The Obama Legacy

Obama's Response To The Fort Hood Massacre Set A New Low For Him

2009-11-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

The Man Who Despises America...

2009-11-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

from The American Spectator
By Mark Hyman

The very next paragraph is going to make the nut jobs on the far left excitable beyond belief. I am not referring to all Democrats or even a majority of liberals. I am singling out the "they've-lost-all-touch-with-reality" crowd. This includes Media Matters for America led by the admitted hit-and-run, drunk-driving serial liar. The group includes the unshaven, bathrobe-clad unemployed who live in their mother's basement and are devout followers of MoveOn.Org. It is also the bitter, aging spinster working at the New York Times, the morbidly obese documentary film maker, and cable TV news' resident drama queen who hosts MSNBC's Countdown. They are about to simultaneously suffer from brain aneurisms. So without further delay, I'll say it.

Barack Obama despises America.

When people who voted for Obama in 2008 -- including registered Democrats -- start speaking in normal conversational voices at dinner parties, neighborhood gatherings and PTA meetings that the over-inflated ego from Chicago has it "in for America," then it's clear most reasonable people have reached the same conclusion.

The central conviction of Obama's ideology is that America is guilty of limitless moral failures and is the chief architect of the world's ills. Obama has boundless enmity for America, its key institutions, and its longtime allies. Consider these facts.

The 30-years of Obama's post-adolescent life are radical by any measure. First, he grew up listening to the ramblings of committed Communist Frank Marshall Davis. It had such a profound effect on him that he wrote fondly of Davis in his first book. In fact, that book is replete with statement after statement about how the U.S. is deeply flawed. Most Americans believe in American exceptionalism. Not so with Obama.

Patriotic Americans would not have listened to the bigoted, anti-Semitic, hate-America rants of a fringe religious leader for 20 seconds let alone for 20 years. Yet, Obama who admitted he attended services at Trinity United Church at least twice a month for two decades called Jeremiah Wright his mentor and his moral sounding board.

Nor would most Americans cultivate a close friendship with an admitted domestic terrorist and his wife whose most notable life's accomplishments were to set off bombs that killed and maimed innocent people.

Joining Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright in organizing attendance at Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's 1995 march on Washington is beyond imaginable. Especially after Farrakhan demonstrated public support for Colonel Muammar Qaddafi during the Libyan Leader's most bellicose years against the U.S., which included Libyan complicity in numerous terrorist attacks.

Obama's view of America in national security and foreign affairs is profoundly disappointing to say the least.

Americans overwhelmingly view the men and women who saved Europe and the Far East during World War II as comprising the Greatest Generation. By his comments and actions, President Obama obviously thinks otherwise.

Obama did not honor American greatness on the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift while on his first European trip. Instead, he accused "America [of having] shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward its European allies.

He also denigrated the accomplishments of the American G.I. during World War II in the Pacific theater when he offered a thinly veiled apology for the U.S. having dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those acts brought the war to a swift conclusion, perhaps saving hundreds of thousands of lives when it appeared Japan was prepared to wage an island-by-island battle to the last man.

Obama ordered the release of the so-called CIA "torture memos," seriously damaging delicate intelligence relations with allied nations and placing at grave risk the safety of U.S. intelligence officers working overseas. The impact of his action handcuffs the ability of U.S. intelligence officials to protect the U.S. and American interests from acts of terrorism.

In a matter of weeks last spring, Obama gave deference to a variety of belligerent leaders while stiff-arming longtime American allies. First, he called for closer relations with Cuba while ignoring that nation's long list of continuing human rights abuses. Then he warmly welcomed Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at an Organization of American States summit.

Next, he failed to respond and set the record straight after Nicaragua's Communist leader Daniel Ortega listed alleged U.S. crimes and atrocities during a nearly one-hour rant at the OAS meeting. It is unsettling that in his own remarks Obama incorrectly claimed the OAS has 36 members rather than the actual 34. Ortega and the hemisphere's other Socialist leaders claim the OAS would include 36 members if Cuba and an independent Puerto Rico were allowed to join. Mere coincidence or Freudian slip?

There are 2 more pages
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Bumper Stickers of the Day

2009-11-13T10:05:00.001-08:00

Obama Refuses to Say Bombing Hiroshima Was the 'Right Decision'....

2009-11-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

from Weasel Zippers
November 13, 2009

Want to shudder uncontrollably? Try and imagine Barack Obama as Commander in Chief during WWII.....

(Fox Nation)- Defending the decision of the United States to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII is not a comfortable thing to do when you're in Japan. But if you're President of the United States, you must do it. Diplomatically, yes. With sympathy for the civilian victims, yes. But you must do it. But when it came time today for Barack Obama to fulfill that fundamental duty, he failed

Maddow Complains Labeling Hasan 'Terrorist' Would 'Paint the Democrats as Soft on Terror'

2009-11-13T09:45:00.000-08:00

Could anyone be more intellectually dishonest about blatant islamic terrorism than Maddow is being? There is so much information out there right now, with I'm sure more to come, that proves these savage murders were absolutely an act by a muslim in his quest to kill infidels.

For her to continue to try and spin the situation as just a multiple homicide by someone suffering from PTSD is beyone disgusting. Would she still call it that if someone from her immediate family was one of the victims?
Rees

from New Busters
By Jeff Poor
November 13, 2009

It's one thing to avoid the "terrorist" label when reporting on Ft. Hood suspect Major Nidal Hasan. It's quite another to say that those who do use it are making a political calculation to "paint the Democrats as soft terror." Yet that's what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow insisted on her Nov. 11 broadcast.

Maddow launched into a minute-and-a-half soliloquy on why it is bad for the Democratic Party when commentators label Hasan a "terrorist." She even attempted to make the case on Hasan's behalf against a terrorism label. Who needs a legal team when you have friends like Maddow and Chris Matthews, who fretted over the legality of Hasan's al Qaeda communications?

"Remember this one? Yes, it is the old ‘paint the Democrats as soft on terror' routine," Maddow said. "But in order to play that politicizing terrorism, anti-Democratic greatest hits, the Fort Hood case has to be terrorism. Now, regardless of how you feel about the political issue of politicizing terrorism, it's worth asking was Fort Hood, technically speaking, terrorism? It's not just a political question. It's not just a judgment call. It's not just a matter of taste. It's a question to which there is an answer, a legal answer."

Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and, according to Maddow, because those charges don't indicate terrorism, the terrorism characterization should be avoided.

"And the charges today didn't include anything related to terrorism," Maddow said. "Terrorism is not just conceptual political jargon. It's a legal term and it has interestingly changed over the past few years. In order for something to be legally considered terrorism, do you have to be taking instructions from a terrorist group? Do you have to have some sort of clear political motive behind the violence? Is it about the way that you commit the crime, what sort of weapons that you use in doing? Is it about how many people that you kill in your crime? Is it about the specific type of people you target, whether they're civilian or military?"

However, as Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, explained, these charges are not set in stone and could change, which could altogether ruin Maddow's argument against branding Hasan a terrorist. But that wasn't stopping Maddow from sanctimoniously contending that using the word terrorism is nothing more than a strategic political maneuver and that it is an indictment of those making them, not the man accused of killing 13 people and wounding 29.

"If you're interested in more than just making political hay out of the Fort Hood case, these are the sort of legitimate questions you would want to ask before labeling this or any case an instance of terrorism," Maddow said. "Those who are calling this terrorism or making their case in large part because Maj. Hasan is a Muslim and because he's alleged to have said ‘God is great' before the shootings. And while it might make for exciting politics to argue murders by committed religious Muslims are presumptively terrorist acts, those exciting political allegations actually say a lot more about the people making them than they do about the real character of the tragedy at Fort Hood and how we, as a country, should respond to it."
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Classmates: Hasan defended suicide bombings, held Islamist views

2009-11-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

from CNN
November 13, 2009

Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) -- Those who knew Nidal Malik Hasan before he was a major in the Army -- and the suspect in last week's mass killing at Fort Hood -- say he was long known for militant Islamist views.

Doctors who crossed paths with Hasan in medical programs paint a picture of a subpar student who wore his religious views on his sleeve.

Several doctors who knew Hasan spoke to CNN, but only on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation of the shooting, which left 12 soldiers and one civilian dead and dozens of other people wounded.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who faces 13 counts of premeditated murder, "was clearly espousing Islamist ideology" during his time as a medical student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, one of his former classmates told CNN.

Hasan's family has revealed little about him, saying in media interviews that Hasan was a "good American" and a lifelong Muslim who complained he was harassed in the Army because of his religion.

His former classmates describe a much more militant Hasan.

His presentations for school were often laced with extremist Muslim views, one source said.

"Is your allegiance to Sharia law or the United States?" students once challenged Hasan, the source said.

"Sharia law," Hasan responded, according to the source.

The incident was corroborated by another doctor who was present.

The source recalled another instance in which Hasan was asked if the U.S. Constitution was a brilliant document. Hasan replied, "No, not particularly," according to the source.

The former classmate told CNN that he voiced concerns about Hasan to supervisors at the school.

A second former medical school colleague of Hasan said several people raised concerns about Hasan's overall competence.

Even though Hasan earned his medical degree and residency, some of his fellow students believed Hasan "didn't have the intellect" to be in the program and was not academically rigorous in his coursework.

Hasan "was not fit to be in the military, let alone in the mental health profession," this classmate told CNN. "No one in class would ever have referred a patient to him or trusted him with anything."

The first classmate echoed this sentiment.

Hasan was "coddled, accommodated and pushed through that masters of public health despite substandard performance," the classmate said. He was "put in the fellowship program because they didn't know what to do with him."

The second classmate said he witnessed at least two of Hasan's PowerPoint discussions that included what he described as extremist views.

