beaten terrified worshipers.

Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans.

The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day.

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.

That won’t wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.

Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.

And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

Congress overrode the veto.

Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto, too.

Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean-spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people. There is no way for the scribes of today to clean up that dismal record.

To see Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like “states’ rights” in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.’s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency.

Ronald Reagan was an absolute master at the use of symbolism. It was one of the primary keys to his political success.

The suggestion that the Gipper didn’t know exactly what message he was telegraphing in Neshoba County in 1980 is woefully wrong-headed. Wishful thinking would be the kindest way to characterize it.(source)

Stanley Ann Dunham And The Left's Exploitation Of Women

2011-01-27T13:54:00.000-08:00

Stanley Ann Dunham with her father, Barry, and daughter

By Robin of Berkeley

Obama's mother, the oddly named Stanley Ann, died of cancer about fifteen years ago. There's little known about Stanley Ann, aside from the details provided by Obama and his handlers. Of course, the truth about Obama's past is shrouded in secrecy.

But what can be pieced together about Obama's mom from the information at hand? For one, Stanley Ann was given her strange name by her strange father, Stanley Dunham, who desired a boy instead. Dunham was a volatile, hard-drinking man, who was expelled from high school for punching his principal. Mental illness may have run in the Dunham family; as a boy, Stanley discovered his mother dead of an apparent suicide.

We can make some inferences about Stanley Ann's childhood based on how her parents raised young Barry. Stanley Dunham designated the purported Communist, bisexual pedophile, Frank Marshall Davis, as Barry's mentor. Not only was Barry left alone with Davis, but Davis and Dunham would booze and tell dirty jokes in the boy's presence. Given the poor judgment Dunham exercised, he likely raised his daughter in the same reckless manner.

As for Stanley Ann's mom, Madelyn Dunham, she was the main breadwinner of the family; however, she, like most women of that generation, deferred to her husband. Thus, she allowed him to choose their daughter's peculiar name.

Frank Marshall Davis

Madelyn also permitted Frank Marshall Davis to carouse and smoke pot with her husband, even to mentor the impressionable Barry. Of course, Obama demonstrated no warmth towards his grandmother whom he dismissed as a "typical white person."

What else can we deduce about Stanley Ann? There's conjecture that Stanley Ann was raised in a radical family with Communist leanings. She spent her adolescence on progressive Mercer Island; the left-leaning Unitarian Church they attended there was known as the Little Red Church, while the school board's chairman was a self-identified communist. Of course, the family's connection with Frank Marshall Davis lends credence to the theory of a radical childhood.

As the official story goes, Stanley Ann met Obama Sr. at college, and their relationship produced Barack. However, American Thinker's Jack Cashill has highlighted doubts about Obama's paternity, including the possibility that Frank Marshall Davis may be father.

If Obama Sr. were Obama's father, this is a troubling scenario since Senior was a married man, seven years older, with an apparent alcohol problem. But even more disturbing is the prospect of Frank Marshall Davis being Obama's father. Davis was decades older than Stanley Ann, and a purported pedophile. Davis penned a thinly veiled memoir celebrating his and his wife's sexual relationship with a l3 year old girl.[i]

It was highly unusual for girls in the 1950's to have interracial relationships, much less babies, with a man of a difference race. During this time, however, the Communist Party of the United States encouraged women members to use their feminine wiles to entice men, especially black men, into the movement, as well as to reward the ones who joined up. Did Communist brainwashing play some role in Stanley Ann's choice of partners and her subsequent pregnancy?

Davis himself boasted, "The number of white babes interested in at least one meeting with a Negro male has been far more than I can handle." If Frank Marshall Davis were truly Obama's father, was Stanley Ann one of his many conquests?

While there is no way of knowing, there are reasons to be concerned. The American Left certainly has a long history of exploiting women. For instance, during the 60's, Leftist girls were expected to, according to the slogan: Say Yes to Boys Who Say No [to the Draft].

Communist movement recruiting poster

Much of the Left's dirty laundry has been expunged and reconstructed, particularly regarding its treatment of women. But women have always been viewed as the movement's maids -- and their mattresses. In the 60‘s, radical girls were expected to serve the food, as well as service the men sexually.

Activist Stokely Carmichael articulated the general vibe in an infamous, and candid, response. When asked the role of women in the Students for a Democratic Society, Carmichael replied, "The position of women in the movement is prone."

Radical women were brainwashed to believe that they needed to sacrifice their bodies for the Revolution. The women of the Weather Underground, for example, were required to have sex with any male who asked for it.

If a woman balked and demanded equality, she was told that women's rights were secondary to liberating blacks and stopping the war. (Interestingly, the early suffragists were also instructed to put their needs on hold, which is why American women couldn't vote until 1920, 50 years after black men.)

On the rare occasion that a movement woman would protest, she'd face swift and harsh retribution. When SDS member Marilyn Webb dared to take to the stage and advocate for women, she was besieged with cat calls and obscenities. After the event, Webb received death threats.[ii]

The Left's use and abuse of women did not stop with the 60‘s, nor with the feminist revolution of the 70's, which was launched, in part, because of the misogynist Left. And the Left's misuse of women, the life-bearers, is emblematic of the hypocrisy and the heartlessness that is at the core of the progressive movement.

Today, we see the sad spectacle of a new female generation being manipulated just like their foremothers. Egged on by radical professors, young women are falling for the same propaganda.

The pressure to be cool, progressive girls -- along with the media's force feeding of hedonism -- is corrupting millions of young women. And the fallout has been far-reaching, not only in broken lives, but in a public health crisis of STD's, cervical cancer, and abortions.

Like robotic Stepford Wives, progressive women of all ages follow their mostly male leaders. Even women's studies departments have been hijacked by the Radical Left; feminist professors support Radical Islam, regardless of the honor killings, stoning, and genital mutilation.

When I think of the Left's sordid history, I recall another time and place, and another woman who stumbled upon a heavily concealed secret. Her name was Iris Chang, and she exposed an even more iniquitous period, the Rape of Nanking. In her landmark book, Chang revealed the mass violation of Chinese women by the invading Japanese troops during World War II.

Tragically, hearing the horrific details, and receiving death threats, proved too much for Iris Chang. She suicided a few years after the book's release.

Perhaps someday, someone with Chang's courage (and the resources for personal bodyguards) will write a similar-type book about the Left's abominable treatment of its women. The narrative should include Diana Oughton, a once ebullient and lively woman who morphed into an emaciated zombie after she joined the Weather Underground. Oughton was killed in a botched bombing plot.

There are so many other women, like the nameless, anonymous readers who have emailed me, sharing their stories, sometimes for the first time. Many of these women were Leftists who turned conservative because of harrowing experiences in radical movements.

Was Stanley Ann Dunham one of them; was she a brainwashed victim of a Communist upbringing? Or was she simply an independent thinker, who willingly and happily forged her life's path?

I don't presume to know. But I do know that millions of American women have been hoodwinked by those sweet-talking progressives. And each new day, another young woman falls under their hypnotic spell.

A frequent American Thinker contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist in Berkeley. You can reach Robin through her blog www.robinofberkeley.com. Comments for this article can be posted here. Robin's articles are intended for informational and entertainment purposes, not to offer treatment or definitive diagnoses.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i] Davis has confirmed that his novel, Sex Rebel: Black, with its description of sex with a l3 year old girl, was autobiographical. Davis also described himself as "a voyeur and an exhibitionist," with an interest in group sex, sadomasochism, water sports, simulated rape, and bondage.

[ii] From: A Conservative History of the America Left, by Daniel Flynn. (source)

Honor Killing in America

2011-01-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

Muzzammil Hassan with his wife Aasiya Zubair Hassan.

The trials of two "honor killers" are underway in America this week: one in Buffalo, New York, and the other in Arizona.

In Buffalo, the moderate Muslim beheader and bridge-builder to the West, Muzzammil Hassan, was granted the right Monday to act as his own attorney. That should make for some interesting trial transcripts. Hassan had an attorney, Jeremy Schwartz, but Schwartz told the judge that he met with Hassan on Friday and they had an impasse and "irreconcilable differences and opinions" that go to the heart of the defense.

Muzzammil Hassan was a respected Muslim businessman in Buffalo. He founded the BridgesTV network several years ago to improve the image of Muslims in the United States. But now he is standing trial for the decapitation of his estranged wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, in February 2009. He beheaded her at his company's office in Orchard Park, New York -- that's right, in the offices of BridgesTV. Police records show that Muzzammil Hassan had abused Aasiya for years. And that means that the Buffalo-area Muslim community writ large ought to be on trial as well; they knew of the brutal violence Aasiya suffered and apparently kept silent. The Muslim community knew of Hassan's abuse.

And in Arizona, an Iraqi Muslim named Faleh Almaleki went on trial this week for murdering his daughter for being too "westernized." The Almaleki trial damn near didn't happen. They were negotiating a plea deal for this cold-blooded adherent to the sharia. But readers of my website AtlasShrugs.com called, wrote, and e-mailed, and in a huge victory for Atlas readers who fought the impending plea deal, it was withdrawn.

Faleh Almaleki and daughter Noor Almaleki

Muslim dad Faleh Almaleki ran over his daughter, Noor Almaleki. He is now showing his utter contempt for the infidel system of jurisprudence by saying that he ran down and murdered his daughter with his car accidentally while he was "concentrating on spitting at another woman." Spitting on a woman: the metaphor should not be lost on anyone. This disgusting defense and out-and-out lie contradicts Faleh Almaleki's admission in November 2009 (here) that, according to state prosecutor Stephanie Low, Faleh Almaleki admitted that he ran over his daughter on purpose:

By his own admission, this was an intentional act and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family. This was an attempt at an honor killing.

Then-prosecutor Low said "attempt" because Noor Almaleki had not yet succumbed to her injuries. She hung on by a thread for two weeks.

After her father ran her over, he backed up his vehicle and ran her over again. Was this, too, in an attempt to spit?

Remember that these are not isolated incidents or actions of a "fringe" element within Islam. They are happening with increasing frequency. The Harry Potter actress Afshan Azad was recently almost killed by her father and brother in another attempted Islamic honor killing. How much more in the mainstream can you get? Yet despite who she is, the celebrity of the victim, still the dhimmedia shills for, aids, abets, and covers for Islamic misogyny. And even more galling was Azad's family's concern -- not with their Afshan, but with "what the Muslim community will think." That was their worry and obsession.

The horror of these young girls, terror-stricken victims who live in homemade concentration camps, is given the imprimatur of the West in its complicit silence. Notice how news accounts never mention the religion of the people involved. The West is intent upon putting an urbane face on bloodthirsty savagery. The West looks away, and more girls lead desperate, brutal lives. The "feminists" look away and pretend that Islamic honor killing is outside the realm of women's rights. The leftists are tools of Islamic jihad: these useful idiots are on someone's payroll, or else they fear Islam so much that they are willing to see these girls die.

Either way, get out of the way. Shame on all of you for failing our women, our children, our girls, our very way of life. How dare you throw away our superior culture with both hands?

As Muslim populations grow in the West, the status of women diminishes. The horrific murders of wives, daughters, moms, and sisters are the worst and ultimate punishment of Islamic gender apartheid, and something we see on the rise in the West. It should be a capital crime in America. (source)

Sign Of Our Times: Things You Never See In Civilized Communites (The SC IHOP Brawl)

2011-01-26T08:07:00.001-08:00

Sign Of Our Times: Things You Never See In Civilized Communities (Teenage Girls Viciously Beat A Wendy's Cashier)

2011-01-25T13:02:00.001-08:00

Vicious Attack on Wendy's Worker: MyFoxNY.com

China Bank Moves to Buy U.S. Branches

2011-01-24T16:58:00.000-08:00

China's biggest bank signed an agreement that would make it the first Beijing-controlled financial institution to acquire retail bank branches in the U.S., though regulators could still block the deal.

Under the deal, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., by some measures the world's largest bank, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Bank of East Asia Ltd.'s U.S. subsidiary. ICBC will pay $140 million for an 80% stake. Bank of East Asia, which is a publicly traded company based in Hong Kong, has a total of 13 branches in New York and California. ICBC and Bank of East Asia have talked to U.S. regulators about the deal, these people said.

The move represents what could be the start of big expansions by Chinese financial institutions in the U.S.

Signed in Chicago on the last day of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S., the move, comes as both Beijing and Washington are calling for greater commercial ties between the two countries.

Both Beijing and Washington are eager to showcase their willingness to strengthen the business ties between the two countries, despite the many issues that will continue to hinder the relations. China is prodding the U.S. to ease its export controls, especially those involving high-technology products, aimed at its biggest economic rival. The U.S. is asking for more Chinese purchases of made-in-America goods and services.

The transaction is expected to be carefully scrutinized by U.S. regulators, including the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., known as CFIUS, because of the state-controlled nature of the Chinese bank. A previous deal by a Chinese bank to acquire a bank in the U.S. was rejected by regulators. "It is going to be a long process," a person familiar with the matter said.

If ICBC's deal to acquire Bank of East Asia's U.S. subsidiary goes through, Americans could walk into the retail branches, open check and savings accounts and, most significantly for many investors, open yuan accounts to trade the currency.

