The_City_Troll

Obama, Lybia, and Israel

2011-04-07T11:42:00.000-05:00

President Barry's idiotic actions in Lybia are a setup to not only further abandon Israel, but set it up to actually be attacked by the U.S.
The philosophy of purely humanitarion strikes using missiles and planes to attack a superior force because civilians are being killed is a philosophy designed to change the American priority that a National interest must be involved, and a disavowment of all Allies. President Barry is implementing Samantha Powers his long term foriegn policy advisors beliefs.
Lets look a little at Ms. Powers, she has after all been his advisor since he was a Senator.
A loon from Dublin (wonder if she has relatives in SF/IRA), and graduate from Yale, and Harvard," a member of the president’s National Security Council who shares Noam Chomsky’s foreign-policy goals. An influential presidential adviser whom 1960s revolutionary Tom Hayden treats as a fellow radical." A White House official who wrote a book aiming to turn an anti-American, anti-Israel, Marxist-inspired, world-government-loving United Nations bureaucrat into a popular hero, Chasing the Flame . Samantha Power, senior director of multilateral affairs for the National Security Council and is the principal architect of our current intervention in Libya, is all of these things.
A woman determined to subordinate America’s national sovereignty to an international order largely controlled by leftist bureaucrats. According to her own writings. Both Obama and Power are skilled at hiding their ultimate ideological goals out of sight, behind a screen of practical problem-solving. Obama and Power are attempting to accustom us to a whole new way of thinking about war, and about America’s place in the world.
Obama likes following this womans advice as shown by his first two apology tours of Europe, In a 2003 piece for the New York Times, " Power bemoaned the reluctance of American policymakers to apologize to other countries for our supposed past mistakes." A 2007 piece by Power in The New York Times Book Review attacked the phrase “War on Terror,” which of course the Obama administration has since dropped. Her writings, Obama's actions, combined with their long working relationship. Gives weight to how much he uses her advice. The only person advising Obama longer than this loon is Rev Wright, and Bill Ayers.

In Power’s view, to be credible, humanitarian interventions must respond to immediate danger (thus Obama’s waiting until the militarily unpropitious moment when Benghazi itself was under imminent threat), must be supported by multilateral bodies (thus the resort to the U.N., NATO, and the Arab League in preference to the U.S. Congress), “must forswear up front . . . commercial or strategic interests in the region” (thus the disavowal of regime change as a goal of our multilateral action), and must “commit to remaining for a finite period” (as Obama has pledged to do in Libya). Even NATO’s threat to bomb the rebels if they kill civilians (which struck many as unrealistic, and at cross-purposes with our supposed military goals) is foreshadowed in Power’s writings, which highlight the need to police both sides in any humanitarian action.
The novel doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” which Power means the Libyan action to enshrine in international law, could someday be used to justify military intervention to impose a “two-state solution” on Israel this is one of Power’s longstanding goals.

The so-called international community has justified military intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds: Col. Qaddafi was threatening mass murder in Benghazi. But for years, Iran has been threatening mass murder in every city, town, and village of Israel. So, too, has Hamas, Iran’s client, which rules Gaza and has fired thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel. Fatah, which rules the West Bank, incites terrorism against Israelis while its al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades kill Israelis whenever they get the chance. Where is the international community there?
Libya is actually designed to free the Obamanations hands to use Military force against Israel if it defends itself. After all the Palli terrorists always launch their missiles from schools and hospitals. Their command and control sites are purposly located in buildings with a ton of civilians. Any retaliation by Israel always kills civilians because that is what the terrorists want.
With the establishment of Ms. Powers or if you prefer you can call her Mrs. Sunstein she is married to Cass Sunstein, anyway with the establishment of the precedent of destroying military hardware, of any side that fires into areas where civilians are, under orders from the U.N. sets Israel up for an attack by U.S. forces. It also frees the President to do it on his own without involving Congress. Now with Obama's demonstrated disdain for Israel, do you think they might need to worry?

The Words in Red are words and thoughts shared not just be me but other commenter's on this topic, A question has been raised about giving others credit for my post. I read a lot, and I will use others words when they express a point I am trying to make better than I can. I am not a paid journalist, nor do I profit in anyway from this blog, or anyone elses writing. So neither can be held as plagiarism.

However if you find a line or phrase I use written by someone else, give yourself a star for doing your research, also two things might occur to you 1) There are others that believe and think as I do. and 2)Maybe it will inspire you to write a comment that actually finds fault with not only what I am saying, but others also.

I Love This Guy

2011-04-05T19:20:00.001-05:00

Richard Branson plans deep-ocean submarine dives

Billionaire adventurer Richard Branson plans submarine dives to deepest part of world's oceans

Noaki Schwartz, Associated Press, On Tuesday April 5, 2011, 3:40 pm EDT

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Billionaire adventurer Richard Branson on Tuesday unveiled a new single-person submarine that he said will be used to set new world records by exploring the five deepest parts of the world's oceans.

Branson said that over the next two years, the solo craft will go to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic's Puerto Rico Trench and South Sandwich Trench, the Diamantina Trench in the Indian Ocean and the Molloy Deep in the Arctic Ocean.

Branson's fellow explorer, Chris Welsh, plans to make the first descent later this year to the Mariana Trench, which at 36,000 feet is deeper than Mount Everest is high. Branson then plans to explore the 28,000-foot-deep Puerto Rico Trench.

While the pilots for the other three trips have not been chosen, Branson said they hope to set as many as 30 Guinness World Records with the dives.

"The last great challenge for humans is to explore the depths of our planet's oceans," the Virgin Atlantic founder said at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club.

A news release said there was only one frontier left for Branson's Virgin brand, which has reached "the seven continents of the earth, up into the jet stream and soon, even into space."

"If someone says something is impossible, we like to prove it's possible," Branson said. "I love learning and I'm just very fortunate to participate in these kinds of adventures."

Branson unveiled the submarine, a nearly 18-foot long, white-and-blue airplane-like craft with stubby wings and a cockpit.

The carbon fiber and titanium craft will be capable of cruising for about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) and can stay down unaided for 24 hours. The sub and its accompanying catamaran cost an estimated $17 million.

Branson said his so-called Virgin Oceanic expedition will have a scientific and educational purpose. He hopes the voyages will help to educate the public about mankind's impacts on the world's oceans and marine life.

He is partnering with Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Moss Landing Marine Labs in Northern California as well as other research institutions. Scientists hope to study the tectonic plates and eventually use lander vehicles to bring back water, microbes and possibly small creatures from the ocean depths.

"We have 800 pounds of moon rocks and not one drop from the bottom of the ocean," said Alex Tai, Virgin Group director of special projects.

The dives will be dangerous and the pilots will likely be down in the dark and cold ocean depths for hours will little communication with the outside world. Rescues will be impossible, Welsh said. Still, he was clearly more excited than wary of the prospect, saying there is a magic to exploring new places.

"It's like going to the moon and having the lunar rover to explore around," Welsh said.

The dives also will be recorded and uploaded to Google Earth, said John Hanke, the Internet search engine's vice president of product management.

"Our mission for Google Earth is to create an interactive virtual globe and enable users to visit places that they've never explored, including the world's oceans," he said.

The submarine originally was commissioned by Branson's close friend and fellow adventurer Steve Fossett, who died in 2007 while flying a plane over the Sierra Nevada. Fossett had intended to complete the first solo dive to the Mariana Trench, Branson said.

Branson also said he plans to create a larger submarine that can hold more people and offer trips to tourists for a sizable fee.

Last year he unveiled a three-person submarine called the Necker Nymph, which is available for $2,500 a day for guests of his private resort in the Caribbean. The submarine, created by San Francisco-based Hawkes Ocean Technologies, is capable of going almost 100 feet deep. In a subsequent interview with Popular Mechanics, Hawkes officials said they were also working with Branson on submersibles capable of high-speed deep sea travel.

Branson has also been working on a space tourism venture with the construction of a $209 million spaceport in New Mexico. The British businessman has said he expects to launch the first suborbital flights from Spaceport America between mid-summer 2011 and spring 2012. Many of the 500 people that have signed up to be astronauts have expressed interest in being "aquanauts," he said.

While most of the country is still dealing with the daily realities of a struggling economy, University of California, Berkeley professor Robert Reich said the super-rich are richer today than they have ever been and there is a market in selling them new adventures.

High-end retailers such as Tiffany & Co. and Neiman Marcus continue to do well despite the economy, he said. And even as NASA experiences budget cuts, the extraordinary wealthy are willing to pay small fortunes to go into space or into the depths of the ocean, said the public policy professor.

"People who are selling to the super-rich basically can't lose," said Reich, former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration. "Richard Branson can dig a hole to the center of the earth and charge a million dollars a day to go through it and he'd find people to take him up on the offer."

Ryan

2011-04-05T09:01:00.002-05:00

ObamaCare, You have to READ IT to know what's in it.

2011-03-08T16:48:00.000-05:00

Defund NPR

2011-03-08T09:26:00.001-05:00

Poster Boy of the Week

2011-02-27T10:46:00.001-05:00

Muammar Gaddafi, a tireless promoter of Islam, defender of Allah, and the UN's recent choice to chair its
Human Rights Commission, also dabbles in massacring
peaceful demonstrators with rocket and machine-gun fire.
hat tip: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Unions are NOT the Middle Class

2011-02-27T07:00:00.005-05:00

Over the past week we have seen demonstration after demonstration of Unions coming out in support of their "brothers" in Wisconsin.

At every rally no matter where in the country it takes place you hear one thing, and you see one thing. The Scripted Mantra you hear is "Were here to defend the Middle Class", and the one thing that you see, is some Union Thug going psycho on someone.

Well someone has to tell these couldn't hold a job without a Union assholes that A) You do not represent Middle Class America, You represent 12% of the American workforce. Half of that 12% are Government Workers Unions, and B) the other half are the last of the cancer eating away at the core of American Industry.

Unions have destroyed every industry they have touched. This is no longer the 30s where Unions needed to protect the working man. Business and the law evolved but not the knuckle dragging scum of the Unions.

Unions drove American Steel out of business, Unions destroyed the Big 3 Auto makers, and Unions still to this day are crippling the Airline industry. Every job the United States has lost over the past 60yrs can be laid right at the feet of Americas Labor Unions.

They are lead by devout Marxists, and their rank and file are to stupid to even know that they are the communist party of the United States. Ask them, ask any Union member if they think they are a commie, I would immediately duck because the Neanderthal you are talking to will take a swing at you, as he or she boasts how patriotic and truly American they are.

Yet they can't get or hold a job on their own. They can't pay their own way on their Health Plan, or their Retirement, and to top it all off, they believe they are OWED all this.

Well let me tell ya buddy you ain't owed shit, and you ain't worth shit. and all your pension money is in the pockets of idiots like John Kerry, The Kennedy's, The Daley's and any other Democrat that needs a dime. So when you go to retire your going to be on welfare god willing, because none of them will give you the time of day.

As Oil heads to $120 a Barrel

2011-02-26T16:42:00.001-05:00

Obama El Duce

2011-02-26T07:25:00.002-05:00

Our fearless leader El Duce Obama stepped over the line the other day far enough that even the liberals should get nervous, but they won't because those that suffer from the mental disease Liberalism are incapable of following actions out to the resulting consequences.

President Barack Obama’s decision not to fully enforce the Defense of Marriage law, has consequences. Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the administration will not defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act in the courts, which has banned recognition of same-sex marriage for 15 years. President Clinton signed the act into law in 1996.

Newt Gingrich summed it up best, Gingrich slammed Obama for his decision, telling Newsmax that he is not a “one-person Supreme Court” and his decision sets a “very dangerous precedent” that must not be allowed to stand.

Yet dollars to donuts it does stand. Who is going to challenge it? The Press, Harry Reid? If you mention this to "ordinary" People you know the ones that watch American Idol, and Jersey Shore. They would have no clue that it happened let alone what it means.

What it means if it is let to stand, is that the United States just became a dictatorship.

Obama has set the precedent that the President of The United States is not bound by the rule of Law, and if he can choose what laws he won't enforce, what is to stop him from deciding what he will prosecute? He can even make up things to prosecute. Tell me why not?

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Fascism

2009-12-21T15:12:00.004-05:00

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

The Health Care Bill Violates the Constitution of The United States. It DEMANDS that each and every citizen purchase a product. Where in the Constitution is that power given to the Federal Government? It establishes fines and jail time for non-compliance.

What compelled our so called Representatives to Create this monstrosity, Prostitution and Fascism.

Prostitution because the whores in the Senate sold their votes for slush fund money and projects to try and keep their jobs come November.

Fascism because it dictates to the citizens the purchase of a commodity. It also sets limits on salaries of employees of Private Companies including share holder profits. Last year the profit margin of the major Insurance Companies was a whopping 2%. It dictates that all citizens will pay for abortion.

It taxes people who have jobs for the health care that they have, including an extra tax if your married. A couple living together with a combined income of $60,000 will pay a tax of $2400, a Married couple making the same money with the same insurance plan will pay a tax of $11,400 a $9000 extra fine for being married.

Included in this Bill are 111 new bureaucracies (Death Panels) Costs on the low estimate 2.5 Trillion Dollars, and adds 400 Billion in new Taxes

Combine this Bill with the House Financial Regulation Bill, which gives the Government the power to seize control of any business considered a threat to the Economy and it is clear.

This is Fascism

Where Am I ?????

2009-05-31T17:54:00.003-05:00

I post very rarely do to job commitments, but when I do post my posts can be found at A Tangled Web.

The Troll

Politics as Usual or Typical Democrat Stupidity

2009-04-08T20:37:00.002-05:00

As the President returns from his world wide Groveling Tour. Where he and the missus show a lack of respect and protocol to our ally the queen, while bowing before a tyrant and spiritual adversary the Saudi King. The buffoon parade ends as he arrives home to cut the military budget.

In the beginning of a world war when the administration is tossing Trillions down the bailout drain, while unconstitutionally stealing control of private industry. They have decided to enact massive military spending cuts.

Following in the footsteps of his clone Carter and the misogynist Bill Clinton, the Military is the only part of the government that will see a decrease.

Now it's one thing cutting missile defense even though the malignant midget in N Korea launched an ICBM right while the Obamanation was giving a speech on Nuclear Disarmament. The fools that act as the brain trust of our government are cutting the number one weapons platform in our modern arsenal. Calling his plan a “reform budget,” Gates said he would eliminate the F-22 Raptor at 187 aircraft.

That leaves 187 aircraft to replace the over 700 plane fleet of f-15 and f-18 fighters. Now mind you those aircraft when they came on line replaced 2400 f-4s. This however is the equivalent of shooting Secretariat right before the Triple Crown was run.

The Raptor is the most deadly aircraft ever built. There is no plane made by any other nation that comes close. The Chicoms have crap, and the Russians have a high tech bird that is very good but is not a stealth craft like the Raptor.

The Raptor flies higher with an almost invisible signature with the capability to see and shoot down other craft that are still over the horizon. It is also the most maneuverable fighter craft ever designed making it next to impossible defeat in a dog fight due to a new revolution in flight control design.

It is our sweeper weapon they fly in and clear the sky of all other craft before they even come into the enemies range. They then can deliver devastating ground strike capability once they get to that combat area.

Non of this means anything to groveling apologists that now control the levers of power in Washington to them it's just time to cut what they hate, American Superiority.

Call These ASSHOLES

2009-03-23T17:19:00.003-05:00

compliments of Quinn & Rose

Power Line Blog - John Hinderaker - Wall of Shame - March 19, 2009

That's where we put the names of House members who voted for Nancy Pelosi's silly, unconstitutional 90% tax on the AIG bonuses. The measure passed, 328-93, with Democrats frantically seeking cover against voter wrath. It's sad to see any Republicans going along with the Democrats' Know-Nothingism, but, by a bare 87-85 margin Republicans opposed the Dems' stunt. I'm glad to see that conservative stalwarts, including John Kline, John Shadegg and Michele Bachmann, generally voted "no."

Pelosi's tax will never become law; it will die quietly at some point. Its only purpose is as a cheap PR stunt to deflect public anger--mostly misplaced, in my view, to the extent that it focuses on the AIG bonuses rather than the multiple, trillion dollar disasters the Democrats have perpetrated or are planning.

Aderholt
Alexander
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Blunt
Bono Mack
Boozman
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Cao
Capito
Cassidy
Castle
Crenshaw
Davis (KY)
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
Fleming
Forbes
Fortenberry
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Gerlach
Goodlatte
Guthrie
Heller
Herger
Hoekstra
Johnson (IL)
Jones
Kirk
Lance
Latham
Lee (NY)
Lewis (CA)
LoBiondo
Manzullo
McCaul
McClintock
McHugh
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (MI)
Moran (KS)
Petri
Platts
Putnam
Rehberg
Reichert
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Schmidt
Schock
Shimkus
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Stearns
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walden
Wamp
Whitfield
Wittman
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

Republican Idiots

The Circus Maximus

2009-03-20T19:33:00.003-05:00

This clip depicts so many characters in this 3 ring monkey show that's being put on about a pitence of bonuses a mere 136million. I submit to you Senator Dodd, President Obama, Secretary Geitner, et al.....

The Sham that they have just committed over the last week was great comedy except for the tragedy that it's my country. The administration has lied, been caught lying, and then breached one of the primary principals of and for the Constitution of The United States.

These bonuses are not even bonuses for performance they are retention bonuses. The toothless town idiot Blarney Fwank said and I quote "All these people should be fired" just imagine that line coming out the mouth of the worst lisp you've ever heard spraying from toothless lips.

Well rocket scientists, economic wizard Rep Fwanks, THEY ARE ALREADY FIRED! The bonuses are for staying to finish there jobs as they themselves tye the knots up of their already eliminated Jobs, ya dumb git.

These people were told "were doing away with your jobs will pay you this just to finish them off".
Now mind you they all knew about these bonuses before the Bill that "nobody read" and the fact Dodd and Obama were the two largest recipients of AIG contributions, and Geitner, the white house staff, Dodds staff, and madam Pelosi, Specifically put in the wording in to protect those bonuses. your not supposed to notice.

Nor are you to notice that the same day this all started, it was released that out of the 186 BILLION, that AIG received 44 Bil went to American Banks while 55 Bill went to overseas Banks. I'm sure only the Swiss know where part of the missing Billions are.

Then the she-bitch Pelousey Violates the constitution by ramming through a Bill of Attainder. A Bill of Attainder is the power of Government used to punish a specific person or group of persons Like the AIG bonus receivers (that they were protecting in the first place) It is specifically forbidden by the Constitution, because it was the manifestation of the policies of the government they fought against.

What your not supposed to notice though is this week the Federal Reserve Monetized the debt. We bought our own bad paper. No Nation has ever survived that, but that all right since the whole world is in the economic toilet what we really need is a UN Dollar for the entire world...
Obama & Dodd

Our Future in Healthcare

2009-03-17T19:56:00.004-05:00

The Envy Of The World

Have Stalinist healthcare system, get Stalinist healthcare rationing.

"Appalling standards of care have been exposed at Mid-Staffordshire Hospitals trust, where between 400 and 1200 more patients died than would be expected in just three years, according to a damning report by the Healthcare Commission."

I think we can see where this one's going already.

"It is not clear how many patients died as a direct result of the failures but the Commission found that mortality rates in emergency care were between 27 per cent and 45 per cent higher than would be expected, equating to between 400 and 1,200 excess deaths."

Ah well, they're just numbers, faceless men and women who clutter up the day, isn't that right, box-tickers? A bout of hand-wringing, a liberal sprinkling of "lessons will be learned" and under the carpet it goes.

Click to read more ...

Posted on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 07:59PM by Pete Moore

An Education

2009-03-01T14:08:00.001-05:00

But most of you will not take the time to listen to what is said in this post. Some out of hate, some due to a lack of attention span, but must just because your unwilling to hear someone explane to you the TRUTH.

There are 10 parts to this speech, I'll bet 10 to 1 that you don't make it through the first.

If your interested in understanding who and what the majority of us are you should educate yourself.

I hope you now have a little better understanding, but I doubt it!

Rush

Let The BUM GO and REED with Him

2009-02-25T20:57:00.003-05:00

Eagles blindsided by report of alleged McNabb demands
Feb. 24, 2009

By Clark Judge

CBSSports.com Senior Writer

I don't know what to make of the latest Donovan McNabb story, and, frankly, neither do the Philadelphia Eagles.
According to an ESPN.com report, McNabb might delay talks of a contract extension "until he sees how the Eagles improve themselves in the offseason via free agency and/or trades." The implication was that if the club doesn't meet McNabb's demands for more weapons, he might not seek an extension and, instead, could pursue a trade.

Let The Bum Go he can't win a Superbowl and never will, add to that Andy Reed is a lousy coach who can't call plays. Who prefers the View from up his ASS rather than the Sidelines.

McNabb

Abbott and Costello on their way To BiBi's House

2009-02-25T14:15:00.007-05:00

These Two clowns are going to go to Israel and "Dictate" what Israel should do. Does the Term "Rude Awakening" come to your mind, because it does mine.

Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell are expected to meet in Jerusalem with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

She is also scheduled to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad in Ramallah.

Clinton will be preceded in Israel by four days by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who will be making his second visit on Thursday since assuming his new position in January.

Trying to feel the water before The Hildabeast jumps into shark infested waters.

He will meet Clinton in Egypt for the Gaza conference, and then return with her to Israel.
Where they will be handed their asses and TOLD what Israel intends to do, since the current administration in DC are going down the appeasement road.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said:
"Israel's policy is clear: We are not ruling out any option regarding the Iranian nuclear [program]," he said. "We mean it."

"We recommend that others don't rule out any option either," continued Barak in an address at the Inter-Disciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya on Wednesday evening, with a possible hint to US President Barack Obama's administration. "A dialogue with Iran should be defined and limited in time."

Hillary

Happy Birthday to a Truly Great Bastard

2009-02-12T20:13:00.009-05:00

A Long Read but Worth It!

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday was today February 12th 200 years ago. Lincoln was the right man at the right time. A home schooled Self taught Genius that presided over the bloodiest time in American History.

The Civil War was really about states rights so in one aspect you can say the War was really lost by both sides. It was the beginning of the death of Federalism. Though history looks at it as a victory and it truly was.

It kept the nation together, and ended slavery in the civilized world.

But let no one sell you this crap about this wise man that fought a war for the nobility of freeing a race of people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lincoln was the Bastard of all Bastards, and he got himself written into history as one of the greatest presidents. He was a brilliant man with a set of iron balls that must have clanked when he walked.

He won the Presidency through the Lincoln -Douglas Debates which no modern politician would do today they actually spoke about issues, imagine that.

Drawing on remnants of the old Whig, Free Soil, Liberty and Democratic parties, he was instrumental in forming the new Republican Party. In a stirring campaign, the Republicans carried Illinois in 1854 and elected a senator. Lincoln was the obvious choice, but to keep the new party balanced he allowed the election to go to an ex-Democrat Lyman Trumbull. How many of today's egocentric gits that run for office would give someone else their seat for the good of the party.

With the emergence of the Republicans as the nation's first major sectional party by the mid-1850s, politics became the stage on which sectional tensions were played out. Although much of the West – the focal point of sectional tensions – was unfit for cotton cultivation, Southern secessionists read the political fallout as a sign that their power in national politics was rapidly weakening. Before, the slave system had been buttressed to an extent by the Democratic Party, which was increasingly seen as representing a more pro-Southern position that unfairly permitted Southerners to prevail in the nation's territories and to dominate national policy before the Civil War. But they suffered a significant reverse in the electoral realignment of the mid-1850s. 1860 was a critical election that marked a stark change in existing patterns of party loyalties among groups of voters; Abraham Lincoln's election was a watershed in the balance of power of competing national and parochial interests and affiliations.

The North and the West were becoming Industrial but industry and oil were still in their infancy. The nation needed the Cotton revenue.

Douglas had infected a few to many people that believed as a democracy they could succeed if they chose. This of course was bull. A house divided can not stand.

To preserve the house Lincoln did what he had to do. The birth of the Republican Party was a death knell to the Democrat party at the time, and Seven States declared they would secede if Lincoln won the Election. When he did win both Lincoln and his predecessor Buchanan refused to recognize the Confederacy.

President-elect Lincoln evaded possible assassins in Baltimore, and on February 23, 1861, arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C. At his inauguration on March 4, 1861, the German American Turners (What today would be special forces) formed Lincoln's bodyguard; and a sizable garrison of federal troops was also present, ready to protect the capital from Confederate invasion and local insurrection.

By the time Lincoln took office, the Confederacy was an established fact, and no leaders of the insurrection proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. No compromise was found because a compromise was deemed virtually impossible. Buchanan might have allowed the southern states to secede, and some Republicans recommended that. However, conservative Democratic nationalists, such as Jeremiah S. Black, Joseph Holt, and Edwin M. Stanton had taken control of Buchanan's cabinet around January 1, 1861, and refused to accept secession. Lincoln and nearly every Republican leader adopted this position by March 1861: the Union could not be dismantled.

In July 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion. The goal was to weaken the rebellion, which was led and controlled by slave owners. While it did not abolish the legal institution of slavery (the Thirteenth Amendment did that), the Act showed that Lincoln had the support of Congress in liberating slaves owned by rebels. In that same month, Lincoln discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet.

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." ... My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

The Emancipation Proclamation, announced on September 22, 1862 and put into effect on January 1, 1863, freed slaves in territories not already under Union control. As Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until all of them in Confederate territory (over three million) were freed. Lincoln later said: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." The proclamation made the abolition of slavery in the rebel states an official war goal. Lincoln then threw his energies into passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to permanently abolish slavery throughout the nation.

This is when the fun really began Lincoln Tossed away the Right of Habeus Corpus, which meant he could have you locked up and never even charge you. And he did it several times.

The South had Chosen Lee to run their Army so for his betrayal Lincoln ordered the Union Dead buried in the Front Lawn of his family estate. You might of heard of it. They called it Arlington.

And the first soldiers were buried twenty feet in front of his porch.