In these presentations, which were supposed to be about health, Hasan justified suicide bombings and spoke about the persecution of Muslims in the Middle East, in the United States and in the U.S. military, the source said.

Some in the crowd rolled their eyes or muttered under their breath, he said, and others were clearly uncomfortable.

Those in the audience, which included program supervisors, did not loudly object to Hasan's presentations, but did complain to their higher-ups afterward.

The supervisors expressed "appreciation, understanding and agreement" that the complaints would be discussed, but it was unclear what action, if any, came, the source said.

When the classmate challenged Hasan personally, Hasan dodged the questions, the source said.

Despite the controversy that his schoolwork created, classmates did not view Hasan as mentally unstable or psychotic, the source said.

Questions remain over how much Hasan's behavior and actions in school were reflected in his personnel files.

Col. Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of Clinical Services for Darnell Medical Center at Fort Hood and Hasan's supervisor at the post, told reporters last week that Hasan was doing a good job in Texas.

"As a supervisor, I am aware of the job performance of people coming into our organization, that is part of our credentialing process," Kesling said. "The types of things that were reported to me via his evaluation report were things that concerned me, but did not raise red flags toward this [the shootings] in any way, shape, or form."

"His evaluation reports said that he had some difficulties in his residency, fitting into his residency, and we worked very hard to integrate him into our practice and into our organization, and he adapted very well, was doing a really good job for us," she said.

Prompted by reports of former classmates, however, Army investigators would like to speak with people who have had contact with Hasan and who may have information about his activities and behavior, Maj. Gen Kevin Bergner, head of U.S. Army public affairs, said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates weighed in on the information surfacing about Hasan.

"I deplore the leaks that have taken place," he said on a trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. People are talking about "what they know, which is one small piece of the puzzle."

"They don't know whether or not what they're leaking might jeopardize a potential criminal investigation and trial," he said.

"People who have a piece of this, frankly, ought to keep quiet and let the authorities go forward on this in an organized and comprehensive way," Gates said.

Hasan came under investigation last year when his contacts with radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki were intercepted by terrorism investigators monitoring the cleric's communications, a federal law enforcement official told CNN.

An employee of the Defense Department's Criminal Investigative Services, assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, decided to drop the investigation after reviewing the intercepted communications and Hasan's personnel files.

Hasan remained hospitalized Thursday from gunshot wounds he received from two police officers who responded to last week's shooting.

CNN's Brian Todd and Ed Lavandera contributed to this report.
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Diversity trumps 14 dead Americans...

2009-11-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

Bumper Sticker of the Day

2009-11-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to AndyCanuck for the quote!

Try connecting the dots...

2009-11-11T09:27:00.001-08:00

Deadly denial - Fudging the facts on Fort Hood

2009-11-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

by Ralph Peters
from The New York Post

As President Obama belatedly appears at Fort Hood today, will he dare to speak the word "terror?"

He won't use the word "Islamist." If he mentions Islam at all, it'll be to sing its praises yet again.

We've already learned that Islamist terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan attended the Northern Virginia mosque of Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, a fiery al Qaeda supporter who later fled the United States. We know that Hasan's peers, subordinates and patients repeatedly raised red flags that his superiors suppressed. We know he was a player on Islamist-extremist Web sites. The FBI's uncovering one extremist link after another.

But to call this an act of terrorism, the White House would need an autographed photo of Osama bin Laden helping Hasan buy weapons in downtown Killeen, Texas. Even that might not suffice.

Islamist terrorists don't all have al Qaeda union cards in their wallets. Terrorism's increasingly the domain of entrepreneurs and independent contractors. Under Muslim jurisprudence, jihad's an individual responsibility. Hasan was a self-appointed jihadi.

Yet we're told he was just having a bad day.

Our politically correct Army plays along. Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey won't utter the word "terrorism." The Forces Command Public Affairs Office guidance for officers never mentions "Islam" or "terror," leaving you unsure whether there was a traffic accident down at Fort Hood, or maybe an outbreak of swine flu.

Meanwhile, the media try to turn Hasan into a victim. A sickening (and amateurish) Washington Post article portrayed him as a poor, impoverished minority living in a $320-a-month rathole apartment and driving a down-market car -- as if the squalor made him a terrorist.

Squalor he chose to live in, by the way: As a major drawing added professional pay for his medical credentials, plus his benefits, Hasan made a six-figure income. And he was single, without college loans or medical bills. Has anybody asked where the money went? I'll bet a chunk of it disappeared in cash donations to hard-core Islamist causes. Will a single journalist track the missing bucks?

It gets worse: On Sunday evening, a ranking officer in Hasan's medical chain of command raced to cover her butt. Asked why the killer was promoted to major after receiving career-killer performance reviews at Walter Reed, the officer claimed that Hasan faced the same promotion board requirements as everyone else.

Liar, liar, uniform on fire: A dirty big secret in our Army has been that officers' promotion boards have quotas for minorities. We don't call them quotas, of course. But if a board doesn't hit the floor numbers, its results are held up until the list has been corrected. It's almost impossible for the Army's politically correct promotion system to pass over a Muslim physician.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the few lawmakers willing to whisper the word "terrorism," needs to call the officers who sat on Hasan's promotion board before the Senate, put them under oath, then ask if Hasan made major because of minority-quota requirements.

This corrupt (and now deadly) affirmative-action system does a severe disservice to the bulk of minority officers, who make the grade on quality and professionalism. It leaves other officers wondering if the new guy who just showed up in the unit is a "real" officer or an affirmative-action baby.

Ditto for our government's unwillingness to take on Muslim extremists on US soil. Blathering about freedom of religion, we foster hate speech. By protecting the fanatics, we betray the peaceful majority of our Muslim citizens, leaving them afraid to speak out, since the feds shield the fanatics in charge of their mosques and communities.

Let's be clear: Maj. Hasan's terrorism should not result in a witch hunt against Muslim service members. But soldiers who happen to be Muslims must be subject to the same level of scrutiny and discipline as those of other faiths.

Just as we'd expect the Army to get rid of a disruptive white supremacist, we need to cashier anyone who espouses violent Islamist extremism -- as Maj. Hasan did, again and again.

We won't. Because Islamist terrorism doesn't exist. Just ignore the dead and ask our president.

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The Problem with Socialism...

2009-11-10T10:43:00.001-08:00

Confessions of an ObamaCare Backer

2009-11-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

from the Wall Street Journal
A liberal explains the political calculus.

The typical argument for ObamaCare is that it will offer better medical care for everyone and cost less to do it, but occasionally a supporter lets the mask slip and reveals the real political motivation. So let's give credit to John Cassidy, part of the left-wing stable at the New Yorker, who wrote last week on its Web site that "it's important to be clear about what the reform amounts to."

Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind."

Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats' "political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.

This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state. As Mr. Cassidy concludes, "Putting on my amateur historian's cap, I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically necessary to get great reforms enacted."

No wonder many Americans are upset. They know they are being lied to about ObamaCare, and they know they are going to be stuck with the bill.
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NOAA: Third Coldest October On Record - so much for global warming!

2009-11-10T07:55:00.000-08:00

National Overview: Temperature Highlights - October

The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd coolest based on preliminary data.

For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record. The month was marked by an active weather pattern that reinforced unseasonably cold air behind a series of cold fronts. Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation's nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal. Only the Southeast climate region had near normal temperatures for October.

Statewide temperatures coincided with the regional values as all but six states had below normal temperatures. Oklahoma had its coolest October on record and ten other states had their top five coolest such months.

Flashback to the White House Halloween Party

2009-11-09T16:06:00.001-08:00

Ralph Peters Examines the Political Correctness That Killed 13 Americans at Fort Hood

2009-11-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

from Flopping Aces
November 9, 2009

Why is the Obama Administration so reluctant to call Islamist terror by it’s name?

Obama can’t be bothered by Islamic terrorism
By Ralph Peters
New York Post
Nov. 8, 2009

…A Muslim fanatic, known to the FBI as a fan of suicide bombers and to colleagues as an opponent of our government, coolly buys weapons, heads to a military facility he knows will be packed with unsuspecting soldiers, waits for the crowd to thicken, then shouts, “Allah is great!” and guns down 51 patriots, calmly reloading among the dead and dying.

But don’t rush to judgment.

Imagine if, instead of Fort Hood, the massacre had gone down at a mosque in Detroit — carried out by a maddened Christian or Jew. Obama would’ve been aboard Air Force One before the pilots had time to file a flight plan and he would’ve been on site before the gun smoke cleared, hugging and boo-hooing and dispensing stirring rhetoric for the evening news.

But go out of his way to rally our butchered troops? Not a chance. It’s not like they’re real human beings with Ivy League degrees. When Obama got word of the attack, he didn’t even lose his fabled cool.

…Of course, this act of Islamist terrorism has been an inconvenience to a president whose administration insists there’s no such thing. Those dead and wounded soldiers are such an embarrassment. If only a Baptist or Lutheran had been the shooter, things would’ve been so much tidier.

What’s next? The White House is going to bring heavy pressure on the FBI, through Attorney General Eric Holder, to play down investigative results confirming that Maj. Nidal Hasan was motivated by his Muslim beliefs.

Instead, we’ll hear even more about the “harassment” Hasan suffered as the media toe the line laid down by the vile lead editorial in Saturday’s New York Times and how this calculating terrorist contracted PTSD from his patients.

Let me kill the harassment myth right now: Political correctness rules in today’s Army. We even protect our enemies these days. Had any soldier harassed Hasan because of his Islamist nuttiness, that soldier would’ve disappeared faster than a Franklin on a Times Square sidewalk.

Far from being harassed himself, this creep was allowed to harass the soldiers he treated for stress disorders. According to colleagues, Hasan not only argued with his patients about our wars, but preached Islam to those under his care. (Just what troubled vets needed, no doubt.)