ICBC, as the bank is known, is based in Beijing and is 70% owned by the Chinese government. It has become increasingly comfortable venturing outside its home markets, which still account for the bulk of its profit. Last year, ICBC got into the broker-dealer business in the U.S. with a symbolic $1 purchase of the U.S. brokerage unit of Fortis Securities, controlled by France's BNP Paribas SA. That deal didn't subject ICBC to tight U.S. regulatory restrictions on foreign purchases of retail-banking operations.

U.S. regulators often demand that foreign banks prove they are adequately supervised in their home markets and have proper antimoney-laundering procedures in place before allowing them to set up retail operations, legal experts say.

The agreement was signed at the Hilton Chicago as part of a slew of pacts announced by roughly 60 U.S. and Chinese companies at a giant "signing ceremony" organized on Friday by China's Commerce Ministry and its U.S. counterpart.

Both Beijing and Washington are eager to showcase their willingness to strengthen the business ties between the two countries, despite the many issues that will continue to hinder the relations. China is prodding the U.S. to ease its export controls, especially those involving high-technology products, aimed at its biggest economic rival while the U.S. is asking for more Chinese purchases of made-in-America goods and services. The contract-signing event in Chicago was hailed as "the most important event" in conjunction with President Hu's visit, according to officials in the Chinese delegation.

The move by ICBC underscores the desire by Chinese banking executives to transform their strength into a greater presence globally, as Chinese banks have emerged from the global financial crisis largely unscathed. Their hope is to better support Chinese companies and guard against losing customers to U.S. and European banks that already have networks world-wide. Meantime, Beijing has encouraged Chinese companies to expand overseas in recent years. In light of the huge foreign-exchange reserves China has, Beijing has encouraged its banks to invest more overseas.

In a speech at the event Friday, Chen Deming, China's Commerce Minister, said one of the priorities for the Commerce Ministry is to "encourage our companies to go out." He pointed to the vast foreign-exchange reserves held by China, saying that "we should turn those reserves into capital and assets." Otherwise, the reserves could decline in value because of inflation, Mr. Chen said.

While China's resource and construction companies have moved aggressively into new markets, its financial institutions generally have been slow to follow.

Bank of East Asia is led by prominent Asian banker Sir David Li. Mr. Li drew unwanted attention to himself in the U.S. and Hong Kong in 2007 when the former board member of Dow Jones became the target of an insider-trading case involving News Corp.'s buyout bid for Dow Jones. Mr. Li later agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle the civil charges. Mr. Li couldn't be reached for comment.

So far, most Chinese investments in the U.S. financial sector have involved the Chinese taking passive, minority stakes in firms such as Blackstone Group LP and Morgan Stanley. Taking a majority stake in Bank of East Asia is a change of tactic for ICBC

At the same time, Bank of East Asia is no stranger to ICBC. It sold a 70% stake in its Canadian operations to ICBC last year and all of its six branches in Canada have since been rebranded ICBC Canada. Bank of East Asia has 13 branches in the U.S., concentrating in New York and California—two states that boast the largest numbers of Chinese immigrants. The bank formed its U.S. banking subsidiary in 2001 through the acquisition of Grand National Bank, of Alhambra, Calif.

The deal, if approved by U.S. regulators, would allow ICBC to gain relatively quick access to American depositors. Right now, ICBC has one branch in New York, but it isn't involved in the retail-banking business. Bank of China Ltd. is the only mainland Chinese bank that has a retail license in the U.S. market. The bank, also state owned, has two branches in New York and one in Los Angeles. It recently has started allowing American customers to buy and sell the Chinese currency through its U.S. branches.

The decision by Bank of China is the latest move by China to allow the yuan, whose value is still tightly controlled by the government, to become an international currency that can be used for trade and investment.

Chinese banks have encountered uphill battles to gain access to the U.S. market in the past. For instance, it took almost two years for ICBC to get the approval from the Federal Reserve to open its New York branch, which has so far focused on commercial lending. That green light was given shortly before President George W. Bush's trip to Beijing for the Summer Olympics in 2008.

Some Chinese banks' bids to acquire U.S. counterparts have been rejected. A case in point is China Minsheng Banking Corp. In 2008, Minsheng, China's first private bank and a midsize lender, agreed to take a 9.9% stake in San Francisco lender UCBH Holdings Inc., the holding company for United Commercial Bank. When the bank ran into trouble during the financial crisis over bad loans and accounting errors, Minsheng tried to buy it. U.S. regulators rejected the move because of restrictions on foreign investment in U.S. banks, according to people familiar with the matter. Regulators in late 2009 shut down United Commercial Bank and Minsheng had to write off its $130 million investment.(source)

Barry As President: CHINA'S MILITARY RISE MEANS Appeasement Is The Proper Policy Towards Confucian China

2011-01-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

We all learned at school how the status quo powers mismanaged the spectacular rise of Germany before World War I, a strategic revolution so like the rise of China today.

And we all learned how the Kaiser overplayed his hand. That much was obvious.

Yet it is difficult to pin-point exactly when the normal pattern of great power jostling began to metamorphose into something more dangerous, leading to two rival, entrenched, and heavily armed alliance structures unable or unwilling to avert the drift towards conflict. The Long Peace died by a thousand cuts, a snub here, a Dreadnought there, the race for oil.

The German historian Fritz Fischer has in a sense muddied the waters with his seminal work, Griff nach der Weltmacht (Bid for World Power). He draws on imperial archives in Potsdam to claim that Germany’s general staff was angling for a pre-emptive war to smash France and dismember the Russian Empire before it emerged as an industrial colossus. Sarajevo provided the “propitious moment”.

Kaiser Wilhelm’s court allegedly made up its mind after the Social Democrats (then Marxists) won a Reichstag majority in 1912, seeing war as a way to contain radical dissent. This assessment was tragically correct. War split the Social Democrats irrevocably, allowing the Nazis to exploit a divided Left under Weimar.

The Fischer version of events is a little too reassuring, and not just because the Entente allies had already fed Germany’s self-fulfilling fears of encirclement and emboldened Tsarist Russia to push its luck in the Balkans. A deeper cause was at work.

"The only condition which could lead to improvement of German-English relations would be if we bridled our economic development, and this is not possible," said Deutsche Bank chief Karl Helfferich as early as 1897. German steel output jumped tenfold from 1880 to 1900, leaping past British production. Sound familiar?

Is China now where Germany was in 1900? Possibly. There are certainly hints of menace from some quarters in Beijing. Defence minister Liang Guanglie said over New Year that China’s armed forces are “pushing forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction”.

Professor Huang Jing from Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew School and a former adviser to China’s Army, said Beijing is losing its grip on the colonels.

“The young officers are taking control of strategy and it is like young officers in Japan in the 1930s. This is very dangerous. They are on a collision course with a US-dominated system,” he said.

Yet nothing is foreordained. Which is why it was so unsettling to learn that most of the leadership of the US Congress declined to attend the state banquet at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao, including the Speaker of House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Mr Hu a “dictator”. Is this a remotely apposite term for a self-effacing man of Confucian leanings, whose father was a victim of the Cultural Revolution, who fights a daily struggle against his own hotheads at home, and who will hand over power in an orderly transition next year?

Or for premier Wen Jiabao, who visited students in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, narrowly surviving the “insubordination purge” that followed? These leaders may be wrong in their assessment of how much democracy China can handle without flying out of control, but despots they are not.

President Barack Obama has bent over backwards to draw China into the international system through the G20, the World Bank and the IMF, in practical terms recognizing Beijing as co-equal in global condominium.

You could say Mr Obaba has won little in return for reaching out, but as Napoleon put it, “a leader is a dealer in hope”. What, pray, would a policy of crude containment do to China’s psyche?

Heaven protect us from unreconstructed Neo-cons such as ex-UN ambassador John Bolton, who wants to send aircraft carrier battle groups into the Straits of Taiwan, as if we were still living in that lost world of American pre-eminence in 1996, when China was still too weak to respond, and did not have operational missiles able to sink US carriers far at sea. Yet variants of the Bolton view are gaining ground on Capitol Hill.

Yes, China’s leaders should be careful not to succumb to the Wilhelmine illusion that economic and strategic momentum is the same as actual power.

There is a new edge to Chinese naval policy in the South China Sea, causing Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines to cleave closer to the US alliance. Has Beijing studied how German naval ambitions upset the careful diplomatic legacy of Bismarck and pushed an ambivalent Britain towards the Entente, even to the point of accepting alliance with Tsarist autocracy?

Factions in Beijing appear to think that China will win a trade war if Washington ever imposes sanctions to counter Chinese mercantilism. That is a fatal misjudgement. The lesson of Smoot-Hawley and the 1930s is that surplus states suffer crippling depressions when the guillotine comes down on free trade; while deficit states can muddle through, reviving their industries behind barriers. Demand is the most precious commodity of all in a world of excess supply.

The political reality is that China’s export of manufacturing over-capacity is hollowing out the US industrial core, and a plethora of tricks to stop Western firms competing in the Chinese market rubs salt in the wound. It is preventing full recovery in the US, where half the population is falling out of the bottom of the Affluent Society. Some 43.2m people are now on food stamps. The US labour force participation rate has fallen to 64.3pc, worse than a year ago. Only the richer half is recovering.

The roots of this imbalance lie in the structure of globalisation and East-West capital flows – and no doubt the deficiencies of US school education – but China plays a central role, and this will not tolerated for much longer if Beijing is also perceived to be a strategic enemy. China’s economic and military goals are in conflict. One defeats the other.

The undervalued yuan is merely the visible tip of the mercantilist iceberg, and is a diminishing factor in any case as leaked dollar stimulus from the Fed’s QE drives up Chinese wage inflation. What matters is that China’s entire credit, tax, and regulatory system is geared towards subsidised capital for exporters.

Professor Michael Pettis from Beijing University argues that a key reason why Chinese consumption has collapsed from 48pc to 36pc of GDP over 12 years – and therefore why China cannot eliminate the trade surplus with the US – is that the banking system has been bailed out with an interest rate subsidy extracted from depositors, shifting income from the people to corporate debtors. Unfortunately, this is about to happen again.

A cocky China needs to watch its step, as does a rancorous America, before resentments feed on each other in a Wilhelmine spiral.

The Chinese have no recent history of sweeping territorial expansion (except Tibet). The one-child policy has left a dearth of young men, and implies a chronic aging crisis within a decade. This is not the demographic profile of a fundamentally bellicose nation.

The correct statecraft for the West is to treat Beijing politely but firmly as a member of global club, gambling that the Confucian ethic will over time incline China to a quest for global as well as national concord. Until we face irrefutable evidence that this Confucian bet has failed, 'Boltonism’ must be crushed.

Appeasement, your hour has come.(source)

CHINESE MILITARY MACHINE: On The Rise

2011-01-24T13:45:00.000-08:00

Lift-off: China's J-20 stealth plane has made a successful test flight. Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999

China was able to build its first stealth bomber using technology gleaned from a downed U.S. fighter, it has been claimed.

Beijing unveiled its state-of-the-art jet – the Chengdu J-20 – earlier this month.

Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.

During Nato’s aerial bombing of the country during the Kosovo war, a Serbian anti-aircraft missile shot the Nighthawk. It was the first time one of the ‘invisible’ fighters had ever been hit.

The Pentagon believed a combination of clever tactics and luck had allowed a Soviet-built SA-3 missile to bring down the jet.

The pilot ejected and was rescued but the wreckage was strewn over a wide area of farmland.

Civilians collected the parts – some the size of small cars – as souvenirs.

‘At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers,’ says Admiral Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia’s military chief of staff during the Kosovo war.

‘We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies... and to reverse-engineer them.’

A senior Serbian military official confirmed that pieces of the wreckage were removed by souvenir collectors, and that some ended up ‘in the hands of foreign military attaches’.

In what appears to be a clear message of its military might, China staged the first test flight of the new stealth jet earlier this month - at the same time that U.S. defence chief Robert Gates was in Beijing on the second day of an official visit.

The fighter jet's successful test follows reports that China is planning to launch its first aircraft carrier and has tested a ballistic missile capable of sinking U.S. vessels in the Pacific.

The prototype jet was shown in flight, with civilians and air force personnel watching on, in pictures on several unofficial Chinese military websites, after local media outlets had claimed a successful test flight had taken place.

While the Chinese government is renowned for its stringent approach to state secrets, photos and reports of the J-20's test have remained online.

According to international agencies, the scheduling of the test flight to coincide with Mr Gates' visit to China, coupled with the seemingly relaxed approach to reports about the flight, indicated Beijing's willingness to be more open about its military intentions.

Nonetheless, reports of the stealth's successful test will do little to quell anxieties about the speed of China's military progress.

The U.S. F-22 Raptor is currently the only operational stealth fighter in the world, while Russia's Sukhoi T-50 jet is expected to enter active service in the next four years.

But pictures of China's J-20, which looks larger than the F-22 or T-50, will be of concern to the Taiwanese government, whose antiquated aircraft and radar systems would provide little resistance to radar-evading Chinese jets.

The U.S. has claimed China would not be capable of developing a stealth jet for years and production of the F-22 was recently capped.