One person running for Governor of Ohio Clement Laird Vallandigham, was so outspoken that Lincoln had him locked up and deported to Canada. When he continued to rabble rouse in Canada they threw him out and Lincoln locked him back up.

The war was getting Bloodier and bloodier with each major engagement. Gettysburg was so bad no one wanted to join And when getting people to join was next to impossible they used a very political draft to fill the ranks. This draft caused riots from the Irish in NY during which the navy was ordered to fire on the cities Irish quarter to end the rioting.

Lincoln during the war was plagued by Generals who refused to engage the enemy the worst of these was McClellan (the man who truly invented hurry up and wait) He had several chances to end the war and refused to engage the enemy.

In walks Grant, Grant first reached national prominence by taking Forts Henry and Donelson in 1862 in the first Union victories of the war. The following year, his celebrated campaign ending in the surrender of Vicksburg secured Union control of the Mississippi and—with the simultaneous Union victory at Gettysburg—turned the tide of the war in the North's favor.

Named commanding general of the Federal armies in 1864, he implemented a coordinated strategy of simultaneous attacks aimed at destroying the South's ability to carry on the war. He Ordered Sherman's March to the Sea one of the greatest campaigns ever. In 1865, after conducting a costly war of attrition in the East, he accepted the surrender of his Confederate opponent Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House.

Many of the politicians and other Generals hated Grant and complained incessantly to Lincoln that he was allowing the war to be run by a Drunkard. Lincolns response was "find out what he's drinking and send a case to every commander I've got"

There was no bi-partisanship in Lincoln's government, Which made me laugh today when Obama said there was. If you spoke against the war you were locked up period.

Lincoln stuck to his guns and lead the country through it's bloodiest war and never flinched.

God Bless you President Lincoln, we need politicians of your fortitude now. As the nation is on the very eve of self destruction, once again at the hand of the Democrat Party.

Material for this Article was pulled fro the National Archives and Wiki

Glenns Poll

2009-02-07T10:51:00.004-05:00

1) Yes or no: Do you believe America is a good place, that we've lost our way over the years, that we have done bad things but generally speaking we tried hard. We try to make amends. We have tried to do the right thing. Just like everybody else, we fail from time to time and we have truly lost our way in the last 20 years. But gosh, if you look at America, she's good and our founders were good and our founding documents are good. We've just strayed too far away from them. Yes or no.

2) Yes or no: I believe in God. I may not go to the same church or synagogue or mosque as the majority of people in America, but I believe in God and he is the center of my life, and God does not tell people to behead others or to persecute others that see God in a different way. As long as that god is not telling them to persecute others.

Yes or no.

3) Yes or no: It is my responsibility to try to be better and a more honest person than I was yesterday. Sometimes I fail, I'll make mistakes, but it's my main mission to be better than I was personally than I was yesterday.

4) Yes or no: The family is sacred. I and my spouse are the ultimate authority under God when it comes to my family. I raise my family, and that comes with a grave responsibility. If I fail, I answer to God.

5) Yes or no: If you break the law, you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

6) Yes or no: I have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but that is not a guarantee of equal results.

7) Yes or no: I work hard for what I have, and I will share it with others that I choose when I choose, should I choose. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

8) It is not un-American for anyone to disagree with my opinion, but my opinion or others' opinions may be anti-American. Anti-American rhetoric would be anything that is destructive to the Constitution and our country as our founders understood it.

9) And the last one is the government works for me. The government answers to me. I do not answer to the government.

Here's what I want you to do. Step one: No matter where you are right now, I want you to take a picture of yourself. I want you to take a picture, and I ask you and you'll understand as we go in the next couple of weeks, I ask you if you could bring these and ask your children -- can we post these please on the Internet, on the website? I want you to ask as many people as you know, do you believe in these things? Just seven out of nine. Do you believe in them? Then will you please take a picture of yourself. If you ask your family and you ask your children tonight, do you believe in these things. Take a picture of your spouse. Not as a family. Take them one at a time and send them to me, e-mail them to me at -- what is the address, Stu? Wesurroundthem@gmail.com. This is how much I believe that you are not alone.

Employee Free Choice Act

2009-02-05T09:55:00.004-05:00

Does a ballot cast in private or a card signed in pub?lic better reveal a worker's true preference about whether to join a union? A private vote is the obvious answer, but organized labor has nonetheless made the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 800) its highest legislative priority.

What that means is Guido and his two buddies approach you and say "are you John Smith, living at 222 Brown St and work at Wall Mart? Here sign this union card." Now if you don't want to they know where you live and they know "your a problem".

The Bill also does away with Elections, the Union can come to your house, the bar you hang at, the work place, or all 3. Once they "convince" 51% of the workers to sign the cards your store is now a Union Shop.

The Company then has 90 days to complete a Union Contract that the Union agrees to or the Government steps in and decides what workers make what wages and receive what benefits.

If the Company refuses they have to close the business and are forbidden to EVER reopen again.

Union activists contend that the act would pro?tect workers' freedom to freely choose to join a union. However, workers' best defense against harassment and intimidation by either a union or an employer is a secret-ballot election in which nei?ther knows how any individual worker voted.

7% of the American work force are Union members, that's all. Unions have destroyed the two largest industries in the country. The Steel Industry, and The Auto Industry. Since 1940 Organized labour has cost the US 50 Trillion Dollars in GDP.

This happens with the hidden expense that a union costs a business. The Average US Big 3 Auto worker costs the company $75 an hour, where a non-union worker at an American Toyota factory costs $40 an hour.

The debt for Medicare and Social Security for the next 40 years is $50 Trillion the same cost as what the Unions have already cost the country. What unions have already cost us could have made those programs solvent.

To sum it up if this bill passes workers will be intimidated into joining a union, companies will have to comply, or shut their doors forever. Not to mention the COMMUNIST tactic of the government dictating who gets paid what. Which they just did to the corporate execs who begged for bailout money.

Add to that the cost of increased prices which effect everyone, and the forcing of 22 states removing their right to work laws by dictation from the Federal Government.

The Current group in power are Soviets.
Unions

$800 Billion Plane Ride

2009-02-05T09:01:00.004-05:00

[Marc Thiessen]

From a Senate staffer:
“I just heard that the reason we’re trying to wrap up this bill by tomorrow is that there is a CODEL to Germany [for the annual Munich Security Conference]. Wheels up sometime around 6 p.m. out of Andrews. We’re going to let this thing go without making them take tough votes because a group of Senators wants to take a ride on the taxpayer overseas. We should call it the $800 billion plane ride. We should be debating this thing all week and make Reid shut us down. The more this hangs out there, the worse it smells to the American people. We are a sad excuse for a minority.”
The Munich Security Conference is the Davos of the defense and national security world. It takes place Feb. 6-8.

We Plan To Live Up To Our Ethical Standards Very, Very Soon [Byron York]

>

A number of bloggers are pointing out this ethics pledge on Barack Obama's campaign website:
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

Obama has now signed two bills into law — the Lily Ledbetter Act and SCHIP — and in neither case did he wait five days before signing. The website PolitiFact asked the White House about the broken pledge and got this response from an Obama spokesman:

During the campaign, the President committed to introducing more sunlight into the lawmaking process by posting non-emergency legislation online for five days before signing it. The President remains committed to bringing more transparency to government, and in this spirit the White House has posted legislation expected to come to the President's desk online for comment.
We will be implementing this policy in full soon; currently we are working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar. In the meantime, we will continue to post legislation on our website for comment as it moves through congress over the next few weeks."
02/05 07:47 AM

No One is Safe from The Mad Persian

2009-02-03T15:01:00.005-05:00

As Iran Launches it's first satellite into space what does it mean? Can the Iranians now get the Dish Network and watch more TV, or does it prove the Mad Persian Imamadjihad can now drop a nuke anywhere in the world he wants?

The Safir-2 Rocket Launch went off without a hitch. Successfully putting the satellite in orbit. Proving that Iran can deliver a payload into orbit. The question I ask is what is more likely to be in that payload? A communication satellite, or a Nuclear Bomb?

This regime has declared war on the West, the fact that they have had missiles that could reach England, France, or Germany has caused no real concern to the heads of the EU. Will this launch even cause them to blink an eye?

Iran will have enough fissile material to create warheads within the month. Will that cause the EU or the UN to loose any sleep?

This man who was one of the leaders in the hostage taking of the US embassy in 1979, and who is a member of the sect that believes the 12th Imam will return. A man who has said on numerous occasions it is his mission in life to bring about this return, which by the way can only be brought back by bathing the world in blood.

Or will all this just be another ho hum event to the comatose masses of gits that walk slowly to their own slaughter.

What do you think?

Iran

Go Israel

2009-02-01T11:28:00.003-05:00

A News Story About Real Leaders
Our leaders placate and want to appease the enemy. BiBi is a true leader of his people, and understands his job is to protect them. Not Rape them for their money.

Netanyahu says Iran will not get hands on nukes
By ARON HELLER,
Associated Press Writer AP - Sunday, February 1
JERUSALEM - Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's leading candidate for prime minister, said Saturday that Iran "will not be armed with a nuclear weapon."
In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV, Netanyahu said if elected prime minister his first mission will be to thwart the Iranian nuclear threat. Netanyahu, the current opposition leader and head of the hardline Likud party, called Iran the greatest danger to Israel and to all humanity.
When asked if stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions included a military strike, he replied: "It includes everything that is necessary to make this statement come true."
Iran has denied it is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and says it is pursuing nuclear power for peaceful uses. It also denies it is engaged in terrorism, instead accusing Israel of terrorist policies against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which were occupied by Israel after the 1967 Mideast War.
The Channel 2 TV broadcast interviewed all three candidates for prime minister ahead of the Feb. 10 election. The three did not debate each other and appeared one after the other to answer questions posted by Israelis in YouTube videos.
Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Ehud Barak of Labor were both asked about how they intended to deal with the continuing rocket threat from Hamas militants in Gaza. Both took a hard line.
"Hamas was hit like it was never hit before," Barak, the defense minister, said. "If they try us again, they will be hit again."
Israeli launched a massive three-week offensive against Gaza militants on Dec. 27 to stop eight years of near-daily militant rocket fire at southern Israeli towns. Nearly 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, about half of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, three of them civilians.
Livni, the foreign minister, said if Hamas "hasn't gotten the message yet" Israel would strike it again.
Regardless, she said Hamas could not be negotiated with and called on the people of Gaza to overthrow their regime.
"I do not intend to reach any agreements with Hamas. Agreements I make with people who accept my existence," she said. "They do not recognize Israel and do not renounce violence and terrorism. They will not be a party to an agreement and therefore the people of Gaza have to expel the Hamas from within them."

Israel

Sarah Palin: The case for drilling in ANWR

2009-02-01T08:56:00.002-05:00

I AM DISMAYED THAT LEGISLATION HAS AGAIN BEEN INTRODUCED in Congress to prohibit forever oil and gas development in the most promising unexplored petroleum province in North America -- the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in Alaska.

Let's not forget: Only six months ago, oil was selling for nearly $150 per barrel, while Americans were paying $4 a gallon and more for gasoline. And today, there is potential for prices to rebound as OPEC asserts its market power and as Russia disrupts needed natural gas to Europe for the second time in three years.

As I traveled throughout the country campaigning for vice president, I was glad to hear politicians, including Barack Obama, promise that "everything was on the table" to address America's great challenges. I also found that when Americans were apprised of the facts, most people became supporters of responsible oil and gas drilling in Alaska. So, I want to remind our national leaders of this promise and make the case against this legislation:

•Oil from ANWR represents a huge, secure domestic supply that could help satisfy U.S. demand for more than 25 years.

•ANWR sits within a 20 million-acre refuge (the size of South Carolina), but thanks to advanced technology like directional drilling, the aggregated drilling footprint would be less than 2,000 acres (about one-quarter the size of Dulles Airport). This is like laying a 2-by-3-foot welcome mat on a basketball court.

•Energy development is quite compatible with the protection of our wildlife and their habitat. For example, North Slope caribou herds have grown and remained healthy throughout more than three decades of oil development. Most of the year, our coastal plain is frozen solid and thus characterized by low biological productivity.

•ANWR development would create hundreds of thousands of good American jobs, positively affecting every state by providing a safe energy supply and generating demand for goods and services.

•Development here would reduce U.S. dependence on unstable, dangerous sources of energy, such as the Middle East, and would decrease our huge trade deficit, a large percentage of which is directly attributable to oil imports.

•Incremental ANWR production would help reduce energy price volatility. Previous price disruptions demonstrate how even relatively low levels of oil production influence world prices.

•Federal revenues from ANWR -- cash bids, leases and oil taxes -- would help reduce the multitrillion-dollar national debt, and we'd circulate U.S. petrodollars in our own country instead of continuing to send hundreds of billions of our dollars overseas, creating jobs and stronger economies in other countries.

The development of oil and clean-burning natural gas isn't a panacea. However, this development should be authorized in comprehensive legislation that includes alternative fuels, fuel efficiency and conservation.

Americans know that gasoline and other refined crude oil products will keep fueling our transportation system for the foreseeable future. Further, the soaring prices of food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and other products graphically illustrate the importance of petroleum to the health and well-being of America.

Another important reality is that the location and quantity of oil production are drastically changing world geopolitics.

Energy-producing countries are rapidly gaining world power. Several of these countries have objectives and value systems that are antithetical to U.S. interests.

Washington politicians should be horrified as we become increasingly dependent on these insecure, foreign sources while our U.S. petrodollars finance activities that harm America and our economic and military interests around the world.

If we don't move now to enact a comprehensive energy policy that includes domestic oil and gas production, including ANWR, we will look back someday and regret that we failed to perceive a critical crossroads in the history of America. It's not overly dramatic to say our nation's future depends on the decisions made by the federal government over the next few months.

Polls show a majority of Americans now support responsible energy development in Alaska. Unfortunately, some disingenuous special-interest groups are still fighting the public will in Congress.

Americans, please contact Congress and ask that all options stay on the table as we formulate our needed energy plan. Remind politicians about their promises to increase domestic oil and gas production.

Sarah Palin is governor of Alaska.

•Development here would reduce U.S. dependence on unstable, dangerous sources of energy, such as the Middle East, and would decrease our huge trade deficit, a large percentage of which is directly attributable to oil imports.

•Incremental ANWR production would help reduce energy price volatility. Previous price disruptions demonstrate how even relatively low levels of oil production influence world prices.

•Federal revenues from ANWR -- cash bids, leases and oil taxes -- would help reduce the multitrillion-dollar national debt, and we'd circulate U.S. petrodollars in our own country instead of continuing to send hundreds of billions of our dollars overseas, creating jobs and stronger economies in other countries.

The development of oil and clean-burning natural gas isn't a panacea. However, this development should be authorized in comprehensive legislation that includes alternative fuels, fuel efficiency and conservation.

Americans know that gasoline and other refined crude oil products will keep fueling our transportation system for the foreseeable future. Further, the soaring prices of food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and other products graphically illustrate the importance of petroleum to the health and well-being of America.

Another important reality is that the location and quantity of oil production are drastically changing world geopolitics.

Energy-producing countries are rapidly gaining world power. Several of these countries have objectives and value systems that are antithetical to U.S. interests.

Washington politicians should be horrified as we become increasingly dependent on these insecure, foreign sources while our U.S. petrodollars finance activities that harm America and our economic and military interests around the world.

If we don't move now to enact a comprehensive energy policy that includes domestic oil and gas production, including ANWR, we will look back someday and regret that we failed to perceive a critical crossroads in the history of America. It's not overly dramatic to say our nation's future depends on the decisions made by the federal government over the next few months.

Polls show a majority of Americans now support responsible energy development in Alaska. Unfortunately, some disingenuous special-interest groups are still fighting the public will in Congress.

Americans, please contact Congress and ask that all options stay on the table as we formulate our needed energy plan. Remind politicians about their promises to increase domestic oil and gas production.

Sarah Palin is governor of Alaska.

•Development here would reduce U.S. dependence on unstable, dangerous sources of energy, such as the Middle East, and would decrease our huge trade deficit, a large percentage of which is directly attributable to oil imports.

•Incremental ANWR production would help reduce energy price volatility. Previous price disruptions demonstrate how even relatively low levels of oil production influence world prices.

•Federal revenues from ANWR -- cash bids, leases and oil taxes -- would help reduce the multitrillion-dollar national debt, and we'd circulate U.S. petrodollars in our own country instead of continuing to send hundreds of billions of our dollars overseas, creating jobs and stronger economies in other countries.

The development of oil and clean-burning natural gas isn't a panacea. However, this development should be authorized in comprehensive legislation that includes alternative fuels, fuel efficiency and conservation.

Americans know that gasoline and other refined crude oil products will keep fueling our transportation system for the foreseeable future. Further, the soaring prices of food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and other products graphically illustrate the importance of petroleum to the health and well-being of America.

Another important reality is that the location and quantity of oil production are drastically changing world geopolitics.

Energy-producing countries are rapidly gaining world power. Several of these countries have objectives and value systems that are antithetical to U.S. interests.

Washington politicians should be horrified as we become increasingly dependent on these insecure, foreign sources while our U.S. petrodollars finance activities that harm America and our economic and military interests around the world.

If we don't move now to enact a comprehensive energy policy that includes domestic oil and gas production, including ANWR, we will look back someday and regret that we failed to perceive a critical crossroads in the history of America. It's not overly dramatic to say our nation's future depends on the decisions made by the federal government over the next few months.

Polls show a majority of Americans now support responsible energy development in Alaska. Unfortunately, some disingenuous special-interest groups are still fighting the public will in Congress.

Americans, please contact Congress and ask that all options stay on the table as we formulate our needed energy plan. Remind politicians about their promises to increase domestic oil and gas production.

Sarah Palin is governor of Alaska.

OIl

A Little Edumacation for The Naysayer

2009-01-31T16:34:00.008-05:00

Here is just some basic info I could put together at a glance. I do understand that it will be above most of your heads.

API Access Counter The development of America’s vast domestic oil and natural gas resources that had been kept off-limits by Congress for decades could generate more government revenue, create new jobs and significantly boost domestic production. Want to learn more about increased production, decreased imports, and the cars and homes that could be powered by untapped U.S. resources? The API Access Counter enables you to explore resources and regions to understand the benefits of increased energy exploration.

Off-limits US oil, gas worth $1.7 trillion to government: study

Karen Matusic 202.682.8118 matusick@api.org
WASHINGTON – The development of America’s vast domestic oil and natural gas resources that had been kept off-limits by Congress for decades could generate more than $1.7 trillion in government revenue, create thousands of new jobs and enhance the nation’s energy security by significantly boosting domestic production, a study released Monday shows.
The ICF International study, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute (API), shows that developing the offshore areas that had been subject to Congressional moratoria until recently, as well as the resources in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a small portion of currently unavailable federal lands in the Rockies, would lift U.S. crude oil production by as much as 2 million barrels per day in 2030, offsetting nearly a fifth of the nation’s imports. Natural gas production could increase by 5.34 billion cubic feet per day, or the equivalent of 61 percent of the expected natural gas imports in 2030.
The study also estimates that the development of all U.S. oil and natural gas resources on federal lands could exceed $4 trillion over the life of the resources.
“This study underscores how the oil and natural gas industry can enhance America’s energy security and help solve our economic problems by increasing production of our nation’s vast oil and natural gas resources,” said API President and CEO Jack N. Gerard. “The U.S. oil and natural gas industry supports more than six million jobs, and more drilling for oil and natural gas will mean more energy for America, more well-paying jobs, and trillions of dollars of much-needed revenues that will help federal, state and local governments pay for critical services.”
According to the ICF study, U.S. crude oil production would rise by 36% by 2030 if development is permitted in the studied areas of the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR and the Rockies and domestic natural gas production would rise by 10%. By 2030, this activity would create 160,000 jobs.
API is the industry’s national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. Global professional services company ICF International partners with government and commercial clients to deliver consulting services and technology solutions in energy, climate change, environment, transportation, social programs, health, defense, and emergency management.
Summary ReportSize: 58 KB Date: December 8, 2008
Final ReportSize: 812 KB Date: December 8, 2008

Wondering what's going on with American energy and where our country is headed? Click here to find out the truth about oil and gas, and what it means for America's energy and economic future.

Here is a state by state map on different R&D taking place in the US.

From Kipplinger

The U.S. is sitting on the world's largest, untapped oil reserves -- reservoirs which energy experts know exist, but which have not yet been tapped and may not be attainable with current technology. In fact, such untapped reserves are estimated at about 2.3 trillion barrels, nearly three times more than the reserves held by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations and sufficient to meet 300 years of demand -- at today's levels -- for auto, truck, aircraft, heating and industrial fuel, without importing a single barrel of oil.
What's the problem then? Why aren't oil companies jumping to pump the black gold? Contrary to what some conspiracy theorists would have you believe, there is no cabal of oil companies and foreign governments blocking the way, bottling up U.S. oil production. The reality is much more mundane. Those untapped reserves are located in places that either Uncle Sam has put off-limits for environmental reasons or are too costly to get -- or a combination of both.

Oil

My Bipartisan Stimulus

2009-01-29T21:13:00.002-05:00

Let's cut taxes, as I want, and spend more, as Obama would like.

By RUSH LIMBAUGH

There's a serious debate in this country as to how best to end the recession. The average recession will last five to 11 months; the average recovery will last six years. Recessions will end on their own if they're left alone. What can make the recession worse is the wrong kind of government intervention.

I believe the wrong kind is precisely what President Barack Obama has proposed. I don't believe his is a "stimulus plan" at all -- I don't think it stimulates anything but the Democratic Party. This "porkulus" bill is designed to repair the Democratic Party's power losses from the 1990s forward, and to cement the party's majority power for decades.

Keynesian economists believe government spending on "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects -- schools, roads, bridges -- is the best way to stimulate our staggering economy. Supply-side economists make an equally persuasive case that tax cuts are the surest and quickest way to create permanent jobs and cause an economy to rebound. That happened under JFK, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. We know that when tax rates are cut in a recession, it brings an economy back.

Recent polling indicates that the American people are in favor of both approaches.

Notwithstanding the media blitz in support of the Obama stimulus plan, most Americans, according to a new Rasmussen poll, are skeptical. Rasmussen finds that 59% fear that Congress and the president will increase government spending too much. Only 17% worry they will cut taxes too much. Since the American people are not certain that the Obama stimulus plan is the way to go, it seems to me there's an opportunity for genuine compromise. At the same time, we can garner evidence on how to deal with future recessions, so every occurrence will no longer become a matter of partisan debate.

Congress is currently haggling over how to spend $900 billion generated by American taxpayers in the private sector. (It's important to remember that it's the people's money, not Washington's.) In a Jan. 23 meeting between President Obama and Republican leaders, Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) proposed a moderate tax cut plan. President Obama responded, "I won. I'm going to trump you on that."

Yes, elections have consequences. But where's the bipartisanship, Mr. Obama? This does not have to be a divisive issue. My proposal is a genuine compromise.

Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let's say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion -- $486 billion -- will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46% -- $414 billion -- will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me.

Then we compare. We see which stimulus actually works. This is bipartisanship! It would satisfy the American people's wishes, as polls currently note; and it would also serve as a measurable test as to which approach best stimulates job growth.

I say, cut the U.S. corporate tax rate -- at 35%, among the highest of all industrialized nations -- in half. Suspend the capital gains tax for a year to incentivize new investment, after which it would be reimposed at 10%. Then get out of the way! Once Wall Street starts ticking up 500 points a day, the rest of the private sector will follow. There's no reason to tell the American people their future is bleak. There's no reason, as the administration is doing, to depress their hopes. There's no reason to insist that recovery can't happen quickly, because it can.

In this new era of responsibility, let's use both Keynesians and supply-siders to responsibly determine which theory best stimulates our economy -- and if elements of both work, so much the better. The American people are made up of Republicans, Democrats, independents and moderates, but our economy doesn't know the difference. This is about jobs now.

The economic crisis is an opportunity to unify people, if we set aside the politics. The leader of the Democrats and the leader of the Republicans (me, according to Mr. Obama) can get it done. This will have the overwhelming support of the American people. Let's stop the acrimony. Let's start solving our problems, together. Why wait one more day?

Mr. Limbaugh is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host.

What the GOP's hostility to Obama's stimulus plan portends.

2009-01-29T21:07:00.001-05:00

The Party Of Goldwater?
What the GOP's hostility to Obama's stimulus plan portends.

By Michael Hirsh Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 29, 2009 Updated: 12:22 p.m. ET Jan 29, 2009

Is it possible history is repeating itself? As House Republicans defy President Obama over his stimulus package, the party seems to be reverting to form after decades of overreaching ambition and outsized growth; think of the GOP, perhaps, as the Citigroup of politics. Many Republicans seem resigned—even content—to go back to being the party of Barry Goldwater. In other words: We don't care if we're marginalized. In our hearts we know we're right. Never mind that the party suffered terrible defeats in 2008 and 2006, some thoughtful Republicans (mainly on the Senate side, like Lindsay Graham, as well as intellectuals such as David Frum) have been fretting for some time that the GOP base is getting too narrow. These days, you hear little talk of Karl Rove's bigger tent or reinventing conservatism. Quite the opposite: it seems as though the party has decided to go back to basics. The message they're sending: "We don't care if Obama won or that he's popular; let's just wait until the country sees the truth again, as old Barry did. Until then, we'll be happy to be the righteous minority again, proudly willing to go down in flames for our beliefs: government spending never works, and tax cuts always do. Keynesian stimulus is for liberal witch doctors."

Until this moment, we have had an uneasy bipartisan consensus over how to solve the financial and economic crisis. As we saw with the approval of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) last fall, most Republicans reluctantly went along with Bush's decision to "chunk" his "free-market principles," as he described the move. No more. True, Wednesday's unanimous GOP vote against the $819 billion stimulus package was partly driven by the peculiar politics of the Hill. Some House Republicans wanted to send a "message" to Obama, and they may come around and vote for the final bill after the Senate approves its version. But for many Republicans the vote reaffirmed the old philosophical divide. Never mind that Obama reached out, lunched with GOP leaders on the Hill, and pressed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to drop family planning and National Mall renovation. Not a single House Republican could bring himself or herself to vote with the president on a measure to prevent what could become the most serious recession since the 1930s.