Prejudice? You bet. In this terrorist’s favor. Nobody in Hasan’s chain of command had the sense of duty to weed this pervert out. Why? Hasan would’ve accused them of discrimination. And the officer who brought charges against Hasan would’ve been the one whose career suffered.

Since writing on this travesty in the Post and speaking out on Fox News, I’ve been deluged with supportive messages — many from soldiers outraged at the politically correct treatment of this terrorist by the media, by senior military leaders — and by the president.

How many more Americans have to die, at home and in war, before our president admits that there is, indeed, such a thing as Islamist terror? Will he ever admit that it played a role in the tragedy at Fort Hood?

Not a chance. Islam’s a religion of peace. America’s the problem. And don’t you forget it.

Many of us have scratched our heads wondering how a fine American like Flopping Aces contributor Maj. Chris Galloway could commit suicide after tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, we learn that one of the men whose job it was to help returning troops deal with the reality of their deployments was an Islamist nut case. Heads should roll here and let’s start with the apparent indifference by the Obama Administration to the problem of Islamic extremists permitted to remain at their jobs in the U.S. military.
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Nidal Hasan’s business card explained

2009-11-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

By Michelle Malkin
November 9, 2009 12:50 PM

SOA” stands for Soldiers of Allah. “SWT” is a related Muslim acronym: Pamela Geller explains another red flag ignored.

Related: David Horowitz diagnoses Gen. Casey’s p.c. debilitation.

You have to view this segment of the Meet the Press interview with Army chief of staff General George Casey to believe it — to believe that our army could be led by someone as incompetent in national security matters as this man showed he was, first by claiming that the army hadn’t “missed anything” in regard to the in-your-face warning signs exhibited by Major Hasan that he was a fanatical Muslim jihadist and an imminent threat to massacre our troops, by admitting that the army’s diversity policies had trumped its security policies, and worst of all by making this statement: ‘As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.’”

Once again: Political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.
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ABC: FBI knew Hasan tried to contact Al-Qaeda

2009-11-09T12:24:00.000-08:00

posted at 9:30 am
on November 9, 2009
by Ed Morrissey
from Hot Air

Would it normally be considered a national-security problem if a high-ranking military officer had tried to contact an enemy of the United States during wartime? ABC News reports that the FBI knew that Major Nidal Hasan had attempted to contact al-Qaeda and its associates months before Hasan went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, killing 13 people. Did the FBI tell the Army about it? That gets rather murky:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

One senior lawmaker said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan’s efforts.

However, the Army certainly had enough information to know that Hasan was a problem:

A fellow Army doctor who studied with Hasan, Val Finell, told ABC News, “We would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American second. And that came out in just about everything he did at the University.

Finell said he and other Army doctors complained to superiors about Hasan’s statements.

“And we questioned how somebody could take an oath of office…be an officer in the military and swear allegiance to the constitution and to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic and have that type of conflict,” Finell told ABC News.

Meanwhile, the imam with whom Hasan associated — with his own ties to the 9/11 terrorists — has issued a statement calling Hasan a “hero,” a “man of conscience” who successfully resolved the conflict of being Muslim and a member of the American armed forces. Anwar al-Awlaki now lives in Yemen, but he used to run mosques in Denver, San Diego, and Falls Church before beating feet after the 9/11 attacks. ABC reports that Awlaki runs a jihadist web site, which is where he posted his support of Hasan.

Did Hasan commit his act of terror alone or under instructions from Awlaki and his AQ associates? That’s what investigators want to know, but either way it seems that a 9/10 attitude has re-entered national-security considerations. Anyone attempting to contact al-Qaeda should have been arrested, or at the least kept away from military bases. Why did our counter-terrorist efforts leave Nidal Hasan in position to actually deploy into a combat theater if the FBI knew or even suspected these attempts to contact the enemy?

It sounds a lot like the law-enforcement model of counterterrorism that failed us so spectacularly from 1993 to 2001.

Update (AP): In case you missed WaPo’s story on Hasan over the weekend, note what he told a neighbor on the morning of the murders after handing her a Koran: “I’m going to do good work for God.”

Update (Ed): Verum Serum has more on al-Awliki and Hasan’s “heroism”.

Update II: Joe Gandelman asks the right question: “If American intelligence agencies missed the signs pre-911 and they missed a big hint pre-Foot Hood, exactly what are they missing now, as you read this post?” I would also add this: “And why are they missing it?” Because in this case, it seems as though political correctness over the feelings of Muslims has played a part in hamstringing action — and that could be the case with other potential threats, too.

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Muslims in New York celebrate the deaths of Americans in the Fort Hood Jihad!

2009-11-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Don't let the date on the video throw you, it's European style: day/month/year

from Jihad Watch

Obamacare is Sinful and Tyrannical

2009-11-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

Betraying our dead...Forgetting the vows we made

2009-09-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

from The New York Post
by Ralph Peters
9/11/2009

Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died.

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot.

We've learned nothing.

Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it.

Instead of killing terrorists, we free them.

Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them.

Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Instead of insisting that freedom will not be infringed by terrorist threats, we censor works that might offend mass murderers. Radical Muslims around the world can indulge in viral lies about us, but we dare not even publish cartoons mocking them.

Instead of protecting law-abiding Americans, we reject profiling to avoid offending terrorists. So we confiscate granny's shampoo at the airport because the half-empty container could hold 3.5 ounces of liquid.

Instead of insisting that Islamist hatred and religious apartheid have no place in our country, we permit the Saudis to continue funding mosques and madrassahs where hating Jews and Christians is preached as essential to Islam.

Instead of confronting Saudi hate-mongers, our president bows down to the Saudi king.

Instead of recognizing the Saudi-sponsored Wahhabi cult as the core of the problem, our president blames Israel.

Instead of asking why Middle Eastern civilization has failed so abjectly, our president suggests that we're the failures.

Instead of taking every effective measure to cull information from terrorists, the current administration threatens CIA agents with prosecution for keeping us safe.

Instead of proudly and promptly rebuilding on the site of the Twin Towers, we've committed ourselves to the hopeless, useless task of rebuilding Afghanistan. (Perhaps we should have built a mosque at Ground Zero -- the Saudis would've funded it.)

Instead of taking a firm stand against Islamist fanaticism, we've made a cult of negotiations -- as our enemies pursue nuclear weapons; sponsor terrorism; torture, imprison, rape and murder their own citizens -- and laugh at us.

Instead of insisting that Islam must become a religion of responsibility, our leaders in both parties continue to bleat that "Islam's a religion of peace," ignoring the curious absence of Baptist suicide bombers.

Instead of requiring new immigrants to integrate into our society and conform to its public values, we encourage and subsidize anti-American, woman-hating, freedom-denying bigotry in the name of toleration.

Instead of pursuing our enemies to the ends of the earth, we help them sue us.

We've dishonored our dead and whitewashed our enemies. A distinctly unholy alliance between fanatical Islamists abroad and a politically correct "elite" in the US has reduced 9/11 to the status of a non-event, a day for politicians to preen about how little they've done.

We've forgotten the shock and the patriotic fury Americans felt on that bright September morning eight years ago. We've forgotten our identification with fellow citizens leaping from doomed skyscrapers. We've forgotten the courage of airline passengers who would not surrender to terror.

We've forgotten the men and women who burned to death or suffocated in the Pentagon. We've forgotten our promises, our vows, our commitments.

We've forgotten what we owe our dead and what we owe our children. We've even forgotten who attacked us.

We have betrayed the memory of our dead. In doing so, we betrayed ourselves and our country. Our troops continue to fight -- when they're allowed to do so -- but our politicians have surrendered.

Are we willing to let the terrorists win?

Ralph Peters' new thriller, "The War After Armageddon," goes on sale next Tuesday.
Click to read the article and the comments

America, Canada , all Europe Needs a President like this!

2009-09-09T13:59:00.001-07:00

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - Australia

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.

Quote: 'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It.

I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians'.

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'. 'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom,

'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'

'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'

Maybe American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths. And the same goes for other groups of people that do not embrace the “American Way of Life”

Michael Ramirez's preview of Obama's speech tonight...

2009-09-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Click to view more of his work

Obama behaves like a two year old child...

2009-09-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Brainwashing you can believe in...

2009-09-09T06:09:00.000-07:00

September 09, 2009
By Neil Braithwaite
from American Thinker

When Barack Obama told a Missouri crowd last November, "We are five days from fundamentally changing the Unites States of America," he meant exactly what he said and had a plan to do just that.

What is so striking about that statement is that in order to "fundamentally change" America, Obama will have to destroy the foundation laid by the founding fathers and replace it with one that serves his socialist ideology.

Candidate Obama subtly prepared the American people for that fundamental change by using the campaign slogan, "Change we can believe in." However, when you take a closer look at President Obama's policies, that slogan would be better interpreted as, "Change what you believe in." Take "change what you believe in" a step further to its logical and more accurate definition and you come up with the term brainwashed.

A close look at the top two definitions of brainwashed, clearly illustrates how well the term actually defines what the Obama administration is trying to do to Americans.

1."Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a persons basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs."

2."The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation."

In light of that definition, it's really not that much of a stretch to call it brainwashing, considering a majority of Americans still believe in hard work, capitalism, low taxes, less government spending, and less government intervention into every aspect of their daily lives. The majority also doesn't believe in "man-made" global warming or that the government can efficiently administer a healthcare system without having to ration care and raise taxes to pay for it. So given that the majority of Americans don't actually believe in the socialist policies President Obama is pushing, brainwashing is the most accurate definition.

If using the term brainwashed seems over to top, then feel free to substitute "thought reform" or "re-educate," which was the English term used before the 1950's. They both elicit a less ominous tone but mean the same thing as brainwashed.