But the J-20's successful test, coupled with reports of the development of an aircraft carrier and missile system, confirms China's growing military might.(source)

Islamofile 012411: Suicide Bomber Kills 35 At Russia's Biggest Airport

2011-01-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people at Russia's busiest airport on Monday, state TV said, in an attack on the capital that bore the hallmarks of militants fighting for an Islamist state in the North Caucasus region.

President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to track down and punish those behind the bombing, which also injured over 150 people, including foreigners, during the busy late afternoon at Moscow's Domodedovo airport.

Islamist rebels have vowed to take their bombing campaign from the North Caucasus to the Russian heartland in the year before presidential elections, hitting transport and economic targets. They have also leveled threats at the 2014 Winter Olympics, scheduled for the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, a region some militants consider "occupied."

Dense smoke filled Domodedovo's international arrivals hall and a fire burned along one wall.

"Taxi drivers lined up in the arrivals hall were blown up. Pieces of their bodies covered us and my left ear doesn't hear very well at all," Artyom Zhilenkov, 30, told Reuters as he pointed to pieces of human flesh on his coat.

Thick drops of blood were scattered across the snow-covered tarmac outside the arrivals hall, where Interfax news agency said traces of shrapnel were found.

"I heard a loud boom... we thought someone had just dropped something. But then I saw casualties being carried away," a check-in attendant who gave her name as Elena told Reuters at Domodedovo, which is some 22 km (14 miles) southeast of Moscow.

The prosecutor's office said the bomb had been classified as a terrorist attack -- the largest since twin suicide bombings on the Moscow metro rocked the Russian heartland in March.

"The blast was most likely carried out by a suicide bomber"

State television said the blast was the work of a "smertnik," or suicide bomber.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the "outrageous act of terrorism" and offered Moscow help. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was shocked, state TV said.

A decade after federal forces drove separatists from power in Chechnya in the second of two wars, the mainly Muslim North Caucasus is wracked by violence.

Medvedev, who has called the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus the biggest threat to Russian security, wrote on Twitter: "Security will be strengthened at large transport hubs."

"We mourn the victims of the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport. The organizers will be tracked down and punished."

Medvedev, due to open the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, delayed his Tuesday departure to the Swiss city of Davos.

No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but dozens of Internet surfers, writing in Russian, praised the suicide bomber on unofficial Islamist site kavkazcenter.com.

Russia's ruble-denominated stock market MICEX fell by nearly two percent following the blast, but traders said they expected little long-term impact.

"It (the blast) is moving the market in the short term, but there is no fundamental reason for the market to fall. If you remember, the market didn't react strongly to (previous blasts)," said trader Alexei Bachurin from Renaissance Capital.

The attack raised questions over Russian security -- one month after it won the right to host the 2018 World Cup.

SPREADING INSURRECTION

Twitter users posted mobile video phone footage of dozens of people lying on the floor amongst severed limbs and pools of blood as thick smoke filled the hall and a fire burned along one wall.

Airport staff were shown using flash lights to pick their way through the chaotic scene taped off immediately after the blast. Later videos showed emergency workers wheeling injured people out of the terminal on stretchers.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who shares power in a 'tandem' arrangement with the less influential Medvedev, has staked his political reputation on quelling rebellion in the North Caucasus.

He launched a war in late 1999 in Chechnya to topple a secessionist government. That campaign achieved its immediate aim and helped him to the presidency months later; but since then insurgency has spread to neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan.

"It does not ... bode well for Russian ties to the North Caucasus and is yet another sign that what Putin started in 1999 by invading the rebellious republic of Chechnya has come home to roost again in the Russian capital," said Glen Howard, president of the U.S. Jamestown Foundation research institution.

Tensions between ethnic Russians and Muslims -- at 20 million they make up one seventh of Russia's population -- flared dramatically last month in a string of clashes, which involved thousands of Russian nationalists who attacked passersby of non-Slavic appearance, many of whom were from the North Caucasus.

Analysts say rebels are planning to increase violence in the run up to 2012 presidential elections, that may well see Putin returning to the presidency.

"It is a clear jab at the FSB (Federal Security Services) and at the elections," said Adil Mukashev, an independent expert on terrorism issues.

Security has been tightened at Moscow's other two airports, which will also receive diverted passengers who were flying toward Domodedovo, media reported.

Moscow suffered its worst attack in six years in March 2010 when two female suicide bombers from Dagestan set off explosives in the metro, killing 40 people.

The worst incident involving North Caucasus rebels took place in 2004 when militants seized control of a school in Beslan. When Russian troops stormed the building in an attempt to end a siege, 331 hostages, half of them children, were killed.(source)

Islamofile 012111: More Examples From The Religion Of Peace (The Harry Potter Star Case)

2011-01-21T14:18:00.000-08:00

She was punched, dragged by her hair and threatened with death by her big brother, but Harry Potter star Afshan Azad begged the court not to jail him.

Azad, 21, who stars as Harry's classmate Padma Patil in the J.K. Rowling movie franchise, had her original police statement read in the U.K.'s Manchester Crown Court, which revealed how her 28-year-old brother, Ashraf Azad, put her through a three-hour nightmare when he discovered she was dating a non-Muslim man.

So why did she ask the judge for leniency?

According to a letter Ashraf had written to the judge, the actress had "forgiven" her brother for the incident.

Back in May 2010, after he overheard her speaking to her Hindu boyfriend, Ashraf grabbed her hair, threw her across the room and punched her repeatedly. She suffered bruising and swelling and fled the house through her bedroom window.

But the judge had no sympathy for him, sentencing him to six months in prison after he pled guilty to beating his sister.

"This is a sentence that is designed to punish you for what you did and also to send out a clear message to others that domestic violence involving circumstances such as have arisen here cannot be tolerated," he explained as he handed down the sentence.

Afshan's father, Abdul Azad, was recently cleared for making death threats against her.(source)

Welfare Tab for Children of Illegal Immigrants Estimated at $600M in L.A. County

2011-01-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

July 29: Los Angeles workers from 32 different unions joined local faith and community leaders at Dodger Stadium boarding 11 buses bound for Arizona to protest Arizona immigration law SB 1070.

Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America's largest county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official keeping tabs on the cost.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich released new statistics this week showing social spending for those families in his county rose to $53 million in November, putting the county government on track to spend more than $600 million on related costs for the year -- up from $570 million in 2009.

Antonovich arrived at the estimate by factoring in the cost of food stamps and welfare-style benefits through a state program known as CalWORKS. Combined with public safety costs and health care costs, the official claimed the "total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers" was more than $1.6 billion in 2010.

"Not including the hundreds of millions of dollars for education," he said in a statement.

Antonovich's figures, though, center on costs generated by American-born children of illegal immigrants. Isabel Alegria, communications director at the California Immigrant Policy Center, said it's "unfair" to roll together costs associated with both illegal immigrants and U.S.-born citizens.

"Those children are U.S. citizens, children eligible for those programs," Alegria said.

She also questioned the authenticity of Antonovich's numbers regarding health care and public safety -- though for the welfare program statistics, Antonovich cited numbers from the county's Department of Public Social Services.

Antonovich acknowledges that the children whose benefits he's focusing on are U.S.-born. But he argues that the money is collected by the illegal immigrant parents, putting a painful burden on taxpayers, including those who are legal immigrants.

"The problem is illegal immigration. ... Their parents evidently immigrated here in order to get on social services," Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said. "We can no longer afford to be HMO to the world."

He said the state should cut back on these social benefits. According to the November statistics, that cost accounted for 22 percent of all food stamp and CalWORKS spending in the county.

Over the summer, the Federation for American Immigration Reform also looked at these kinds of costs nationwide to get an idea of the burden to local governments at a time when many are grappling with budget deficits.

The organization reported that the cost of illegal immigration stands at about $113 billion a year. Nearly half of that amount went toward education costs, according to the study. Costs were naturally higher in states with large illegal immigrant populations -- in California, the total annual cost was pegged at $21.8 billion.(source)

Philadelphia Abortion Doctor Charged With 8 Counts Of Murder

2011-01-20T13:03:00.000-08:00

A West Philadelphia abortion doctor, his wife and eight other suspects are now under arrest following a grand jury investigation.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman following a botched abortion at his office, along with the deaths of seven other babies who, prosecutors allege, were born alive following illegal late-term abortions and then were killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

“I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”

Gosnell is facing charges of murder in the third degree for the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar. Mrs. Mongar died on November 20, 2009, when she was overdosed with anesthetics prescribed by Gosnell. He is also facing seven murder charges for the deaths of infants who were killed after being born viable and alive during the sixth, seventh, or eighth month of pregnancy. Gosnell is also facing numerous other charges.

Gosnell is suspected of killing hundreds of living babies over the course of his 30-year practice. However, he is not charged because the records do not exist.

DA Williams said Gosnell made approximately $1.8 million in one year alone performing the procedures.

Four of the suspects, some improperly licensed according to officials, also face multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing the newborns. All of the suspects are now behind bars after warrants were served overnight.

A search of Gosnell’s office, called the Women’s Medical Society, revealed that bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses were scattered throughout the building. Jars containing the severed feet of babies lined a shelf.

Gosnell, a family practioner, was never certified as an OB/GYN. He is accused of re-using unsanitary instruments and performing procedures in filthy rooms. Some of the rooms had litter boxes and animals present at the time of the operations.

Investigators also said Gosnell allowed unlicensed employees, including a 15-year-old high school student, to perform operations and administer anesthesia.

The grand jury investigation revealed that, for over two decades, government health and licensing officials had received repeated reports about Gosnell’s dangerous practices. However, no action was ever taken, even after the agencies learned that Mrs. Mongar had died during routine abortions under Gosnell’s care (see related story).

Dr. Gosnell, who has practiced in the West Philadelphia neighborhood for decades, is also the target of a federal grand jury investigation into illegally prescribing prescription drugs. Investigators say during a search of his home, they found $240,000 in cash.

Defense attorney William J. Brennan, who was out of town when the arrest happened this morning, said he had not yet talked to Dr. Gosnell, but says the charges are extremely serious and emotionally charged, and it is extremely important not to have a rush to judgement. Brennan says Gosnell is “cloaked with the presumption of innocence.”

Meanwhile, a civil suit has also been filed against Gosnell on behalf of the husband and children of the woman who died after an abortion. The suit seeks unspecified damages for the family of Karna Mongar, an immigrant from Bhutan who spent many years as a refugee. The suit claims she died after just five months here because of treatment by unlicenced personnel in a facility that lacked proper medical equipment.

The doctor, in past interviews with Eyewitness News, has proclaimed his innocence, predicting if charged, he will be acquitted.(source)

26 States Join Suit Against Obama Health Law

2011-01-20T12:05:00.000-08:00

Jan. 18: Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaks after accepting delivery of signed petitions demanding the repeal of 'ObamaCare' in Washington.

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Six more states joined a lawsuit in Florida against President Obama's health care overhaul on Tuesday, meaning more than half of the country is challenging the law.

The announcement was made as House members in Washington, led by Republicans, debated whether to repeal the law.

The six additional states joined Florida and 19 others in the legal action, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

"It sends a strong message that more than half of the states consider the health care law unconstitutional and are willing to fight it in court," she said in a statement.

The states claim the health care law is unconstitutional and violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.

Government attorneys have said the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.

Lawsuits have been filed elsewhere. A federal judge in Virginia ruled in December that the insurance-purchase mandate was unconstitutional, though two other federal judges have upheld the requirement. It's expected the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve the issue.

"It is important to note that two of the three courts that have reviewed this law on the merits have found it constitutional, and those decisions --as well as two others the government prevailed on -- are pending in courts of appeal. At the same time, trial courts in additional cases have dismissed numerous challenges on jurisdictional and other grounds that have not been appealed," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

Meanwhile, the White House dismissed an expected vote on repealing the law, saying the Republicans' push was not a serious legislative effort. Democrats have a majority in the Senate and they have said they will block repeal in that chamber.

In the Florida case, the states also argue the federal government is violating the Constitution by forcing a mandate on the states without providing money to pay for it. They say the new law gives the state's the impossible choice of accepting the new costs or forfeiting federal Medicaid funding.

Florida U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson could rule later this month whether he will grant a summary judgment in favor of the states or the Obama administration without a trial.

Florida's former Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum filed the lawsuit just minutes after President Obama signed the 10-year, $938 billion health care bill into law in March. He chose a court in Pensacola, one of Florida's most conservative cities. The nation's most influential small business lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business, also joined the suit.

Joining the coalition in the Florida case were: Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The other states that are suing are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington.(source)

HOW DEMS OPERATE: Call The House GOP Nazi's

2011-01-20T11:32:00.001-08:00

The newfound civility didn’t last long. Political rhetoric in Congress doesn’t get much nastier than the words of one House Democrat during the debate on repealing the health care law.

In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

“They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing." And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover," Cohen said.

Cohen made his comments late last night, but they have attracted no attention because his speech was made to a virtually empty House chamber with no reporters around to watch.(source)

OBAMACARE REPEALED: House Votes To Repeal On Strict Party Lines

2011-01-19T16:26:00.000-08:00

House Republicans passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care plan Wednesday, taking their first major step toward rolling back the massive overhaul that has dominated the American political landscape for almost two years.