Granted, there are some substantive problems with the House bill. Even Martin Feldstein, President Reagan's former chief economist, is in favor of a stimulus but says he can't support this particular measure. The tax cuts are too small and not targeted enough, and the spending portion won't create enough jobs, Feldstein argues in Thursday's Washington Post. Many Democrats are also unhappy with the paucity of infrastructure projects, among other things. But for many Republicans, the simple fact that the bill didn't contain 100 percent tax cuts and zero government spending appeared to be enough to prompt a "no" vote.

This is part of what is becoming a familiar political cycle. After the disastrous presidency of Herbert Hoover and the advent of the Great Depression, conservatives fell into a 50-year funk. Even their presidents didn't do right by them: Eisenhower was never considered a true believer, and Nixon drove way off the reservation by declaring himself a Keynesian. Robert Taft and a handful of others kept the flame alive, handing the minority torch off to Goldwater in the 1960s. That was how long it took for the New Deal era to play itself out—which ultimately it did. The Democrats' long dominance bred too much statist thinking, just as Hoover's Republicans had gone too far in favor of a laissez-faire approach to markets. An oversimplistic faith in Keynesianism contributed to decades of government gigantism and Democratic misrule (or as it was known back then, "stagflation"). That in turn led to the counterrevolution that ultimately brought Ronald Reagan to power in 1980, declaring "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Now two decades of runaway Reaganism—an excess of free-market zeal—have prompted the biggest government intervention since the New Deal. Cue the Keynesians again, and a Democratic resurgence. Responding to this ideological stimuli, the Republicans seem to be rooting around in their closets for their Barry pins.

In his Inaugural Address, Obama proclaimed "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics." He said he wanted to move beyond "stale political arguments … The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works." That sounded about right to me, at least in terms of dealing with the crisis nature of the times. It is also smart, at this dire moment, to be trying to learn a few lessons from the past. Obviously we don't want to go back to the excesses of the long era of Democratic dominance and overspending—the New Deal-Great Society/Vietnam continuum—but neither can we simply return to the Republican era of Reaganite deregulation (especially of financial markets). It's clear we need to do some serious rethinking of the best ways to make capitalism work, moving beyond both FDR and Reagan.

But reaching a new consensus would require a reassessment of basic premises, and it appears, at least for the moment, that there will be very little of that. The emerging Republican consensus suggests that Bush grew so unpopular because he strayed from, rather than stood behind, the old GOP verities by creating a vast national-security state and giant deficits. Hence the Republicans are flocking to a proposal by the House Republican Study Committee calling for no new government spending at all, and nothing but tax cuts instead. A little over a week after Obama's inauguration, "stale" political arguments again rule the day. So much for the post-partisan era.

The Stimulas Shaped Like a Pig

2009-01-26T22:20:00.007-05:00

This massive pacage of PORK does NOTHING to infuse jobs into the system for the first 2 years. It is the largest pork barrel grab of our money the Government has ever tried. It will throw the country into a depresion and the first real big infusion of cash just happens to kick in right before the next midterm elections.

Government caused this collapse by injecting socialism into the capitalist system. Lending money to people who should never have qualified. Now Government is going to FIX the problem by injecting more socialism into the system to fix what the first injection caused.

It's time for Pitchforks and Torches

Obama Stimulus Package Breakdown
January 26, 2009 - 11:16 ET

What is the money being spent on-general breakdown between infrastructure, tax cuts, etc…?

Some highlights of the package, by the numbers:

• $825 billion total (as of 1/15/09)
• $550 billion in new spending, described as thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in.
• $275 billion in tax relief ($1,000 tax cut for families, $500 tax cut for individuals through SS payroll deductions)
• $ 90 billion for infrastructure
• $ 87 billion Medicaid aid to states
• $ 79 billion school districts/public colleges to prevent cutbacks
• $ 54 billion to encourage energy production from renewable sources
• $ 41 billion for additional school funding ($14 billion for school modernizations and repairs, $13 billion for Title I, $13 billion for IDEA special education funding, $1 billion for education technology)
• $ 24 billion for "health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients and introduce cost-saving efficiencies" and "to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective healthcare treatments."
• $ 16 billion for science/technology ($10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation; $6 billion to expand broadband to rural areas)
• $ 15 billion to increase Pell grants by $500
• $ 6 billion for the ambiguous "higher education modernization."

[Source: Committee on Appropriations: January 15, 2009]

Here is a further breakdown of the package:

NOTE: The following are highlights of the package; for the full 13-page summary from the Appropriations Committee, click here:

(as of 1/15/09)

Energy
$32 billion: Funding for "smart electricity grid" to reduce waste
$16 billion: Renewable energy tax cuts and a tax credit for research and development on energy-related work, and a multiyear extension of renewable energy production tax credit
$6 billion: Funding to weatherize modest-income homes

Science and Technology
$10 billion: Science facilities
$6 billion: High-speed Internet access for rural and underserved areas

Infrastructure
$30 billion: Transportation projects
$31 billion: Construction and repair of federal buildings and other public infrastructure
$19 billion: Water projects
$10 billion: Rail and mass transit projects

Education
$41 billion: Grants to local school districts
$79 billion: State fiscal relief to prevent cuts in state aid
$21 billion: School modernization ($15.6 billion to increase the Pell grant by $500; $6 billion for higher education modernization)

Health Care
$39 billion: Subsidies to health insurance for unemployed; providing coverage through Medicaid
$87 billion: Help to states with Medicaid
$20 billion: Modernization of health-information technology systems
$4.1 billion: Preventative care

Jobless Benefits
$43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training.
$39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid.
$20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by over 13% in order to help defray rising food costs.

Taxes

Individuals:

*$500 per worker, $1,000 per couple tax cut for two years, costing about $140 billion.
*Greater access to the $1,000-per-child tax credit for the working poor.
*Expansion of the earned-income tax credit to include families with three children
*A $2,500 college tuition tax credit.
*Repeal of a requirement that a $7,500 first-time homebuyer tax credit be paid back over time.

Businesses:

*An infusion of cash into money-losing companies by allowing them to claim tax credits on past profits dating back five years instead of two.
*Bonus depreciation for businesses investing in new plants and equipment
*Doubling of the amount small businesses can write off for capital investments and new equipment purchases.
*Allowing businesses to claim a tax credit for hiring disconnected youth and veterans

[Sources: Associated Press: Highlights of Senate economic stimulus plan; January 23, 2009; WSJ: Stimulus Package Unveiled; January 16, 2009; Committee on Appropriations: January 15, 2009]
When is the money being is going to be spent, and on what?

The government wouldn't be able to spend at least one-fourth of a proposed $825 billion economic stimulus plan until after 2010, according to a preliminary report by the Congressional Business Office that suggests it may take longer than expected to boost the economy. The government would spend about $26 billion of the money this year and $110 billion more next year, the report said. About $103 billion would be spent in 2011, while $53 billion would be spent in 2012 and $63 billion between 2013 and 2019.

• Less than $5 billion of the $30 billion set aside for highway spending would be spent within the next two years, the CBO said.

• Only $26 billion out of $274 billion in infrastructure spending would be delivered into the economy by the Sept. 30 end of the budget year, just 7 percent.

• Just one in seven dollars of a huge $18.5 billion investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would be spent within a year and a half.

• About $907 million of a $6 billion plan to expand broadband access in rural and other underserved areas would be spent by 2011, CBO said.

• Just one-fourth of clean drinking water projects can be completed by October of next year.

• $275 billion worth of tax cuts to 95 percent of filers and a huge infusion of help for state governments is to be distributed into the economy more quickly.

[Note: The CBO's analysis applied only to 40 percent of the overall stimulus bill, and doesn't cover tax cuts or efforts; a CBO report outlining all of its costs is expected in the next week or so.]

• The Obama administration said $3 of every $4 in the package should be spent within 18 months to have maximum impact on jobs and taxpayers; if House or Senate versions of the bill do not spend the money as quickly, the White House will work with lawmakers to achieve the goal of spending 75% of the overall package over the next year and a half.

[Source: AP: Three-quarters of stimulus to go in 18 months; January 22, 2009; Bloomberg News: Much of Stimulus Wont Be Spent Before 2011, CBO Says; January 20, 2009; link]

Who will be spending the money? Will the states be receiving any money to spend, community organizations? Churches?

The economic stimulus plan now moving through Congress would shower billions of federal dollars on state and local governments desperate for cash:

• The House stimulus bill includes an extra $87 billion in federal aid to state Medicaid programs.

• It allots some $120 billion to boost state and city education programs.

• There's $4 billion for state and local anticrime initiatives in the legislation, not to mention $30-plus billion for highways and other infrastructure projects.

• $6.9 billion to help state and local governments make investments that make them more energy efficient and reduce carbon emissions.

• $87 billion to states, increasing through the end of FY 2010 the share of Medicaid costs the Federal government reimburses all states by 4.8 percent, with extra relief tied to rates of unemployment.

• $120 billion to states and school districts to stabilize budgets and prevent tax increases and deep cuts to critical education programs.

Overall, about one-quarter of the entire $825 billion recovery package would be devoted to activities crucial to governors, mayors, and local school boards - making them among the plans biggest beneficiaries.

[Sources: Committee on Appropriations: January 15, 2009; Reuters: Roads, energy, states win in US stimulus plan;15 January 2009; Christian Science Monitor: States to win big in stimulus sweepstakes; House bill allots almost one-quarter of the $825 billion recovery package to states, localities. How will that boost the economy?; January 25, 2009; Link]

MLK

2009-01-19T22:14:00.001-05:00

Today We in the US Celebrate a Great Man
The first speech is his most famous, and is 17 min long, the second was his last and is 1 min long.

Posted on Monday, January 19, 2009

2009-01-19T13:23:00.001-05:00

Finally a Correction of Justice
Bush commutes sentences of former US border agents

Jan 19 01:03 PM US/Eastern

By DEB RIECHMANN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.
Bush's decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.
Rancor over their convictions, sentencing and firings has simmered ever since the shooting occurred in 2005.

Compean Ramos

Apparently Some Things Won't Change

2009-01-18T15:33:00.004-05:00

Like just because a Black man is going to be President we still need affirmitive action, and Bush Derangement Syndrone still affects the Democrats.

Pelosi Open to Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials

The House speaker suggests to "FOXNews Sunday" that the law might compel Democrats to press forth on some prosecutions of Bush administration officials, saying they may not "have a right to ignore" them.

By Bill Sammon

FOXNews.com

I really loved this interview it showed more and more how much fun the next 4yrs are going to be.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is receptive to the idea of prosecuting some Bush administration officials, while letting others who are accused of misdeeds leave office without prosecution, she told Chris Wallace in an interview on "FOX News Sunday."

"I think you look at each item and see what is a violation of the law and do we even have a right to ignore it," the California Democrat said. "And other things that are maybe time that is spent better looking to the future rather than to the past."

Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced Friday he wants to set up a commission to look into whether the Bush administration broke the law by taking the nation to war against Iraq and instituting aggressive anti-terror initiatives. The Michigan Democrat called for an "independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities."

President-elect Barack Obama has not closed off the possibility of prosecutions, but hinted he does not favor them.

"I don't believe that anybody is above the law," he told ABC News a week ago. "On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."

Pelosi, during the interview in her ceremonial office, said there is merit in both arguments.

"I don't think that Mr. Obama and Mr. Conyers are that far apart," she said. "There are different subjects and you treat them differently."

She hinted that the law might compel Democrats to press forth on some prosecutions, even if they are politically unpopular, adding: "That's not up to us to say that doesn't matter anymore."

"We cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department to go unreviewed," she added. "I want to see the truth come forth."

Democrats

The Consensus....LOL

2009-01-11T12:59:00.003-05:00

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large
and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many
sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change
indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather
soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions
for the next 100,000 years.

That is the first paragraph in a 3 page story in Pravda. You just have to laugh. Where is the consensus, I thought it was decided the Earth is warming and it's mans fault.

Oh that's right it's not Global Warming anymore it's Climate Change. So make up your mind are we going to burn or freeze. Either way it's all caused by the less than 1% of our bad breath in the atmosphere.

In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate
forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "…
must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component
of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due
to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends,
because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and
longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the
results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards
extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."

During the
1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began
promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2,
produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since
the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually
become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their
acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to
make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

So much for "Consensus", this weekend my girls are very upset because they wanted to go sledding. The "Forecast" was for 6 to 8 inches of snow. Well we got less than a half inch, it didn't even cover the grass on the lawn. Yet 50 years from now unless we kill all the pigs and cows and stop burning everything. Were all gonna cook or freeze.

Tonight's forecast Dark continued dark with widely scattered light at Dawn...LOL

The Idiot who caused the problem

2009-01-08T08:33:00.006-05:00

An Unnecessary War

By Jimmy Carter
Thursday, January 8, 2009; Page A15

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided. (yeah Jimmy if you arranged for the Gazans to have nukes or biological weapons they could have killed all those pesky Jews by now)

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action. (so why didn't you go to the Gazans or the UN and demand them to cease or push for harder sanctions)

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza. (maybe because they were firing missiles everyday into Israel from Gaza, the Jews ain't bombing the west bank ya git, not to mention Hamas's charter states no peace until the complete destruction of Israel)

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day. (that's a lie food and medicine were allowed through in bounty, not to mention the thriving agriculture business that existed in Gaza at the pullout that the Gazans destroyed, committing themselves to aid rather than trade)

Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens. (Supplies were always delivered and non-committal is a nice way of saying they told you to f**k off, you also fail to mention that they refused to cease firing rockets endlessly into Israel)

After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government. (the hamass leaders must laugh their ass off every time this fool shows up)

Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, (THANK GOD) we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily). (and the sea would part and give forth wealth and riches)

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza. (What is a defensive tunnel, is it defensive because the missiles of terror are brought through it and to defend Islam all jews must die ? so there fore the tunnel is defensive)

On another visit to Syria in mid-December, (Which is illegal for you to even visit) I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted. (All unsanctioned negotiations that he was asked not to get involved in, but he knows best remember it was his wisdom that installed the Mad Mullahs in Iran)

After 12 days of "combat," the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, (where were the International efforts for a cease fire from 3 years of the jews being shelled) with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. (maybe because that's where the missiles and terrorists were hiding, ya think) This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators. (I'm playing the worlds smallest violen for the worlds smallest sob story)

The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, (He's wishing for a jewish failure, and actually put it in print) Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace. (When was the last time this man was checked for alsheimers or any other brain ailment?)

The writer was president from 1977 to 1981. He founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization advancing peace and health worldwide, in 1982.

Ex President Carter Was an asshole and disaster as a President. His Interference in foreign policy matters over and over , since leaving office has led to one disaster after another. The Founding of the first Terrorist state was his child and the war we are fighting now can be laid directly at his feat. The fact that a paper will print this fools word only ads to my disdain for the printed media. My advice sit down and shut up you ole senile goat.

Turkey holds suspicious Iran-Venezuela shipment, but that's OK lets talk!

2009-01-06T19:03:00.004-05:00

Or Better Titled an Idiot at the Helm

Associated Press Writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday.
Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela.
Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled "tractor parts," Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey's Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way.

So as Iran Smuggles a weapons factory to Chavez, and the Russians use Venezuala as a base to do navel war games in our back pond, ad the fact that this idiot supplies us with 1/7th of our oil imports. The Mesiah wants to use him as his first attempt as "The Negotiator". Well maybe a failure dealing with a miner thug will clear the dope from his brain.

Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- In a mirrored office tower overlooking Caracas, a top Venezuelan official says his government is ready to accept Barack Obama’s offer to talk with U.S. adversaries -- if the president-elect scraps George W. Bush’s division of the world into friends and foes.

Such categories are “simplistic,” says Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s former envoy to Washington. “Why do nations have to be friends? What we have to do is sit down and discuss issues.”

Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S., but that's OK

Obama

Another Piece of Obama Brilliance

2009-01-05T19:35:00.011-05:00

Leon Panetta is Obama's pick for CIA director
Former California congressman and Clinton aide has little experience with spy agencies. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicates she might oppose the pick.
Obama picks another Clinton Hack for a high ranking position, I wonder if he even realizes how this pick will help Hillary in her plans with the state dept.
His new intelligence committee director is not even pleased.

Panetta, who was chief of staff to President Clinton, is regarded as a bright political operative and highly capable manager. But if confirmed by the Senate, he would be among the few directors in agency history with no prior experience at one of the nation's spy services.

Here is the comments from NROs Corner.

Panetta, Obama, and the Senate [Byron York]
On Panetta — in addition to opinions in The Corner, there is the ever-so-slightly more important opinion of the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein:

I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read. My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.

Ouch. It is interesting that Obama would settle on a CIA director without even giving a heads-up to the Intelligence Committee chairman, especially one of his own party. Word is Obama didn't tell outgoing chairman Jay Rockefeller, either.
Add to that this piece:

A Viper @ Obama's Bosom

Clinton moves to widen role of State Department

WASHINGTON: Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis. (in other words implementing Clinton NOT Obama Policy)

Clinton is recruiting Jacob Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Lew's focus, they said, would be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. (cut straight out of the military budget)

He and James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, are to be Hillary Clinton's chief lieutenants. (a team designed to undermine the WOT)

Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Clinton's, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.

The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East. (and not one will be appointed without Clinton's approval, or they will have no power ET all if not her choice)

As Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D'Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. (sounds like the formation of an unvoted for alternate government)

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president's office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over U.S. foreign policy. (in other words nothing regarding the war gets done without Hillary's power)

Given Hillary Clinton's prominence, expanding the department's portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful cabinet members. (no shit really?)

Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Ross's name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, as have those of Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The Bush administration has made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally handled most peacemaking initiatives, which has meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results. (Hillary will only go if a victory is eminent or she has to put someones balls in her lock box)

"There's no question that there is a reinvention of the wheel here," said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "But it's geared not so much as a reaction to Bush as to a fairly astute analysis of what's going to work in foreign policy." (according to the Clinton's, who let terror build around the entire world)

With so many problems, including Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Miller said it made sense for the White House to farm out some of the diplomatic heavy lifting. (like they have a choice or a clue)

In addition to the Middle East, one Democratic foreign policy adviser said, Holbrooke might be considered for an appointment as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and possibly Iran. The adviser said the decision had not been made. (already the assumption that we will negotiate with the terrorists in Iran)

A transition official dismissed as "speculation" reports in Indian newspapers that Obama was considering appointing Bill Clinton as a special envoy to deal with Kashmir issues.

But another transition official confirmed that Obama's foreign policy advisers were discussing the possibility of appointing a special envoy to India. Steinberg, who is the dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, would probably coordinate the work of any special envoys, the official said. (no envoy gets approved with out the Hilda beasts nod)

The recruitment of Lew - for a position that was not filled in the Bush administration - suggests that Hillary Clinton is determined to win a larger share of financial resources for the department. Lew, a well-connected figure who was once an aide to the House speaker Thomas O'Neill, now works for Citigroup in a unit that oversees hedge funds. (ahh yes more money to funnel to the beast)

"If we're going to re-establish diplomacy as the critical tool in America's arsenal," a senior transition official said, "you need someone who can work both the budget and management side. He has very strong relations on the Hill; he knows the inner workings of how to manage a big enterprise." (so no more military just diplomats, sounds like the perfect plan for the terrorists to rebuild their strength)

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, said Clinton was being supported in her push for more resources by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and by Obama's incoming national security adviser, General James Jones Jr. (both strong supporters in Diplomacy or do nothing rhetoric)

For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have been added to the military's burden when they could have been handled by a robust foreign service. (bullshit)

"The Pentagon would like to turn functionality over to civilian resources, but the resources are not there," the official said. "We're looking to have a State Department that has what it needs." (notice no one is quoted for that statement)

Clinton's push for a more vigorous economic team, one of her advisers said, stems from her conviction that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis. (yeah full involvement in flowing American tax dollars to buy off terrorist, except it doesn't work)

Economic issues also underpin some of the most important diplomatic relationships, notably with China. (maybe she'll sell them some more missile technology)

In recent years, the Treasury Department, led by Henry Paulson Jr., has dominated policy toward China. Paulson leads a "strategic economic dialogue" with China that involves several agencies. It is not yet clear who will pick up that role in the Obama administration, although Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. is frequently mentioned as a possibility. (yeah will see)
Hillary

Obama

Screw The Environmental Cases

2009-01-04T13:24:00.003-05:00

Today the perfect argument for the US to develop the trillions of barrel of our own oil resources was provided for us. Between the N Dakota field, The Coloradan fields, The Capped fields in Texas and Missouri. Not to mention the Coal to OIl in Pennsylvania and half the rest of the country.

The US has the resources to not only supply ourselves but our ALLIES in Europe as well.

Today Cut oil sales to Israel's backers-Iranian commander called for ALL oil exporting countries to cease exports to any nation that supports Israel. So except for France I guess if the Iranians get to finish their Bomb were all held hostage to the choice that we let another Hollocost take place or we get no fuel.

Is this really the position we want to be in?

Iran
Oil

An Article That Raises a Few Questions

2009-01-03T13:27:00.004-05:00

Iran official meets Hamas chief in Syria
Saturday, 03 January 2009
Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 03 - A senior Iranian official on Saturday met with the head of the militant Islamist Palestinian group Hamas as the group’s standoff with Israel entered into its second week. (why would Iran be meeting with Hamas, especially this official?)

Saeed Jalili, Secretary-General of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, met in Damascus with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, the government-run news agency Fars reported.

Jalili blasted Arab countries which “encouraged the Zionist regime [Israel] to attack” through their “silence”. (beware all that is not Persia or am I just imagining a veiled threat?)

Jalili met separately with Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, the head of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Damascus. Shahllah is on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted list with a $5 million bounty for information leading to his arrest. (I'm sure they were just having coffee and donuts)

“With its latest crimes in Gaza, the Zionist regime has come one step closer to annihilation”, Jalili told Shallah, according to Fars. (so they threaten Israel again with annihilation as their Minister of nuclear weapons meets with Hamas)

U.S. President George W. Bush in his weekly radio addressed blamed Hamas for the violence in Gaza and southern Israel, after a week of Israeli air strikes and Hamas rocket attacks.

Earlier this week, the main Iranian resistance coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, urged the international community to condemn Tehran’s “warmongering and fundamentalist meddling in Palestine”. (yeah I bet the people in that group aren't hiding in fear of their lives)

“The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip and the killing of innocent civilians, in particular women and children”, it said, adding, “The mullahs’ ruling Iran are benefiting the most from this conflict and the crisis brewing in the region”. (crises what crises?)

“Facing fierce resentment and isolation at home, the mullahs’ regime believes that it can prolong its existence by exporting terror and fundamentalism abroad and taking advantage of the situation in Palestine and dominating the region”, the NCRI said. (especially if Israel is nuked)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday left for New York where he plans to seek United Nations support to end the standoff. (yeah he's just fleeing the country)

The Iranians are dictating to Hamass exactly what and how to proceed. I'm sure there will be a move from Lebenon very shortly. If Iran puts a nuke in the hands of Hamass, and it's used, will the world condemn Iran? Hell will half the people on this Blog?

Iran

The Proper Thinking

2008-12-31T17:40:00.005-05:00

The Net-Zero Gas Tax
A once-in-a-generation chance.
by Charles Krauthammer
01/05/2009, Volume 014, Issue 16

Americans have a deep and understandable aversion to gasoline taxes. In a culture more single-mindedly devoted to individual freedom than any other, tampering with access to the open road is met with visceral opposition. That's why earnest efforts to alter American driving habits take the form of regulation of the auto companies--the better to hide the hand of government and protect politicians from the inevitable popular backlash.

But it's not just love of the car. America is a nation of continental expanses. Distances between population centers can be vast. The mass-transit mini-car culture of Europe just doesn't work in big sky country.

This combination of geography and romance is the principal reason gas taxes are so astonishingly low in America. The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. In Britain, as in much of Europe, the tax approaches $4 per gallon--more than 20 times the federal levy here.

Savvy politicians (i.e., those who succeed in getting themselves elected president) know this and tread carefully. Ronald Reagan managed a 5-cent increase. So did Bush 41. Bill Clinton needed a big fight to get a 4.3-cent increase. The lesson has been widely learned. No one with national ambitions proposes a major gas tax. Indeed, this summer featured the absurd spectacle of two leading presidential candidates (John McCain and Hillary Clinton) seriously proposing a temporary gas tax suspension.

Today's economic climate of financial instability and deepening recession, moreover, makes the piling on of new taxes--gasoline or otherwise--not just politically unpalatable but economically dubious in the
extreme.

So why even think about it? Because the virtues of a gas tax remain what they have always been. A tax that suppresses U.S. gas consumption can have a major effect on reducing world oil prices. And the benefits of low world oil prices are obvious: They put tremendous pressure on OPEC, as evidenced by its disarray during the current collapse; they deal serious economic damage to energy-exporting geopolitical adversaries such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran; and they reduce the enormous U.S. imbalance of oil trade which last year alone diverted a quarter of $1 trillion abroad. Furthermore, a reduction in U.S. demand alters the balance of power between producer and consumer, making us less dependent on oil exporters. It begins weaning us off foreign oil, and, if combined with nuclear power and renewed U.S. oil and gas drilling, puts us on the road to energy independence.

High gas prices, whether achieved by market forces or by government imposition, encourage fuel economy. In the short term, they simply reduce the amount of driving. In the longer term, they lead to the increased (voluntary) shift to more fuel-efficient cars. They render redundant and unnecessary the absurd CAFE standards--the ever-changing Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations that mandate the fuel efficiency of various car and truck fleets--which introduce terrible distortions into the market. As the consumer market adjusts itself to more fuel-efficient autos, the green car culture of the future that environmentalists are attempting to impose by decree begins to shape itself unmandated. This shift has the collateral environmental effect of reducing pollution and CO2 emissions, an important benefit for those who believe in man-made global warming and a painless bonus for agnostics (like me) who nonetheless believe that the endless pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere cannot be a good thing.