History shows that dictators, despots and rulers have been using brainwashing techniques for thousands of years. They used brainwashing techniques to try and maintain power, control populations, and ultimately, change and transform the behaviors and beliefs of select groups of people and even entire societies.

In the 1950's, Psychologist, Robert Jay Lifton, performed a most interesting study of Brainwashing on former Korean War and Chinese war camp prisoners.

Lifton's brainwashing study took place in a "controlled and threatening environment" devoid of "normal social reference points" designed to "add to the targets difficulty in thinking critically and independently." Our current economic condition more than qualifies as a "threatening environment," when you take into account this is the worst financial recession since the great depression, we have a President that is heaping trillions of dollars in debt on a virtually bankrupt system, and an economy with millions of people out of work and thousands more losing their jobs every day with no end in sight.

In his study, Lifton defined three stages involved in brainwashing used by the captors, beginning with an "attack" on a prisoner's sense of self and ending with what appeared to be "a change in beliefs." Lifton defined the three stages as, "breaking down the self, the possibility of salvation," and "rebuilding the self." There are strong parallels between Lifton's stages and President Obama's incremental political strategies to, in his own words, "fundamentally change" America.

The "breaking down the self" stage is being fulfilled by President Obama, his administration, all his surrogates and the liberal media as they continue hammering the idea that people who oppose his policies are un-American, evil doers, racists, hate mongers, and anti-environment. This stage also involves trying to elicit guilt, shame and doubt from his opponents by intimating that their core beliefs are harmful to the country and the planet. Obama is even eliciting religion by saying that those who oppose his health care reform plans are "bearing false witness."

The "possibility of salvation" stage is being accomplished mostly through President Obama's many nationally televised news briefings and speeches where he personally reiterates that the country is in an economic recession because of old ideas and past policies. He offers to help resolve the crisis while assuring his opponents that they are not intrinsically bad -- just their ideas. He then offers the American people kind words of healing, togetherness, and salvation if they will embrace his solutions to the problem.

The final "rebuilding the self" stage will prove to be the toughest test for the Obama administration to complete the brainwashing process. In this stage, President Obama must get his opposition to reject their old belief system and accept his. He must clearly define the choice between going back to the "old' way of doing things and having the same bad results, or choosing to move ahead by embracing the "change" he is offering which will not only bring relief to the current economic crisis, but instill a sense of individual pride, renewal, responsibility and patriotism.

What President Obama is trying to do to America is a very serious thing. It was evidenced when Rahm Emanuel said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." He was clearly referring to the current economic environment and how it could prepare millions of people to be receptive to Obama's socialist policies. When asked to elaborate on his "serious crisis" statement, Obama's Chief of Staff said, "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do the things you could not do before."

In order to succeed in doing "things you could not do before," and "fundamentally changing the Unites States of America," into a socialist state, President Obama knows there must be an environment conducive for his radical strategies to work. However, keeping America in a recession while incrementally brainwashing Americans to embrace his socialist ideology may prove much harder than even "the one" expected.

Americans are a proud and resilient people who, in difficult times, stick to their principles and always seem to bounce back and forge ahead -- stronger than before.

American pride is now showing itself through a huge groundswell of grassroots opposition to President Obama's socialist agenda through the Tea Party movement, mass participation in town hall meetings and other public protests around the country.

As long as Americans stay focused on the true foundations of this great country and not its radical socialist leader, they will never be brainwashed -- and America will continue to be the "Shining city on a hill" President Ronald Reagan spoke of in his farewell address to the nation.

Click to read the article and the comments

Another 1,000,000+ Guns Added to American Homes in August

2009-09-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

Background Checks On Firearm Sales Up 12% In August.Americans buy 1,074,757+ guns in August 2009

from Ammoland.com
September 9, 2009

Washington, DC --(AmmoLand.com)- Data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 1,074,757 checks in August 2009, a 12.3 percent increase from the 956,872 reported in August 2008.

So far that is roughly 9,076,205 gun bought this year! The total is probably more as NICS background checks may cover the purchase of more than one gun at a time.

This latest jump in background checks show that Americans are solidly in-favor of keeping firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens and clearly shows that proponents claiming the USA wants more gun control are blatantly wrong.

Gun Owners Say No to Gun Conrtol with their Wallets
The increased trend of Americans buying firearms at a record pace was once thought to be a one time fluke caused by fears of the new Obama administration expressed lust for more gun control. But now 10 months in and the wrongly named “fear buying” has now become the norm as law abiding US citizen exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear firearms by the millions every month with no sign of slowing down.

The bulk of the buying has been concentrated on the following types of guns or calibers:

•Semi Auto Handguns
•Revolvers
•Ar15s and all variants of the Black Rifle
•.50 Caliber

1.17 Guns for Each Person
Conservative estimates of legally owned guns in the USA put the number at 355,029,250 million guns in the USA. That is 1.17 guns for everyone in the USA and if you listen to the liberal press they are all assault weapons. God bless anyone who tries to invade the USA…

Crime Rates Falling
The most stunning in all of this is that we have not seen an increase in crime, murder rates have fallen across most of the USA and Americans have shown that they can be trusted with firearms ownership. This is directly in contrast to what the national media and gun control supporters would have us believe.

Gun owners you are clearly the majority!

Click to read the article and the comments

Pelosi is the ultimate hypocrit!

2009-08-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

2009-08-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Obama's Approval Index in a nose dive!!!!

2009-07-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be inactive until the end of August, but I just had to post this. Isn't it just a beautiful thing?
Rees

Suicide Bomber in Tehran - The Mullahs should be getting a little nervous...

2009-06-20T08:06:00.000-07:00

image by alligator

Saturday, June 20, 2009
from The Corner
by Jonah Goldberg

A blast at a Khomeini shrine, according to Reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up near the shrine of Iran's revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran on Saturday, Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

"A few minutes ago a suicide bomber blew himself up at the shrine," Mehr quoted a police official, Hossein Sajedinia, as saying.

Two other people were wounded in the incident in the northern wing of the shrine, another news agency, Fars, said.

I think some skepticism is in order about who's behind this incident.

Those Who Pay Taxes Need Not Apply...

2009-06-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

from Jammie Wearing Fool
June 19, 2009

Obama Appoints Another Tax Cheat

Ah, to be one of the beautiful people. Avoid paying taxes for two years, offer up some mealy-mouthed excuses and presto, you get a cushy State Department job from Barack Obama.

John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. One for the regular schlubs out there who obey the law and another for Obama and his crew of tax cheats.

President Obama’s choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November.

The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant.

Lame. Why not just say the dog ate them?
Ms. Marshall, who was the social secretary in the Clinton White House, notified the Obama administration about the late filings before she was nominated on May 14. She has since provided written answers to questions about the matter from Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold a hearing on the appointment next Wednesday. The post requires Senate confirmation.

Tax issues have bedeviled several high-level Obama appointees and cost the administration at least two of its picks.

Ms. Marshall may fare better because, after ultimately filing the 2005 and 2006 federal and local paperwork, she was entitled to $37,259 in refunds, according to data she provided to Mr. Lugar.
Just imagine a Republican appointee trying to get away with this.

Instapundit links. Thanks!Ed Morrissey also weighs in.

posted by JammieWearingFool @ 8:48 AM

Obama's 3 AM Phone Call - Best Cartoon of the Year!

2009-06-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

from Joshua Pundit
June 18, 2009

US boosts Hawaii defense to counter NKorea t

2009-06-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

from KSL.com
June 18th, 2009
By JAE-SOON CHANG
Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The United States has deployed anti-missile defenses around Hawaii amid reports that North Korea may fire its most advanced ballistic missile toward the U.S. islands early next month, adding to already high tensions in the region.

A report in a Japanese newspaper said Pyongyang might test-fire its Taepodong-2 toward Hawaii around the U.S. holiday of Independence Day. North Korea test-fired a similar long-range missile on July 4 three years ago, but it failed seconds after liftoff.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the additional defenses around Hawaii consist of a ground-based mobile missile system and a radar system nearby. Together they could shoot an incoming missile in mid air.

"Without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say ... we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect Americans and American territory," Gates told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

A new missile launch _ though not expected to reach U.S. territory _ would be a brazen slap in the face of the international community, which punished North Korea with new U.N. sanctions for conducting a second nuclear test on May 25 in defiance of a U.N. ban.

North Korea spurned the U.N. Security Council resolution with threats of war and pledges to expand its nuclear bomb-making program.

The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas _ with the owner country's approval _ if they believe the cargo contains banned weapons.

In what would be the first test case for the sanctions, the U.S. military has begun tracking a North Korean-flagged ship, Kang Nam, which left a port in North Korea on Wednesday, two U.S. officials said.

The ship, which may be carrying illicit weapons, was in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China on Thursday, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were discussing intelligence.

It was uncertain what the Kang Nam was carrying, but it has been involved in weapons proliferation before, one of the officials said.

The missile now being readied in the North is believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), and would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast sometime around July 4, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

It cited an analysis by Japan's Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

It speculated the missile could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, but would not be able to hit Hawaii's main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

A spokesman for the Japanese Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report. South Korea's Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service _ the country's main spy agency _ said they could not confirm it.

Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs are centerpieces of the regime's catalog of weapons of mass destruction.

But the impoverished nation, which has put most of its scarce resources into boosting its military capabilities under its "army-first" policy, also has a large chemical arsenal, as well as capabilities to produce biological weapons.

On Thursday, an international security think tank warned that North Korea's chemical weapons are no less serious a threat to the region than its nuclear arsenal.

The independent International Crisis Group said the North is believed to have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, phosgene, blood agents and sarin. These weapons can be delivered with ballistic missiles and long-range artillery and are "sufficient to inflict massive civilian casualties on South Korea."