The vote was 245 to 189, and unanimous GOP support gave the vote the same partisan feel of the March vote to pass the law, underscoring once again the hardened political lines of the health care debate. Only three Democrats backed the repeal, a smaller number than Republicans had once predicted.

The bill will head next to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised to block it. If it did receive a vote, the repeal bill would be unlikely to draw support from even a majority of senators. Even so, House Republican leaders have challenged Reid to give the bill a vote since Democrats, who control the chamber, have little to fear.

Republicans rejected a procedural maneuver by the Democratic minority to make repeal ineffective unless a majority of the House and Senate withdraw from the federal health benefits program within 30 days after passage by each chamber.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the effort was “an attempt to derail an appeal of the Obamacare bill.”

House members flooded the floor throughout the day, delivering short but occasionally impassioned speeches that echoed their party’s talking points.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) called the law “a trillion-dollar tragedy.”

Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) described it as “job-killing” and “socialistic.”

Rep. Kevin Duncan (R-Texas) said “health care is too important to get it wrong, and Obamacare got it wrong.”

But Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) took the debate to a new level late Tuesday night, suggesting to an empty House floor that Republican rhetoric around health care reform is akin to Nazi propaganda that fed anti-Semitism during World War II.

“They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels,” Cohen said, referring to a Nazi propagandist. “You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing.”

Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) agreed Wednesday afternoon that the health reform law creates jobs, but sparred on their merits.

Pallone said it’s a good thing that the new law creates jobs in the health care sector. He also said he was glad to hear Stearns say that the law will create jobs, a point, he says, Republicans won’t concede.

But Stearns fired back, saying the measure creates the wrong kind of jobs.

“Perhaps the gentleman of New Jersey didn’t listen to me when I just spoke,” Stearns said. “It’s creating 150 new government agencies. And these are all government jobs. When we talk about job creation here, that’s government jobs.”

The House will vote Thursday to instruct four committees to draft alternative health care proposals that reflect Republican priorities, such as reducing medical malpractice lawsuits, prohibiting the denial of coverage to people with preexisting conditions and barring the use of taxpayer money for abortions.

But House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans won’t put a deadline on drafting an alternative to the Democrats’ health care reform law.

“I don’t know that we need artificial deadlines set up for the committees to act,” Boehner said. “We expect them to act in an efficient way, allowing all of their members on their committees to be heard, both Democrats and Republicans.”

Republicans introduced alternatives to the health reform legislation in the last Congress but have said they want to start those conversations anew in the several House committees with jurisdiction over health care.

Democrats tried to score some late political points amid the repeal vote by calling on members to give up their health benefits — the very kind of government-run health care Republicans rail against.

“It’s time for those who support repeal to give up the federal health benefits they currently enjoy as Members of Congress – the same benefits and protections they are voting to take away from millions of Americans,” a House Democratic leadership aide said. “Americans have a right to know that those who support repeal are willing to live without the same benefits they are denying their constituents.”(source)

Arizona Massacre Smear: Dems Want To Define What A "Threat" Means And Outlaw It As Speech

2011-01-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.

Brady told CNN that he wants federal lawmakers and officials to have the same protections against threat currently provided to the president. His call comes one day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot, along with 19 other people, at a public event in Tucson. A suspect is currently in custody.

"The president is a federal official," Brady told CNN in a telephone interview. "You can't do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge."

Among the six people killed was federal Judge John Roll.

While it is unknown at this time whether the shooting was politically motivated, that has not prevented a vigorous debate about whether heated political rhetoric seen during the healthcare reform debate and during the 2010 campaign is inciting violence.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has had to fend off a fresh round of criticism for a map posted on one of her websites targeting 20 congressional districts that voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2008 presidential election but had Democratic members that voted in favor of healthcare reform.

Critics originally took Palin to task for the apparent use of the crosshairs of guns to identify the districts. The controversy re-ignited Saturday after the shooting, since Giffords's district was included on the map.

Brady singled out the map as the type of rhetoric he opposed.

"You can't put bull's-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official," he said.

However, a Palin spokeswoman denied Sunday that the image was intended to depict gun sights. Palin offered condolences to the Giffords family and other victims of the shooting on her Facebook page Saturday.

"The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high, that we have got to shut this down," Brady said.(source)

Arizona Massacre Smear: Doesn't It Look As If The Left Wanted This Tragedy To Happen?

2011-01-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

One of the fiercest gun control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson, Ariz., Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday targeting the high-capacity ammunition clip the gunman used.

McCarthy ran for Congress after her husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train.

“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) said he’s preparing to introduce a similar bill in the Senate.

“The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market.“

Gun control activists said it was time to reform weapons laws in the United States almost immediately after a gunman killed six and injured 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona on Saturday.

Many said that people with a history of mental instability, like the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, should not be able to buy a gun — and no one should be able to buy stockpiles of the ammunition allegedly used by the 22-year-old assailant.

McCarthy said she plans to confer with House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to see “if we can work something through” in the coming week.

McCarthy’s spokesman confirmed that the legislation will target the high-capacity ammunition clips the Arizona gunman allegedly used in the shooting, but neither he nor the congresswoman offered any further details.

“Again, we need to look at how this is going to work to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass,” McCarthy said. “I don’t want to give the National Rifle Association — excuse the pun — the ammunition to come at me, either.”

Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

Another vocal supporter of gun control, Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, told POLITICO that he hopes “something good” can come from the Arizona tragedy — perhaps discussion of a new assault weapons ban, sales at gun shows and tracing measures.

Loughner legally purchased his weapon — a Glock 19 with an extended magazine — from an Arizona store. The same kind of extended magazine was illegal under the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

“The ability to buy a weapon that fires hundreds of bullets in less than a minute” is a problem, said Quigley. “He had an additional magazine capability. That’s not what a hunter needs. That’s not what someone needs to defend their home. That’s what you use to hunt people.”

After the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, in which a student with a history of psychological problems killed 33 and injured 25 others, lawmakers immediately started looking at gun control reforms at both the state and the federal level.

Then-Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine issued an executive order making it harder for people who have been committed to mental health treatment centers to buy a gun.

In 2008 President George W. Bush signed a law expanding the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which registered gun dealers use, to include more comprehensive reporting of mental health records. Under the current law, it is illegal for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution” to purchase a firearm, according to the FBI’s website.

However, Loughner did not fall into either of those categories, according to Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

“I’ve seen no evidence that he falls into those categories. It’s the same thing as this guy at Virginia Tech,” said Horwitz. “We can do a much better job checking people’s mental health background.”(source)

The Effeminate Crowd Weighs In A Day Late And A Dollar Short: Still Blaming Sarah Palin Over AZ Massacre

2011-01-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

Despite President Obama's speech about healing, shared responsibility and shared pain, conservative pundit Sarah Palin is plastered, unflatteringly, along one San Francisco street (so far).

The posters -- found and publisehd by SFist.com -- espouse "Enrage them with fear until they feel justified in their violence."

Granted, Palin has brought even more spotlight on herself with a recent diatribe against "irresponsible journalists."

Maybe the president's message stressing the strength of our words and how we use them will stick ... like a poster to a wall. (source)

Five Days Of Dems/Media Claiming Shooter Was A Right-Winger Goes Wrong: He Was A Nihilistic Non-Believer

2011-01-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

Police Say They Visited Tucson Suspect’s Home Even Before Rampage

Favorite books: The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf

TUCSON — The police were sent to the home where Jared L. Loughner lived with his family on more than one occasion before the attack here on Saturday that left a congresswoman fighting for her life and six others dead, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday.

A spokesman, Jason Ogan, said the details of the calls were being reviewed by legal counsel and would be released as soon as the review was complete. He said he did not know what the calls were about — they could possibly have been minor, even trivial matters — or whether they involved Jared Loughner or another member of the household.

A friend of Mr. Loughner’s also said in an interview on Tuesday that Mr. Loughner, 22, was skilled with a gun — as early as high school — and had talked about a philosophy of fostering chaos.

The news of police involvement with the Loughners suggests that county sheriff’s deputies were at least familiar with the family, even if the reason for their visits was unclear as of Tuesday night.

The account by Mr. Loughner’s friend, a rare extended interview with someone close to Mr. Loughner in recent years, added some details to the emerging portrait of the suspect and his family.

“He was a nihilist and loves causing chaos, and that is probably why he did the shooting, along with the fact he was sick in the head,” said Zane Gutierrez, 21, who was living in a trailer outside Tucson and met Mr. Loughner sometimes to shoot at cans for target practice.

The Loughner family released a statement on Tuesday, its first since the attacks, expressing — in a six-line document handed to reporters outside their house — sorrow for the losses experienced by the victims and their families.

“It may not make any difference, but we wish that we could change the heinous events of Saturday,” the statement said. “There are no words that can possibly express how we feel. We wish that there were, so we could make you feel better.”

The new details from Mr. Gutierrez about Mr. Loughner — including his philosophy of anarchy and his expertise with a handgun, suggest that the earliest signs of behavior that may have ultimately led to the attacks started several years ago.

Mr. Gutierrez said his friend had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “The Will To Power” and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism — a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings.

“Jared felt nothing existed but his subconscious,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “The dream world was what was real to Jared, not the day-to-day of our lives.”

And that dream world, his friend said, could be downright strange.

“He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.”

He added that Mr. Loughner “used the word hollow to describe how fake the real world was to him.”

As his behavior grew more puzzling to his friends, he was getting better with a pistol. Starting in high school, Mr. Loughner honed his marksmanship with a 9-millimeter pistol, the same caliber weapon used in the attack Saturday, until he became proficient at handling the weapon and firing it quickly.

“If he had a gun pointed at me, there is nothing I could do because he would make it count,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “He was quick.”

He also said that Mr. Loughner had increasing trouble interacting in social settings — during one party, for instance, Mr. Loughner retreated upstairs alone to a room and was found reading a dictionary.

Jared Loughner’s retreat — whether into the desert with his gun, or into the recesses of his dreams — coincided with a broader retreat by the Loughner family that left them increasingly isolated from their community, neighbors said.

His father, Randy, once more of a presence in their mostly working-class neighborhood in northwest Tucson as he went off to work as a carpet-layer and pool-deck installer, became a silent and often sullen presence.
One neighbor, George Gayan, who said he had known the family for 30 years, described a kind of a gradual “pulling back” by the family.

“People do this for different reasons,” said Mr. Gayan, 82. “I don’t know why.”

Some years ago, Randy Loughner built a wall to shield the side porch of the family’s home. Because of his often bellicose attitude, neighbors sometimes kept their distance.

Leslie Cooper owns the house next door, where her son and his family live. She recounted a time when her grandchildren would not chase after a ball that landed in the Loughners’ backyard.

“They had to buy a new one,” said Ms. Cooper, who was told of the incident by her son. “I’d tell my son, those are not normal people over there — there’s a reason why they stick to themselves,” she said, adding that she had warned him to steer clear of Randy Loughner.

“I said, be careful around that guy — don’t get him angry,” she added.

Other people in the neighborhood, though, said they saw glimpses of compassion in the Loughner family, and an ability to reach out to others, sometimes unexpectedly.

Richard Mckinley, 41, whose mother lives down the street from the Loughners, said his mother appreciated how Randy and Amy Loughner were among the first people to visit when her husband died two years ago.

“They were some of the first people to pay respects,” he said.

In contrast to the reputation of his father, Jared Loughner’s mother, Amy, is considered pleasant but reserved by those who know her.

She commuted about an hour each day to her job managing Agua Caliente Park, an area of spring-fed ponds surrounded by giant palm trees in the desert on the outskirts of Tucson. The impeccably maintained park was quiet Tuesday, but for the chirping of the dozens of species of birds that call it home and the occasional crunch of a birder’s hiking boots along the trails.

Donna DeHaan, a former board member of the nonprofit group that helps support the park, said Ms. Loughner was a reliable manager with a good background in environmental issues. Ms. DeHaan said she never spoke about her family but was always pleasant, if a tad quiet and shy.

Mr. Gutierrez said he sensed very little communication within the family when he was among them.

“Every time I met his parents they were kind of quiet and estranged,” he said. Jared Loughner did not complain about his parents, Mr. Gutierrez said, and seemed to simply accept the lack of interaction as a fact of life.

“Jared really did not talk to his parents or talk about them,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “I felt they were not really good reaching out and he was not good at reaching out to his parents.”

After his arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007, Mr. Loughner was ordered to attend a diversion program run by the county attorney’s office. The chief deputy county attorney, Amelia Craig Cramer, said the program is intended for first-time offenders who have no history of violence or serious mental illness.

Mr. Loughner was referred to an approved drug education program, and completed the required sessions in 30 days.

But the program is primarily educational, Ms. Cramer said, focused on “the dangers of drugs and the dangers of substance abuse,” rather than the kind of in-depth counseling that friends, including Mr. Gutierrez, strongly felt that Mr. Loughner needed.

“It got worse over time,” Mr. Gutierrez said. He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling.

“He would call me at 2 a.m. and asked, ‘Are you hanging out in front of my house, stalking me?’ He started to get really paranoid, and said he did not want to see us anymore and did not trust us,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to himself and another friend. “He thought we were plotting to kill him or steal his car.”(source)

HYPOCRISY ALERT: Leftist Blog Uses Same Language About Rep Giffords As It Blames Conservatives For

2011-01-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Look who else put 'bull's-eye' on Giffords
Leftist blog points finger at Palin, while scrubbing 'dead to me' rant

Shortly after news broke of the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the left-leaning blog Daily Kos was swift to scrub its post from a Tucson writer explaining how the congresswoman was now "dead to me."

