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Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-
“As a practical matter, the homeless won’t get very far unless they can persuade a Republican to break with Ronald Reagan’s policies — or elect a Democrat.”This is the typical attitude behind most of the media, most certainly the msm.
— Newsweek senior editor Tom Mathews in the March 21, 1988 issue. (source)
It's a lot like an old glove that still fits after 30 years. I've benched all of my life since I was 12, and it has always been a comfortable ritual. Good for the bones, which contributes greatly to overall health, toning/strength enhancements to the muscle groups involved, and development of balance skills due to the nature of free weights.
To say nothing of the mental therapeutic benefits.
Sotomayor, first Hispanic nominated to United States Supreme Court
Netanyahu: Call for settlement freeze unreasonable
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dismissing U.S. calls for a West Bank settlement freeze as unreasonable.
Officials say Netanyahu delivered his assessment to a closed parliamentary committee Monday.
The U.S. has demanded that Israel halt all construction in the settlements. Netanyahu says some building must continue to accommodate what he calls "natural growth."
A meeting participant says Netanyahu testified that Israel cannot "freeze life" in existing settlements. He said "there are reasonable requests and unreasonable requests."
Another participant says Netanyahu said his job is to protect Israel, even if his decisions are not popular.
The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Mobs of Jewish settlers went on a rampage in the West Bank Monday, attacking Palestinian laborers and setting fire to agricultural land to protest against an Israeli government crackdown on unauthorized outposts in the territory.
Six Palestinian laborers riding on a minivan were injured when stone-throwing settlers attacked them, the workers said.
The violence comes as the Obama administration is pressuring Israel to honor long-standing pledges to tear down wildcat settlement outposts in the West Bank and to freeze expansion in existing, government-sanctioned settlements.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has balked at the U.S. demand to halt construction in existing settlements and faces stiff resistance within his hard-line government against taking down about two dozen of the outposts. The disagreement has caused a rift between the allies.
It has also put Jewish settlers and their backers in the Israeli government on the defensive.
Monday's violence was all deep inside the West Bank, where most of the hard-line settlements are located.
It started overnight near the radical settlement of Yizhar, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. About 100 settlers blocked a road to protest against Israel's recent removal of a handful of tiny, uninhabited outposts. Six settlers were later arrested there.
Before dawn near another radical settlement, Kedumim, stone-throwing settlers ambushed a minivan carrying Palestinian laborers to Israel, the workers said. Six of the 15 Palestinians on board were hurt, including Yahye Sadah, who was hit in the head.
"I was hit in the head by a rock from a distance of 3 meters (10 feet). I ran away. I thought I'd die," said Sadah, 44, who spoke from a nearby hospital after getting six stitches.
Police said settlers threw rocks and burned tires in the area but that only one man was slightly wounded. The attackers fled and no arrests were made, they said.
A few hours later, settlers torched a wooded hilltop near Nablus and set trees and Palestinian agricultural land on fire near the village of Hawara, local council chief Ali Eid said.
Romel Sweiti, a Hawara resident, said the fires torched nearly 1 acre (0.40 hectares) of land. He said about 50 teenage Israeli settler girls gathered on a main road and blocked traffic as Israeli paramilitary police stood in the background.
Settler activist Daniella Weiss, who lives in the area, said she was unaware of the violence. But she vowed that Jewish residents would resist any attempts to move them, "no matter how harsh the policy of the Israeli government will be against us."
"The policy of dismantling outposts is an opening phase for withdrawal," she said. "This will not ensure the future security of the state of Israel."
Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the settlements among 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Another 180,000 live in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both areas — captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — as parts of a future independent state.
The U.S. considers the settlements an obstacle to peace, but traditionally has done little on the issue, a policy that appears to be changing under President Barack Obama.
The rampage underscored the difficulties Netanyahu faces.
On one hand, he is wary of picking a fight with the U.S., his most important ally. But settlers have a vocal leadership with many allies inside Netanyahu's government, constraining his ability to take action.
"Anyone with a basic understanding of this issue could have predicted that as talks of evacuations of illegal constructions begin, Jewish terror cells will rear their heads and set the West Bank on fire," warned Yesh Din, an anti-settlement watchdog group in Israel.
Netanyahu has dispatched his defense minister, Ehud Barak, to Washington this week in hopes of winning approval to allow at least limited construction to continue in the settlements. But the Obama administration has so far signaled it is not willing to budge.(source)
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Stanislav Mishin
The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina. (source)
Kicking & Screaming: Journo Dragged From Near AF1
A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday.
Airport security officers carried the woman away by the feet and arms as she protested her removal.
She later identified herself as Brenda Lee, a writer for the Georgia Informer in Macon and said she has White House press credentials. The newspaper's Web site says it is a monthly publication, and a Brenda Lee column is posted on it.
Calls to the newspaper and the White House press office were not immediately returned.
Lee said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that she wanted to hand Obama a letter urging him "to take a stand for traditional marriage."
She said she asked a Secret Service agent to give the president her letter, but he refused and referred her to a White House staffer. Lee said she refused to give the staffer the letter.
"I said, 'I'll take my chances if (the president) comes by here,'" said Lee, who identified herself as a Roman Catholic priestess who lives in Anaheim, Calif. "He became annoyed that I wouldn't give him the letter."
Lee, who was wearing what she described as a cassock, said she protested when she was asked to leave.
"I said, 'Why are you bothering me?' They escorted me outside the gate," she said.
She said security officers allowed her to return when she promised she would not yell or wave, but then other officers arrived and told her to leave.
"I said, 'I'm not leaving,'" she said. "They tried to drag me out."
Two officers then picked her up and carried her out. An Associated Press photographer photographed the incident.
"I was afraid you could see under my clothes," she said, her voice choking up.
Lee, who said this was the second presidential event she has covered, was later released.
The incident occurred about 10 minutes before Obama arrived at the airport by helicopter to board Air Force One. He had been in Los Angeles to attend a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Wednesday. (source)