"If progress is made on rolling back Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, there could be opportunities to construct a cooperative diplomatic solution for chemical weapons and the suspected biological weapons program," the think tank said in a report.

It also called on the U.S. to engage the North in dialogue to defuse the nuclear crisis, saying "diplomacy is the least bad option." It said Washington should be prepared to send a high-level special envoy to Pyongyang to resolve the tension.

Associated Press writers Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, and Anne Gearan, Pauline Jelinek and Jeannine Aversa in Washington contributed to this report.
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Obama’s popularity slips...

2009-06-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

image by rees
article from Don Surber
June 17, 2009

NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed his job approval is down to 56/34 in June from 61/30 in April.

To be sure, it is only 1 poll and the numbers are high. But it is still in keeping with most rookie presidents at this point in their careers.

“The shift, five months after Obama took office as president, follows continued bad news on the unemployment rate, which rose to 9.4 percent in May. Some 35 percent of those surveyed called unemployment the most important economic issue facing the country, up a bit from 33 percent in January,” CNBC reported.

On specific policies, he does not fare as well.

41% oppose eliminating waterboarding.
52% oppose closing Gitmo.
56% oppose the GM takeover.

69% are concerned about the federal government taking a greater role in the economy and health care.

39% say the stimulus was a bad idea (37% say it was a good idea).

53% oppose giving Chrysler and GM loans.

Asked “From what you have heard about Barack Obama’s health care plan, do you think his plan is a good idea or a bad idea?” 33% said good, 32% said bad.

There are cracks in Obama’s popularity. Please, don’t tell him.
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'American Idol' star's dad cited for patronizing prostitute

2009-06-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

June 17th, 2009
from KSL.com
By Ben Winslow

MIDVALE -- The father of "American Idol" runner-up and Utah favorite David Archuleta quietly settled a citation for patronizing a prostitute, court records show.

The case was handled in January in Midvale Justice Court. Records show James "Jeff" Archuleta, 41, pleaded no contest to patronizing a prostitute, a class B misdemeanor.

He entered what is called a plea in abeyance, which means that if he commits no further violations of the law, the case will be dismissed.

Court records show Midvale Justice Court Judge Ronald Wolthuis ordered Archuleta to attend a class called "Thinking Errors," and pay a $582 fine. He complied with those terms, court records show.

Archuleta is due in court again on June 30 for a review hearing where the case will likely be dismissed.

Midvale police did not return repeated calls for comment seeking information on the initial arrest.

Obama Attacked by Gigantic Fly - Peta Outraged

2009-06-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly

from KSL.com
June 17th, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants the flyswatter in chief to try taking a more humane attitude the next time he's bedeviled by a fly in the White House.

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

"We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals."

During an interview for CNBC at the White House on Tuesday, a fly intruded on Obama's conversation with correspondent John Harwood.

"Get out of here," the president told the pesky insect. When it didn't, he waited for the fly to settle, put his hand up and then smacked it dead.

"Now, where were we?" Obama asked Harwood. Then he added: "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker."

Friedrich said that PETA was pleased with Obama's voting record in the Senate on behalf of animal rights and noted that he has been outspoken against animal abuses.

Still, "swatting a fly on TV indicates he's not perfect," Friedrich said, "and we're happy to say that we wish he hadn't."

Deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House has no comment on the matter.
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Response To Netanyahu's Speech? - Intifada - Why of course!

2009-06-15T00:51:00.000-07:00

The following comment summarized the entire situation in basically one paragraph:

Palestinian response to speech? VIOLENCE. That's all they know. Notice that the response of the "peace loving" Palestinians is the threat of another intifada, more violence and bloodshed. They live by the sword, teach hatred, and are a society built on nothing but violence. They deserve nothing.
Daniel - USA (06/14/2009 23:04)

PA: Netanyahu has buried peace process
by Khaled Abu Toameh
June 15, 2009

Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah expressed outrage and shock on Sunday over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's call for the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The officials said that the speech that Netanyahu delivered at Bar-Ilan University was much worse than they had expected.

They also warned that Netanyahu's policies would trigger a new intifada.

Some of PA President Mahmoud Abbas's top advisers accused Netanyahu of "burying the peace process" and said the ball was now in the court of US President Barack Obama.

"Netanyahu's speech is a blow to Obama before it's a blow to the Palestinians and Arabs," an Abbas aide said. "It's obvious, in the aftermath of this speech, that we are headed toward another round of violence and bloodshed."

Abbas's office issued a terse statement in which it accused Netanyahu of destroying efforts to achieve peace in the region.

"The speech has destroyed all initiatives and expectations," the statement said. "It has also placed restrictions on all efforts to achieve peace and constitutes a clear challenge to the Palestinian, Arab and American positions."

Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Abbas, also lambasted Netanyahu for refusing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state and his call for solving the issue of Palestinian refugees outside Israel.

"Netanyahu's remarks won't lead to a just and comprehensive peace based on United Nations resolutions," Abu Rudaineh added.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official closely associated with Abbas, launched a scathing attack on Netanyahu, calling him a "swindler and liar."

Netanyahu wanted the Palestinians to join the Zionist movement by offering them a state under the protectorate of Israel, Abed Rabbo said. He also rejected Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The speech, Abed Rabbo said, was worthless and meaningless and hampered efforts to move forward toward a fair solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict.

"Netanyahu is creating tricks to sabotage the peace process," he said. "The response to Netanyahu must be firm."

Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat called on the Arab countries to suspend the Arab peace initiative in protest against Netanyahu's statements. "We were not surprised by this speech," he said. "It didn't come as a surprise to all those who are familiar with the Israeli mentality. It's time for the Arab world to announce a clear position toward Netanyahu's speech."
Click to read the rest of the article and the great comments

GLOBAL WARMING ALERT - June's chill in Chicago is one for the records

2009-06-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

The Global Warming/Global Cooling/Climate Change/Carbon Footprint/Carbon Dioxide/Cap and trade crowd should go hide for about 10 years just for embarrassing themselves so badly on the world stage.
Rees

from WGNTV.com
By Steve Kahnon in Chicago
article from June 12th

The cloudy, chilly and rainy open to June here has been the talk of the town. So far this June is running more than 12 degrees cooler than last year, and the clouds, rain and chilly lake winds have been persistent. The average temperature at O'Hare International Airport through Friday has been only 59.5 degrees: nearly 7 degrees below normal and the coldest since records there began 50 years ago.

More bad weather is on the way Saturday with a cold rain expected to linger through the bulk of the morning. Rainfall could be heavy -- especially north of the city, which would be a reversal of Thursday's deluge that targeted the southern suburbs.

Better days aheadEncouraging signs in recent computer runs signal a change to more typical June weather which by now should feature daily highs around 80 degrees. A return of sunshine should boost temperatures well into the 70s Sunday and Monday, though lake cooling will continue. By midweek a northward shift in the jet stream promises a steady diet of highs in the 80s, though showers and thunderstorms are likely to accompany the warm-up.
Click to read the article and the comments

Netanyahu endorses Palestinian State IF...

2009-06-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

from Yahoo News
by Josef Federman
Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions like demilitarization that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.

A week after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees giving up the goal of returning to Israel.

With those conditions, he said, he could accept "a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."

The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal as an attempt to determine the outcome of negotiations while maintaining Israeli settlements, refusing compromise over Jerusalem and ignoring the issue of borders. They also said that demilitarization would solidify Israeli control over them.

Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.

"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."

But in Washington, the White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an "important step forward."

Netanyahu's address had been eagerly anticipated in the wake of Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world.

His speech was a dramatic transformation for a man who was raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.

Many Israeli commentators speculated that after the re-election of Iran's hardline president, Netanyahu would focus the address on the threat of Iran's suspect nuclear program. While reiterating his belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is a grave threat, Netanyahu spent little time on the issue.

"I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions," he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him. "Let's make peace. I am willing to meet with you any time any place — in Damascus, Riyadh, Beirut and in Jerusalem."

Since assuming office in March, Netanyahu has been caught between American demands to begin peace talks with the Palestinians and the constraints of a hardline coalition. With his speech, he appeared to favor Israel's all-important relationship with the U.S. at the risk of destabilizing his government.

Netanyahu laid out his vision in a half-hour speech broadcast nationwide during prime time. He spoke at Bar-Ilan University, known as a bastion of the Israeli right-wing establishment, and his call for establishing a Palestinian state was greeted with lukewarm applause.

As Netanyahu spoke, two small groups of protesters demonstrated at the entrance to the university.

Several dozen hard-liners held up posters showing Obama wearing an Arab headdress and shouted slogans against giving up West Bank territory. Across from them, a few dozen dovish Israelis and foreign backers chanted slogans including "two states for two peoples" and "stop the occupation."

Police kept the two groups apart.

The Palestinians demand all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war.

Netanyahu, leader of the hardline Likud Party, has always resisted withdrawing from these lands, for both security and ideological reasons. In his speech, he repeatedly made references to Judaism's connection to the biblical Land of Israel.

"Our right to form our sovereign state here in the land of Israel stems from one simple fact. The Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people," he said.

But Netanyahu also said that Israel must recognize that millions of Palestinians live in the West Bank, and continued control over these people is undesirable. "In my vision, there are two free peoples living side by side each with each other, each with its own flag and national anthem," he said.

Netanyahu has said he fears the West Bank could follow the path of the Gaza Strip — which the Palestinians also claim for their future state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas militants now control the area, often firing rockets into southern Israel.

"In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel," he said.

"If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state," he said.

Netanyahu became the latest in a series of Israeli hard-liners to soften their positions after assuming office. Earlier this decade, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led Israel out of Gaza before suffering a debilitating stroke. His successor, Ehud Olmert, spoke eloquently of the need to withdraw from the West Bank, though a corruption scandal a disastrous war in Lebanon prevented him from carrying out that vision.