One of the blog's diary writers, identifying himself as BoyBlue, had written a post only two days before the shooting titled "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!"

Partial screenshot of Daily Kos diary post before it was scrubbed:

"I am from the Tucson area and live in Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district," BoyBlue wrote. "Today, just a little while ago, I saw on Andrea Mitchell Reports that Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi as our minority leader. … Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is dead to me now."

Several news sources and commentators have sought to analyze yesterday's mass shooting in Tucson that left six dead and Giffords in critical condition, while many blogs and columns have blamed the nation's heated political "rhetoric" for inspiring people toward violence against their elected officials.

Understand what's happening to America's culture and what you can do to fight it with "How Evil Works," autographed, from the WND Superstore.

Sarah Palin in particular has been singled out for criticism by CBS News, the Guardian and others for publishing a "target map" on her website using images of gun sights to identify the districts of 20 House Democrats up for election in last year's mid-terms, including Giffords.

Daily Kos joined in the criticism, and the blog's founder, Markos Moulitsas, tweeted early yesterday, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin," with a link to Palin's map.

Moulitsas, however, had also posted what he called a "target list" identifying Giffords. In a 2008 Daily Kos post, Moulitsas listed Giffords as one of dozens of representatives with "a bull's-eye on their district" for being a "bad apple" Democrat.

The "dead to me" diary has since been deleted from Daily Kos, while Moulitsas' "target list" is still viewable.

Police have named and apprehended 22-year-old Tucson resident Jared L. Loughner as the perpetrator of yesterday's massacre, making it highly unlikely that "BoyBlue" is also the shooter.

The Daily Kos diary writer identifies himself as a "gay" man whose wife left him last year and who suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face. BoyBlue also appeared on the blog again today, issuing an apology to "this site, the victims and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords."

"Most of you know by now my diary bemoaning Rep. Giffords' voting against Nancy Pelosi has been taken by the far right to preemptively protect themselves," Boy Blue writes of his now-scrubbed, previous post.

"I made a VERY poor choice of words when I partially titled the diary, 'now dead to me,'" he continues. "Of course I wished no harm to Gabby."

He continues, "I fully apologize to all the victims in this shooting, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, for my poor choice of words in that diary. I fully and respectfully apologize to this blog and to Markos himself for the bad publicity amongst the right wing this has caused. … I apologize to the DailyKos membership and readership for being maligned by the far right blogs.

"However, I have to offer a heartfelt 'f--- you' to the right-wing blogs," he writes, "for even mentioning my username here in any connection to that unspeakable and unthinkable horror."

In his "apology" post, BoyBlue twice states that he suspects the shooting is instead best blamed on supporters of Giffords' opponent in the 2010 mid-terms, Republican Jesse Kelly.

"I would bet my house that it will come out that some disgruntled former Jesse Kelly right-wing supporters did this," BoyBlue writes. (source)

Dem Leader James Clyburn Uses Lone Gunman Story To Blame Conservatives

2011-01-13T09:43:00.000-08:00

The US was tonight seized by a fierce debate over whether inflammatory rightwing rhetoric was to blame for a shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, that targeted congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six dead, including a nine-year-old child.

Giffords, 40, who remains critically ill in hospital after being shot through the head but is expected to live, criticised Sarah Palin last year for putting her and 19 other Democrats on a hitlist of districts, each shown as being in crosshairs.

"When people do that, they have got to realise there are consequences to that action," Giffords said. Palin today distanced herself from the shooting, as did leading figures of the Tea Party movement. Conservative bloggers accused liberals of seeking to exploit the attack.

Barack Obama called on Americans to hold a moment of silence at 11am today to commemorate the victims of the shooting and he spoke of the attack as a national tragedy, and promised to get to the bottom of it. "A suspect is currently in custody, but we don't yet know what provoked this unspeakable act." He described Giffords as a friend. "It's not surprising that today Gabby was doing what she always does – listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbours. That is the essence of what our democracy is all about. That is why this is more than a tragedy for those involved. It is a tragedy for Arizona and a tragedy for our entire country."

The US department of justice said the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, had been charged with five criminal counts, including attempted assassination of a US congresswoman. Loughner is expected to appear in federal court in Phoenix today before a federal magistrate judge.

Robert Mueller, the FBI director, said the attack was "not only against dedicated public servants but against citizens, one a child. This was an attack on our institutions and an attack on our way of life."

The National Jewish Democratic Council – Giffords is the first Jewish woman elected to Congress from Arizona – saw the attack as emanating from the polarised political debate: "It is fair to say – in today's political climate, and given today's political rhetoric – that many have contributed to the building levels of vitriol in our political discourse that have surely contributed to the atmosphere in which this event transpired."

Giffords's father was blunter. Asked if she had any enemies, he said: "Yeah, the whole Tea Party."

Giffords, a former Republican turned Democrat, had been holding a public meeting in a shopping mall when the gunman opened fire.

Loughner is described by the authorities as mentally unstable. He is alleged to have used a semi-automatic pistol, bought in November. The dead included a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl and a Democratic party worker. Police have not identified a motive and Loughner has opted to remain silent.

A second man captured on a security camera with Loughner near the scene of the attack has been cleared of involvement, police said.

Repeated questions about the bitterness of the debate were raised last year during the election, with fears for Obama's life and those of other leading Democrats as a result of repeated questioning about his eligibility to be president and the constitutionality of his acts. The fear was that fringe groups not committted to the peaceful political process might be influenced by the wilder outbursts of right-wing politicians and commentators.

James Clyburn, one of the Democratic leaders in the House, calledtoday for political rhetoric to be toned down. "We're living in a time that all of us should begin to take stock of how our words affect people, especially those who aren't very stable."

The sheriff conducting the investigation, Clarence Dupnik, did not mince his words. "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government – the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country, is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

When Giffords held a similar meeting last year, someone dropped a gun. In March, a window at her office was shattered, possibly by an airgun pellet.

Palin, on a website, targeted Giffords and 19 other Democrats in symbolic crosshairs. By this evening, the site had been removed. Palin, on Facebook, expressed her condolences. A Palin aide, Rebecca Mansour, speaking on the Tammy Bruce radio talkshow, denied the symbol represented crosshairs. "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," Mansour said.

Palin is well-known for her intemperate language and actions, including her recent call for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, to be hunted down, and the crosshairs incident has the potential to hurt her in this year's jockeying for the Republican presidential nomination.

Giffords, in an interview with MSNBC in March last year, said: "We are on Sarah Palin's targeted list. The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of the gunsight over our district."

The former senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Gary Hart, writing on the Huffington Post website, blamed symbols such as crosshairs and the use of words such as "targeted".

"Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric," Hart wrote.

The Tea Party movement sought to establish a clear gap between it and the shootings. Amy Kremer, chair of the California-based Tea Party Express, said: "Spirited debate is desirable, but it only should be the clash of ideas. An attack on anyone for political purposes, if that was a factor in this shooting, is an attack on the democratic process. We join with everyone in vociferously condemning it."

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson criticised liberals on his blog Red State for "subtly and not so subtly pinning the blame for the attempted assassination of the congresswoman and the related shootings on the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, me, you, and everyone right of centre".

Pete King the Republican Congressman, echoed this: "The best way to avoid politicizing it is to not make a political issue out of it. It's a horrible tragedy. From what we know it's a deranged person, and I think any other discussion at this time does politicise it."

The new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, today confirmed that controversial legislation scheduled for this week is to be postponed, including proposed repeal of Barack Obama's healthcare reform, the single issue with which Giffords was most passionately associated. He called for a security review: "I have also asked that the Sergeant at Arms, US Capitol Police, and FBI conduct an in-depth security overview for members on Wednesday. I'm also directing the Sergeant-at-Arms and Capitol Police to conduct a bipartisan security briefing for district directors."(source)

AZ Shooting Sees Sheriff Flip The Script To Blame Talk Radio For His Crazed Citizen

2011-01-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

Heightened and "vitriolic" political rhetoric is being blamed by some for the kind of violence that landed Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in intensive care following a mass casualty shooting on Saturday, but others say a blame game is hardly appropriate or useful right now.

Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik sparked much of the debate during a press conference Saturday evening in which he blamed talk radio and television for a decline in America.

"I think the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business and what (we) see on TV and how our youngsters are being raised, that this has not become the nice United States of America that most of us grew up in. And I think it's time that we do the soul-searching," the sheriff said.

On Sunday, Dupnik didn't back down.

"I think we're the tombstone of the United States of America," Dupnik said of The Grand Canyon State, which a day earlier he called the “Mecca” of hatred and bigotry. "To try to inflame the public on a daily basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week has impact on people, especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with."

"The sheriff out there in Tucson, I think he's got it right," Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the assistant minority whip, told "Fox News Sunday." "Words do have consequences. And I think that we have to really -- this is nothing new. I've been saying this for a long time now."

"I think the sheriff was right," added Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"Bob, when you and I grew up, we grew up listening to essentially three major news outlets: NBC, ABC, and of course, CBS. We listened to people like Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid, and Huntley-Brinkley, and they saw their job as to inform us of the facts and we would make a conclusion," Hoyer said. "Far too many broadcasts now and so many outlets have the intent of inciting, and inciting people to opposition, to anger, to thinking the other side is less than moral. And I think that is a context in which somebody who is mentally unbalanced can somehow feel justified in taking this kind of action. And I think we need to all take cognizance of that and be aware that what we say can, in fact, have consequences."

Others suggested that the shooting that left six dead and 14 wounded is a one-off that can't be attributed to any logical explanation or current events.

"Our politics takes place in the halls of Congress and at the ballot box. It doesn't happen at a barrel of a gun. This is clearly an isolated incident," Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, told Fox News.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who appeared with Clyburn, said she is not aware that alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner is tied to a political movement or engaged in a politically motivated act.

"You know, his favorite books are 'the Communist Manifesto' and 'Mein Kampf.' I think it's important that we recognize that this is an individual that had -- that has mental challenges, and we need to act appropriately in dealing with him and making sure that justice prevails here," she said.

Still, blame seems to be pouring out from all kinds of sources. FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a Sunday press conference that the "ubiquitous nature of the Internet" has made hateful information "much more readily available to individuals than it was eight or 10 or 15 years ago and that absolutely presents a challenge to us particularly as it relates to lone wolfs."

Mueller added that investigators are looking through Loughner's computer for indications of possible motives.

After news broke Saturday about the shooting, Republican Sarah Palin issued a statement offering "sincere condolences" to Giffords and other victims and said her family was praying for peace and justice.

But on Sunday, ABC reporter Dan Harris interviewed Facebook consumer marketing director Randi Zuckerberg, who said the top question being asked on Facebook is whether Palin is to blame for the violence. During the election season, Palin had written a post that used crosshairs on districts in a visualization congressional districts targeted for Republican takeover. In 2004, Democrats used bullseye targets in a similar appeal.

A Palin aide told USA Today that the sights used on the election map were not meant to represent the sights of a gun, and any suggestion otherwise is the work of political flame-throwers.

"This is a terrible politicization of a tragedy," former Palin aide Rebecca Monsour told the newspaper. "We don't know (the shooter's) motive. It doesn't seem like he was motivated by a political ideology. Craziness is not an ideology."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who appeared Sunday on CNN, said it's the responsibility of those in public life and the media to "try to bring down the rhetoric."

"The phrase, 'Don't retreat; reload,' putting crosshairs on congressional districts as targets. These sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response," he said.

Other politicians suggested the Tea Party movement is somehow responsible for the shooting, which elicited a fierce response from Judson Phillips, co-founder of Tea Party Nation, who issued a statement condemning attribution of the tragedy to heated political discourse.

"At a time like this, it is terrible that we do have to think about politics. No matter what the shooter's motivations were, the left is going to blame this on the Tea Party movement. While we need to take a moment to extend our sympathies to the families of those who died, we cannot allow the hard left to do what it tried to do in 1995 after the Oklahoma City Bombing. Within the entire political spectrum, there are extremists, both on the left and the right. Violence of this nature should be decried by everyone, and not used for political gain," Phillips said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., agreed that it's reckless to impute the motives of the shooter to any particular group of Americans who have their own political beliefs.

"What we know about this individual, for example, is that he was reading Karl Marx and reading Hitler ... That's not the profile of a typical Tea Party member and that's the inference that's being made," Alexander told CNN's "State of the Union."

"It's tempting to say this person's actions might have been a result of [another] person's comments, but I think we need to be very careful about imputing any of these actions on someone else," he said.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., a liberal firebrand, added that it's easy for some people in society not to make a distinction between words and actions, but talking to the shooter will help reveal his true motivations.

"Whatever this young man was responding to or whatever we find out ... one of the most interesting things here is that we have the shooter in custody and he's alive ... we're going to find out an awful lot about what's going on, but we've got to be careful about what we say to each other," McDermott said.(source)

Mainstream Media Diary: AZ Shooting Provides Our Chance To Demonize Tea Party, Conservatives As The Guilty Instigators (How About Sarah Palin Too?)