These benefits are blindingly obvious. They always have been. But the only time you can possibly think of imposing a tax to achieve them is when oil prices are very low. We had such an opportunity when prices collapsed in the mid-1980s and again in the late 1990s. Both opportunities were squandered. Nothing was done.

Today we are experiencing a unique moment. Oil prices are in a historic free fall from a peak of $147 a barrel to $39 today. In July, U.S. gasoline was selling for $4.11 a gallon. It now sells for $1.65. With $4 gas still fresh in our memories, the psychological impact of a tax that boosts the pump price to near $3 would be far less than at any point in decades. Indeed, an immediate $1 tax would still leave the price more than one-third below its July peak.

The rub, of course, is that this price drop is happening at a time of severe recession. Not only would the cash-strapped consumer rebel against a gas tax. The economic pitfalls would be enormous. At a time when overall consumer demand is shrinking, any tax would further drain the economy of disposable income, decreasing purchasing power just when consumer spending needs to be supported.

What to do? Something radically new. A net-zero gas tax. Not a freestanding gas tax but a swap that couples the tax with an equal payroll tax reduction. A two-part solution that yields the government no net increase in revenue and, more importantly--that is
why this proposal is different from others--immediately renders the average gasoline consumer financially whole.

Here is how it works. The simultaneous enactment of two measures: A $1 increase in the federal gasoline tax--together with an immediate $14 a week reduction of the FICA tax. Indeed, that reduction in payroll tax should go into effect the preceding week, so that the upside of the swap (the cash from the payroll tax rebate) is in hand even before the downside (the tax) kicks in.

The math is simple. The average American buys roughly 14 gallons of gasoline a week. The $1 gas tax takes $14 out of his pocket. The reduction in payroll tax puts it right back. The average driver comes out even, and the government makes nothing on the transaction. (There are, of course, more drivers than workers--203 million vs. 163 million. The 10 million unemployed would receive the extra $14 in their unemployment insurance checks. And the elderly who drive--there are 30 million licensed drivers over 65--would receive it with their Social Security payments.)

Revenue neutrality is essential. No money is taken out of the economy. Washington doesn't get fatter. Nor does it get leaner. It is simply a transfer agent moving money from one activity (gasoline purchasing) to another (employment) with zero net revenue for the government.

Revenue neutrality for the consumer is perhaps even more important. Unlike the stand-alone gas tax, it does not drain his wallet, which would produce not only insuperable popular resistance but also a new drag on purchasing power in the midst of a severe recession. Unlike other tax rebate plans, moreover, the consumer doesn't have to wait for a lump-sum reimbursement at tax time next April, after having seethed for a year about government robbing him every time he fills up. The reimbursement is immediate. Indeed, at its inception, the reimbursement precedes the tax expenditure.

One nice detail is that the $14 rebate is mildly progressive. The lower wage earner gets a slightly greater percentage of his payroll tax reduced than does the higher earner. But that's a side effect. The main point is that the federal government is left with no net revenue--even temporarily. And the average worker is left with no net loss. (As the tax takes effect and demand is suppressed, average gas consumption will begin to fall below 14 gallons a week. There would need to be a review, say yearly, to adjust the payroll tax rebate to maintain revenue neutrality. For example, at 13 gallons purchased per week, the rebate would be reduced to $13.)

Of course, as with any simple proposal, there are complications. Doesn't reimbursement-by-payroll-tax-cut just cancel out the incentive to drive less and shift to fuel-efficient cars? No. The $14 in cash can be spent on anything. You can blow it all on gas by driving your usual number of miles, or you can drive a bit less and actually have money in your pocket for something else. There's no particular reason why the individual consumer would want to plow it all back into a commodity that is now $1 more expensive. When something becomes more expensive, less of it is bought.

The idea that the demand for gasoline is inelastic is a myth. A 2007 study done at the University of California, Davis, shows that during the oil shocks of the late 1970s, a 20 percent increase in oil prices produced a 6 percent drop in per capita gas consumption. During the first half of this decade, demand proved more resistant to change--until the dramatic increases of the last two years. Between November 2007 and October 2008, the United States experienced the largest continual decline in driving history (100 billion miles). Last August, shortly after pump prices peaked at $4.11 per gallon, the year-on-year decrease in driving reached 5.6 percent--the largest ever year-to-year decline recorded in a single month, reported the Department of Transportation. (Records go back to 1942.) At the same time, mass transit--buses, subways, and light rail--has seen record increases in ridership. Amtrak reported more riders and revenue in fiscal 2008 than ever in its 37-year history.

Gasoline demand can be stubbornly inelastic, but only up to a point. In this last run-up, the point of free fall appeared to be around $4. If it turns out that at the current world price of $39 a barrel, a $1 tax does not discourage demand enough to keep the price down, we simply increase the tax. The beauty of the gas tax is that we--and not OPEC--do the adjusting. And that increase in price doesn't go into the pocket of various foreign thugs and unfriendlies, but back into the pocket of the American consumer.

What about special cases? Of course there are variations in how much people drive. It depends on geography, occupation, and a host of other factors. These variations are unavoidable, and in part, welcome. The whole idea is to reward those who drive less and to disadvantage those who drive more. Indeed, inequities of this sort are always introduced when, for overarching national reasons, government creates incentives and disincentives for certain behaviors. A tax credit for college tuition essentially takes money out of the non-college going population to subsidize those who do go--and will likely be wealthier in the end than their non-college contributors. Not very fair. Nonetheless, we support such incentives because college education is a national good that we wish to encourage. Decreased oil consumption is a similarly desirable national good.

There will certainly be special cases, such as truck drivers and others for whom longer distance driving is a necessity that might warrant some special program of relief. That would require some small bureaucracy, some filings for exemption or rebate, and perhaps even some very minor tweak of the gas tax (say, an extra penny or two beyond the dollar). But that's a detail. Most people can drive less. They already do.

Why a $1 tax? Because we need a significant increase in the cost of gasoline to change our habits--or, more accurately, maintain the new driving habits and auto purchase patterns that have already occurred as a result of the recent oil shock. We know from the history of the 1980s and 1990s that these habits will be undone and unlearned if gasoline remains at today's amazingly low price. In the very short time that prices have been this low, we have already seen a slight rebound in SUV sales. They remain far below the level of last year--in part because no one is buying anything in this recession, and in part because we have not fully recovered from the psychological impact of $4 gasoline. We are not quite ready to believe that gas will remain this low. But if it does remain this low, as the night follows day, we will resume our gas-guzzling habits.

It might therefore be objected that a $1 gasoline tax won't be enough. If $4 was the price point that precipitated a major decrease in driving and a collapse of SUV sales, an immediate imposition of a $1 gas tax would only bring the average price to $2.65.

To which I have two answers. First, my preliminary assumption is that it takes $4 to break the habit of gas-guzzling profligacy. But once that is done, it might take something less, only in the range of $3, to maintain the new habit. It may turn out that these guesses are slightly off. The virtue of a gas tax is that these conjectures can be empirically tested and refined, and the precise amount of the tax adjusted to consumer response.

Second, my personal preference would be a $1.25 tax today (at $1.65 gasoline) or even a $1.50 tax if gas prices begin to slide below $1.50--the target being near-$3 gasoline. (The payroll tax rebate would, of course, be adjusted accordingly: If the tax is $1.50, the rebate is $21 a week.) The $1 proposal is offered because it seems more politically palatable. My personal preference for a higher initial tax stems from my assumption that the more sharply and quickly the higher prices are imposed, the greater and more lasting the effect on consumption.

But whatever one's assumptions and choice of initial tax, the net-zero tax swap remains flexible, adjustable, testable, and nonbureaucratic. Behavior is changed, driving is curtailed, fuel efficiency is increased, without any of the arbitrary, shifting, often mindless mandates decreed by Congress.

This is a major benefit of the gas tax that is generally overlooked. It is not just an alternative to regulation; because it is so much more efficient, it is a killer of regulation. The most egregious of these regulations are the fleet fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards forced on auto companies. Rather than creating market conditions that encourage people to voluntarily buy greener cars, the CAFE standards simply impose them. And once the regulations are written--with their arbitrary miles-per-gallon numbers and target dates--they are not easily changed. If they are changed, moreover, they cause massive dislocation, and yet more inefficiency, in the auto industry.

CAFE standards have proven devastating to Detroit. When oil prices were relatively low, they forced U.S. auto companies to produce small cars that they could only sell at a loss. They were essentially making unsellable cars to fulfill mandated quotas, like steel producers in socialist countries meeting five-year plan production targets with equal disregard for demand.

Yet the great 2008 run-up in world oil prices showed what happens without any government coercion. As the price of gas approached $4 a gallon, there was a collapse of big-car sales that caused U.S. manufacturers to begin cutting SUV production and restructuring the composition of their fleets. GM's CEO, for example, declared in June, "these prices are changing consumer behavior and changing it rapidly," and announced the closing of four SUV plants and the addition of a third shift in two plants making smaller cars.

Which is precisely why a gas tax would render these government-dictated regulations irrelevant and obsolete. If you want to shift to fuel-efficient cars, don't mandate, don't scold, don't appeal to the better angels of our nature. Find the price point, reach it with a tax, and let the market do the rest.

Yes, a high gas tax constitutes a very serious government intervention. But it has the virtue of simplicity. It is clean, adaptable, and easy to administer. Admittedly, it takes a massive external force to alter behavior and tastes. But given the national security and the economic need for more fuel efficiency, and given the leverage that environmental considerations will have on the incoming Democratic administration and Democratic Congress, that change in behavior and taste will occur one way or the other. Better a gas tax that activates free market mechanisms rather than regulation that causes cascading market distortions.

The net-zero gas tax not only obviates the need for government regulation. It obviates the need for government spending as well. Expensive gas creates the market for the fuel-efficient car without Washington having to pick winners and losers with massive government "investment" and arbitrary grants. No regulations, no mandates, no spending programs to prop up the production of green cars that consumer demand would not otherwise support. And if we find this transition going too quickly or too slowly, we can alter it with the simple expedient of altering the gas tax, rather than undertaking the enormously complicated review and rewriting of fuel-efficiency regulations.

Then there are the so-called externalities: national security, balance of payments, and the environment. The most important of these is national security. In July, when gasoline was at $4, a full $3 was going to the oil producer. (On average thus far this year, 70 percent of pump prices went to pay for the crude.) And God in his infinite wisdom has put oil in many unfortunate places. The American people understand that these dollars were going out of the U.S. economy and into the treasuries of Hugo Chávez, Vladimir Putin, the Iranian mullahs (indirectly, since the oil is fungible), and various other miscreants.

The point of a high U.S. gas tax is to suppress domestic demand and thus suppress the world price. Low world prices are a huge blow to overseas producers, particularly ones with relatively large populations, nationalized industries that are increasingly inefficient, and budgetary obligations built on the expectation of a continuing energy bonanza. Countries such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran.

A UBS analysis estimates that Iran and Venezuela need $90 oil to balance their budgets. And at $70, according to Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin, Russia goes into deficit. It is now draining the reserves built up during the fat years. At current oil prices, Russia will soon become a debtor nation. The World Bank's lead economist for Russia, Zeljko Bogetic, said on December 19 that at $30 a barrel, "financing constraint would become so sharp that it's possible even to envisage Russia's return from a creditor to international organizations to [that of] a borrower." This will be a far humbler Russia than the one that invaded Georgia, built a nuclear reactor in Iran, threatens Poland and the Czech Republic, and is reestablishing naval bases in such former Soviet satellites as Syria.

The Russian navy just made calls in Nicaragua and Cuba. It has conducted joint exercises with Venezuela in an open challenge to America. These are, as yet, not serious threats. But with a stronger Russia and Venezuela, they could be. The projection of power is very expensive, as Americans very well know. Oil at $39 would simply starve Russia and Venezuela of the means to sustain this adventurism.

Similarly Iran, which is already under sanctions, already suffering high inflation, already the subject of popular discontent over corruption and economic mismanagement. All this was cushioned by high oil prices. They allowed the Islamic republic to act like the regional superpower, giving military and financial support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, "special groups" and Sadrist militias in Iraq, and various other terrorists. And, of course, oil revenues permit the continued large-scale operation of Iran's nuclear weapons development program.

Of all the instruments of foreign policy, military and diplomatic, that we have at our disposal against these adversaries, none is as powerful as $39 (or less) oil. It makes power projection by these regimes far more expensive and difficult. And even more profoundly, if world oil prices remain this low for a significant period of time, the very stability of the regimes in Russia, Venezuela, and Iran will be jeopardized--increasing the possibility of regime change without the expenditure of a single U.S. defense dollar and without the risk of a single U.S. soldier.

Not all oil exporters are adversaries. But many are indifferent to the economic repercussions of high world prices on the American consumer and the American economy. Three of the last four global recessions were preceded--and significantly precipitated--by major oil price spikes. Suppressing the world price through the help of a high U.S. gas tax weakens these producers and makes far more problematic their periodic attempt to extort yet more revenue from us by means of cartel-wide production cuts. Combined with reduction of our overall oil importation, that significantly reduces our dependence on--and our helplessness in the face of--their production decisions. It reduces the power of OPEC over oil prices, and thus over our economic life. And it constitutes the beginning of energy independence--particularly if coupled with increased production of various kinds at home. (But that's another subject.)

We underestimate our power. Of course, the slump in China and other rapidly growing economies has contributed to the current extreme price collapse. But China consumes only 9 percent of the world's oil. The United States consumes 24 percent. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia produces 13 percent of the world's oil. We don't generally see ourselves as the Saudi Arabia of oil consumers, but we are. The Saudis have the most effect on the world price because they are the swing producer. We are, in effect, the swing consumer. And since oil peaked earlier this year, we are consuming less. October was yet another month of record year-on-year decline of gasoline consumption in the United States. And that's just the immediate effect, before the long-term impact of changes in our automobile fleet can take hold. And that long-term change will only occur if we keep the domestic price high.

The further advantage of keeping it artificially high by means of a tax is that it keeps a large part of the money paid at the pump at home in the U.S. economy. Last year, we sent $246 billion to foreign countries to pay for oil. With oil fetching a price today more than 70 percent below its peak, billions that just this summer were going overseas are now getting pumped back into the U.S. economy. This does not just look pretty on our trade balance sheet. It helps protect the dollar by reducing the number of dollars that would otherwise be held abroad, often by countries whose attitude towards America is ambivalent, if not hostile.

And finally there is the environmental effect. If anthropogenic global warming is real, a reduction in driving and increase in fuel-efficiency is an unvarnished good. If anthropogenic global warming is as yet unproved, as I happen to believe, then the reduction in CO2 pumped into the atmosphere is a reasonable bet in conditions of uncertainty.

Prudence would suggest taking modest steps. Politics makes such steps imperative. Whatever the scientific truth, climate change has become dogma in the West. In the schools, it is already a religion. Public policy is shaped not by scientific reality but by public perceptions. The environmental movement not only has hegemony in the media. Its political party is now in control of the U.S. executive and the legislature. They will see to it that actions are taken to reduce greenhouse gases.

We therefore have a choice. These measures can either be radical and economically ruinous, such as renewed moratoria on oil and gas drilling, the effective abolition of the coal industry, forced production of green cars that have no market and are so economically unviable that they will ruin the companies that make them. (The Chevy Volt will go 40 miles on a charge and cost about $35,000 after a required $7,500 government rebate. A real winner.) Or we can do it sensibly. Curtail oil consumption and encourage fuel-efficient technologies by means of a net-zero gas tax. It would reduce pollution and CO2 emissions at no economic cost. If we can do environmentally sensible things, particularly ones that will have overwhelming economic and national security advantages, why not pocket the environmental gains, and obviate the need for more extreme alternatives?

I am not a car hater. It is a wondrous source of connectedness, convenience, and individual freedom. But it has its social costs, its externalities. If we can control these fairly painlessly by keeping the price of gas relatively high--though lower than what it was just a few months ago--we can gain this subsidiary benefit of prophylactic environmental action. Again, without mandates, without massive bureaucracies, and with a host of collateral benefits.

In our current economic crisis, there is but a single silver lining--the collapse of world oil prices. This in turn is already stimulating a struggling economy, helping our balance of payments, humbling OPEC, and weakening our adversaries. When economic conditions improve, and oil consumption and prices rise again, these benefits will evaporate precisely as they have time and again since the first oil shock of 1973. A time of $1.65 gasoline is our chance to enact a net-zero gas tax. It is a once in a generation opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.

Charles Krauthammer is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Gas Tax

Democrat Thinking

2008-12-29T21:15:00.002-05:00

Editorial from NY Slime
The Gas Tax

President-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem to have a clear vision of the auto industry they think the country needs. It must be financially self-sufficient. It also must be capable of producing highly fuel-efficient, next-generation vehicles that can help the nation cope with climate change and finite supplies of oil.

Yet for all the conditions attached to it, the multibillion-dollar aid package for Detroit’s carmakers approved by the White House (with Mr. Obama’s support) fails to address one crucial question: Who will buy all the fuel-efficient cars that Detroit carmakers are supposed to make?

The danger is that too few will, especially if gasoline prices remain low. Therefore, it might be time for the president-elect and Congress to think seriously about imposing a gas tax or similar levy to keep gas prices up after the economy recovers from recession.

Americans did not buy enormous gas guzzlers just because Detroit marketed them relentlessly. They bought them because they wanted big cars — and because gas was cheap. If gas stays cheap, Americans would be less inclined to squeeze their families into a lithe fuel-efficient alternative.

Furthermore, even if the government managed to convert General Motors, Chrysler and Ford to the cause of energy efficiency, cheap gas could open the door for a competitor — Toyota, perhaps? — to take over the lucrative market for gas-chuggers, leaving Detroit’s automakers eating dust once again.

Americans have flirted with fuel-efficient cars before only to jilt them when gas prices fell. In the late 1970s, for instance, they spurned light trucks as gas prices doubled. But as gas prices declined between 1981 and 2005, the market share of sport-utility vehicles, pickups, vans and the like jumped from 16 percent to 61 percent of vehicle sales in the United States.

The recent infatuation with the Toyota Prius and other fuel-efficient cars could well come to a similar end. It took a gallon of gas at $4.10 to push the share of light trucks down to 45 percent in July. But as gasoline plummeted back to $1.60 a gallon, their share inched back up to 49 percent of auto sales in November.

There are several ways to tax gas. One would be to devise a variable consumption tax in such a way that a gallon of unleaded gasoline at the pump would never go below a floor of $4 or $5 (in 2008 dollars), fluctuating to accommodate changing oil prices and other costs. Robert Lawrence, an economist at Harvard, proposes a variable tariff on imported oil to achieve the same effect and also to stimulate the development of domestic energy sources.

In both cases, the fuel taxes could be offset with tax credits to protect vulnerable segments of the population.

While oil prices are all but sure to rise again as the world emerges from recession, further tempering consumption with a gas tax would both slow the rise in the price of crude and steer more revenue from energy consumption to the United States budget, rather than that of oil-exporting countries.

A bitter recession is not the most opportune time to ratchet up the price of energy. But if the Obama administration is to meet its twin objectives of reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and cutting its emissions of greenhouse gases, it needs to start thinking now about mechanisms to curb the nation’s demand for energy when the economy emerges from recession in the future.

This also would serve as a signal to American automakers and American drivers that the era of cheap gasoline is not going to last.

Democrats
Gas Tax

Why is this Idiot even over there?

2008-12-29T19:44:00.006-05:00

Long Brain Dead My Senator Arlen Specter is an ASS.

The same fool who came up with the theory that one bullet put six holes in 2 people and then fell out on gurney in the hospital in pristine condition. Lost his marbles long before he had a brain tumor.

Is now plying his genius in the middle east. One of the poster children for term limits Specter who refuses to retire never had the sense to get out of the rain in the first place.

Specter takes message from PM to Assad
By HERB KEINON

US Senator Arlen Specter carried a message Monday from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Syrian President Bashar Assad, despite Syria's announcement it had broken off its indirect talks with Israel.(Which is not his Job he is not even Legally allowed in Syria, let alone acting as an emissary. Who sent this fool there?)

Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania who travels frequently to both Israel and Syria, left Israel Monday after a short visit for a meeting with Assad. (which as a member of the Senate and a representative of the US he is forbidden to travel to.)

Specter met with Olmert on Sunday, and said he "got a review of the Syrian negotiations from Olmert." (did Bush give him a job as Envoy or are the voices in his head giving him instructions)

Specter refused to divulge the contents of the message Olmert asked him to take to Assad.

Syria said Sunday that the indirect peace talks through Turkey were halted because of Israel's offensive in Gaza. Specter said that this was not discussed with Olmert.

The senator has long been an advocate of pursuing talks with Syria, and in 2006 was criticized by the Bush administration for visiting Damascus, because it was felt that these visits gave Assad legitimacy. (and yet he continues to do it. His Passport should be revoked while he is overseas)

"I believe the efforts to isolate Syria have not been successful," Specter said. "We ought to try to change things. President [Bill] Clinton tried to do a good job in 1995 and 2000, and I think it ought to be pursued." (You don't have that authority you ass!)

He said that "there could be a great deal to gained" if an agreement with Syria were reached and the proper terms were met. He said the conditions included Syria allowing Lebanon to function as an independent nation and stop transferring Iranian arms to Hizbullah, cut off aid to Hamas, and see if there was a way "to stop Iranian influence." (Keep taking your Cancer Medicine Arlen, your Brain tumor has returned)

Specter said he thought "it would be very difficult" to draw Syria out of Iran's orbit, because the ties go back "a long way." But, he said, "it is an evolving picture, and interests change. I think Syria would definitely like a closer relationship with the US. I have always been an advocate of diplomacy." (you don't set policy you idiot)

In addition to pushing for talks with Syria, Specter has for many years advocated talking with the Iranians. He took issue with a suggestion made earlier this month by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman that any dialogue with Iran be of a limited duration, perhaps three months, so Teheran didn't use it as cover to pursue their nuclear program. (Specter needs to be tested to see just what is left of his thinking ability)

"I think the dialogue ought to last however long the dialogue needs to last," he said. "I would hope that it would last and be successful, and lead to diplomatic relations, and peaceful terms, and to a new Iranian president who doesn't want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, that's what I would like." (I hope you will retire but that won't happen either)

Regarding whether the Iranians would use the talks as a cover to move their nuclear program forward, Specter said, "They are going to move that forward whether we like it or not." (so fuck it lets talk to them anyway)

Specter said that it needed to be communicated to the Iranians "in unmistakable terms that it is unacceptable for them to have a nuclear weapon, but I don't think we are well advised to say anything beyond that. No threats, no implied threats, just that it is unacceptable." (oh please stop we won't do anything you just play nice)

Regarding Gaza, Specter said that he did not think Israel was using disproportionate force, and said Israel was just seeking to remove the Hamas threat. He also said that he believed American support for the Israeli operation would continue, and that US President George W. Bush had made it clear that Washington saw Hamas as the provocateur. (sit down, shut up, and retire you old asshole. You should be arrested for treason the second you set foot back in the country)

Specter
Treason

At Least He is Learning to Keep his Mouth shut

2008-12-28T22:10:00.003-05:00

'Obama monitoring situation in Gaza'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON

A top adviser to Barack Obama said the US president-elect is monitoring Israel's intense air offensive again Gaza rocket squads and Hamas members but declined comment on the fresh Mideast crisis, deferring to the Bush administration.

David Axelrod said Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, was in contact with US President George W. Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but that comment from him was not appropriate. More than 290 Palestinians have died in the first two days of the air campaign.

"President Bush speaks for the United States until Jan. 20 and we're going to honor that," Axelrod said Sunday.

Obama

Long but worth the Read

2008-12-27T14:02:00.000-05:00

SPECIAL PREVIEW:
Eradicating the “Little Satan”
Ze’ev Maghen
January 2009

The accession of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been accompanied by a sharp transformation in the Iranian attitude to, and depiction of, the state of Israel. This change includes not only an amplification of the traditional hostility toward the Jewish polity, but also—most ominously—a new conception of that polity as weak and unstable, an easy target for a united Muslim (or united Shiite) offensive.

The prevailing opinion among Middle East experts and Iran watchers, however, is that the revised rhetoric is just that—rhetoric—and that it harbors no significant ramifications for policy-making on the part of Israel or any other states in the region or the world. Vociferous Iranian declarations about the need to erase Israel from the map are seen as nothing more than a means toward achieving certain pragmatic goals, such as eventual détente with the West.

This view is wrong. Iranian-Islamist threats to Israel’s existence are sincere, and they signal the determined pursuit of tenaciously-held ends.

II

In January 2006, the Iranian daily Jomhuriya Eslami carried the text of a speech delivered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran’s main mosque. Attempting to defuse the diplomatic tension occasioned by the call for Israel’s destruction issued by the then-newly elected President Ahmadinejad at the previous month’s “World Without Zionism” conference, Khamenei concluded his uncharacteristically moderate sermon with the following ringing remarks:

We Iranians intend no harm to any nation, nor will we be the first to attack any nation. We do not deny the right of any polity in any place on God’s earth to exist and prosper. We are a peace-loving country whose only wish is to live, and to let live, in peace.

Without missing a beat, or evincing a discernible hint of irony, the reporter who covered the event continued:

The congregation of worshippers, some 7,000 in number, expressed their unanimous support for the Supreme Leader’s words by repeatedly chanting, marg bar Omrika, marg bar Esra’il “Death to America! Death to Israel!”

This is not as strange as it sounds. Chanting “Death to America! Death to Israel!” has been the way Iranians applaud for over a quarter-century. When the soccer team from Isfahan scores a goal against the soccer team from Shiraz, its fans cheer wildly: “Death to America! Death to Israel!” At the end of an exquisitely performed sitar solo, the genteel audience in a concert hall in Tabriz shows its appreciation by loudly heaping imprecations upon “International Arrogance” (the USA) and “its Bastard Offspring” (the Jewish state). Even during the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Iranian participants have replaced their traditionally pious ejaculations of “I am at your service, O Lord, there is none like unto You!” with responsive Persian cursing sessions aimed at the Hebrew- and English-speaking enemies of everything that is holy. Like the daily “Two-Minutes Hate” in George Orwell’s 1984, this venom-spewing is the mantra upon which an entire generation of Iranians has been raised.