Netanyahu gave no indication as to how much captured land he would be willing to relinquish. However, he ruled out a division of Jerusalem, saying, "Israel's capital will remain united."

Netanyahu also made no mention of uprooting Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem. He also said that existing settlements should be allowed to grow — a position opposed by the U.S.

"We have no intention to build new settlements or expropriate land for expanding existing settlements. But there is a need to allow residents to lead a normal life. Settlers are not the enemy of the nation and are not the enemy of peace — they are our brothers and sisters," he said.

Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinians have refused to do so, fearing it would amount to giving up the rights of millions of refugees and their descendants and be discriminatory to Israel's own Arab minority.

Erekat said Netanyahu's plan was unacceptable since it effectively imposes a solution on the core issues of the conflict.

"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," he said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain."

Although the Palestinians have agreed to demilitarization under past peace proposals, Erekat rejected it, saying it would cement Israeli rule over them.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, another Palestinian official, called on the U.S. to challenge Netanyahu "to prevent more deterioration in the region."

"What he has said today is not enough to start a serious peace process," he added.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the speech "racist" and called on Arab nations "form stronger opposition" toward Israel. Hamas ideology does not recognize a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.

Netanyahu also came under criticism from within his own government — a coalition of religious and nationalistic parties that oppose Palestinian independence.

Zevulun Orlev, a member of the Jewish Home Party, which represents Jewish settlers and other hard-liners, said Netanyahu's speech violated agreements struck when the government was formed. "I think the coalition needs to hold a serious discussion to see where this is headed," he told Israel Radio.

Israeli media speculated that Netanyahu might turn to the centrist Kadima Party, which heads the parliamentary opposition, to shore up his government if the coalition falls apart.

Kadima, the largest party in parliament, denied a report that there were secret talks with Netanyahu over the matter ahead of the speech.

Israel's ceremonial president, Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres, called the speech "real and brave."

Israel No Longer Under U.S. Nuclear Umbrella Per Clinton

2009-06-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

Clinton Reverses: Israel on its Own With Iran
from Israel National News
June 14, 2009

(IsraelNN.com) In a reversal of her stated position as a presidential candidate, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed last week that an Iranian attack on Israel would no longer be considered as an attack on America. Speaking during an interview on ABC TV she said that the Iranians could expect “retaliation” but America was not committing itself to come to Israel's defense. Interviewer and White House Correspondent George Stephanopoulos reminded Clinton of her previous position by playing a 2008 video recording in which she states: "I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States.”

When asked if her new statement was official U.S. policy, Clinton dodged the question, "I think it is U.S. policy to the extent that we have alliances and understandings with a number of nations. I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that, were Israel to suffer a nuclear attack by Iran, there would be retaliation." Stephanopoulos pressed her: "By the United States?" But Clinton declined to commit: "Well, I think there would be retaliation.”
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NKorea warns of nuclear war - Obama says nothing to worry about!

2009-06-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

from Yahoo News
by Hyung-jin Kim
Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea's communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.

The North's defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South Korean counterpart on the North's missile and nuclear programs.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told security-related ministers during an unscheduled meeting Sunday to "resolutely and squarely" cope with the North's latest threat, his office said. Lee is to leave for the U.S. on Monday morning.

A commentary Sunday in the North's main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.

North Korea "is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world," the Tongil Sinbo commentary said.

Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, called the latest accusation "baseless," saying Washington has no nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War. [If we don't have any tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, we better hurry and get some there, otherwise the North Koreans could literally overun South Korea just by the amount of troops they have stationed at the DMZ. - my comment]

South Korea's Unification Ministry issued a statement Sunday demanding the North stop stoking tension, abandon its nuclear weapons and return to dialogue with the South.

On Saturday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North's latest nuclear test.

It is not clear if the statements are simply rhetorical. Still, they are a huge setback for international attempts to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions following its second nuclear test on May 25. It first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

In Saturday's statement, North Korea said it has been enriching uranium to provide fuel for its light-water reactor. It was the first public acknowledgment the North is running a uranium enrichment program in addition to its known plutonium-based program. The two radioactive materials are key ingredients in making atomic bombs.

On Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported South Korea and the U.S. have mobilized spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and human intelligence networks to obtain evidence that the North has been running a uranium enrichment program.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report. The National Intelligence Service — South Korea's main spy agency — was not available for comment.

North Korea said more than one-third of 8,000 spent fuel rods in its possession has been reprocessed and all the plutonium extracted would be used to make atomic bombs. The country could harvest 13-18 pounds (6-8 kilograms) of plutonium — enough to make at least one nuclear bomb — if all the rods are reprocessed.

In addition, North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention.

The new U.N. sanctions are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its rogue nuclear program. The resolution also authorized searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the new U.N. penalties provide the necessary tools to help check North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. [Barry and Hillary are living in a dream world - my comments]

The sanctions show that "North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community," Clinton said Saturday at a news conference in Canada.
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Criminally Useful Idiocy - with more on the way...

2009-06-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

image by rees

article from Power Line Blog
June 14, 2009
by Paul

On Friday, President Obama had this to say about the election in Iran:

We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran. Whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact there has been a robust debate hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways.
This was an extremely foolish comment for at least two reasons. First, the debate in Iran was circumscribed. The candidates were screened by the mullahs. Four were permitted to run; hundreds were deemed insufficiently in tune with the "Revolution." And there appars to have little or no debate on the issue of primary concern to the U.S. -- Iran's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad's main rival, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, was in full agreement with the regime on this matter.

Second, there was always a strong possibility of election fraud. Robust debate, even had it existed, would be meaningless in the face of a fraudulent election. Thus, Obama should not have lauded the election, much less characterized it as advancing our ability to engage Iran in new ways, until he was satisfied that the election was honest. A fraudulent election in which the existing, intransigent regime claims a landslide victory will not advance our ability to engage in Iran in new ways.

A day later, it seems clear that the election was fraudulent. U.S. officials have said as much off-the-record. They find it "not credible" that Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total vote.

So Obama has praised an election that appears to have been a travesty. It's difficult to see how either Iran's rulers or its dissidents can view him as other than a fool -- usefully so in the case of the rulers; criminally so in the case of the dissidents.

Hey Obama: That "Robust" Iranian Election Debate That "Excited" You Turned Into Violent Riots!

2009-06-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

In a Reuters news article on Friday, June 12th, the headline was "Obama excited by Iran's robust election debate." Hey Barry, how do you feel now about the "robust" riots that are taking place and the protestors that are being beaten by the Revolutionary Guards?
Rees

Ahmadinejad's victory greeted by Tehran protests

from Reuters
June 13, 2009
By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters clashed with police after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won an election which his reformist challenger called a "dangerous charade."

The protests were a rare direct challenge to Iranian authorities. The result and its violent aftermath raised fresh questions about the direction of Iranian policies at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama wants to improve relations with Iran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranians to respect Ahmadinejad's victory, which upset expectations that reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi might win the race.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, an Ahmadinejad ally, declared the president had been re-elected with 62.6 percent of the vote, against 33.7 percent for Mousavi.

Mousavi complained of violations and vote-rigging -- allegations rejected by Interior Ministry officials.

"I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardize the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny," Mousavi said in a statement made available to Reuters.

After the result was announced, thousands of his supporters took to the streets, some chanting, "What happened to our vote?." Others shouted anti-Ahmadinejad slogans. "We are Iranians too," and "Mousavi is our president," they shouted.

Police beat protesters with batons as they spread out across the capital. Small fires burned at roadsides.

Though the protests were small compared to the mass demonstrations that led to the 1979 Islamic revolution, they were the most widespread in the city since then.

Khamenei, Iran's top authority, told defeated candidates and their supporters to avoid "provocative behavior."

"The chosen and respected president is the president of all the Iranian nation and everyone, including yesterday's competitors, must unanimously support and help him," Khamenei said in a statement read on state television.

Ahmadinejad, in a televised address to the nation, said the election had been "free and healthy."

Iranian and Western analysts said Ahmadinejad's re-election would disappoint Western powers aiming to convince Iran to halt a nuclear program they suspect is aimed at making bombs.

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AhmadiCorn Takes Credit For Ahmadinejad's Victory!

2009-06-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

image by rees

from MSNBC.com
June 13, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran - Opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police in the heart of Iran's capital Saturday, pelting them with rocks and setting fires in the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. They accused the hard-line president of using fraud to steal election victory from his reformist rival.

The brazen and angry confrontations — including stunning scenes of masked rioters tangling with black-clad police — pushed the self-styled reformist movement closer to a possible moment of truth: Whether to continue defying Iran's powerful security forces or, as they often have before, retreat into quiet dismay and frustration over losing more ground to the Islamic establishment.

But for at least one day, the tone and tactics were more combative than at any time since authorities put down student-led protests in 1999. Young men hurled stones and bottles at anti-riot units and mocked Ahmadinejad as an illegitimate leader. The reformists' new hero, Mir Hossein Mousavi, declared himself the true winner of Friday's presidential race and urged backers to resist a government based on "lies and dictatorship."

Authorities, too, pushed back with ominous measures apparently seeking to undercut liberal voices: jamming text messages, blocking pro-Mousavi Web sites and Facebook and cutting off mobile phones in Tehran.

Reformist leaders arrested
The extent of possible casualties and detentions was not immediately clear. Police stormed the headquarters of Iran's largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, and arrested several top reformist leaders, said political activists close to the party.The activists spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Mousavi did not appear in public, but warned in a Web message: "People won't respect those who take power through fraud."