2011-01-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Some prominent liberal bloggers wasted little time before politicizing the horrific and tragic shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona on Saturday.

Almost immediately after the nation learned of the shooting of Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others (including a federal judge), a few prominent liberal web writers sought to blame Sarah Palin and other conservatives for the action.

Linking to a map of U.S. House districts that Sarah Palin's pac wanted to "target" during the 2010 mid-term elections -- which sadly included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords' district (among others) -- DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Tweeted, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin."

The liberal blog Firedog Lake also went there.

Palin has deleted the image from her website, and issued a short statement on the shooting, writing on her Facebook page: "My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."

Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias Tweeted out several other examples of "violent rhetoric," including Rep. Michele Bachman saying, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous" to block climate change legislation.

Tea party activists are reportedly already fearing they too will be blamed for this event.

A few personal observations...

First, it is sad to see folks immediately politicize such a tragedy. If your first response to such an event is to think of Sarah Palin, something is wrong.

Like it or not, the sort of rhetoric and imagery employed by Palin's PAC is not terribly unusual. Politicians constantly talk about "targeting" voters -- does anyone think they want to shoot them? Political consultants tell politicians to "hunt where the ducks are, " but they certainly don't mean to shoot voters. Ironically, Moulitsas has also previously urged his readers to "target" Giffords and put a "bulls eye" on her district because she "sold out the Constitution..."

To be sure, it is possible for a politician to use words to incite violence, but putting a target on a congressional district is clearly not an example of that.

Our culture is full of rhetoric that uses violent analogies for everyday events. Here is a headline I just pulled up: "Aaron Rodgers in the Eagles' Crosshairs...Literally." (Here's another: Lindsay Lohan in Sheriff's Crosshairs, Calif. Investigators Ask ..." (Clearly, we had better hope nothing happens to the Aaron Rodgers or Lindsay Lohan in the near future).

It's also worth noting that the majority of the most egregious comments were made on Twitter, an outlet that allows folks to Tweet before thinking. (source)

Mainstream Media Diary: AZ Shooting Provides Our Chance To Demonize Tea Party, Conservatives As The Guilty Instigators (How A Sherrif Deflects Blame)

2011-01-13T08:55:00.001-08:00

Law enforcement officials continue to piece together the facts in Saturday's shooting rampage that left a federal judge dead and a congresswoman critically injured in Arizona, and some are questioning whether divisive political rhetoric may have played a role.

At least six people died and at least a dozen were injured in the Saturday morning shooting at a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store parking lot, in which the gunman specifically targeted Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Pima County, Ariz. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said. Giffords was shot in the head, and the shooting continued until citizens tackled the suspected gunman, he said.

The dead included John Roll, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Arizona. Also killed was Gabe Zimmerman, 30, the congresswoman's director of community outreach, and a 9-year-old girl. Two other Giffords staffers were injured.

At a news conference Saturday night, a clearly emotional Dupnik, who has been close to both Giffords and Roll, repeatedly cited what he characterized as the "vitriol" that has infected political discourse. He said that his own state has become "the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

There is reason to believe, he said, that the shooting suspect "may have a mental issue," adding that people like that "are especially susceptible to vitriol."

"That may be free speech, but it's not without consequences," he said.

The suspected gunman was tackled and held by people at the event until police arrived and took him into custody. Law enforcement sources told NPR the suspect was 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner.

Dupnik declined to name the suspect, but said he "has kind of a troubled past — I can tell you that — and we are not convinced he acted alone."

Officials have a photograph of a second "person of interest," a 50-year-old white male, Dupnik said. "We have an individual we are actively in pursuit of, but I cannot tell you who he is at this point," the sheriff said.

The suspect still had ammunition in his weapon when he was tackled, Dupnik said. Law enforcement officials had previous contact with the suspect and he had made threats, the sheriff said.

NPR and other news organizations reported earlier Saturday that Giffords had died. NPR member station KJZZ in Phoenix reported the recently re-elected Democratic congresswoman and six others had been killed by the gunman, based on a source in the Pima County Sheriff's office.

'A Tragedy For Arizona'

"Gabby Giffords was a friend of mine," President Obama said Saturday afternoon in a nationally televised statement from the White House. "It’s not surprising that today Gabby was doing what she always does: listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbors."

"This is more than a tragedy for those involved," he said. "It is a tragedy for Arizona and a tragedy for our entire country."

Giffords, a moderate "Blue Dog" Democrat and gun rights advocate who in November eked out a win for a third term over Tea Party-backed Republican Jesse Kelly, underwent surgery at University Medical Center in Tucson. Hospital Director Pete Rhee said that a bullet had entered and exited the congresswoman's head, but that he was as "optimistic" as he could be in the situation.

There has been a rush to determine what had prompted the massacre in a state that has been roiled by incendiary debate over illegal immigrants and has also become ground zero for those questioning Obama's birthplace.

"It's not a good atmosphere right now, though I'm not saying that's what prompted this," said University of Arizona law professor Andy Silverman, who knew Roll well. "But things in Arizona are very tense, and we've become the incubator for a lot of immigration-related matters and now for the birthers, too."

Giffords' fellow Arizona congressman, Republican Jeff Flake, recalled that she was unfazed after her Tucson office had been targeted by vandals who broke a window on the eve of last year's health care vote.

During an interview with MSNBC after her office was vandalized, Giffords noted that her district was on Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" list of targeted congressional races. And it had been reported that in 2009, Roll and his wife received 24-hour protection for at least a month after receiving death threats after certifying a multimillion-dollar lawsuit illegal immigrants had filed against an Arizona rancher.

Palin, in a statement, offered "sincere condolences" to Giffords and the other victims.

"On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice," she said.

As information about Loughner began to emerge later in the day — including online videos and comments posted under the same name as the Tucson native and Mountain View High School graduate — those in Arizona and Washington cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

Some online statements attributed to Loughner suggest an obsession with the nation's currency system and with grammar. In one online video posted under Loughner's name, an American flag is burned.

"It has been a difficult time politically for the country, and I'm sure bloggers and others will go crazy laying blame — on gun rights, on Tea Party people — trying to figure out who's fault it is," said Randy Graf, a Republican who served in the state Legislature with Giffords and lost to her in her first run for Congress.

"As we hear more about the alleged shooter, it seems he may be more like a person with problems whom you can't control," said Graf. He said that despite their political differences, he and Giffords "got along great."

Former Rep. Jim Kolbe, the Republican whose seat Giffords won in 2006 when he decided not to seek re-election, said that it is "inappropriate speculation to talk about what the political environment might be."

"We don't have any information yet," said Kolbe, who was a good friend of Roll's. "I don't think members of the media and the public realize that public officials receive threats all the time and have their offices vandalized."

Giffords, 40, has been considered an up-and-coming Democrat, with a moderate streak and an astronaut husband. At age 32, she became the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona statehouse.

She was described Saturday by Arizona University law professor Lynn Marcus, co-director of the school's immigration clinic, as "very accessible and very warm," someone many know on a first-name basis.

"She's taken a position in support of comprehensive immigration reform, but she hasn't been anyone who is perceived as a liberal or pro-immigrant," Marcus said. "Her constituents in southern Arizona are ranchers and rural Arizonans."

She has advocated enforcement and securing the border as key to handling the challenging issue, Marcus said.

Giffords was expected to lose her race last year in the Republican-leaning 8th Congressional District. As Flake said, there was a "very strong headwind" against her — and all Democrats.

"She got re-elected because she's tenacious," he said. "She's tireless."

Kolbe, who has known Giffords since they served together in the state Legislature, said she is "very outgoing, effervescent and thoughtful."

She has a master's degree from Cornell University and took over her family's tire business in Tucson.

Judge, Congresswoman Were Friends

Roll, a 63-year-old Pennsylvania native who received his law degree from the University of Arizona law school, was appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991. Silverman, who coordinates a clerk program with Roll, said he considered the judge hardworking, smart and low-key.

"If you put labels on judges, he would be considered more conservative, but I think he's apolitical," Silverman said.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said Roll's death was "a somber reminder of the importance of the rule of law and the sacrifices of those who work to secure it."

Dupnik said that Roll, whom he described as "one of the finest human beings I ever met in my life," had stopped by Giffords' event on his way home from Mass, which he attended daily.

Roll and the congresswoman were friends, the sheriff said, and the judge just wanted to say hello before he went home to "do the floors," like he does every Saturday.

As the news continued to spool out Saturday, apolitical was the tone many, including Graf, were seeking.

"We'll get through this," Graf said. "There's time for politics later."(source)

Mad Gunman Kills 6, Injures 14, Including US Rep Gabrielle Giffords

2011-01-13T07:57:00.000-08:00

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Officials at University Medical Center have confirmed that U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords is alive. She is out of surgery. Doctors are optimistic about her chances of recovery.

The news is a dramatic reversal of previous reports circulated on some national news cable channels and local media claiming that Giffords had died.

Giffords was among 18 people shot at the Saturday morning at the Safeway grocery store at Ina and Oracle in Tucson. Six people died. One shooter is in custody.

Dr. Peter Rhee of University of Medical center told reporters at 2:00 PM Saturday morning that ten patients have been brought to the hospital. Of those, one is dead, five are in surgery and the rest are in recovery. The five in surgery are in critical condition.

Dr. Rhee said the deceased victim was a child, but did not release the victim's identity.

The mass shooting took place Saturday morning at an event hosted by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor confirmed at the same press conference that one suspect is in custody. Local authorities have not released the suspect's identity. Associated Press identified him as 22 year old Jared Loughner. A KGUN9 News crew went to Loughner's home, and found it taped off and covered with law enforcement investigators.

Before earlier this morning President Obama released this statement:

"This morning, in an unspeakable tragedy, a number of Americans were shot in Tuscon, Arizona, at a constituent meeting with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. And while we are continuing to receive information, we know that some have passed away, and that Representative Giffords is gravely wounded. We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society. I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers."

Here's a staement released by Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano:

"I am deeply saddened by reports that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Chief Judge John Roll and others were attacked this afternoon in Tucson, Arizona. There is no place in our society or discourse for such senseless and unconscionable acts of violence. Gabby is a steadfast representative for southern Arizona and both she and John are dedicated public servants. The Department of Homeland Security has offered all possible assistance to the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Office, who are leading the investigation. My thoughts and prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her family and staff, and all those who were injured in this difficult time."

Tune in now to continuing coverage, now airing on KGUN9 News, or watch KGUN9.com for updates.(source)

Barry As President: NUMBER OF COMBAT INJURIES IN AFGHANISTAN APPROACHES IRAQ-WAR LEVELS

2011-01-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

KHAKREZ DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Intensified fighting and a larger troop presence in Afghanistan in 2010 led to the highest American combat casualties yet in the war, as the number of troops wounded by bullets, shrapnel and bombs approached that of the bloodiest periods of the war in Iraq.

But the available data points to advances in the treatment of the fallen, as the rate at which wounded soldiers who died reached a wartime low.

More than 430 American service members died from hostile action in Afghanistan last year through Dec. 21, according to official data released by the Pentagon last week at the request of The New York Times.

This was a small fraction of those struck. Nearly 5,500 American troops were wounded in action — more than double the total of 2,415 in 2009, and almost six times the number wounded in 2008.

In all, fewer than 7.9 percent of the Americans wounded in 2010 died, down from more than 11 percent the previous year and 14.3 percent in 2008.

The fatality rate declined even though many more troops patrolled on foot, exposing the force to greater dangers than in years past. Several doctors said the improvements came not from a single breakthrough but through a series of lessons learned over nearly a decade of fighting two wars, such as placing medevac helicopters closer to the fighting and the more extensive use of tourniquets.

Although fatality rates for wounded Afghan troops are not similarly available, doctors involved in their care said hospital records showed that they trail those of Western troops by a few percentage points, but have also fallen.

Several soldiers and those who care for them framed the improved survival rates as the grimmest sort of success. Many more troops — some missing multiple limbs or their genitals, or suffering brain damage — are being rescued from near death. But their wounds will be exceptionally difficult to overcome later as they try to resume work, and social and family lives.

Along with interviews with medics and military doctors, and a month spent by two journalists from The Times observing the collection and immediate treatment of troops suffering from a wide range of trauma, the data shows the results, in broad terms, of an evolving contest for wounded soldiers’ fates.

The contest pits a multilayered and expensive effort to keep troops alive against the sharply increased rate at which they suffer grievous injuries, some beyond what any medical system can heal.

A clear decline was evident: In 2005, 19.8 percent of wounded American soldiers died from their injuries. For the past five years in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fatality rates for wounded Americans have otherwise fluctuated between 9.4 and 14.3 percent.

(The data draws from a sample running into the tens of thousands; in 2006 in Iraq, for example, nearly 7,200 American troops were wounded by hostile action, more than 700 of them fatally.)

The statistics further served to reinforce consistent trends in the battlefield’s array of lethal hazards, and offered glimpses of wars within the war.

More soldiers in Afghanistan in 2010 were wounded by explosive devices (at least 3,615, compared to 828 troops reported to suffer gunshot wounds). But the higher fatality rates from gunshot wounds (12.9 percent versus 7.3 percent for wounds caused by bombs) made rifles and machine guns the most statistically deadly weapons.