What does this persistent indoctrination, imbibed with mother’s milk and drummed by rote into the consciousnesses of the Iranian citizenry, mean for the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic? In the eyes of many Western and non-Western experts, the answer is: nothing. First of all, these experts urge, we must distinguish between image and reality, between ideology and strategy, between the fiery rhetoric of preachers or street mobs and the sober goals of an essentially pragmatic regime. Indeed, they insist, even the chest-beaters of mosque and madrassa are only repeating slogans that have long since lost all significance in their minds: they are just going through the motions.

“Sadly,” writes the Asia Times columnist Kaveh Afrasiabi, too many Israelis ignore “the gap between mass-generated, largely symbolic rhetoric and [Iran’s] actual policy.” Nor, we are urged to believe, is such “mass-generated rhetoric” truly massive in scope. “The Iranians we should be listening to,” explains Middle East specialist Mark LeVine, “are not the 100,000 or so marchers in support of Ahmadinejad’s [anti-Israel] remarks, but the tens of millions who had something better to do that day.” According to Paul Reynolds, a BBC world-affairs correspondent, President Ahmadinejad’s vitriol is in any case intended primarily for domestic consumption, as a means of distracting the Iranian populace from the economic failures of the Islamic revolution, and no one should mistake it for a guide to foreign policy.

Ultimately, most analysts agree, Ahmadinejad’s menacing proclamations are meant to serve as a bargaining chip: something to be given away in exchange for normalized relations with the West. After all, they stress, there is no rational reason for any eruption of hostilities between Iran and Israel. The two countries do not even share a common border, and their national and economic interests are not in conflict. To the contrary, both have traditionally conceived their “frontline” adversaries to be Arab states, and history has time and again thrown them into each other’s arms, both before and even after the Islamic revolution of 1979. “Iran and Israel have no differences or occasions for getting into active hostilities, let alone a nuclear exchange,” reassures Shahram Chubin, the director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. To quote Afrasiabi again, “[I]t is difficult to find any expert on Iran’s foreign affairs today who actually shares the view [that there exists a basis for] strategic conflict between Iran and Israel.”

III

Is the daily drill of Israel-damning in Iran only a tired exercise, a formalistic ceremony no longer accompanied by genuine passion or serious intent? Are the experts correct on this score? In a word: yes. Oblivious to the content of their own words, thousands of mosque- and madrassa-goers calling for the demise of Israel are not, for the most part, expressing a bona-fide, heartfelt hatred for the Jewish citizens or even the Jewish government of the state of Israel. About this the experts are quite right: it is ritual, and the Iranians do not really “mean it.”

But therein lies the rub. In the end, it can often be far more dangerous not to mean what one is saying than to mean it—a point that may be illuminated by a brief detour into mass psychology. Fierce anger and hatred are highly intense, all-consuming emotions that subside quickly if the psyche is not to combust and collapse. Such emotions, moreover, are not only extremely intense but exceedingly unstable. People who truly hate are often just as capable of experiencing other intense emotions, including pity or empathy or remorse.

For this reason, among others, genuine anger and hatred, of the kind that is really “meant” and strongly felt, are inefficient tools for creating or sustaining an atmosphere conducive to long-term persecution or mass murder. That is why the truly horrific atrocities in human history—the enslavements, the inquisitions, the terrorisms, the genocides—have been perpetrated not in hot blood but in cold: not as a result of urgent and immanent feeling but in the name of a transcendent ideology and as a result of painstaking indoctrination.

The vast majority of Germans in World War II did not personally and passionately hate the Jews: they had never even met the men, women, children, and infants whom they would eventually butcher en masse. It was, for the most part, a methodically drilled-in ideology that powered the genocide machine, a machine that killed six million Jews despite the fact that the Germans did not hate them.

Similarly with the events of September 11, 2001. Did Muhammad Atta, the ringleader of the terrorists who brought down the Twin Towers, genuinely and fervently hate every single individual working there on that fateful day, let alone all of the passengers on the plane he commandeered? How could he? He had never met them, and they had never personally done anything to him. What is more, Atta had spent many years in the United States preparing for his mission, during which time he rubbed elbows with all types of Americans. Is it plausible that he managed to maintain a constant boiling rage all day every day toward every one of these acquaintances and their fellow countrymen? How could such a creature survive, or master the self-control to carry out his assigned role?

What is true for Nazi storm troopers and al-Qaeda operatives is true for today’s fundamentalist Shiites. It is not their genuine, vehement hatred that we have to fear; it is their endless, drone-like training. Their militant hostility to Israel is no more a function of immediate, genuine, blood-boiling rage than it is the result of some heinous act or other performed by the Jewish state, however frequently such purported crimes are exploited as triggers of “popular” protest. The hostility is, unfortunately, something far more durable and deeply implanted.

That Israel is the devil, the root of all evil, a criminal cancer that must be excised from the Muslim body politic—these propositions are not ephemeral feelings for most Iranian Muslims, but rather eternal truths that gradually, through endless, tantra-like repetition, have cloyed in the conscious mind while simultaneously installing themselves beneath the level of immediate emotion and awareness, in the place where basic instincts, automatic assumptions, and ontological verities reside. There they have taken root, to remain dormant until circumstances require their activation. When the time is right—and the rulers of Iran have made no secret of their conviction that the time is drawing ever nearer—decades of propaganda will serve the same function for them that centuries of Christian anti-Semitism in Europe performed for the Nazis.

The analysts and pundits are thus indeed correct in asserting that the Iranians do not really “mean it.” They fail to realize, however, that this is the very reason why they may well “do it.” By casting an entire people as a parasitic infestation, by demonizing, de-legitimizing, and dehumanizing them at home, in school, in the mosque, and in the media, the quarter-century-old routine of Israel-hatred, added to 1,400 years of traditional Islamic anti-Semitism, has prepared in the minds of Iranians and their neighboring coreligionists the moral ground for the eradication of the state of Israel.

IV

What, then, of the second argument advanced by Iran specialists, to the effect that Iranian verbal belligerence toward Israel is really a means toward an entirely different end, something to be bartered in exchange for full relations with Washington and sundry other international benefits? Here, too, the analysts have it half-right. At least some elements within today’s Iranian leadership are indeed interested in a rapprochement with the West and especially with America. But Tehran in no way intends to lessen its enmity toward Israel in exchange. To the contrary: the Islamic Republic is offering to diminish its enmity toward the West in exchange for the latter’s abandonment of Israel.

In this connection, we must grasp a crucial distinction between Iranian attitudes to the “Great Satan” of the United States and to the “Little Satan” of Israel. Iranians may chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” with equal fervor, but from a tactical standpoint they well understand that the Great Satan is . . . great. The leaders of the Islamic Republic, even the fiercest ideologues among them, are under no illusion that the United States is about to be conquered by and for Islam in the near future.

Israel, however, is another matter. More and more Iranian Islamists today—together with their zealous coreligionists in other Muslim countries—believe that the erasure of the Jewish state from the map is a dream that can be realized in the here and now, whether in one fell swoop or through a relentless process of attrition and erosion. And one strong indication of this, beginning in 2005 and continuing and intensifying up to the present, is a major turnaround in government statements and published material about Israel and the Jews in the official Persian press.

Up until recently, the prevalent tendency of such coverage had involved the traditional exaggeration of the power and influence of the “Jewish lobby” and the long arm and entrenched tentacles of the government of Israel and the World Zionist Organization. This entailed everything from in-depth “analyses” of how the Jewish cabal that owns Hollywood has utilized the enormous potential of “the world’s seventh art” to bolster Zionism and blacken the face of Islam; to “documentary evidence” that Zionist money and pressure is responsible for the anti-Iranian and anti-Shiite bent of the al-Jazeera television network; to in-depth “scholarly” exposés of the manner in which historically the Jews carved Protestantism out of Catholicism in order to re-impose on Christianity the ethos of the Hebrew Bible with its doctrine of the chosen people.

But these and hundreds of other portraits of Israel and world Jewry as the “hidden hand” undermining Islam at every turn have dwindled considerably of late, giving way instead to their opposite. The emphasis now is on every detectable crack, fault, and weakness in the Jewish national edifice, and on Israel as a polity teetering on the brink of collapse.

_____________

The new approach is epitomized by Ahmadinejad himself, with his repeated descriptions of Israel as a “rotten tree” and a “house of straw,” as well as his pledge to his constituents and to the rest of the Muslim world that “this shameful stain on the face of the land of Islam will soon be cleansed.” But the trend is far more widespread than the expostulations of one man. In the Iranian media, for instance, Israel’s evacuation of its Gaza settlements in the summer of 2005 has become a major symbol of the decrepitude of the Jewish state. “The Zionist regime retreats in the face of the slightest resistance,” the newspaper Hamshahri gloated in the wake of the disengagement process. “The willingness of the Zionists to leave behind their synagogues in Gaza demonstrates conclusively that they have no God, and therefore, of course, no religious connection to the Holy Land; they will now be easily ejected from all of occupied Palestine.”

Soon after the Gaza pullout, the headline on a lengthy interview with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iranian-backed Hizballah, proclaimed: “We, Too, Drove Out the Israeli Cowards.” The reference was to Israel’s prior withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000—a retreat that in the eyes of Ayatollah Khamenei had similarly “proved the justness of the Islamic struggle” and demonstrated that if Muslims put their trust in God, “victory will be certain.” As for Israel’s July 2006 incursion into Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Iranians were initially shocked by the force of it. But by the end of hostilities in mid-August the Iranian press—like that of many other Middle Eastern countries—was pouncing on the lack of a clear Israeli victory as a sign that the Jewish state was even feebler than many had presumed.

The perceived military defeats of “the Jerusalem-occupying regime” are regularly coupled with still another alleged indication of Israeli weakness—namely, the security fence protecting Israel’s civilian population from Arab terrorism. Ayatollah Khamenei recently described this barrier as “a symbol of the impotence of the Zionists and of their inability to rein in the intifada.” So successful have suicide operations been in sowing “terror and panic” among Israelis, Khamenei declared, that, like their trembling forebears in Europe, they were now retreating behind a ghetto wall. “The Islamic nation,” he added, “is fully capable of deciding the fate of Palestine here and now.”

_____________

But it is not the actual wall but the metaphorical walls dividing the different sectors and camps within Israeli society that have received the fullest and most scornful coverage. The Iranian press delights in every instance—real, imagined, or exaggerated—of internecine Jewish conflict: between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, religious Israelis and secular Israelis, new immigrants and old immigrants, right-wingers and left-wingers, Zionists, non-Zionists, anti-Zionists, and post-Zionists.

Thus, a recent article in the daily Javan entitled “Post-Zionism and the Identity Crisis in Israel” pitted “extremist Jews,” i.e., nationalists and settlers, against “religious Jews,” i.e., ultra-Orthodox non-nationalists. Another piece described the supposedly large numbers of Russian immigrants who have not managed to integrate into the life of the country and have either left for good or else ended up joining the Jews for Jesus movement or various satanic and neo-Nazi cults. Still another report, devoted to the intricacies of recent Israeli political maneuvering, included a photograph of President Shimon Peres and former Defense Minister Amir Peretz conversing in an office. “Note that Peres is wearing a suit and tie,” wrote the author, “whereas Peretz is not even wearing a jacket and has his shirt open. This is the traditional method of showing disrespect in Israel, whose politicians all hate one another with a vicious hatred.”

And so forth. This, too, represents a volte-face of sorts: in the past, the prevailing tendency of the official Iranian press was to dismiss any distinctions among Jews as mere smokescreens, a mask behind which they plotted their diabolical conspiracies. But today’s view is also not entirely new. None other than Ayatollah Khomeini portrayed the Jewish state as weak and divided. “If the Muslims were only unified,” he declared, “and each one of them took a bucket of water and poured it out onto Israel, this straw state that is already eating itself alive would be washed away in no time.”

In that light, it is not altogether surprising that the rise to power of Ahmadinejad, who paints himself as the renewer of Khomeini’s revolutionary zeal, should have been accompanied by a resurgence of the belief that Israel is but a flimsy façade whose end is near. “The Zionist entity,” proclaimed the president recently, “has reached a dead end and is in a process of precipitous decline. . . . All of the conditions are ripe for its removal” by means of an “explosion of Muslim rage.” Elaborating on the same motif in the summer of 2006, Ayatollah Ahmad-e-Jannati, General Secretary of the Guardian Council, whipped up the audience of his Friday sermon with the assertion—first uttered by Egypt’s chief propagandist Ahmad Said on the brink of the Six-Day war—that all the Muslims need do is spit, and Israel will drown.

V

The shifting Iranian line on the condition of the Jewish state—from Potemkin village, to potent nemesis, and now back again—is a salient illustration of a phenomenon noted by the historian Efraim Karsh. In Islamic tradition, Karsh writes, “the traits associated with Jews make a paradoxical mixture: they are seen as both domineering and wretched, both haughty and low.” Such, he adds, is “the age-old Muslim stereotype—as it is, mutatis mutandis, the Christian.” The differences encompassed in that “mutatis mutandis” are, however, pertinent to our discussion.

It has long (and correctly) been argued that major elements of modern Muslim anti-Semitism were imports into Islamic lands from Christian Europe. This holds especially true for the perception of the Jews as a powerful international cabal and a force to be not only hated but downright feared—an idea that held sway for centuries in the Christian West, and that in some locales continues to hold sway today. By contrast, this particular feature of the anti-Semitic creed, though introduced into Muslim collective consciousness relatively recently, is already waning in the Islamic world. Many factors may account for this, but to my mind one is paramount.

There is an uncanny correlation between Christian and Islamic holy scripture concerning the role played by Jews during the formative period of each religion. In the New Testament, the premier political-military enemies of Jesus were the pagan Romans. On the other hand, his increasingly meddlesome ideological-religious enemies were Jews: the scribes and Pharisees who would not cease peppering him with questions deliberately intended to trip him up and undermine his message. Similarly in Islamic historiography: Muhammad’s political-military adversaries were the members of his disowned pagan Quraysh tribe back in Mecca, who launched three successive campaigns against the nascent faith-community in Medina. But the real trouble came from his pestering ideological-religious antagonists, the (genuine or imaginary) Jewish tribes of Medina itself who with their incessant legal and theological badgering made the prophet’s spiritual life extremely difficult.

When it comes to the nature of Jewish subversive activity, the traditions of the two religions are thus almost eerily alike. But no less significant is a difference between them. In the Gospels, the Jews “win”: they succeed in having Jesus crucified and most of his immediate followers executed or banished. In the Qur’an and hadith, by contrast, Muhammad wins, vanquishing his Jewish foes, executing some, and banishing the remainder from Medina and eventually, under his immediate successors, from Arabia altogether.

This formative Islamic experience was largely responsible for the disdain and scorn expressed toward Jews over most of Muslim history, as opposed to the fear and hatred characteristic of Christian attitudes. The same derisive contempt may be reflected in the surge of confidence felt by today’s fundamentalists in their zealous resolve to eliminate the state of Israel from the map.
And that brings us to the larger, non-tactical dimension of the fundamentalists’ divergent attitudes toward the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan”—a dimension deeply rooted in both Islamic ideology and centuries of Muslim historical experience.

VI

Early on, after their first round of lightning victories along the Mediterranean littoral, Muslims came to realize that they would have to be satisfied with conquering only part of the Western world; the other part they would have to share with Christians. Islamic leaders and even Islamic clerics accepted and even enshrined the medieval status quo, according to which hegemony would be divided between Islam in the East and Christendom in the West. To be sure, cross-boundary encroachments were a constant menace and had to be repulsed—Saladin forced out the Crusaders, and the Ottomans were rolled back from Vienna—but on the whole an equilibrium was reached in which each side might even be said to have harbored a grudging respect for the other.

This political-military compromise benefited from an important theological underpinning, epitomized in a celebrated verse from the Qur’an whose contents simultaneously suggest why, in the idealized Islamic conception of balance and mutual tolerance, there is no room today for the state of Israel:

You [i.e., Muhammad and the Muslims] will certainly find the most violent of people in enmity against the believers to be the Jews and the idolaters; and you will find those who are nearest in friendship to the believers to be those who say: “We are Christians.”

Thus, in addition to the fact that the Christian world was a massive fact of life that could not be ignored and would not go away, Christians occupied a special religious category and were mostly set apart from the age-old antipathetic strictures aimed at Jews. The name of Jesus appears a mere 25 times in the Qur’an; the name of Moses appears 131 times. Nevertheless, from the “first hijra” of Muhammad’s followers to Abyssinia (615 c.e.) down to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s open letter to President George W. Bush in March 2006, Muslims have forever invoked the common Christian and Islamic veneration of Jesus in order to promote good relations between members of the two faiths. Throughout all this time, Moses’ ubiquity in the Qur’an has rarely if ever been exploited by Muslim exponents in order to foster coexistence with Jews.

Already in 1734, the English Orientalist George Sale wrote that Muhammad “used” the Jews “much worse than he did the Christians, and frequently exclaims against them in his Koran; his followers to this day observe the same difference between them and the Christians, treating the former as the most abject and contemptible people on earth.” This traditional attitude was amplified a hundredfold after the rise of Zionism, finding expression in the adamant rejectionism that characterized the Arab position on Israel.

VII

The distinction between the classical Islamic attitude toward Christians on the one hand, and toward Jews on the other hand, plays a greater role today than ever before in the formulation of “Islamic” foreign policy toward non-Muslims. The reasons for this include the fact that never before has there existed an actual Muslim theocracy capable of formulating such an “Islamic” foreign policy, together with the fact that never before has there existed a genuine Jewish polity toward which that Islamic policy could be formulated or implemented. The result is of major significance for the Iran-Israel standoff, as well as for any statesman or analyst who purports to understand it or hopes to influence its direction.

Among theorists of international conflict resolution, the belief is widely held that the removal of one party’s “enclaves” or “outposts” from territory claimed by a rival party can not only help create mutually satisfactory borders but can inaugurate the kind of equilibrium that will eventually allow foes to become friends. In Europe, the great example is the post-World War II territorial adjustments that, however painful, put an end at last to the centuries-old enmity of France and Germany. In the Middle East, on a purely local scale, the same logic underlay Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s policy of evacuating Israel’s Gaza settlements and handing over the territory to the Palestinians, as it did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s projected “consolidation” of the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.

The specter that now haunts the state of Israel is that the West may some day adopt this logic, deeply problematic as it has proved to be locally, and apply it internationally vis-à-vis Iran and the “Little Satan” as a means of resolving the larger conflict between fundamentalist Islam and the “Great Satan.” For no agenda is being pushed more energetically by today’s Islamists worldwide than that, for the sake of Muslim-Christian rapprochement, and on pain of terrible consequences otherwise, America and Europe agree to offer up the Western imperialist enclave or outpost known as Israel on the altar of “accommodation.”

This, indeed, was the implicit central theme of Ahmadinejad’s 2006 letter to President Bush, as it is the menacing import of the Iranian president’s most recent remarks on the subject:

[T]oday, it has been proven that the Zionists are not opposed only to Islam and the Muslims. They are opposed to humanity as a whole. They want to dominate the entire world. They would even sacrifice the Western regimes for their own sake. I have said in Tehran, and I say it again here—I say to the leaders of some Western countries: stop supporting these corrupt people. Behold, the rage of the Muslim peoples is accumulating. The rage of the Muslim peoples may soon reach the point of explosion. If that day comes, they must know that the waves of this explosion will not be restricted to the boundaries of our region. They will definitely reach the corrupt forces that support this fake regime.

The Iranians and their allies throughout the Muslim world are bent on making the abandonment of Israel the price of “peace in our time.” In a scenario that should ring frighteningly familiar, a charismatic leader of an ideological, totalitarian state is building upon an endemic anti-Semitism inculcated by centuries of religious indoctrination to create an atmosphere in which the massacre of large numbers of Jews and the destruction of their independent polity will be considered a tolerable if not indeed a legitimate eventuality.

That is ominous enough. Even more ominous is the apparent willingness of any number of leaders of the Western world, under the banner of a hoped-for “reconciliation” with a major Middle Eastern power and a world religion, to tilt dangerously toward appeasement, ignoring the requirements of rational decision-making and putting at risk the West’s own abiding interests and deepest values.

As for Israel, if it takes today’s challenges seriously and prepares to meet them with the requisite strength and creativity, this may yet turn out to be its finest hour. If not, we may be witnessing the prelude to its last.

Iran

And we're the Barbarians

2008-12-26T18:43:00.003-05:00

On Christmas Eve, Palestinian Legislature Introduces Crucifixion As Means Of Capital Punishment

Bill Awaits Signature Of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
By David Bedein, Middle East Correspondent
Published: Friday, December 26, 2008

The democratically elected Palestinian parliament in Gaza voted in favor of a law allowing courts to mete out sentences in the spirit of Islam, the London-based Arab daily Al Hayat reported Wednesday, the day before Christmas.

According to the bill, approved in its second reading and awaiting the signature of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as the Palestinian constitution demands, courts will be able to condemn offenders to a plethora of violent punitive measures.

Such punishments include crucifixion and hanging.

The bill reserves death sentences to persons who negotiate with a foreign government "against the Palestinian interest" and engage in any activity that can "hurt Palestinian morale."

For more on this story, please see the Mon., Dec. 29 edition of The Bulletin.

Palistine

We can have NO Faith Obama will Know how to deal with Russia

2008-12-26T18:30:00.005-05:00

Russia to supply missiles to Syria

Russia plans to supply air-defense missile systems valued at $250 million to seven countries including Syria, Libya and Venezuela, Vedomosti reported, citing an unidentified Russian Technologies Corp official.

The Moscow-based newspaper reported that Russia had started fulfilling orders of 200 S-125 systems that were due to be delivered during the next three years.

Russia will ship about 70 missile systems to Egypt, and will also supply Myanmar, Vietnam and Turkmenistan with the systems, the paper said.

On Monday, US officials said that they wanted answers from Russia about whether it was selling advanced surface-to-air missiles to Iran.

A senior military intelligence official said that while Moscow has sent out conflicting responses to reports on sales of long-range S-300 missiles, the United States believes they are occurring.

Russia's state arms export agency said Monday it was supplying Iran with defensive weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, but did not say whether they include sophisticated long-range S-300 missiles.

A day earlier Israeli officials categorically denied Iranian press reports that Russia would soon begin delivery of the state-of-the-art anti-missile system that could make it considerably harder to attack the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel had been assured by senior Russian officials that these reports were "baseless," and that the Kremlin stood by the agreement, reached with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during his visit there in October, not to sell weapons in the region that would "tip the strategic balance."

Herb Keinon, Yaakov Katz, AP and Bloomberg contributed to this report.

Russia
Obama

Shut up and sing

2008-12-26T10:12:00.002-05:00

I liked Springsteen's music growing up, He hit it big at the same time I was young whipper snapper drinking at the Jersey Shore. As a mater of principal now I wouldn't buy a damn thing he puts out. Singers ad Actors should do their trade and make their Millions, but just because they have made Millions Singing or pretending to be someone else does not mean their opinion is worth anything. Like the man said everyone has an opinion and an asshole they usually both stink. In Bruce's case it's certainly true.

Dear Friends and Fans,

Some notes on the beginnings of Working on a Dream. During the last weeks of mixing Magic, we recorded a song called "What Love Can Do." It was sort of a "love in the time of Bush" meditation. It was a great track but felt more like a first song of new record rather than something that would fit on Magic. So our producer Brendan O'Brien said, "Hey, let's make another one right now!" I thought, no, I haven't done that since my first two records came out in the same year. And usually I don't write that quickly. But that night I went back to my hotel in Atlanta and over the next week, I wrote several songs ("This Life," "My Lucky Day," "Life Itself," along with "Good Eye" and "Tomorrow Never Knows") that formed the beginnings of our new album. Excited by the sounds we made on Magic I found there was more than enough fuel for the fire to keep going. Brendan and I demo'd these songs before we left the studio and agreed we'd somehow find time during the touring year to get this record made.

Over the past 10 years with Brendan, our ability to get records done and to work on a variety of projects at the same time (Yes, we can multi-task!) has allowed us to get a steadier stream of our best music out to our fans. This is something I've always wanted to do. We found time to book sessions, get the band while it was hot off the road, write and record a new record, while giving our audience what I hope was some of the best E Street shows we've ever done. We're excited about you hearing this music and I just wanted to drop a line about how it all started. Have a great holiday and we'll see you in the New Year!

Springsteen

They're concerned why aren't we?

2008-12-25T10:00:00.003-05:00

Debating Iran's Nuclear Program an opinion from Iraq

The editors of my school’s biweekly Communiqué asked me and one of my colleagues to write two Op-Eds on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.
Below is my contribution and you can also find it, along with that of my colleague’s on pages 2 and 3 of the pdf version of Communiqué here.

Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is not a new source for concern. Dating as far back as the 1950s, several countries in the region have sought to build nuclear programs and ultimately, to acquire nuclear weapons.

As is the tradition in the Middle East, countries are suspicious about their neighbors’ power potential, particularly when it comes to achieving a nuclear breakthrough, even if that means just a few weapons could be produced. This suspicion is logical. Nations in the region are relatively small and only have a limited number of urban centers and no vast or redundant industrial infrastructure. In my country for instance, an attack on Baghdad and Basra with one nuclear warhead each would incinerate or irradiate a third of the population and simultaneously strip Iraq of 90% of its national income. This is one reason why we tend to be wary of nuclear weapons in the hands of neighbors, perhaps more so than people elsewhere.

Iraq and Iran fought a long war during which both countries worked furiously to build nuclear weapons. During the fighting, both countries attacked each other’s nuclear facilities. It took Iraq several air strikes over a span of five years to cripple Iran’s program. Iraq’s reactor was only slightly damaged in an Iranian raid in 1980, but was dealt a grave blow in the Israeli Operation Opera of 1981. Looking back at all the havoc Saddam Hussein wrought, many in Iraq were not unhappy with that attack—nuclear weapons in the hands of impulsive militarist dictators are more likely to undermine national security than reinforce it.