Many backers took this call to the streets. Thousands of protesters — mostly young men — roamed through Tehran looking for a fight with police and setting trash bins and tires ablaze. Pillars of black smoke rose among the mustard-colored apartment blocks and office buildings in central Tehran. In one side road, an empty bus was engulfed in flames.

Police fought back with clubs, including mobile squads on motorcycles swinging truncheons.

The scuffles began when protesters gathered hours outside the Interior Ministry around the time officials announced the final election results showing a nearly 2-to-1 landslide for Ahmadinejad. Demonstrators chanted "the government lied" and waved the ribbons of Mousavi's "green" movement — the signature color of his youth-driven campaign.

"I won't surrender to this manipulation," said a statement on Mousavi's Web site. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system and governance of lies and dictatorship."

No compromise
The door for possible compromise was closed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He could have used his near-limitless powers to intervene in the election dispute. But, in a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "divine assessment."

There are no independent election monitors in Iran. Mousavi's claims, however, point to some noticeable breaks with past election counting.

The tallies from previous elections — time-consuming paper ballots — began to trickle in hours after polls closed. This time, huge chunks of results — millions at a time — poured in almost immediately from a huge turnout of about 85 percent of Iran's 46.2 million voters. The final outcome: 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 for Mousavi, a former prime minister from the 1980s.

The U.S. refused to accept Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory said it was looking into allegations of election fraud.

U.S. watching outcome
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she hoped the outcome reflects the "genuine will and desire" of Iranian voters. At a joint appearance with Clinton, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his country was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities in the election.

Past Iranian elections were considered generally fair. In 2005, when Ahmadinejad was first elected, the losing candidates claimed irregularities at the polls, but the charges were never investigated.

"The majority of Iranians are certain that the fraud is widespread," said Tehran-based analyst Saeed Leilaz. "It's like taking 10 million votes away from Mousavi and giving them to Ahmadinejad."

Much depends on how much they are willing to risk. The heartland of Iran's liberal ranks is the educated and relatively affluent districts of north Tehran. It's also the showcase for the gains in social freedoms that began with the election of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997: makeup, Internet cafes, head scarves that barely cover hair and satellite dishes that are technically illegal but common.

The ruling clerics tolerate all that to a point — part of a tacit arrangement that the liberties stay as long as reformists remain politically meek. A real protest movement could threaten their coveted Western-looking lifestyle and risk a brutal response from groups vowing to defend the Islamic system.

The political chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guard has warned it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic regime by Mousavi's "green movement" — drawing parallels to the "velvet revolution" of 1989 in then-Czechoslovakia.

Foreign media blamed
Ahmadinejad accused the foreign media of producing coverage that harmed the Iranian people, saying "a large number of foreign media ... organized a full-fledged fight against our people."

Authorities also called foreign journalists with visas to cover the elections, including members of The Associated Press, and told them they should prepare to leave the country. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi's headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman's tapes, the station said.

"The massive demonstrations of police and army presence on the streets was designed to show that they were quite ready to kill protesters if they had to in order to impose order," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "On the whole, these guys in north Tehran who are terribly upset about what is happening are not ready to die."

Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, denounced the outcome as "a Tehran Tiananmen" — a reference to China's brutal 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists — and urged the international community not to recognize the result.

There were also protests by Mousavi supporters in the southern city of Ahvaz in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan who shouted, "Mousavi, take our votes back!" witnesses said.

Talking tough
Mousavi called on his backers to avoid violence, but he is still talking tough about pressing his claims of election fraud. He charges the polls closed early but has not fully outlined all of his fraud allegations.

Unlike his ally Khatami, Mousavi is a hardened political veteran who led the country during the grim years of the 1980-88 war with Iraq. He also could join forces with the powerful political patriarch Heshemi Rafsanjani, who strongly opposed Ahmadinejad's re-election during the intense monthlong campaign.

Amjad Atallah, a Washington-based regional analyst, called it "one of the most existential moments" in Iran since 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"You can't overstate how important what is happening now is for Iran," he said.

In Tehran, several Ahmadinejad supporters cruised the streets at dawn waving Iranian flags out of car windows and shouting "Mousavi is dead!"

They were quickly overwhelmed by the Mousavi backers.

The protesters — some hiding their faces with masks — still wandered the streets after nightfall

as some fires still burned. The pungent smell of burning rubber and smoldering trash lingered in some parts of the city.

Hundreds of anti-riot police blocked the streets leading to Tehran University's dormitory, home to thousands of students and the site of the 1999 student riots that marked the biggest disturbances in post-revolution Iran. University exams nationwide were postponed until next month.

Normal life amid clashes
Oddly, normal life was interspersed with the anger. People continued shopping and stores remained open.

With the Internet and mobile texting down, some Iranians turned to Twitter to voice their views.

"Very disappointed with Iran elections," said one entry."Apparently still a backward regressive nation."

Another: "Elections in Iran: stayed tuned as it gets interesting (& maybe scary)."

Ahmadinejad addressed a crowd in Tehran, but did not mention the unrest, saying only "a new era has begun in the history of the Iranian nation."

But there were no hints of any new policy shifts on key international issues such as Iran's standoff over its nuclear program and the offer by President Barack Obama to open dialogue after a nearly 30-year diplomatic estrangement. All high-level decisions are controlled by the ruling theocracy.
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Fiery Crash Involving Ammunition Created Deadly Scenario

2009-06-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

1 killed, 1 critically injured in I-80 wreck

from KSL.com
June 13th, 2009

TOOELE -- Crews are working to clear up a fiery, fatal accident on Interstate 80 near the Salt Lake-Tooele County line. Live ammunition on the road is making the cleanup difficult and traffic is backed up for miles.

Utah Highway Patrol says around 11 a.m. an eastbound Dodge Dakota pickup truck collided with a Fed-Ex truck near milepost 102, where westbound S.R. 201 meets westbound I-80.

Both vehicles were engulfed in flames at one point.

The driver of the pickup died; the driver of the Fed-Ex truck was airlifted to Intermountain Medical Center in critical condition.

UHP's Sgt. Jeff Nigbur says the Fed-Ex truck was pulling three trailers. The first trailer contained ammunition which has been going off periodically, making it unsafe for crews to open lanes of traffic.

The interstate is closed in both directions. Nigbur says it may take another three to four hours to reopen it.

Westbound I-80 traffic reportedly is backed up for eight to 10 miles. One lane of eastbound traffic has been open intermittently.

The accident is under investigation.

Stay with KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM and KSL.com for updates on this developing story.

Riots In Iran Over Election Results - Riot like it's 1999

2009-06-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

image from AP - modified by rees

I didn't think they would even allow riots to happen. I thought they would be shooting people in the street. Well, I guess this is the new modern Iran. (Actually, they'll arrest them, take them out of sight of the press and then shoot them.)
Rees

Clashes erupt in Iran over disputed election

from KSL.com
June 13th, 2009
By Ali Akbar Dareini and Anna Johnson
Associated Press Writers

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires Saturday as authorities claimed the hard-line president was re-elected in a landslide. The rival candidate said the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and his followers responded with the most serious unrest in the capital in a decade.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door on any chance he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the disputes from Friday's election. In a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "divine assessment."

Several hundred demonstrators, many wearing the trademark green colors of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign chanted "the government lied to the people" and gathered near the Interior Ministry as the final count from Friday's presidential election was announced.

It gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 to Mousavi _ a former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.

Mousavi rejected the result as rigged and urged his supporters to resist a government of "lies and dictatorship."

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," said a statement on Mousavi's Web site. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system and governance of lies and dictatorship," it added.

Mousavi warned "people won't respect those who take power through fraud." The headline on one of his Web sites read: "I won't give in to this dangerous manipulation."

Mousavi appealed directly to Khamenei to intervene and stop what he said were violations of the law. Khamenei, who is not elected, holds ultimate political authority in Iran and controls all major policy decisions.

Mousavi and key aides could not be reached by phone.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. hopes the outcome of the election reflects the "genuine will and desire" of the Iranian people. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. administration is paying close attention to reports of alleged election irregularities.

At a joint appearance with Clinton, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his country was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities in the election.

The clashes in central Tehran were the more serious disturbances in the capital since student-led protests in 1999. They showed the potential for the showdown to spill over into further violence and challenges to the Islamic establishment.

The demonstrations began Saturday morning shortly before the government announced the final results.

Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.

An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi's headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman's tapes, the station said.

In another main street of Tehran, some 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain and chanted "Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone." There was no word on any casualties from the unrest.

It was not clear how many Iranians were even aware of Mousavi's claims of fraud. Communications disruptions began in the later hours of voting Friday _ suggesting an information clampdown. State television and radio only broadcast the Interior Ministry's vote count and not Mousavi's midnight news conference.

Nationwide, the text messaging system remained down Saturday and several pro-Mousavi Web sites were blocked or difficult to access. Text messaging is frequently used by many Iranians _ especially young Mousavi supporters _ to spread election news.

Mousavi's campaign headquarters urged people to show restraint.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, who supervised the elections and heads the nation's police forces, warned people not to join any "unauthorized gatherings."

The powerful Revolutionary Guard cautioned Wednesday it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic regime by Mousavi's "green movement." The Revolutionary Guard is directly under the control of the ruling clerics and has vast influence in every corner of the country through a network of volunteer militias.

Even before the vote counting began, Mousavi declared himself "definitely the winner" based on "all indications from all over Iran." He accused the government of "manipulating the people's vote" to keep Ahmadinejad in power and suggested the reformist camp would stand up to challenge the results.

"It is our duty to defend people's votes. There is no turning back," he said, alleging widespread irregularities.

Mousavi's backers were stunned at the Interior Ministry's claim that Ahmadinejad won after widespread predictions of a close race _ or even a slight edge for the reformist candidate.

Turnout was a record 85 percent of the 46.2 million eligible voters.