Rocket-propelled grenades, for all their ferocious reputation, proved less of a threat. They wounded 373 American soldiers, of whom 13 — 3.5 percent — died.

No matter the improved odds, the data, like the field observations, illuminated that even the most determined efforts to cheat death could still be desperate — like the case of an Afghan soldier wounded on Dec. 9.

He was a disoriented young man on a stretcher with his uniform cut away, revealing wounds caused by a makeshift bomb.

His face was mashed. A tourniquet was cinched to his left leg, high by the hip. His abdomen swelled slightly from the bleeding within. From his torso rose the odor of burned flesh and hair.

The man worked with an American Special Forces team. Medics labored over him as the helicopter lifted from the dust, counting minutes in a race against time.

Medical workers attributed his improved chances to several factors, among them changes in training for soldiers who administer first aid, swifter movement of victims to hospitals made possible by more helicopters in the war, and shifts in procedures in operating rooms.

Equipment has also been a factor, including heavier armored vehicles more resistant to explosives and fire-retardant uniforms and gloves — two factors doctors and soldiers say seem to have led to a decline in the frequency and severity of burns.

“We have seen fewer burn injuries over all,” said Col. Evan M. Renz, director of the Army Burn Center in Texas, “even as the number of troops in Afghanistan has climbed sharply.”

Doctors said a change in attitude about tourniquets also prevented many deaths. Until a few years ago, they said, tourniquets were often regarded as a measure of last resort, not always applied swiftly to those with severe extremity wounds.

Every soldier now carries at least one tourniquet — some carry several — in their first-aid kits or visibly on their flak jackets. Fellow soldiers apply them immediately. “The liberal use of tourniquets has clearly been a lifesaver,” said Dr. Eric Elster, a Navy commander and director of surgical services at the NATO hospital at Kandahar Air Field.

One doctor, deployed in an area of fighting along the Arghandab River, said medics on patrols had become more proficient at other lifesaving techniques, too.

These include opening airways via tracheotomies, using needles to decompress swollen chest cavities that can collapse a wounded soldiers’ lungs and applying pressure dressing and bandages with clotting agents to areas — the groin, neck or armpits — where tourniquets have little effect

“This is just basic techniques, trained well,” said Lt. Col. Michael Wirt, brigade surgeon for Task Force Strike, a unit of the 101st Airborne Division.

Confidence in the ability to mitigate trauma — including legs shattered or amputated by bombs — has led to a sometimes visible practice that most units discourage: troops who pre-emptively apply tourniquets loosely to their thighs or upper arms before patrols.

“I think potentially that’s a negative,” Dr. Wirt said, adding that it could be read to suggest nervousness, or that such soldiers are too focused on being wounded. “Our command has not endorsed that.”

Part of the willingness to use tourniquets, doctors and medics said, has been related to the speed with which wounded soldiers reach hospitals.

Afghanistan’s harsh climate, combined with a relative dearth of helicopters in years past, often restricted the reach of medevac crews.

With the increased troop presence in 2010, there are now three Army combat aviation brigades in the country, and detachments of medevac helicopters have been moved to small outposts near the fighting — minutes away from many firefights or bomb blasts.

Within a half-hour of being wounded, a large fraction of troops now are en route to hospitals and being tended by flight medics. On repeated flights flown by the two journalists in May, June and December, some wounded soldiers were retrieved within 20 minutes of their injuries. None waited an hour.

The case of the wounded Afghan soldier showed the risks from wounds that battlefield first aid can barely help, and for whom speed might not be enough.

The man lifted his head and gazed down at his ruined body. Blood ran from his rectum. He had little time.

He frantically waved his burned arms, which were so damaged and sensitive that the medics hesitated to start an IV.

Instead, Sgt. Patrick Shultz lifted a small electric drill and cut through the bone below the man’s right knee, creating access into the marrow to administer drugs.

The hospital was not much farther ahead. But it was too late — 30 minutes after arriving, this man was dead.

For patients who reach NATO-run trauma centers, the overall survival rates have approached levels unseen in past wars. The staff said this was in part a result of the accumulated experience of surgical teams in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as shifts in how patients were treated.

For one example, Dr. Elster and Dr. Wirt said the military had dropped administering saline solutions to patients in favor of what they called “massive transfusion protocols” — giving enormous quantities of blood.

High-volume transfusions aid in clotting and carrying oxygen, and have prevented more patients from dying in the hours after suffering severe wounds, they said.

“It is not unusual for us to give a patient 50 or 100 units of blood in the first 24 to 48 hours,” Dr. Elster said.

At the military hospital in Kandahar, 98 percent of Western troops that arrived alive last year did not die, the staff said.

For Afghans the survival rate was several percentage points lower.

Doctors said there were many reasons, including that most Afghans had not been issued fire-retardant clothing and often traveled in pickup trucks. Unlike vehicles used by American forces, pickup trucks stop neither bullets nor most shrapnel, and are easily blown apart by roadside bombs.

Moreover, Afghan soldiers are often loath to wear protective equipment, including helmets and bulletproof vests.(source)

Barely One Day Into The New GOP-Controlled House Session, Dem's Cry "You Haven't Done Enough" (or, Save Us From Ourselves)

2011-01-13T07:14:00.000-08:00

Final Tab For Pelosi’s Speakership: $5.34 Trillion in New Debt—Or $3.66 Billion Per Day

2011-01-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

(CNSNews.com) - In the 1,461 days that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) served as speaker of the House, the national debt increased by a total of $5.343 trillion ($5,343,452,800,321.37) or $3.66 billion per day ($3.657,394,113.84), according to official debt numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.

Pelosi was the 52nd speaker of the House. During her tenure, she amassed more debt than the first 49 speakers combined.

The total national debt did not climb above $5.343 trillion (the amount amassed during Pelosi’s four years as speaker) until Feb. 26, 1997, when Rep. Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.) was serving as the nation’s 50th House speaker.

When Pelosi was sworn in on Jan. 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2011, her last full day in the speakership, it stood at 14,014,049,043,294.41--an increase of $5,343,452,800,321.37.

Pelosi served as speaker for four full years, including one leap year, making her time in that office 1,461 days. On average, the federal government added $3.66 billion ($3,657,394,113.84) in new debt for each of those days.

Pelosi not only outstripped her predecessors in the total volume of debt added to the national debt during her tenure as speaker, but also in the rate at which new debt was added. In fact, Pelosi added debt at a rate more than three times faster than her nearest competitor.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.), who served from Jan. 6, 1999 to Jan. 3, 2007, saw $3.06 trillion ($3,061,785,703,851.74) in new debt added during his tenure, which is more than during any other speakership other than Pelosi’s. But Hastert’s tenure lasted 2,920 days, with the national debt increasing by an average of $1.05 billion ($1,048,556,747.89) for each of those days.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich added $812.4 billion ($812,423,595,162.98) in new debt during a speakership of 1,461 days. The national debt accumulated during Gingrich’s tenure at an average rate of $556 million per day ($556,073,644.88).

When Pelosi became speaker in January 2007 she was emphatic that there would be no new deficit spending.

"After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” she said in her inaugural address from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."(source)

A'LA THE BEST POLITBURO OLIGARCHY: Pelosi Vacations At 10,000/Night Resort While A Nation Suffers In Depression

2011-01-05T15:15:00.001-08:00

Nancy Pelosi’s final days as Speaker of the House were spent at the exotic Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka’upulehu in Kona on the island of Hawaii.

Escorted throughout her trip by a mini security motorcade that included Secret Service and Hawaii County Police officers, Pelosi was seen at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Kailua-Kona, where she received Communion. Parishioners greeted her warmly, Hawaii Reporter was told. Two police SUVs were on guard outside the hotel during her week long stay.

Pelosi, who traveled to Hawaii by private plane, spent the holidays in Kona last year at the same hotel in an elaborate suite that reportedly rents for $10,000 a night.

The Four Seasons Resort Hualalai’s details its luxurious setting and amenities on its web site: “Gloriously revitalised, this natural tropical paradise offers more than ever to explore – with a newly expanded Spa, beachfront dining, fashion boutiques and new Deluxe Suites, in addition to Jack Nicklaus signature golf. Set on the Big Island’s exclusive Kona-Kohala Coast, this showpiece resort captures the essence of Hawaiian design, culture and tradition.”

Pelosi has her share of allies in Hawaii, including Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who she defended during his successful campaign for governor in 2010. Pelosi, a Democrat who will be replaced as House Speaker by GOP Congressman John Boehner in a matter of days, served in Congress with Abercrombie. When Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Mufi Hannemann claimed during the primary that Abercrombie was not effective in Congress, Pelosi issued a statement calling Abercrombie “outstanding, effective and courageous.”

Hawaii Reporter has requested information from the Police on taxpayers’ costs to guard her. Last year, Hawaii county taxpayers paid more than $21,000.

This year, the county estimates have not yet been provided to Hawaii Reporter; the request is pending. However, the Hawaii Police Department does not release the number of police officers escorting Pelosi, how many hours they dedicated to Pelosi’s security detail, or whether they were being pulled from other duties. No figures could be obtained for her Secret Service escorts.

Her trip coincides with President Barack Obama’s nearly two-week family vacation in Hawaii.

Obama’s trip to Oahu has proved much pricier to state and federal taxpayers.

In a Hawaii Reporter story published last week, some of the cost estimates included:

■Obama’s round trip flight to Hawaii via Air Force One: $1 million (GAO estimates)

■Mrs. Obama’s early flight to Hawaii: $63,000 (White House Dossier)

■Housing in beachfront homes for Secret Service and Seals in Kailua ($1,200 a day for 14 days): $16,800

■Costs for White House staff staying at Moana Hotel: $134,400 ($400 per day for 24 staff) – excluding meals and other room costs

■Local police overtime: $250,000 (2009 costs reported by Honolulu Police Department)

■Ambulance: $10,000 (City Spokesperson)

■TOTAL COST: $1,474,200
UNKNOWN COSTS

■Rental of office building in Kailua on canal

■Security upgrades and additional phone lines to private homes where Obama and friends are staying

■Costs for car rentals and fuel for White House staff staying at Moana Hotel

■Surveillance before the President arrives

■Travel costs for Secret Service and White House staff traveling ahead of the President
Since the Obama holiday story appeared in Hawaii Reporter, readers on the island of Hawaii point to another plane similar to Air Force One (except with a communications dome atop it) that accompanied the President to Hawaii, is at the Hilo Airport.

In addition, costs should have been added for the USAF C-17 cargo aircraft that transported the Presidential limos, helicopters and other support equipment. The flight time between Andrews Air Force Base and Hawaii is at about 20 hours roundtrip, with estimated operating cost of $7,000 per hour (GAO report) for a total of $140,000 per roundtrip. Sources say the United States Marine Corps provides a presidential helicopter, along with pilots and support crews for the test flights, which travel on another C-17 flight at $140,000 for a total of $280,000.

Hawaii Reporter has requested details on the cost of the President’s trip, but the White House will not release any figures, citing security concerns. A spokesperson maintains the costs are in line with other presidential vacations.

Hawaii Reporter has sought to determine the cost of vacations for the current president and last two presidents but it has not received any reply from four emails sent over the last week to the U.S. General Services Administration, the agency that tracks these costs.(source)

The Confidence Shown For Pelosi Is The Worst Record In The US Congress Since 1923

2011-01-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi lost 19 Democrats on Wednesday's vote to be House speaker, it marked the worst showing for a party's nominee in more than 80 years.

Mrs. Pelosi won the support of 173 Democrats, but 18 others voted for someone else and one voted "present." Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, won the vote with the support of all 241 Republicans who voted.

According to figures from the House historian's office and the Congressional Research Service, the last time a party's nominee for speaker lost that much support was in 1923. On the first ballot that year the GOP's nominee, Frederick H. Gillett, saw 23 lawmakers support other Republicans. Mr. Gillett still ended up winning the speakership on the ninth ballot.

Rep. Heath Shuler, North Carolina Democrat, garnered 11 votes on Wednesday, and afterward said it was an effort to forge a middle ground between Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Boehner.

Speaker's elections always pit the leaders of the House Republican Conference against the House Democratic Caucus, and from 1945 through 1995 those were the only two candidates to receive any votes.

In four of the seven speaker's elections since then, other candidates have received votes — most often from conservative Democrats seeking to register disapproval with their party's direction. (source)

A NEW DAWN: The GOP House Majority Is Sworn In (19 Democrats vote against Nancy Pelosi)

2011-01-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

Nearly 20 Democrats abandoned their party’s pick for speaker of the House, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a sign of their concerns about supporting the unpopular former speaker and of the difficulty she will have in marshaling her forces in legislative battles to come in the next two years.

Pelosi brushed off the 18 votes for other lawmakers on Wednesday afternoon — 11 of them for North Carolina’s Heath Shuler — in a brief exchange with POLITICO.

“We’re excited about the votes I got,” said the California Democrat, who handed over the speaker’s gavel to John Boehner of Ohio at a ceremony following the roll call vote.

Still, the anti-Pelosi tally dwarfed the number of protest votes cast against leaders of both parties in the recent past, which never break into double digits.