Tensions between Iraq and Iran may have eased now as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but not as much as you’d think. Iraq and Iran are officially not hostile to each other and they maintain formal diplomatic relations. Moreover, the current government in Baghdad is friendly towards Tehran, largely due to the fact that both are Shiite Islamists. However, this does not mean that things are rosy between the two neighbors.

Interests conflict quite often and when that happens, tensions and the possibility of conflict lurk in the background. Iran needs to understand that its pursuit of total security brings with it a sense of total insecurity among its neighbors. In other words, in the Middle East as in other places, states have neither perpetual friends nor eternal enemies. Iraqis are no exception to this rule. Despite their limited experience, Iraqi leaders understand this intuitive balance of power and do not put full trust in anyone. This is exacerbated by the fact that Iranians have played the factions of the Iraqi Shiite majority bloc against one another at different times. As for other Iraqi groups, Kurds don’t really trust Tehran either and consider Washington their main ally. On the other hand, many Sunni Arabs, whether pan-Arab nationalists or Islamists, consider Iran their number-one enemy – even ahead of Israel and the U.S.

To put it bluntly, Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East and it will continue to be perceived as such until proven otherwise.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions are not the challenge, per se. Nuclear power doesn’t threaten people—people threaten people. In fact, I would not have any objection to a guaranteed peaceful nuclear program that can be subject to unconditional inspection.
The problem is that with the current system in Iran, that guarantee is all but impossible. For those Iranians who aspire to the pride and benefits of technological advances in nuclear energy, a clear choice must be made: the regime or the nuclear program, but not both.

Iraqis simply don’t trust Iran and we don’t have a reason to do so. Even if our current leaders in Baghdad seem to befriend Iran, the state and the people are not willing to be hostage to Iranian preponderance. If the goal is nuclear weapons, which I believe to be the case, then we in Iraq and others in the region have justified concerns.

As a student of international security policy, I was taught that threat is a function of the potential adversary’s capability multiplied by his hostile intentions. I’m a realist—that is I believe relations among states are governed by power and interests—and therefore believe that intentions are neither measurable nor do they matter: what matters is capability.

Complaints about “double standards” that tolerate Israel’s nuclear capability, but not those of Iran, do little to convince. Conflict of interests and the potential for hostilities between Iraq and Iran exist, whereas those between Iraq and Israel don’t. Additionally, nuclear weapons in the hands of Israelis have always been for deterrence on the regional level whereas in Iranian hands, they will be used as to coerce others. In any case, Iraq doesn’t want to be in the crossfire between a crazy regime in Tehran and a wary Washington or Tel Aviv. We have had enough.

The solution to this crisis is in Tehran’s hands. If the Iranians decide to avert catastrophe, then they must come clean and let the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors do their job. By obstructing inspections, Iran appears to be hiding something fishy. Tehran needs to reverse course and honor the Non- Proliferation Treaty it signed and begin implementing the obligations the document entails.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Iran will wise up and spare us yet another war in the Gulf. The signs are ominous and there is a striking resemblance between the way Tehran acts today and the way Baghdad did under Saddam. The missile tests, the gloating about military industrial breakthroughs, the work of Quds Forces and yes, talk of annihilating Israel sound all too familiar to me. As we say in Iraq, “I’ve seen this movie before.”

Posted by Omar
Iraq

A Conversation at the End

2008-12-24T19:13:00.005-05:00

Judas walk with me, Yes teacher? How much do you believe, trust, have faith, and love me? With all my heart teacher Why? I have a task for you and only you. Name it and it shall be done.

Listen before you decide, you will be approached by those that wish to silence us. They will offer you money and prestige to betray me. But master I could never do this. Do this you must.

My message has been delivered, if I linger any longer there will be more than my blood that is shed. I can not allow this. My time here must end so that all to come can be saved.

They will offer you Silver and tell you all you have to do is kiss me. Then I shall be taken and crucified. No Master how can I do this? You can because it must be done, do it out of your faith and belief in me, and know even though you shall be marked as the traitor forever, it is your act of love that will save blood from being shed now and will help lead to the salvation of millions.

Is your Faith and belief in me strong enough to do this ? For you my master it shall be done.

And to the rest of us on the Eve of the Masters Birth,
MERRY CHRISTMAS

A Viper @ Obamas Bosom

2008-12-23T22:47:00.002-05:00

Clinton moves to widen role of State Department

WASHINGTON: Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis. (in other words implementing Clinton NOT Obama Policy)

Clinton is recruiting Jacob Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Lew's focus, they said, would be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. (cut straight out of the military budget)

He and James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, are to be Hillary Clinton's chief lieutenants. (a team designed to undermine the WOT)

Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Clinton's, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.

The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East. (and not one will be appointed without Clinton's approval, or they will have no power ET all if not her choice)

As Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D'Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. (sounds like the formation of an unvoted for alternate government)

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president's office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over U.S. foreign policy. (in other words nothing regarding the war gets done without Hillary's power)

Given Hillary Clinton's prominence, expanding the department's portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful cabinet members. (no shit really?)

Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Ross's name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, as have those of Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The Bush administration has made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally handled most peacemaking initiatives, which has meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results. (Hillary will only go if a victory is eminent or she has to put someones balls in her lock box)

"There's no question that there is a reinvention of the wheel here," said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "But it's geared not so much as a reaction to Bush as to a fairly astute analysis of what's going to work in foreign policy." (according to the Clinton's, who let terror build around the entire world)

With so many problems, including Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Miller said it made sense for the White House to farm out some of the diplomatic heavy lifting. (like they have a choice or a clue)

In addition to the Middle East, one Democratic foreign policy adviser said, Holbrooke might be considered for an appointment as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and possibly Iran. The adviser said the decision had not been made. (already the assumption that we will negotiate with the terrorists in Iran)

A transition official dismissed as "speculation" reports in Indian newspapers that Obama was considering appointing Bill Clinton as a special envoy to deal with Kashmir issues.

But another transition official confirmed that Obama's foreign policy advisers were discussing the possibility of appointing a special envoy to India. Steinberg, who is the dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, would probably coordinate the work of any special envoys, the official said. (no envoy gets approved with out the Hilda beasts nod)

The recruitment of Lew - for a position that was not filled in the Bush administration - suggests that Hillary Clinton is determined to win a larger share of financial resources for the department. Lew, a well-connected figure who was once an aide to the House speaker Thomas O'Neill, now works for Citigroup in a unit that oversees hedge funds. (ahh yes more money to funnel to the beast)

"If we're going to re-establish diplomacy as the critical tool in America's arsenal," a senior transition official said, "you need someone who can work both the budget and management side. He has very strong relations on the Hill; he knows the inner workings of how to manage a big enterprise." (so no more military just diplomats, sounds like the perfect plan for the terrorists to rebuild their strength)

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, said Clinton was being supported in her push for more resources by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and by Obama's incoming national security adviser, General James Jones Jr. (both strong supporters in Diplomacy or do nothing rhetoric)

For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have been added to the military's burden when they could have been handled by a robust foreign service. (bullshit)

"The Pentagon would like to turn functionality over to civilian resources, but the resources are not there," the official said. "We're looking to have a State Department that has what it needs." (notice no one is quoted for that statement)

Clinton's push for a more vigorous economic team, one of her advisers said, stems from her conviction that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis. (yeah full involvement in flowing American tax dollars to buy off terrorist, except it doesn't work)

Economic issues also underpin some of the most important diplomatic relationships, notably with China. (maybe she'll sell them some more missile technology)

In recent years, the Treasury Department, led by Henry Paulson Jr., has dominated policy toward China. Paulson leads a "strategic economic dialogue" with China that involves several agencies. It is not yet clear who will pick up that role in the Obama administration, although Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. is frequently mentioned as a possibility. (yeah will see)
Hillary

And the Press Never Said A Word

2008-12-23T20:55:00.006-05:00

Imagine if Bush, Rove, and say Karen Hughs were interrogated by Fitzgerald do you think the Press would be so kind as they are being with the Messiah, I guess because it's Christmas, take another hit Obama and keep smiling.

Obama Interviewed In Blagojevich Probe
President-elect, two aides quizzed last week by federal prosecutors

DECEMBER 23--President-elect Barack Obama and two of his top advisers were interviewed last week by federal prosecutors probing Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's alleged bid to sell Obama's vacated Senate seat, according to a report issued today by an Obama lawyer. The lawyer, Gregory Craig, concluded that Obama and his aides engaged in no improper conduct in connection with the Senate opening. A copy of the Craig report can be found below. As part of his review of transition team "contacts" with Blagojevich, Craig reported that only incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoke with the Illinois pol. Emanuel, Craig disclosed, had "one or two telephone calls" with Blagojevich in early-November. Emanuel reportedly gave Blagojevich a "heads up" that he was accepting Obama's offer of the chief of staff job (and, as a result, would be resigning his congressional seat). Emanuel also "had a brief discussion with the Governor about the Senate seat and the merits of various people whom the Governor might consider." Craig also noted that Emanuel had "about four telephone conversations with John Harris, Chief of Staff to the Governor, on the subject of the Senate seat. In these conversations, Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Harris discussed the merits of potential candidates and the strategic benefit that each candidate would bring to the Senate seat." In addition to the president-elect, Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama confidante, were interviewed in the past few days by investigators with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, which, on December 9, announced criminal charges against Blagojevich and Harris. (5 pages)

Update From Hugh Hewitt

Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Was the President-elect Under Oath?Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 5:30 PM
Incredibly, the press seems not to have asked the obvious question about the U.S. Attorney's interview with President-elect Obama on December 18.Further, the interview occurred on the 18th, and it wasn't disclosed until today? What happened to transparency?Question for prosecutors: Since the Fitzgerald team already knows what Emanuel said to Blago et al, why was he interviewed after the president-elect and Valerie Jarrett? Simple scheduling, or could there be a reason for the order of the interviews?

Obama

Another Great Depression?

2008-12-23T08:19:00.001-05:00

By Thomas Sowell

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more important-- what their consequences were.

The prevailing view in many quarters is that the stock market crash of 1929 was a failure of the free market that led to massive unemployment in the 1930s-- and that it was intervention of Roosevelt's New Deal policies that rescued the economy.

It is such a good story that it seems a pity to spoil it with facts. Yet there is something to be said for not repeating the catastrophes of the past.

Let's start at square one, with the stock market crash in October 1929. Was this what led to massive unemployment?

Official government statistics suggest otherwise. So do new statistics on unemployment by two current scholars, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway, in their book "Out of Work."

The Vedder and Gallaway statistics allow us to follow unemployment month by month. They put the unemployment rate at 5 percent in November 1929, a month after the stock market crash. It hit 9 percent in December-- but then began a generally downward trend, subsiding to 6.3 percent in June 1930.

That was when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed, against the advice of economists across the country, who warned of dire consequences.

Five months after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, the unemployment rate hit double digits for the first time in the 1930s.

This was more than a year after the stock market crash. Moreover, the unemployment rate rose to even higher levels under both Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom intervened in the economy on an unprecedented scale.

Before the Great Depression, it was not considered to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression. But the Smoot-Hawley tariff-- designed to save American jobs by restricting imports-- was one of Hoover's interventions, followed by even bigger interventions by FDR.

The rise in unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929 was a blip on the screen compared to the soaring unemployment rates reached later, after a series of government interventions.

For nearly three consecutive years, beginning in February 1932, the unemployment rate never fell below 20 percent for any month before January 1935, when it fell to 19.3 percent, according to the Vedder and Gallaway statistics.

In other words, the evidence suggests that it was not the "problem" of the financial crisis in 1929 that caused massive unemployment but politicians' attempted "solutions." Is that the history that we seem to be ready to repeat?

The stock market crash, which has been blamed for the widespread suffering during the Great Depression of the 1930s, created no unemployment rate that was even half of what was created in the wake of the government interventions of Hoover and FDR.

Politically, however, Franklin D. Roosevelt could not have been more successful. After all, he was the only President of the United States elected four times in a row. He was a master of political rhetoric.

If Barack Obama wants political success, following in the footsteps of FDR looks like the way to go. But people who are concerned about the economy need to take a closer look at history. We deserve something better than repeating the 1930s disasters.

There is yet another factor that provides a parallel to what happened during the Great Depression. No matter how much worse things got after government intervention under Roosevelt's New Deal policies, the party line was that he had to "do something" to get us out of the disaster created by the failure of the unregulated market and Hoover's "do nothing" policies.

Today, increasing numbers of scholars recognize that FDR's own policies were a further extension of interventions begun under Hoover. Moreover, the temporary rise in unemployment after the stock market crash was nowhere near the massive and long-lasting unemployment after government interventions.

Barack Obama already has his Herbert Hoover to blame for any and all disasters that his policies create: George W. Bush.

To Quote Rev. Wright "Americas Chickens have come home to roost"

2008-12-22T20:00:00.005-05:00

As the Obama administration is about to take power, the liberal chickens have come home to roost. Russia is in the middle of a Massive Arms build up and doing war games off both our coasts. While at the same time is funneling Nuclear and Missile parts through Venezuela to Iran.

The Over Regulation by the Democrats of the housing industry has collapsed the worldwide financial markets. The Democrat power base the UAW has told congress give us our money or the next to last American industry will go bankrupt, which no matter how much money is going to happen.

The Obama administration answer to all the above is 1.3Trillion dollar Spending spree, along with more government interference in business.

We won't even mention the Jews about to crush Gaza and possibly bomb Iran.

The next four years are truly going to be a black comedy.

Obama

As Obama and the Democrats write budgets that cut our military by a 1/3rd

2008-12-22T19:52:00.006-05:00

Here are what the Russians are doing.

Russia to get 70 nuclear missiles in 3 years

The statement by Vladislav Putilin, a deputy head of the Cabinet's military-industrial commission in charge of weapons industries, indicates the government's intention to significantly increase the tempo of rearming Russia's Strategic Missile Forces.

Putilin, who spoke after a government session chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that discussed the weapons purchases, said the Cabinet has decided to spend about 4 trillion rubles, or $141 billion, on new weapons over the next three years, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported.

Putilin said that in addition to 70 strategic missiles, the military will also get 30 short-range Iskander missiles, 48 combat jets, 60 military helicopters, more than 300 tanks and 14 navy vessels in the next three years.

Russia
Obama

How Will Obama React

2008-12-21T20:29:00.005-05:00

In the next two weeks Israel will invade Gaza due to the constant rocket attacks.

It will be interesting to hear the rhetoric out of the Obama camp, as Israel crushes Gaza.

Top IDF officers: No orders yet for Gaza ground offensive
Barak on Sunday said that IDF to prepare for offensive in light of escalating Qassam fire.

Israel kicks off global PR campaign to recruit support for Gaza raids
Barak orders defense establishment to begin preparing for offensive; Mahmoud Zahar: Israel 'playing with fire.

Hamas: Israel can invade, by all means

Zahar brushes off threats: "They've been saying it for 3 years;" Diskin: Hamas can strike Beersheba.

Israel
Obama

McCain still an Asshole

2008-12-21T11:16:00.001-05:00

Levin-McCain Report Criticized

By Michael P. Tremoglie, The Bulletin
Published: Friday, December 19, 2008

A Senate Armed Services Committee report released last week concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody is being criticized by a veteran Pentagon reporter and an ex-Justice Department official as being inaccurate and politically motivated.

The committee report concluded senior officials authorized aggressive interrogation techniques. This, in the committee’s opinion, was a direct cause of detainee abuse and conveyed the message it was okay to mistreat and degrade detainees in U.S. custody.

“Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training techniques were designed to give our troops a taste of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to resist,” U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee chairman said. “The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.”

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, the ranking member, backed the report’s findings.

“The committee’s report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody,” Mr. McCain said. “These policies are wrong and must never be repeated.”

Veteran Pentagon reporter Rowan Scarborough and former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy contend the committee report ignores prior nonpartisan examinations of how detainees are treated.

They note that this report ignores the previous four nonpartisan, nonpolitical investigations into detainee abuse including the 2004 Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations. This was a bipartisan panel chaired by James Schlesinger, who served as Defense Secretary under the Nixon and Ford administrations, and former Carter Defense Secretary Harold Brown.

Their report stated the Bush administration did not implement a torture policy.

Mr. McCarthy was noteworthy for obtaining the 1995 conviction of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Mr. Scarborough and Mr. McCarthy both have said Senate and House Intelligence Committee members, both Democrats and Republicans, were informed of the techniques in 2002 without objection. They also said this fact was not mentioned in the committee’s report.

“There have been 12 official investigations to date. No one has reached the partisan conclusions in Sen. Levin’s report,” Keith Urbahn, a spokesman for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said in an interview with Human Events.

“False allegations by a few have made the task of hundreds of thousands of men and women serving in the military all the more difficult because millions of people around the world will read in newspapers, in the Levin report, that the Department of Defense condoned torture and abuse and it did not.”

Michael P. Tremoglie can be contacted at mtremoglie@thebuletin.us

McCain

The Obama Constitution

2008-12-21T10:42:00.002-05:00

Constitution for the New Deal
by H. L. Mencken

THIS SATIRICAL PIECE FIRST APPEARED IN The American Mercury,, 41 (June 1937), 129-36, and was reprinted in condensed form by The Reader's Digest, 31 (July 1937), 27-29. In order to indicate what reached the widest audience, the condensed version appears here.

The principal cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift- moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover the whole program of the More Abundant Life, now and hereafter.

That is what I presume to offer here. The Constitution that follows is not my invention, and in more than. one detail I have unhappy doubts of its wisdom. But I believe that it sets forth with reasonable accuracy the plan of government that the More Abundant Life wizards have sought to substitute for the plan of the Fathers. They have themselves argued at one time or another, by word or deed, for everything contained herein:

PREAMBLE
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish social justice, draw the fangs of privilege, effect the redistribution of property, remove the burden of liberty from ourselves and our posterity, and insure the continuance of the New Deal, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

ARTICLE I
The Executive

All governmental power of whatever sort shall be vested in a President of the United States. He shall hold office during a series of terms of four years each, and shall take the following oath: "I do solemnly swear that I will (in so far as I deem it feasible and convenient) faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will (to the best of my recollection and in the light of experiment and second thought) carry out the pledges made by me during my campaign for election (or such of them as I may select)."

The President shall be commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia, Boy Scouts, C.I.O., People's Front, and other armed forces of the nation.

The President shall have the power: To lay and collect taxes, and to expend the income of the United States in such manner as he may deem to be to their or his advantage;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to provide for its repayment on such terms as he may fix;

To regulate all commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and within them; to license all persons engaged or proposing to engage in business; to regulate their affairs; to limit their profits by proclamation from time to time; and to fix wages, prices and hours of work;

To coin money, regulate the content and value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to amend or repudiate any contract requiring the payment by the United States, or by any private person, of coin of a given weight or fineness;

To repeal or amend, in his discretion, any so-called natural law, including Gresham's law, the law of diminishing returns, and the law of gravitation.

The President shall be assisted by a Cabinet of eight or more persons, whose duties shall be to make speeches whenever so instructed and to expend the public funds in such manner as to guarantee the President's continuance in office.

The President may establish such executive agencies as he deems necessary, and clothe them with such powers as he sees fit. No person shall be a member to any such bureau who has had any practical experience of the matters he is appointed to deal with.

One of the members of the Cabinet shall be an Attorney General. It shall be his duty to provide legal opinions certifying to the constitutionality of all measures undertaken by the President, and to gather evidence of the senility of judges.

ARTICLE II
The Legislature

The legislature of the United States shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Every bill shall be prepared under the direction of the President, and transmitted to the two Houses at his order by their presiding officers. No member shall propose any amendment to a bill without permission in writing from the President or one of his authorized agents. In case any member shall doubt the wisdom of a bill he may apply to the President for light upon it, and thereafter he shall be counted as voting aye. In all cases a majority of members shall be counted as voting aye.

Both Houses may appoint special committees to investigate the business practices, political views, and private lives of any persons known to be inimical to the President; and such committees shall publish at public cost any evidence discovered that appears to be damaging to the persons investigated.

Members of both Houses shall be agents of the President in the distribution of public offices, federal appropriations, and other gratuities in their several states, and shall be rewarded in ratio to their fidelity to his ideals and commands.

ARTICLE III
The Judiciary

The judges of the Supreme Court and of all inferior courts shall be appointed by the President, and shall hold their offices until he determines by proclamation that they have become senile. The number of judges appointed to the Supreme Court shall be prescribed by the President, and may be changed at his discretion. All decisions of the Supreme Court shall be unanimous.

The jurisdiction and powers of all courts shall he determined by the President. No act that he has approved shall be declared unconstitutional by any court.

ARTICLE IV
Bill of Rights

There shall be complete freedom of speech and of the press – subject to such regulations as the President or his agents may from time to time promulgate.

The freedom of communication by radio shall not be abridged; but the President and such persons as he may designate shall have the first call on the time of all stations.

In disputes between capital and labor, all the arbitrators shall be representatives of labor.

Every person whose annual income fans below a minimum to be fixed by the President shall receive from the public funds an amount sufficient to bring it up to that minimum.

No labor union shall be incorporated and no officer or member thereof shall be accountable for loss of life or damage to person or property during a strike.

All powers not delegated herein to the President are reserved to him, to be used at his discretion
Obama

Mark Levin sings Koombyah

2008-12-21T10:36:00.001-05:00

The Czar is going NUTS

2008-12-20T11:08:00.004-05:00

Good ole Czar Vladimer the First has put out a general threat to the world.

Don't destabilize Russia, Putin warns foes

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Russia's foes on Friday against trying to destabilize a country facing broadening economic crisis, Russian news agencies reported.

Putin did not specify who might pose a threat to Russia's stability. But in the past, he has often blamed Western security services of trying to destabilize the country using opposition groups and non-governmental organizations as their instruments.

"Any attempts to weaken or destabilize Russia, harm the interests of the country will be toughly suppressed," they quoted ex-KGB spy Putin as telling an annual meeting of top spies and security officers ahead of their professional holiday.

In other words a return to the Soviet era suppression of her people while blaming it on everyone else. Putin is restablishing the Soviet empire at it's worse. With no fear from the incoming US administration and the weakness of Britain, there is no one to oppose him.

Many ex-KGB officers became key government and regional officials during his presidency forming his power base, which largely remained intact after Putin handed over powers to his successor Dmitry Medvedev in May.

Critics say that under Putin, security services have become excessively influential and expressed fears Russia could one day become a police state.

Rights campaigners have urged Medvedev to veto a cabinet bill ordering that professional judges rather than juries run trials involving terrorism, civil unrest and several other serious crimes.

They also urged Medvedev to block government attempts to impose high treason charges on people accused of "harming the constitutional order," which critics believe could lead to a political witch-hunt.

Analysts say the role of the security services is likely to grow even further as Russia plunges into an economic crisis marked by rising unemployment and financial woes that threaten the popularity of the government.

Avoiding civil unrest and maintaining political stability is viewed by the government as a top priority.

Sounds like the good ole days of soviet oppresion Your Papers Please. As the Soviet fleet is redeployed off both coasts of the US and Tank Battalions are deployed all over Europe. While selling Nuclear and Missile Technology to Iran. We should all feel safe and snug.

MEDVEDEV ABSENT

The Day of Security Officers is marked annually on December 20, a day when in 1917 Bolshevik rulers created the CheKa secret police to suppress their foes. After a string of transformations, the Cheka became the KGB.

As president, Putin always personally attended the holiday meetings of security officials. Medvedev, a former corporate lawyer with no security background, stayed away and sent his chief of staff Sergei Naryshkin to deliver his greetings.

Medvedev, who faced the challenge of a brief war with Georgia soon after becoming president which soured Russia's ties with the West, said security concerns remained paramount.

"In the past 20 years the world has changed but has not become a quieter place," Naryshkin said, reading out his letter, according to Interfax.

Russia

Lining the pockets of thieves

2008-12-19T13:02:00.002-05:00

With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise
By Jordy Yager
Posted: 12/17/08 05:41 PM [ET]
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

Congress

'Iran Covenant'- fact and fiction

2008-12-18T19:25:00.002-05:00

The Washington Times

James Zumwalt
COMMENTARY

Something ominous is taking place in Iran. For several days now, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies have been monitoring suspicious activities. U.S. spy satellites and an increased number of communication intercepts of short-burst, encoded messages from within Iran further support this assessment.

Is a strike against Israel planned? Within the next few days, the U.S. and Israel will need to determine whether Iran's certifiably mad president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is preparing to make good his threat to wipe Israel off the map. If so, Israel's existence will rest on the decision whether to launch a pre-emptive first strike against Iran.

This is the scenario author Chet Nagle uses to begin the plot for his novel "Iran Covenant." The book's intrigue makes it difficult to end one chapter without going on to the next. But, for those familiar with Tehran's draconian leadership, the novel provides a frighteningly realistic depiction of a mindset capable of doing the unthinkable. One can better appreciate this mindset by fully understanding its evolution.

Observers of Iran's leadership ever since Islamic fundamentalists took control of the country in 1979 have witnessed a march towardadomination in the region that becomes more brazen with every step. The brutality the leadership exercises in taking these steps was first evidenced by its actions against its own people after the shah's departure.

President Carter had pressed the shah of Iran to step down, believing the country would fare better under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Mr. Carter believed Khomeini would be a "Mahatma Gandhi," but what returned was a "Genghis Khan." Initial euphoria over his return quickly gave way to abject fear. Under Khomeini's tutelage as "Supreme Leader," Iran's Islamic revolution turned on itself - its leaders one day finding themselves victims the next, always unsure against whom this religious zealot's wrath might next be directed. The violence of the French Revolution two centuries earlier paled in comparison to Iran's, where even children fell victim - executed for failing to observe tenets of Islamic fundamentalism they could not even comprehend. And, among the young leaders who excelled during Khomeini's bloody purges was Iran's current president.

Khomeini's reign of terror resulted in brief tenures for Iran's first two presidents. While the ayatollah hand-selected both, the first, Abolhassan Banisadr, had to flee for his life to France after falling out of favor with Khomeini. The second, Mohammad Ali Rajai, was assassinated after only two weeks in office. The first president to survive a full two terms in office was the man who today is Iran's supreme leader - Ali Khamenei - having replaced Khomeini after his death in 1989. Originally perceived as a Khomeini "off steroids," Ayatollah Khamenei since proved to be cut from the same cloth. Symbolic of the violence he espouses, the ayatollah occasionally appears in public with an AK-47 rifle at his side - an odd accessory for an avowed spiritual leader within the safe confines of his own country.