Pelosi’s allies also sought to downplay the importance of the anti-Pelosi votes.

“I think some people had to some venting,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who narrowly won re-election but called out Pelosi’s name when he was asked for his vote. “

In addition to Shuler’s 11 votes, two Democrats — Reps. Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.) and John Barrow (Ga.) — voted for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.); Reps. Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa voted for each other; Rep. Ron Kind (Wis.) voted for Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.); Rep. Dan Lipinski (Ill.) voted for Marcy Kaptur (Ohio) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.) voted for Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

The first anti-Pelosi vote during the alphabetical roll call came from Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.). He rose to answer the call of his name and declared loudly and clearly “Heath Shuler!”

Shuler, who voted for himself, told POLITICO that Democrats will have to follow a more moderate path “if we’re going to go back out and win a majority.”

But Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who was in the Capitol for the opening of the 112th Congress Wednesday, said Democrats made the right decision late last year in tapping Pelosi to remain their leader even after they lost the majority under her leadership in the midterm election.

“I’m happy that she decided to stay,” said Solis, a former California colleague of Pelosi’s. “She represents the heart of the Democratic Party and is very principled.”

Pelosi aides and allies insisted that she did not whip the symbolic vote or take any action to tamp down opposition, and they privately claim that they had “no idea” how many of her colleagues would vote for other candidates.

Democratic sources said California Rep. George Miller, Pelosi’s right hand man, was making calls on her behalf to try to hold down opposition to her on the floor. Getting an accurate whip count was next to impossible Tuesday, as Pelosi opponents largely stayed away from a closed-door caucus meeting for House Democrats.

“My constituents are not very enamored of the minority leader to be, and that was a pretty strong message sent in the election,” he said.

Pelosi has consistently stated that she has “no regrets” over the Democrat’s 63-seat loss on Election Day - the worst suffered by either party in over 70 years - and despite her unpopularity nationally, she remains a powerful force within the House Democratic Caucus and among party faithful.

Backed by liberals - the most important faction among House Democrats - Pelosi easily defeated Shuler’s challenge, pulling 150 votes. Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the number two House Democrat, did not challenge Pelosi for the top spot, instead finding himself running against Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) for minority whip. Pelosi then forged a deal to defuse that battle while keeping both men in leadership.

Intra-party dissent over the speaker’s vote is rare but not new.

In 1997, at the start of the 105th Congress, nine Republicans opposed the reelection of former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) by voting “present” or supporting other candidates. Gingrich was reelected, but the vote demonstrated growing unhappiness with the Georgia Republican in GOP ranks. Gingrich stepped down as speaker and retiring in 1998, following Republican losses in the mid-term elections.

In her remarks Wednesday, as she handed the gavel to Boehner, Pelosi vowed to with the GOP on restoring the U.S. economy, where possible, although she warned that her party will not violate its own principles on deciding whether to support any Republican initiatives.

“Our most important job is to fight for American jobs,” Pelosi said. “And so Democrats will judge what comes before Congress by whether it creates jobs, strengthens our middle class, and reduces the deficit – not burdening future generations with debt.”

Pelosi added: “When the new speaker of the House, John Boehner, and the new Republican majority, come forward with solutions that address these American challenges, you will find in us a willing partner. When I was first elected speaker, I called the House to order on behalf of America’s children. As I now prepare to hand over the gavel, I know one thing above all else. We have stood for those children and for their families—for their health, their education, the safety of the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat.”

In addition to Shuler and Altmire, the nine others who voted for Shuler were Reps. Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Tim Holden of Pennsylvania, Larry Kissell of North Carolina, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Jim Matheson of Utah, Mike Michaud of Maine and Mike Ross of Arkansas.

Pelosi’s camp was ready to put the vote behind her.

“Democrats are looking forward and our top priority is creating jobs for the American people,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. “As we begin the 112th Congress, each proposal will be measured by a simple test: Will it create jobs? Will it strengthen our middle class? Will it reduce our deficit?”(source)

JUST IN TIME FOR THE REPEAL OF DADT: Media Drudges Up 5 Yr Old Controversy To Feign Shock

2011-01-05T13:35:00.000-08:00

The Navy brusquely fired the captain of the USS Enterprise on Tuesday, more than three years after he made lewd videos to boost morale for his crew, timing that put the military under pressure to explain why it acted only after the videos became public.

Senior military officials said they were trying to determine who among Navy leaders knew about the videos when they were shown repeatedly in 2006 and 2007 to thousands of crew members aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

An investigation by U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., also is seeking to determine whether Capt. Owen Honors was reprimanded at the time.

The episode has raised serious questions about whether military leaders can behave badly so long as the public doesn't find out.

"He showed bad judgment and he embarrassed the Navy. Those are things that are going to be hard for the Navy to ignore or to forgive," said Stephen Saltzburg, the general counsel of the National Institute of Military Justice and a law professor at George Washington University.

Just two days after the videos were shown repeatedly on television, the Navy called a news conference Tuesday in Norfolk to announce that Honors was stepping down as ship commander and being reassigned to administrative duties ashore.

"After personally reviewing the videos created while serving as executive officer, I have lost confidence in Capt. Honors' ability to lead effectively," said Adm. John Harvey, head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, in Norfolk. Harvey declined to answer questions from reporters.

The Pentagon said the disciplinary system isn't foolproof but generally works.

"There are always going to be people do things they shouldn't," said Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. "They will be held accountable."

Yet Honors was set to deploy with the USS Enterprise this month as the ship's commander when The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk obtained videos he made three and four years ago as the carrier's executive officer. Honors, who took command of the ship in May, appears in the videos using gay slurs, simulating masturbation and staging suggestive shower scenes.

One video also briefly included Glenn Close, which the actress called "deeply offensive and insulting." Close said in a statement that she appeared in a clip after a "seemingly innocent request" made during a visit to the USS Enterprise more than four years ago.

While many sailors aboard the ship at the time have defended Honors on Facebook postings - contending he was simply providing a much-needed morale boost during long deployments at sea - senior military officials interviewed by The Associated Press said the videos were extreme and showed a disturbing lack of judgment.

No leaders in senior posts at the Pentagon and in the Navy could explain why, if Honors' conduct was so questionable, he was promoted after the videos aired. Last week, the Navy said the videos were intended merely as "humorous skits" and stopped airing immediately after other senior officers became aware of them.

According to the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen weren't aware of the videos until this week. They were said to have left any disciplinary action up to the Navy.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus first learned of the videos last weekend, spokespeople said, and both supported the decision to fire Honors. They declined to say, however, whether either official pressed for the dismissal, saying only that it was Harvey's decision.

The lewd videos were far from the first time that U.S. troops have been disciplined for misbehaving.

In 1991, the Navy became embroiled in the "Tailhook" scandal in which naval pilots were accused of sexually abusing female officers at a Las Vegas convention. During the Iraq war, shocking images surfaced of prisoners being abused by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib.

And in 2008, a Marine was kicked out of the service after being videotaped throwing a puppy off a cliff while on patrol in Iraq and joking about it.

A conservative group that has previously clashed with Adm. Mullen on his support to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" ban seized on the latest incident on Tuesday. The group accused the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of turning a blind eye to discipline problems that, they say, will make openly gay service difficult.

Mullen was chief of naval operations when the videos were made.

"Now we know that Adm. Mullen's rose-colored crystal ball is unreliable," said Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness.

Asked to respond, Mullen spokesman Capt. John Kirby said, "The chairman's long record of command and leadership, afloat and ashore, speaks for itself."

The Pentagon said December's congressional vote to end the "don't ask, don't tell" ban did not contribute to this week's reaction to the videos. Lapan said anti-gay slurs have never been considered appropriate in the military.

Gates is expected to begin this week the process of pulling together a final plan to repeal the rule against open service by gays. The law signed by President Barack Obama last month requires that before any changes are made the Pentagon must certify to Congress that lifting the ban wouldn't hurt military effectiveness

Lapan said initiating that process will be one of Gates'"highest priorities" this month.

Capt. Dee Mewbourne has been named the new commander of the USS Enterprise. He is a former commander of the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.(source)

Barry As President: Resetting Foreign Policy In Venezuela (Without ambassadors, US-Venezuela tensions grow)

2011-01-02T08:35:00.000-08:00

U.S. Ambassador Larry Palmer speaks with the press after meeting Honduran President Ricardo Maduro at the presidential house in Teguciugalpa, Honduras. The Obama administration revoked the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States on Wednesday Dec. 29, 2010, in a tit-for-tat diplomatic response to Venezuela's rejection of Larry Palmer as the U.S. choice to be the next envoy to the South American country.

The United States and Venezuela are starting the year without ambassadors in Caracas and Washington due to an intensifying diplomatic dispute that is likely to persist and boost President Hugo Chavez's long-standing antagonism.

Both sides have shown firmly entrenched stances and no willingness to compromise in the past week as the U.S. government revoked the Venezuelan ambassador's visa in response to Chavez's refusal to accept the chosen U.S. envoy.

"They thought we were going to back down. Anything negative that happens will be the responsibility of the United States," veteran Venezuelan diplomat Roy Chaderton told the Caracas-based television channel Telesur on Thursday.

Chaderton, a close Chavez ally and former foreign minister, said the Venezuelan government is "studying the case with sensitivity ... and will make the respective decisions."

Chavez skipped an opportunity to respond during a three-hour speech Thursday night, saying nothing about the U.S. government's decision to revoke the visa of his ambassador, Bernardo Alvarez. President Barack Obama's administration took that step in response to Chavez's rejection of Larry Palmer, the White House nominee for ambassador who has been awaiting Senate confirmation.

It is unclear what concrete effects those actions could have on U.S.-Venezuela relations. Diplomats from the two countries have already long had reduced contacts due to tensions fed both by Chavez's condemnations of the U.S. and also by the State Department's criticisms of deteriorating democracy in Venezuela.

"Much of the cooperation between the United States and Venezuela in recent years has involved lower-level and lower-profile individuals and agencies than the ambassadors, so the immediate fallout will be limited," said Shannon O'Neil, a fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

"But this latest round of escalating tensions ends any hope for calmer relations or more expansive cooperation. Demonizing the United States remains too important a political foil for Chavez," O'Neil said.

Palmer angered Chavez by suggesting earlier this year - in written responses to questions from Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana - that morale is low in Venezuela's military and that he is concerned Colombian rebels are finding refuge in Venezuela.

Chavez has accused Palmer of dishonoring the Venezuelan government by expressing concerns on several sensitive subjects - including 2008 accusations by the U.S. Treasury Department that three members of Chavez's inner circle helped Colombian rebels by supplying arms and aiding drug-trafficking operations.

"This outcome was predictable from the moment Palmer's comments were made public by Senator Lugar in July," said Miguel Tinker Salas, a Latin American studies professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. "For the State Department to allow this predictable outcome to develop shows that they had no interest in improving relations with Venezuela."

Chavez had vowed not to back down in his opposition to Palmer and dared the U.S. government to expel Alvarez before diplomats confirmed on Wednesday that his visa was revoked. Alvarez was outside the United States when the action was taken, preventing his return.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said earlier this week that the United States hopes to improve strained relations with Venezuela. "We believe it is precisely because there are tensions in the relationship that it is important to maintain diplomatic communications at the highest level," Toner said.

The U.S. Embassy has been without an ambassador since Patrick Duddy finished his assignment and left in July.

A previous dispute prompted similar expulsions of ambassadors at the end of President George W. Bush's administration. In September 2008, Chavez expelled Duddy and withdrew his own envoy, saying it was in solidarity with Bolivia after President Evo Morales ordered out the U.S. ambassador and accused him of helping the opposition incite violence. The Bush administration denied it and reacted by expelling the envoys of Venezuela and Bolivia.

After more than nine months, in June 2009, the Obama administration and Chavez's government announced they were restoring their ambassadors.

Since then, the relationship has again grown more hostile.

In the past month, the U.S. State Department has strongly criticized decree powers granted to Chavez in the waning days of an outgoing congress firmly controlled by his allies. A new National Assembly takes office Jan. 5 with a bigger opposition contingent, and the decree powers will allow Chavez to bypass congress and enact laws in a range of areas for the next year and a half.

Despite such friction, the two countries are linked by deep trade ties. Chavez's economy relies heavily on oil sales to the U.S., and also imports large quantities of consumer goods from the United States. Oil sales to the U.S. have declined in recent years as Chavez has sought to diversify his oil market, selling more to allied countries such as China.

Chavez, whose anti-U.S. position has been a defining feature of his 12-year presidency, is likely to use the latest dispute to step up his criticism and rally supporters.

Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said the stances of both sides make for a volatile situation, and that if their "rhetoric becomes more shrill, the situation can deteriorate faster than either side originally intended."

Some in the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, are calling for the U.S. to take a hard line against Chavez.

Republican Rep. Connie Mack of Florida said this week that the United States "has looked the other way for far too long as Hugo Chavez destroyed democratic institutions." Mack accused the Obama administration of taking a passive approach toward Venezuela.

"Chavez is harming the future of his country and breeding insecurity in the region and he will have to face direct consequences for his decisions," Mack said. "One day the United States and Venezuela will once again have a strong, mutually beneficial diplomatic relationship, but unfortunately, it does not appear that this will be possible under the leadership of Hugo Chavez."(source)