Ayatollah Khamenei and Mr. Ahmadinejad survived Khomeini's terror reign by demonstrating an unwavering commitment to the Islamic revolution and to Khomeini himself. That commitment included fulfilling Iran's mandate, memorialized in its constitution, to export the revolution outside its borders. True to this mandate, Iran's leadership has long sanctioned activities to further the revolution's extraterritorial reach - including terrorist attacks in Argentina and Germany and supporting terrorist groups today in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Interestingly, as to Iran's nuclear program, Khomeini, prior to his death, never sought to re-start a program started by the U.S. under the shah as peaceful but later abandoned by Washington due to fears he sought a non-peaceful application. Only after Ayatollah Khamenei became supreme leader was Iran's nuclear weapons program secretly started. And, only after an Iranian opposition group disclosed the weapon program's existence did the Iranians then try to claim it was for peaceful purposes.

If one understands the capacity of Tehran's theocracy to kill its own citizens and if one understands Tehran's commitment to possess nuclear weapons, the only thing left to determine is Tehran's real intentions toward its declared enemies - the U.S. and Israel - when it finally achieves this nuclear capability. In the world of fiction, "Iran Covenant" gives a realistic picture of those intentions. But, in the real world, we need hard evidence of Tehran's intentions to go to war. Does Iran intend to go to war with the U.S.? The reality and hard evidence is that Iran is already at war with the U.S.

While Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements of such intent - claims about ridding the world of "the Great Satan" and wiping Israel off the map - might be dismissed as bravissimo, the theocracy's acts of aggression against the U.S. prove most telling.

Twenty-five years ago, 241 Marines died as a suicide bomber drove a truck laden with 12,000 pounds of TNT into the U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon, causing the largest, non-nuclear explosion since World War II. The attack was conducted by the terrorist group Hezbollah - a proxy of the Iranian government. Only five years ago, as part of a civil lawsuit brought against the Iranian government by U.S. Marine victim families, hard evidence was discovered linking Tehran to this attack. A paper trail established Iranian financial and logistical assistance to Hezbollah for the operation. But, more damning was an intercepted message from Iranian intelligence just prior to the attack giving the go-ahead to the Hezbollah-affiliated terrorist group leader.

The book "Iran Covenant" is fiction. But the fact is that a covenant among Iran's theocratic leadership has long existed calling for the destruction of both the U.S. and Israel. The fiction in "Iran Covenant" will eventually evolve into fact. It will be the responsibility of our leadership to detect that transition in time to prevent the Iranian theocracy's dream of America's demise from becoming our worst nightmare.

James G. Zumwalt, a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf and Vietnam wars, is a contributor to The Washington Times.

Iran

Mafia Princess to be Senator from NY

2008-12-18T10:41:00.003-05:00

Yes "Princes Caroline" looks to be the shoe in to replace the Carpet Bagger Hillary. The Daughter of a dud President whose only accomplishments were one good thing "Tax Cuts" and a string of failures. From getting us involved in Vietnam to the Bay of Pigs.

Granddaughter to Joseph P. Kennedy who was the ambitious son of a prosperous Boston saloon keeper and ward boss. He married the mayor's daughter, went to Harvard, and generally made the most of his ample connections and talent. He ran a bank (admittedly two-bit) at 25, and was number-two man at a shipyard with more than 2,000 workers during World War I. At 30 he became a stockbroker and made a fortune through insider trading and stock manipulation. He was a master of the stock pool, a then-legal stunt in which a few traders conspired to inflate a stocks price, selling out just before the bubble burst. Which today is called fraud and insider trading. In 1973 mob boss Frank Costello said he and Kennedy had been bootlegging partners. Other underworld figures have also claimed Joe was in pretty deep. At least one writer (Davis, 1984) thinks bootlegging enabled Joe to earn his initial financial stake.

Then there was Uncle Bobby that so hated his father and his fathers friends, he went on a one man crusade to destroy the Mob that probably led to both his and his Brothers death.

After interning with her uncle,the dying and long brain dead US Senator Ted Kennedy, and at The New York Daily News, Caroline Kennedy began work at the Metroploitain Museum of Art in New York in 1980, where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlosberg.

Kennedy is a member of the New York and Washington, D.C. bar associations. She is also a member of the boards of directors of the Commission on Presidential Debates, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She is also involved in other Charity work. (The American Ballet)

On June 4, 2008, Obama named Caroline Kennedy, along with Jim Johnson and Eric Holder, to co-chair his Vice Presidential Search Committee

On August 19, 2008, filmmaker Michael Moore called on Caroline Kennedy to "Pull a Cheney" (as in Dick Cheyney who headed President George W Bush's, vice presidential vetting committee in 2000), and name herself as Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate

All in all a fine replacement don't you think? A spoiled little rich girl raised in corruption. The Perfect Senator for New York.

Kennedy

A Criminal Attorney General, More Wisdom of Obama

2008-12-17T10:58:00.002-05:00

The worst appointment by far is that of Eric Holder to be our attorney general. He was the Deputy Attorney General under Attorney General Janet Reno in the Bill Clinton administration. That should put you on notice, but it gets worse.

And its not even Mr. Holder’s improprieties in connection with fugitive fraud artist Mark Rich. But they are plenty bad. Here was a man accused of big-time crimes including millions in fraud, tax evasion, and trading with America enemies. Mr. Rich was a fugitive for two decades, which is a felony in itself. But Mr. Holder improperly took the Rich pardon out of U.S. Justice Department channels, violating the laws and procedures he was sworn to uphold, but also dealt with someone who was committing a serious federal crime by representing Mr. Rich in the pardon process.

A lawyer who served in the Justice Department and was familiar first-hand with some of Mr. Holder’s pardon improprieties, Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review Online, wrote as follows: “The Marc Rich pardon was one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the Justice Department. Not the modern history, the entire history.” (And as we shall see, that disgrace was only an opening act, for what is far worse.)

There’s more on the Rich matter, and it incredibly keeps getting worse: First, Mr. Holder apparently engineered the pardon to gain the favor of Rich’s attorney, a former White House Attorney, who had close ties to Al Gore. Mr. Holder was apparently maneuvering to become Attorney General in the Gore Administration (Mr. Gore was a candidate for president when this process started). Mr. Holder provided invaluable help to Mr. Rich’s attorney by overcoming White House objections to this disgraceful pardon.

Yes, and it keeps getting worse: “And the cherry on top. The scenario in which Mr. Holder’s sell-out of Justice Department principles took place was scummy in every particular; multi-millionaire Mr. Rich’s ex-wife and staunchest supporter, Denise Rich, was making mega-bucks donations to the Clinton causes (according to Time, $400,000 to the Clinton Library Fund, $10,000 to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund, and more than $1 million to Democrat campaigns during the Clinton era — including $70,000 for the 2000 senate campaign of Hillary Clinton, now pick for secretary of state).

As bad as that is, it gets far worse. Mr. Holder was instrumental in pardoning 18 terrorists, up to their eyeballs in the blood of innocents and with nothing to justify any clemency and other consideration. Mr. Holder was not only instrumental in arranging their pardons, but also used improper means and went outside of the standard protective procedures of the Justice Department to get the pardons. It was technically a commutation, giving them freedom on the basis of time already served.

First, there is the pardon of Weather Underground terrorists, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans. The author of the article so damning to Mr. Holder was written for the National Review Online by Andrew C. McCarthy who handled the Rosenberg case, as a Federal prosecutor in the Southern Division of New Jersey.

Mr. McCarthy’s office had indicted Ms. Rosenberg for the infamous Brinks robbery, in which the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army, killed two New York state troopers and a security guard. She wasn’t tried, as she became a fugitive from justice. When she was finally captured, she was in possession of a small arsenal and was plotting to blow up more government offices and kill more innocent people.

As an aside, Mr. Obama’s friends and associates, William Ayres and Bernadyn Dohrn, were both terrorist leaders of the Weather Underground. At her trial, Ms. Rosenberg tried to turn it into a circus. She claimed she was a political prisoner and urged her supporters to continue the war against the U.S. She expressed no remorse. Her brazen barbarism moved the federal judge to sentence her to a 58-year term and to recommend against parole. The Brinks murders weren’t prosecuted, as Ms.Rosenberg was thought to already be put away for 58 years.

Despite all this, her barbaric record as an unrepentant terrorist and murderer of law enforcement personnel, Mr. Clinton commuted Ms. Rosenberg’s sentence to time served so she was freed. He also commuted the 40-year sentence of Ms. Rosenberg’s co-conspirator, Linda Sue Evans, who at the time of her arrest was plotting to bomb the U.S. Capitol. The pardon of these two terrorists was made possible by Mr. Holder’s encouragement, to cut the Justice Department out of the consideration as well as federal attorney. Those most familiar with the cases opposed the pardons.

And the pardon of terrorists gets worse. Mr. Clinton, with Mr. Holder’s support, commuted the sentences of 16 terrorists from the FALN. Mr. McCarthy writes, “The pardons violated the most basic Justice Department guidelines. This savage Puerto Rican separatist group had carried out over 130 bombings against American targets, murdering six people and wounding numerous others. As one operative brayed to her sentencing judge, ‘You say we have no remorse. You’re right … Your jails and your long sentences will not frighten us.’ FALN terrorists were not simply devoid of regret, they had not even sought clemency — the rudimentary demonstration of contrition that DOJ regulations require before clemency may even be considered.”

Despite the record, Mr. Holder processed the application and ignored their victims, including Joseph Connor, whose father was eating lunch in Frauces Tavern when he was killed by FALN explosives. The FBI, including FBI Director Louis Freeh, and the involved prosecutors opposed any clemency for the FALN terrorists. But Mr. Holder still supported clemency for the terrorists and that gave Mr. Clinton cover to commute their sentences and free them.

What are the lessons of this disgraceful chapter in Messrs. Clinton and Holder history? First, if you have enough money, you can buy your way out of anything. Second, even 18 terrorists who slaughter innocent Americans take notice — we’ll play ball with you if there is political advantage for us. At the time Mrs. Clinton was running for the Senate, and the FALN clemency was thought to buy her votes of Puerto Ricans.

So in the period when Americans were still being slaughtered by terrorists — e.g., 17 American sailors murdered by al-Qaeda during their bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and hundreds were killed at the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa — Messrs. Clinton and Holder were granting clemency to unrepentant terrorists who had American blood all over their hands. Making it even worse, Messrs. Clinton and Holder used, what Mr. McCarthy calls, “a private emissary detour around Justice Department protocols that Eric Holder knew about and, far from objecting to, supported.”

Mr. Holder, for reasons documented in this column, (and other reasons as well) is not fit to be the top law enforcement officer of the U.S. We don’t need an Attorney General who facilities the freeing of terrorists who have murdered hundreds of innocents. And our Senators should vigorously oppose this nomination. Start writing, calling and e-mailing them. We don’t want a friend and facilitator of terrorists as our chief law enforcement officer. And if President Obama wants to do as he says, “Restore trust in government,” this is a bad start.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.
Obama
Holder

Here come the Defence Spending Cuts

2008-12-16T20:52:00.004-05:00

Wasteful Spending and Defense Budget Cuts [Gregory S. McNeal]

Two stories of interest. The first is Rep. John Murtha's argument that defense spending will need to take a hit so the nation can focus on "infrastructure, health care, education and the retirement of the baby boom generation."

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Coburn released a report detailing $1.3 billion in wasteful spending, a "fraction of the $385 billion" in waste elsewhere in the government. Some choice examples:

• $188,000 for the Lobster Institute in Maine, home of the “Lobster Cam”
• $1 million for bike paths on Louisiana levees while levees await basic repairs
• $2.4 million for a retractable shade canopy at a park in West Virginia
• $24.6 million for the National Park Service’s 100th year birthday in 2016 — 8 years early
• $3.2 million on a blimp the Pentagon does not want
• $5 million for a bridge to a zoo parking lot in St. Louis
• $300,000 for specialty potatoes for high-end restaurants
Murtha

The Times They Are a Changin and not for the better

2008-12-15T20:18:00.004-05:00

Bush Excluded by Latin Summit as China, Russia Loom

By Joshua Goodman

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Latin American and Caribbean leaders gathering in Brazil tomorrow will mark a historic occasion: a region-wide summit that excludes the United States.

Almost two centuries after President James Monroe declared Latin America a U.S. sphere of influence, the region is breaking away. From socialist-leaning Venezuela to market-friendly Brazil, governments are expanding military, economic and diplomatic ties with potential U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran.

Since November, Russian warships have engaged in joint naval exercises with Venezuela, the first in the Caribbean since the Cold War; Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a free-trade agreement with Peru; and Brazil invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a state visit.

“Countries in the region are more aware than ever that they live in a globalized, post-American world.”

“A lot of this is designed to stick it in the eye of the U.S.,” says Peter Romero, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere from 1999 to 2001. “But underlying the bluster, there’s a genuine effort to exploit the gap left by a distant and distracted U.S.”

The effort is most evident in the bloc of countries allied with the anti-American president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

Bolivian President Evo Morales last month expelled the Drug Enforcement Administration, alleging that DEA agents were conspiring to overthrow him; U.S. President George W. Bush dismissed the charges as absurd and suspended trade privileges for the Andean nation.

Drug-War Defeat

In Ecuador, meanwhile, President Rafael Correa has refused to renew the lease on the U.S.’s only military outpost in South America, a critical platform for the U.S. war on drugs.

The summit reinforces such regional initiatives as the Union of South American Nations, which was formed in May by 12 countries to mediate conflicts such as political violence in Bolivia, bypassing the U.S.-dominated OAS.

Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, says the nature of American influence is only changing, not declining, as the region matures.

No Invitation Sought

The fact that “there’s no warfare, weapons proliferation, suicide bombers or jihadists” in Latin America may make its issues “less urgent,” though no less important, Shannon said. The U.S. remains the region’s dominant investor and trading partner: Foreign aid to Colombia to fight drug traffickers and Marxist rebels totals $700 million a year, and remittances from Latin Americans living in the U.S. totaled $66.5 billion last year.

The real battle is for a larger share of the region’s abundant resources and expanding economies, and China has led the way.

Even Colombia, which is spending $115,000 a month lobbying the U.S. Congress to approve a stalled free-trade pact, signed an investment treaty last month with China. During this year’s U.S. campaign, President-elect Barack Obama said he opposed the accord over concerns that Colombia isn’t doing enough to stamp out violence against labor organizers.

Changing relationships are also evident in arms deals. Chavez turned to Russia for at least $4.4 billion in weapons after the U.S. blocked sales of aircraft parts. Brazil, the region’s largest economy, is also shopping around: Defense Minister Nelson Jobimsaid in Washington this month that his government will only buy weapons from countries that agree to transfer technology for local production.

Brazil may sign a deal with France for four nuclear submarines intended to help secure its oil basins in the Atlantic when French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this month.

Reactivating a Fleet

The U.S. plan to reassert its naval presence by reactivating the Fourth Fleet after 58 years to patrol the Caribbean has triggered negative reactions ranging from Chavez’s threat to sink the convoys to the more-diplomatic Lula’s demand for explanations from the Bush administration.

Latin American leaders are looking to Obama to restore relations after the Bush presidency’s initial pledges of greater engagement gave way to a focus on the 9/11 terror attacks and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the honeymoon with Obama may be short-lived, says Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter- American Dialogue in Washington. He says that the issues that have dominated Latin American relations -- including Cuba, immigration and U.S. trade barriers on agricultural products -- may remain in dispute.

“Latin America wants the U.S. to be engaged, but in very different terms that it has in the past,” says Shifter. “In any case, they’re not waiting around for the U.S. to change its mindset.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro jgoodman19@bloomberg.net

Americas decline self sought and self wrought. has arrived. We have spent 50yrs destroying our manufacturing base. 20 years destroying our economic strength and 50 yrs educating our children that this is how it should be. The only ting left is our military strength and that will be gone if things aren't changed in the next 10yrs.

Some here will not only agree that the Decline of America is evident but will cheer it. To that I say to you be careful what you wish for.

What has me concerned is my children and someday their children. We have destroyed our steel manufacturing, we have destroyed our auto manufacturing, and the final nails are being driven into the value of the Dollar, and that's caused by it being no longer based on gold but oil instead. A product we have plenty of but refuse to develop.

The last century was the US century. This next century by the end will not be.

Who's century do you want it to be? Russia's, China's, or Iran's ? The EU has no future to lead they can't influence each other let alone the world.

So I ask you and I do it honestly. Tell me which of the 3 you feel should be the worlds guiding light this century why and what will be the benefits

Death of America

Russian warships head for Cuba

2008-12-15T15:48:00.001-05:00

Russia said on Monday it was sending a group of warships to Soviet-era ally Cuba in its latest defiant naval move around US waters, part of a drive to revive old Cold War ties with Latin America.

The warships will visit Havana on December 19-23, the navy said, continuing a tour that has already taken in US foes Venezuela and Nicaragua and seen the ships pass through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II.

"This will be the first visit to Cuba by Russian warships since the Soviet era," the Russian naval headquarters said in a statement.

The destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two other ships already held exercises with Venezuela's navy in the Caribbean Sea last month.

The naval manoeuvres close to US waters are seen as a riposte to Washington's own moves in Russia's Soviet-era sphere of influence, including in the Black Sea.

US officials have said they see no military threat from Russia's naval manoeuvres but continue to keep a close eye on the situation.

The naval visit to Cuba, scene of a dramatic 1962 stand-off between Moscow and Washington over nuclear missiles, comes as tensions over US missile defence plans in eastern Europe have prompted talk of a renewed Cold War among some analysts.

Last month Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a tour of Latin America where he visited Cuba and Venezuela and met former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, part of efforts to revive what he called "privileged relations" from Soviet times.

Last week he also received Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner, another Latin American critic of the United States.

Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega is to visit Moscow on Thursday, after he risked Washington's wrath this summer by following Russia in recognizing two Moscow-backed rebel regions of Georgia as independent.

The Russian moves in Central and Latin America follow heightened tensions over Russia's military onslaught in Georgia, a close US ally.

Russia strongly objected to US naval deployments off Georgia's Black Sea coast, accusing the United States of covertly rearming Georgia, a charge Washington denied.

On Monday the Russian navy avoided direct reference to the United States, saying that visits to Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela signified "long-term prospects for developing cooperation among these countries' navies in the interest of building stability and trust on the world's oceans."

During the Cuba visit, residents will be welcomed aboard the Russian ships and Russian officers will lay flowers at a memorial to Cuban campaigner for independence and critic of US expansionism Jose Marti, the navy said.

Last week the navy said it was sending ships from its Pacific Fleet to join ships from the Northern Fleet for exercises with India's navy and in parallel would continue anti-piracy operations off Somalia.

Despite the growing Russian assertiveness, defence experts have said Russia's navy remains severely weakened following years of post-Soviet neglect.

That impression was reinforced by the inadvertent fatal poisoning last month of 20 people aboard a Russian nuclear-powered submarine that was undergoing tests off the Pacific coast.
War
Russia

How to save the Big 3

2008-12-14T11:46:00.000-05:00

The big 3 Auto makers in the US will fail it is just a matter of time. The bailout of the Democrats second largest donor base (the UAW) won't save it. What has killed the big 3 an industry that we created are 2 things Cafe Standards and lack of Domestic Oil drilling.

If the American Public is going to be dictated to as to what type of car it must buy, why then should it buy a car from an American company?.

Ford came back out with the Mustang as a muscle car a couple of years ago. You can't buy one because they can't keep them in stock. These are the cars Americans want to buy.

Bush's Education Policy Bears Fruit

2008-12-14T11:10:00.000-05:00

By Michael P. Tremoglie, The Bulletin
Published: Sunday, December 14, 2008

The 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found that U.S. fourth-graders jumped 11 points in math between 2003 and 2007.

The latest TIMSS report, the ongoing evaluation of education in 36 to 48 countries revealed that in 2007 the U.S. consistently rated at least in the top one-third and in some cases the top one-fourth of participating nations. The average U.S. fourth-grade math score was higher than those of students in 23 of 35 other countries and among eighth-graders was higher than students in 37 of 47 other countries.

“Today’s TIMSS results reconfirm what we have long known — if we set high expectations, our children will rise to the challenge,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. “I am encouraged that U.S. students are improving, and particularly that many children who were once left behind are now making some of the greatest gains in math.”

Ms. Spellings credited the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind Act” as the reason for the improvement.

“[It] has focused our national conversation on objective results, and thanks to this law, we now have data to show how all of our students are performing,” she said. “In addition, we know from the National Assessment of Educational Progress that nearly one million more students have learned basic math skills since the law was passed.”

Since 1995, the TIMSS test has been conducted every four years among students in grades four and eight to evaluate their math and science skills. The project is coordinated by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the International Study Center at Boston College. A total of 36 countries participated in grade four and 48 countries at grade eight.

The findings of the TIMSS 2007 generally track those of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “The Nation’s Report Card.”

In the U.S., the TIMSS was conducted in the Spring of 2007 among a representative sample of 10,350 fourth-graders in 257 public and private schools and 9,723 eighth-graders attending 239 public and private schools.

Michael P. Tremoglie can be contacted at mtremoglie@thebulletin.us

GOP "RINO" or in Reality Democrat Colin Powell

2008-12-13T19:35:00.013-05:00

Powell: GOP 'polarization' backfired in election

(CNN) — The Republican party must stop "shouting at the world" and start listening to minority groups if it is to win elections in the 21st century, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday. (in other words become Democrats)

In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for Sunday's "GPS" program, President Bush's former secretary of state said his party's attempt "to use polarization for political advantage" backfired last month. (we didn't use polarization, we didn't use anything McCain ran the biggest non-campaign in political history)

"I think the party has to take a hard look at itself," Powell said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday. "There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views — I don't object to that. But if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority." (yeah if we follow the example being laid before us by both parties we will all be dependant on the government for the majority of our life sustenance. Medical Care, Housing even job security if our Union bankrupts the company, sounds like nirvana)

Powell, who crossed party lines and endorsed President-elect Barack Obama just weeks before the election, said the GOP must see what is in the "hearts and minds" of African-American, Hispanic and Asian voters "and not just try to influence them by… the principles and dogma." (no give them free money, housing and citizenship instead. All Powell did was finally prove what side of the aisle he sits.)

"I think the party has to stop shouting at the world and at the country,"Powell said. "I think that the party has to take a hard look at itself, and I've talked to a number of leaders in recent weeks and they understand that." Powell, who says he still considers himself a Republican,(well most of the people in the party never have) said his party should also stop listening to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. (That's right those that speak in support of such out of date things like the Constitution, the Law, and the beliefs of our founding fathers, should be cast aside for the progressive failed socialist beliefs on the left)

"Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?" Powell asked. "Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?" (Yes such better instincts like telling your stooge Armitage to leek Valerie Plame's name to Novak so you could undermine the war, for 3 years while Fitzgerald chased ghosts at the White House that didn't exist. You could have made a statement in the press at anytime and ended it, but you didn't. Such a Leader of Honour that you are)

Zakaria's full interview with Powell will air Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on CNN.

Republicans
Powell
Limbaugh

Limbaugh Responds

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank all of you for your e-mails of support regarding this interview that Colin Powell did on CNN yesterday. The whole thing wears me out. It's nothing new except now it's coming from ostensibly the Republican Party. Now, Snerdley is livid, many of my staff and friends are livid. To me, it's not that big a deal. I think Powell's premise -- and I understand what's going on -- I think Powell's premise is all wrong. The Republican Party needs to stop listening to me. Basically, what that means is the Republican Party's gotta throw you overboard; the Republican Party can't win as long as it is defined by people like you and me, those of you in this audience. The simple fact of the matter is, folks, what makes this funny to me is that the Republican Party's not listened to me in the last two years. And you might even say in matters of policy and so forth, the Republican Party hasn't been listening to me for the last six years. And you might even say that the Republican Party is in the situation it's in precisely because of the people like Colin Powell and John McCain and others who have devised this new definition and identity of the party which is responsible for electing Democrats all over this country.

So I think it's actually somewhat funny. I really do. They're not listening to me, and I don't do this program for these people to listen to me. They misunderstand the whole point of this program and what we do here. The Democrats and the liberals always have, and I guess McCain and Colin Powell are showing their true colors. Here is Colin Powell telling the Republican Party what to do after he voted for Obama! I know what really has Colin Powell upset, it's because I said his endorsement of Obama was about race, and I'm not supposed to say those things. These things are supposed to go unsaid. The Republican Party nominated Powell's perfect candidate. The guy's going after moderates, independents, Democrats, a guy who is not conservative at all, McCain, didn't stand up for much conservative, and he's out there now saying he won't support Palin if she seeks the presidency again, or he might not.

Colin Powell, ladies and gentlemen, insists that conservatives and Republicans support candidates who will appeal to minorities like I guess McCain who led the effort for amnesty. He insists that conservatives and Republicans move to the center like McCain, who calls himself a maverick for doing so. General Powell insists that conservatives and Republicans provide an open tent to different ideas and views, like I guess McCain, who repeatedly trashed Republicans and made nice with Democrats. I mean, their tent's big, they just don't want us in it. John McCain is and was Colin Powell's ideal candidate. All these moderates, Bill Weld, all these moderates that crossed the aisle and voted for Obama, they got their ideal candidate, and they got their ideal campaign in McCain. Once McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate, largely by independents and Democrats voting in Republican primaries, Colin Powell waited 'til the last minute, when it would do the most damage to McCain and the Republicans and endorsed Obama. And when I said it was largely about race, that's what set 'em all off, you're not supposed to say these kinds of things. This is supposed to go unspoken.

So if we try to understand Powell's thinking, which is difficult since it's incoherent, we should have all voted for McCain in the primaries, and once he was nominated, we should have voted for Obama for president. That's what we should have all done, if you listen to what Powell said on CNN yesterday. There's something interesting -- and Snerdley picked up on this -- he said that Powell in the CNN interview is talking to Republican leaders about tossing me out, when I'm not in. (laughing) This remains to me to be the funny thing here. It would be one thing if Republicans were listening to me and going down in flames, but they're not, and they haven't for the longest time. So Powell is talking to Republican leaders about tossing me out of the party, and people should stop listening to me and helping Democrats with any legislation that might be aimed at taming talk radio. This is what Snerdley thinks he meant by virtue of what he said in that interview. He did say he's talking to the leaders -- leaders of what? The Republican Party? He's getting together to talk with the leaders about me? When was the last time I was on a ballot? When was the last time I raised money? When was the last time I wrote a plank in the party platform?

I wish my parents were alive. I say this at least once a week. They wouldn't believe, here we are, ladies and gentlemen, in the midst of an economic crisis, an automobile potential bailout, now we got this Bernard Madoff thing that's happened, and this is fascinating, this is overwhelmingly fascinating to me, when you understand what happened, all of this going on, we got reporters in Baghdad throwing a shoe at George W. Bush and the Drive-By Media here in this country is very excited about it. Fact of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, this incident shows that we have succeeded in Iraq. Had this guy thrown his shoe at Saddam Hussein, he would have been shot five minutes later. This guy is still alive to be made a star by the Drive-By Media around the world. Long live freedom; long live democracy.

What's going on here with this Colin Powell thing is that the Washington establishment -- Powell's not a Republican. McCain's not a Republican. These guys are not even mavericks. They are Washingtonians. Washingtonians have their own culture and their own desires, and it is to matter. They don't care who's in power, they just want to be closely associated with whoever is. That's the name of the game and they want press adulation. They want to be loved and adored by the media, they want fawning treatment, they want to be thought of as something special, unique, dignified and so forth, and that's the Washington establishment. These guys are Washingtonians. And what is a Washingtonian? Who are these people? Ladies and gentlemen, they have driven this economy into the toilet. Washingtonians are tone deaf in terms of how you and I actually live and the things that matter and are important to us. Washingtonians are grabbing as much power for themselves right now as possible. Washington does not live in the rest of the country, does not live in the same world we do. What they're doing now is looking for ways to silence opposition. They don't care about the timid ineffective opposition. They like Republicans and conservatives who are ashamed of their views and their fellow citizens. What they want to do is silence people like me because they can't abide debate or opposition or challenges to their status and their authority.

So General Powell, let me explain something. The fact is Republicans did not listen to me. They listened to you. They have not been listening to me for years. The Republican Party nominated your ideal candidate. They nominated your guy, a moderate, who's willing to buy into an endless array of liberal causes, from global warming -- there's an AP story out today that says we are cooling this year, and by the way, record lows in Denver, we have record lows in Montana. We actually have a story on global warming from the AP today, and in the last couple paragraphs it says -- Rachel, you'll love this, because I know you think Algore is a genius -- it says here that this cooling perfectly illustrates how the world is warming. Folks, we got more problems than you can possibly imagine. That's just lunacy. That is just insanity. And that's modern journalism. We're freezing our butts off. We have our fifth cold front that went through here, and we normally haven't had the first one yet. Five cold fronts! Cold for us, but I mean look it, weather is weather. Record lows in Denver. And all of this freezing cold points out how the world is so rapidly warming, it perfectly illustrates it, the guy says.

He quotes a scientist here that says species are going extinct like never before, and I've got a story about 70 brand-new species discovered in the Mekong Delta. We can't trust anything that we see in the media anymore. It's all agenda oriented, and it's all oriented toward the agenda of Washingtonians. As long as you are a Republican, but you buy into an endless array of liberal causes, global warming to amnesty for illegals, and somebody who has the same fetish for compromising principles that you do, then they are going to love you. Then you turn around and you stab this person in the back by endorsing the most liberal Democrat candidate ever nominated days before the election, General Powell? You want to lecture me about how the Republican Party needs to stop listening to me when they are not? They are listening to you. I also have to question something here. How can he say he's a Republican? He gets the perfect Republican nominee, exactly the kind of candidate he wants, it's McCain, and then he sabotages McCain a few weeks before the election by endorsing Obama. How can you even claim to be a Republican, General Powell? When have you ever stuck your neck out for Republicans and conservatives? Never. I mean sabotage George W. Bush with the Armitage leak and Scooter Libby, that's just one thing, but Ronald Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 all helped advance General Powell's career.

Now, there are exceptional military men and women throughout our nation who could have served as national security advisor or chairman of the chief joints of staff, to quote Rita X, many ex-military people who could have been the secretary of state. Hell, Hillary can do it, anybody can do it. I'm sure you did a good job, General Powell, certainly nothing exceptional, you're no George Marshall. But I can't think of a single occasion where Secretary Powell stepped up to the plate for the Republican Party or the conservative movement. I think of many times when he has not done so or even worse. I've noticed on the one hand General Powell claims to stand above politics as a big claim to fame. Yet, on the other hand, he jumps in from time to time, but only to attack the conservative base of the Republican Party. When's the last time, the first time, when is any time he has let loose or criticized a liberal Democrat on any issue? Now, here's the problem. General Powell, and folks, this problem I think is systemic in the Republican Party in Washington. People like General Powell seek to ingratiate themselves with the people who despise the Republican Party and despise the conservative movement. They're out there preaching moderation all along the way, when instead you should be preaching principle.

Principle is what got you where you are. Moderation is what keeps you where you are with this great reputation, great image but no substance, no principles, no core belief. If somebody had to tell you who Colin Powell is, what would they say? What does he stand for? What does General Powell stand for? What does John McCain stand for? You don't know. There aren't any core beliefs you can go rat-tat-tat down the list and say, yep, this is who they are. Was Abraham Lincoln great because he saw compromise during the Civil War or was he great because he insisted on total and complete victory? Great people take stands on principle, not moderation. Some of us think that individual liberty, limited constitutional government, and increased support for the military by civilians are principles worth defending. Maybe General Powell can enlighten us, since he's failed to do that so far on the great liberal or moderate Democrat principles that seem to intrigue him. What is it about Obama that intrigued him? What are these principles? Or was it the way Obama speaks?

General Powell says we need to reach out to Hispanic, blacks, and Asians. Well, how do we do that? What kind of message does he suggest? I never hear the "how" to do it. I just hear we need to do it. And in my mind, we already have the blueprint for how to do it. We have done it successfully. We abandoned the blueprint. It's called individual freedom, liberty, and not seeing them as Hispanics and not seeing them as Asians and not seeing them as blacks or minorities, but rather seeing them as Americans, human beings. Liberals look at people and groupify them and then think of them with contempt. I mean are all black people identical thinkers, if we understand what one of them thinks we know how to get to all of them, is that true? Same thing with Asians? Same thing with Hispanics? General Powell has no vision. He is not in touch with the public in any meaningful way. He's a Washingtonian. He's not in touch with the public. He lives in a bubble so he doesn't have to expose himself to contrary arguments. He just has to accept accolades from the people he treasures and values most, his buddies and the media. He doesn't add anything to the public discussion. What has he added to the public discussion? What has he done to advance a principle? He is constantly peddling his identity and his reputation rather than anything substantive or insightful.

I'm sure he's a delightful person with his friends and I'm sure he's charitable with his time and his money, but he has no idea what he's talking about when he presumes to dictate how Republicans and conservatives should build a governing majority. One of the things he said is he resents Sarah Palin because she kept talking about small towns. He said nobody lives in small towns and that's why they're small. "I'm from the Bronx. Something wrong with my values?" he asked. What is this hatred for conservatives and small town people and Sarah Palin? It's because they are effective. They represent challenges to the Washingtonians' control of the Republican Party. I know a lot of people that are from the Bronx, General Powell, and if you think the values there in the Bronx today reflect the ones you grew up with, take a trip back and see if the street corners and the activities there are the same as when you were growing up, General Powell. Quick time-out. I spent more time on this than I intended to because we got other things to do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me get this straight. The guy who has supported the Republican candidate for president should be thrown out of the party. That would be me. But the guy who bolted and sabotaged the Republican nominee by endorsing the Democrat candidate should stay in and be part of the team that determines what the Republican Party is going to be. The turncoat, General Powell, is the one who the party is gonna listen to? McCain's a moderate. I supported McCain. Powell, who wants a moderate, did not support McCain. It's unreal. It's just incredible. Look, I'm trying to be a little humble here, but it's hard when you got all this other stuff going on and Republicans out there now continue to trash me. It's flattering; it is amazing. At the same time, it's mind-boggling how I get under their skin. What I'm learning now, folks, it really doesn't matter about party. It's not getting under Republicans' skin now. It's getting under the skin of Washingtonians. It's getting under the skin of the Big Government people. These are liberals. There's no such thing as a moderate Republican. A moderate Republican is a liberal. General Powell, says, "I'm a fiscal conservative; I don't like the social stuff." What's wrong with the social side? It's abortion. But it's more than that, it's Washingtonianism.

The Wimps in the Republican Leadership

2008-12-10T20:14:00.006-05:00

The Auto Bailout will take place. Some brave Republicans have threatened a filabuster, This from Malkins Blog:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) announced today that he will work to block the bailout legislation for the Big 3 automakers and the UAW union. As the head of the Republican campaign committee, Ensign knows how badly the Wall Street bailout hurt Republicans in the November elections.

Conservatives should expect the President to cave and support some version of a bailout. The White House prefers to have the automakers fail sometime after the President leaves office, even if it costs taxpayers more money and costs Detroit more jobs. But it’s still not clear what position Senate Republicans will take. If there was ever a time to oppose the President and go their own way, this is it.

Sen. Ensign’s courageous decision is a positive sign. He was recently elected to head the Republican Policy Committee and his opposition to the auto bailout holds significant weight.

Senate conservatives are set to announce their plans to stop the bill at a press conference on Wednesday. They are going to buy some time so Americans can make their voices heard. Government bailouts have become commonplace in Washington and it’s time for Americans to demand change we can all believe in.

Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, would support an effort to filibuster the bill, his spokesman said earlier today. “He believes it’s naive to trust Congress to manage the auto industry when it can’t manage itself,” said Coburn spokesman John Hart.

But what should be done is a set of demands in trade for the bailout, Corporate Tax Cuts all around, and a 50% cut in the Capital Gains Tax. Those two things would turn the economy around.

Instead this fluster of a filibuster does nothing. The best case scenario is the Bailout buys the big 3 6mths so they will declare bankruptcy under the Obama administration putting Millions out of work.

This may happen no matter what. The UAW will not budge on concessions which means death to the big 3.

But the leverage that could be gotten from the right to allow this debacle to go ahead could save the rest of the economy but the leadership of the Republican party are enjoying the view from inside their bowels instead.
Republicans

The Perfect Stimulus Package

2008-12-09T20:22:00.002-05:00

by Neal Boortz

There’s a lot of talk in Washington about yet another so-called “stimulus” package. If the next one is anything like the last one it will simply be a mechanism for taking money away from people who aren’t spending it the way politicians would like, and transferring it to people who will. Our soon-to-be ruler feels like adding some grandiose public works projects (raking leaves in a National Forest) to the list.

Let’s break away from these political stimulus ideas for a few minutes and study an absolutely brilliant idea from Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert. Now Louie hasn’t been around the halls of congress all that much (just three years) so he is not yet all that acclimated to the Washington lust for absolute power. If he were, he never would have come up with this idea.

You’ve heard of K.I.S.S., haven’t you? This acronym is a standard for sales weasels everywhere. Keep It Simple, Stupid; and that’s exactly what Gohmert has done to the stimulus idea. He kept it simple. The problem is … government doesn’t do simple.

Here’s the deal. The Imperial Federal Government of the United States collects about $167 billion a month in income and withholding taxes. The Congress has already passed a $700 billion stimulus bill, and about a half of that is gone, leaving $350 billion of your money in the pot. Some have suggested that this $350 billion be left as some sort of a bailout/stimulus slush fund for the incoming Obama Administration. In other words … let the politicians figure out how to spend it. Gohmert thinks it might be a better idea to allow the people who actually earned this $350 billion to spend it as they see fit. OK, if you have any appreciation at all for the concept of economic freedom that sounds like a good idea; but how do you make it work in this instance.

First, a math problem. Divide $350 billion, the amount of the bailout bill not yet spent or promised, by the $167 billion per month our government collects in income and payroll taxes. I know … government educated. So we’ll make it easy and round it off to two. The $350 billion is just a bit over two times the amount of income and payroll taxes our government seizes in one month.

OK .. here’s where the K.I.S.S. comes in. The government simply absorbs the remaining $350 billion from the stimulus bill and suspends the collection of all income and payroll taxes for two months. Even trade. This means that for two months you get your entire paycheck (well … less any State withholding). The government ends up with the same amount of money in its coffers, and the income earners in this country have some extra money to spend – an average about $2,000 per taxpayer – over the following two months.

First let me tell you why this is such a great idea. This plan puts the economic stimulus money right into the hands of the people who actually earned it in the first place. Can you imagine that? The people who earned the money get to decide how it is spent! The people who are driving our economy by working and earning enough money to pay income taxes get to pick the marketplace winners and losers as they spend their stimulus dollars! The politicians don’t get to chose who will have stimulus money to spend, and they don’t get to decide how that money will be spent. Isn’t it wonderful to just think about taking power away from politicians!

Now that I have you all charged up, let me give you two good reasons why the Gohmert plan is doomed from the start. Actually, I’ve already given you one reason. With the Gohmert plan the politicians don’t get to decide who gets to spend the stimulus money. This doesn’t thrill politicians. Somehow the very act of getting elected to high office seems to imbue politicians with some sort of a supernatural power to know exactly how every dollar in our economy is to be spent. The Gohmert plan would take that right away from them. Those Washington creatures are mostly Democrats. They want people who vote for Democrats to spend that money, not evil entrepreneurs and high-achievers who show this nasty little tendency to vote Republican.

The second reason this Gohmert plan (as brilliant as it is) is toast would be because for two months it would allow income-earners to see exactly how much they earn. Up until now these people have been operating on the basis of their “take-home” pay. Ask them what they actually made in any pay period and they wouldn’t have a clue. When they get four bi-weekly paychecks with no withholding their eyes are likely to bug out like a stomped-on bullfrog. Can you imagine what happens after two months and those income tax, Social Security and Medicare tax figures show up on their paycheck stubs again? Well, the political class surely can; and it has something to do with pitchforks, baseball bats and a march on Washington. Tax Revolt.

Could something like this actually make its way through our Congress? Sure it could … if the voters demanded it. But hey …let’s get serious. I wonder what sort of celebrity dirt they’re going to dig up on Entertainment Tonight this evening?
Taxes

Murdered by Mumia

2008-12-08T21:18:00.001-05:00

On December 9, 1981, at approximately 3:55 a.m., Officer Danny Faulkner, a five year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, made a traffic stop at Locust Street near Twelfth Street. The car stopped by Officer Faulkner was being driven by William Cook. After making the stop, Danny called for assistance on his police radio and requested a police wagon to transport a prisoner. Unbeknownst to him, William Cook's brother, Wesley (aka Mumia Abu-Jamal) was across the street. As Danny attempted to handcuff William Cook, Mumia Abu-Jamal ran from across the street and shot the officer in the back. Danny turned and was able to fire one shot that struck Abu-Jamal in the chest; the wounded officer then fell to the pavement. Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over the downed officer and shot him four more times at close range, once directly in the face. Mumia Abu-Jamal was found still at the scene of the shooting by officers who arrived there within seconds. The murderer was slumped against the curb in front of his brother's car. In his possession was a .38 caliber revolver that records showed Mumia had purchased months earlier. The chamber of the gun had five spent cartridges. A cab driver, as well as other pedestrians, had witnessed the brutal slaying and identified Mumia Abu-Jamal as the killer both at the scene and during his trial. On July 2, 1982, after being tried before a jury of ten whites and two blacks, Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Officer Danny Faulkner. The next day, the jury sentenced him to death after deliberating for two hours. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania heard the defendant's appeals and upheld the conviction on March 6, 1989.

Officer Danny Faulkner joined the ranks of those courageous officers who have given their lives to keep our nation's streets safe and free. Danny and his wife, Maureen, had been married only slightly more than a year. Now, she was left a widow with only her memories of the young officer to comfort her and dreams of the life they could have shared together. Danny and Maureen Faulkner are the real victims of that horrible night in December, 1981. It is for them that we seek justice and the reason this site stands strong today. Please visit the many places on this site put together to help create awareness. Remember to spread the word. The Shield Links to the Site.

Mumia

Conservatism wasn't defeated in November election

2008-12-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Last updated: Tuesday December 2, 2008, 4:10 AM
BY ALLAN C. BROWNFELD

ON ONE LEVEL, the election of Barack Obama as president is symbolically a major step forward in moving our country into a post-racial era. In America, every individual should be judged on the basis of individual merit, not race. It is now clear to all that this standard is becoming a reality.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that the American people already have seen "the failure of big government" during the George W. Bush years. "It is big government which tried to put people in houses they couldn't afford, that gave Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the ability to borrow and lend on a scale they couldn't sustain." He also took aim at the interest-rate cutting of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: "It was big government that was giving away money at 1 per cent for two years and created an environment in which there was too much money in the system. So before I assume that our 200-year experiment with limited government is over, I would suggest we have no reason to believe the government is going to become more competent."

President Bush came to Washington almost eight years ago urging smaller government. He will leave it having overseen the biggest federal government expansion since FDR seven decades ago. Not since World War II — when the nation mobilized to fight a global war and recover from the Great Depression — has government spending played as large a role in the economy as it does today.

Now, we have embarked upon a program to use $700 billion in taxpayer money to buy up financial assets and take an ownership stake in the nation's largest banks, and that could be followed by a stimulus program of up to $300 billion. Bush is the first president in history to implement budgets that crossed the $2 trillion-a-year and $3 trillion-a-year marks. His final budget could near $4 trillion.

The Bush White House "didn't focus on spending," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "They didn't make it a priority. And this predates Sept. 11, 2001. It just wasn't on the list of things they were going to do."

President Bush's third budget director, Rob Portman, admitted that the Bush administration and Republicans "took our eyes off the ball, and it was a mistake ... We also allowed earmarks to get out of control." Two years after Republicans took control of Congress in l996, there were 3,055 earmarks — special spending programs for members of Congress — in federal spending bills, according to the Congressional Research Service. By 2004, the number of earmarks had ballooned to 14,211.

In his recent book "Heroic Conservatism," Michael Gerson, Bush's former speechwriter, declared that, "Republicans who feel that the ideology of Barry Goldwater — the ideology of minimal government — has been assaulted are correct."

On Election Day, voters did not reject conservatism. On the contrary, they rejected the Bush administration for expanding executive power, increasing deficit spending, conducting a far less than prudent foreign policy, and displaying a general lack of competence. Of the financial bailout package, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said: "If this isn't socialism, then I don't know what is." Conservatism, indeed, was not tried and found wanting — it was not tried.

Always watch the Sky's

2008-12-07T00:01:00.001-05:00

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor (or Hawaii Operation, as it was called by the Imperial General Headquarters) was a surprise military strike conducted by the Japanese navy against the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the morning of Sunday December 7, 1941, later resulting in the United States becoming militarily involved in World War II. It was intended as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from influencing the war Japan was planning to wage in Southeast Asia against Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States. The attack consisted of two aerial attack waves totaling 353 aircraft, launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers.

The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships (two of which were raised and returned to service late in the war) and damaged four more. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer, destroyed 188 aircraft, and caused personnel losses of 2,402 killed and 1,282 wounded. The power station, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not hit. Japanese losses were minimal, at 29 aircraft and five midget submarines, with 65 servicemen killed or wounded.

The Leadership of the Republican Party are Delusional

2008-12-05T20:19:00.007-05:00

And that's putting it nicely.

The party is top heavy with middle of the road dinosaurs that have served too long, and long ago lost touch with a base that believes in the simple things that they have forgotten. The party is run by inside the beltway sycophants that don't have any true beliefs let alone the will to fight for the Constitution or conservative principals.

The party Leadership set the primaries up to give the nomination to John McCain a man that is despised by over 80% of the Republican base. They depended on the base's hate against Hillary Clinton to carry the election for them.

No one predicted the rise of the Messiah Barrack Obama. Not even Hillary.

Add to that 2 campaigns 1 aided and abetted by an in the bag press corp that refused to delve into anything that would cast a blemish on the Messiah. 2 a NON-Campaign on the McCain side. The picking of Palin as VP was the only reason he got 57,000,000 votes. With out her he wouldn't have even received 40 million. Especially if he had his choice of Lieberman as a running mate.

It is time for a purge of the Republican leadership, or a split in the party into 2 distinct parties. To split the party would be insanity but how else do we remove 2/3rds of our elected leaders who have been corrupted by the inside the beltway mentality.

What we need are fighters in the style of Gingrich. People willing to set goals based on the foundations of the Constitution, Goldwater, and Reagan. People who are willing to vocalize those principals without fear of what is going to be said about them in the N.Y. Times.

We also need to fight against the litmus test of abortion. The Religious Right is a key group but the issue of abortion is a distraction from the main goals of the party.

The base wants other things on a higher priority. First of all Tax cuts, and a major cuts in government spending. The Second is ILLEGAL immigration. Our border has become a war zone worse than Iraq, yet it is an issue that is ignored by our leadership. Third Drilling for domestic oil, and the conversion of coal and shale oil to refined oil. We are sending 700 Billion Dollars a year to our enemies for a resource that we have plenty of. All in the name of saving the sage hen which is nothing more than a desert pigeon.

We also need to explain the true threat of terrorism that this nation faces, and the reasons this war must be fought. Disengagement will only encourage the enemy not placate him.

Standing on basic conservative principals wins elections, that has been proven over and over, Running as Liberal Lite brings no one to the polls. How many elections do we have to lose for that to be understood?

As long as the party stays on the course that it has chosen we will remain the minority. When Pelosi, Reid, Clinton or Obama spout their socialistic agenda they need to be challenged vocally and with the common sense that proves them wrong. Yet our leadership remain silent.

If you don't fight for our principles why should we fight or vote for you!

Patrick Van Roy
The City Troll

Republican Party

The future of the GOP

2008-12-05T20:13:00.000-05:00

By DAVID MARK 11/30/08 7:13 AM EST

After the 2004 election, Republicans controlled the reins of the federal government. Freshly re-elected President George W. Bush boasted of the "political capital" he would expend among the newly expanded GOP congressional majorities, ushering in a new era of conservative governance. Yet the party lost control of Congress in 2006, along with a majority of governorships to the Democrats. The bottom fell out in 2008, as Democrat Barack Obama won the presidency and the GOP congressional ranks slimmed further. Politico has invited GOP governors, senators, House members, Republican National Committee chairman candidates and other top party leaders and commentators to weigh in on what went wrong for the Grand Old Party, and what it can do to climb back in the coming years.

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2008-12-05T20:11:00.002-05:00

Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ reelection this week was a tremendous victory for the people of Georgia. Voters went to the polls on Tuesday and selected a strong leader prepared to deal with both the domestic and the foreign challenges our nation faces in the months and years to come. Chambliss won his election because he represents the core values of Georgians and voters recognized the very real differences between the candidates.

Georgians refuted any notion that the ideology of the country has shifted to the left. They supported the candidate who believes that people should keep their hard-earned dollars; that every American resource should be leveraged to address our energy crisis; that the role of judges is to interpret the Constitution; and that America must be vigilant against the very real threats to our nation and its citizens.

Notably, Chambliss won in spite of strong support by President-elect Obama and Democrat organizations for Jim Martin. Georgian’s clearly sent a message that any rhetoric about a liberal mandate is nothing but hot air. Georgians — and all Americans — will be watching Washington closely and expecting policies that make government work for them and not against small businesses and entrepreneurs.

In the first contest since the presidential election and what many believe is the first race of the 2010 cycle, Republicans won because we coupled a strong, conservative candidate in Saxby Chambliss with a solid ground game that reached out to millions of Georgians and turned out the vote. Chambliss’ reelection sends a message to all those who believe the Republican Party and its core principles are anything less than strong and competitive.

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The ground game that reelected Sen. Chambliss focused on the nuts-and-bolts of campaigning, enhanced by investments in technology that the RNC has made over the past two years. The Chambliss team, the Georgia Republican Party, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the RNC were full partners in a Victory plan that executed the basics flawlessly. With dozens of RNC staff and hundreds of volunteers in 11 regional Victory offices across the state, our team contacted nearly a half-million Georgians in the last five days alone.

The RNC’s investment in technology over the past two years allowed our Republican team to maximize every volunteer’s time and every contributor’s donation on behalf of Chambliss, creating a get-out-the-vote effort that overwhelmed Democrats in the state. Through sophisticated online advertising techniques we reached hundreds of thousands of Republicans who requested absentee ballots, voted early, and found their polling station. Our investment in technology enabled our Victory program to significantly increase the Republican share of advance voters in the runoff election. We also provided volunteers the tools to make phone calls from home to likely supporters and/or send numerous e-mails to their neighbors engaging them in the reelection effort.

And while we overcame challenges in reelecting Chambliss in Georgia, we have another Republican leader seeking a conclusion to his race in Minnesota. We must not lose sight of the significance and absolute importance in ensuring Norm Coleman returns to Washington in the 111th Congress as Minnesota’s senior senator.

As I write, Coleman leads his opponent. Coleman won the election on Nov. 4, he won after the canvassing of votes had occurred, and he will be the winner at the end of the recount. These results only lead to one conclusion: Coleman will be reelected as a U.S. senator from Minnesota.

At the RNC, we have spent the past two years investing in programs, technology, and training staff and volunteers on the basic fundamentals of winning elections. Chambliss’ victory yesterday demonstrates the value of those investments and proves that Republicans still know to win elections.

As Republicans, we must continue to take stock of the 2008 elections — first and foremost, strengthening ourselves by listening to the American people. But that also means learning from our mistakes and acknowledging our successes. Our success in Georgia is a strong sign that reports of the GOP’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, and I look forward to future Republican successes in 2009 and 2010.

Mike Duncan is chairman of the Republican National Committee and is believed to be seeking reelection to that post.