"Many Iranians went to the people because they wanted to bring change," said Mousavi supporter Nasser Amiri, a hospital clerk in Tehran. "Almost everybody I know voted for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner. The government announcement is nothing but widespread fraud. It is very, very disappointing. I'll never ever again vote in Iran."

At Tehran University _ the site of the last major anti-regime unrest in Tehran in 1999 _ the academic year was winding down and there was no sign of pro-Mousavi crowds. But university exams, scheduled to begin Saturday, were postponed until next month around the country.

Ahmadinejad planned a public address later Saturday in Tehran.

In the capital, several Ahmadinejad supporters cruised the streets waving Iranian flags out of car windows and shouting "Mousavi is dead!"

The election outcome will not sharply alter Iran's main policies or sway major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies. Those crucial issues rest with the ruling clerics headed by Khamenei.

But the election focused on what the office can influence: boosting Iran's sinking economy, pressing for greater media and political freedoms, and being Iran's main envoy to the world.

Iran does not allow international election monitors. During the 2005 election, when Ahmadinejad won the presidency, there were some allegations of vote rigging from losers, but the claims were never investigated.

Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi contributed to this report from Tehran.
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Obama's First Miracle - he conveniently found savings to pay for National Healthcare!

2009-06-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

Obama's Healthcare Plan will be one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated upon the American People.

from Yahoo News
by Josh Gerstein
June 13, 2009

President Barack Obama says he's now found savings that will pay almost all the costs of a massive overhaul of America's health care system.

Obama on Saturday is announcing an additional $313 billion in new proposed savings that he says would bring the total funding available for his top-priority health insurance reform to nearly $950 billion over 10 years.

White House officials insisted the new savings were rock-solid, but also acknowledged they had yet to settle on a specific mechanism to achieve lower prescription drug costs that make up nearly one-quarter of the new savings.

“Any honest accounting must prepare for the fact that health care reform will require additional costs in the short term in order to reduce spending in the long term,” Obama says in his weekly radio and Internet address. “Today, I am announcing an additional $313 billion in savings that will rein in unnecessary spending, and increase efficiency and the quality of care.”

The new proposals from Obama came as the drive for health care reform reaches a pivotal juncture in Congress. On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to receive Congressional Budget Office estimates on a slew of health-care options. On Wednesday, the committee is expected to unveil proposed legislation.

In advance of those milestones, the White House was moving aggressively to counter public criticism that funding plans for the health reform effort are unrealistic, particularly in the face of an expected 10-year pricetag of $1 trillion or more. Some analysts have faulted the White House for being overly optimistic about savings and tone-deaf to which tax-raising proposals are likely to fly in Congress.

In his address Saturday, Obama refers to a 10-year total of more than $600 billion in “savings” for health care. However, he does not explain in his latest comments that, under his revised budget released last month, $326 billion of that amount would come from tax hikes on Americans making over $250,000 a year, “loophole closers,” and higher fees for some government services.

In a conference call with reporters Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said the latest announcement signaled that the White House had met its obligation to identify funding sources for a broad-based effort to make health insurance more affordable and more widely available.

“We are making good on this promise to fully finance health care reform over the next decade,” Orszag declared.

The bulk of the new $313 billion in savings would come from cutting or reducing the growth of payments to hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers and laboratories — though the major cuts don't target doctors, Orszag said.

Over the next decade, $110 billion is slated to come from reducing reimbursements to take account of what Orszag described as the ability of providers to improve their efficiency. “Health care services should be able to achieve and do achieve productivity improvements over time,” he said. According to a fact sheet released by the White House, future increases in such Medicare payments would be reduced based on an assumption that health care providers achieve half the productivity increases seen elsewhere in the economy. The budget official said the reductions would take place even if providers failed to garner the projected efficiencies.

Another $106 billion would come from cuts in so-called disproportionate share payments the federal government makes to hospitals with large numbers of uninsured patients. “As the ranks of uninsured decline under health reform, those payments become less necessary,” Orszag said.

About $75 billion is slated to come from lower payments for prescription drugs. However, Orszag said the White House was “in discussions with stakeholders over the best way of achieving that $75 billion.”

Notwithstanding that ambiguity, Orszag asserted that the White House had put forward $950 billion in budgetary offsets that could be use to fund health reform. He called the proposals "hard" and "scoreable," meaning that they were sufficiently certain and specific to pass muster with CBO officials who formally tally the cost of budget items.

Asked about the discrepancy, Orszag said, “There’s been continuous skepticism that we will come forward with detail….The detail on the $75 billion for prescription drugs will be forthcoming in the very near future and I will rest my reputation as a former CBO director on the fact that there are multiple ways in which those savings can be achieved and we are committed to achieving that level of savings in this package.”

There were signs that the announcement of the additional $313 billion of savings may have been rushed. In addition to the vagueness about the $75 billion in lower drug costs, the White House’s health care reform coordinator, Nancy-Ann DeParle, did not join a conference call with reporters to announce the new proposals. Her presence had been advertised in advance, but a spokesman said she was in another meeting and could not participate.

The cuts and savings are likely to engender warnings from providers that de-facto rationing will occur as patients in some areas find themselves unable to find providers willing to perform lab tests, X-rays and the like, due to the lower reimbursement rates.

Hospitals are also likely to protest that the disproportionate share payments, which are targeted for cuts of 75 percent, are vital to maintaining hospitals in costly urban centers, and to keeping teaching hospitals viable.

“It is unlikely to be an exact match on a hospital-by-hospital basis but what we believe will occur is that the remaining DSH payments that will still exist can be better targeted to the hospitals most in need,” Orszag said.

Kim Jong iL responds to new sanctions

2009-06-13T01:57:00.000-07:00

image by rees

from The Wall Street Journal
Asia News
June 13, 2009

North Korea to Restart Uranium Enrichment

Associated Press SEOUL -- North Korea vowed on Saturday to embark on a uranium enrichment program and "weaponize" all the plutonium in its possession as it rejected the new U.N. sanctions meant to punish the communist nation for its recent nuclear test.

North Korea also said it would not abandon its nuclear programs, saying it was an inevitable decision to defend itself from what it says is a hostile U.S. policy and its nuclear threat against the North.

The North will take "resolute military action" if the United States or its allies try to impose any "blockade" on it, the ministry said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

The ministry did not elaborate if the blockade refers to an attempt to stop its ships or impose sanctions.

North Korea describes its nuclear program as a deterrent against possible U.S. attacks. Washington says it has no intention of attacking and has expressed fear that North Korea is trying to sell its nuclear technology to other nations.

The statement came hours after the U.N. Security Council approved tough new sanctions on North Korea to punish it for its latest nuclear test on May 25.

The U.N. resolution imposes new sanctions on the reclusive communist nation's weapons exports and financial dealings, and allows inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas.

The South Korean government said it "welcomes and supports the unanimous adoption of the resolution." A Foreign Ministry statement said it showed the council's unequivocal intention to stop the North's nuclear program and its proliferation.

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Obama: America's first Muslim president? - and it's last?

2009-06-13T00:13:00.000-07:00

image from rees

from The Jewish World Review
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/

During his White House years, William Jefferson Clinton — someone Judge Sonia Sotomayor might call a "white male" — was dubbed "America's first black president" by a black admirer. Applying the standard of identity politics and pandering to a special interest that earned Mr. Clinton that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America's first Muslim president.

This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been made" — in this case by him and his campaign handlers — of the fact that he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright.

With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself. Consider the following indicators:

Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to "the Holy Koran." Non-Muslims — even pandering ones — generally don't use that Islamic formulation.

Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing in the faith) with the statement, "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." Again, "revealed" is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of G-d, as dictated to Muhammad.

Then the president made a statement no believing Christian — certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam — would ever make. In the context of what he euphemistically called the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs," Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day "…when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."
Now, the term "peace be upon them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men. According to Islam, that is what all three were — dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of G0d.

In the final analysis, it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim. In the Speech and elsewhere, he has aligned himself with adherents to what authoritative Islam calls Shariah — notably, the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood — to a degree that makes Mr. Clinton's fabled affinity for blacks pale by comparison.

For example, Mr. Obama has — from literally his inaugural address onward — inflated the numbers and, in that way and others, exaggerated the contemporary and historical importance of Muslim-Americans in the United States. In the Speech, he used the Brotherhood's estimates of "nearly 7 million Muslims" in this country, at least twice the estimates from other, more reputable sources. (Who knows? By the time Mr. Obama's friends in the radical Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) perpetrate their trademark books-cooking as deputy 2010 census takers, the official count may well claim considerably more than 7 million Muslims are living here.)

Even more troubling were the commitments the president made in Cairo to promote Islam in America. For instance, he declared: "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." He vowed to ensure that women can cover their heads, including, presumably, when having their photographs taken for passports, driver's licenses or other identification purposes. He also pledged to enable Muslims to engage in zakat, their faith's requirement for tithing, even though four of the eight types of charity called for by Shariah can be associated with terrorism. Not surprisingly, a number of Islamic "charities" in this country have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.

Particularly worrying is the realignment Mr. Obama has announced in U.S. policy toward Israel. While he pays lip service to the "unbreakable" bond between America and the Jewish state, the president has unmistakably signaled that he intends to compel the Israelis to make territorial and other strategic concessions to Palestinians to achieve the hallowed two-state solution. In doing so, he ignores the inconvenient fact that both the Brotherhood's Hamas and Abu Mazen's Fatah remain determined to achieve a one-state solution, whereby the Jews will be driven "into the sea."

Whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim or simply plays one in the presidency may, in the end, be irrelevant. What is alarming is that in aligning himself and his policies with those of Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the president will greatly intensify the already enormous pressure on peaceful, tolerant American Muslims to submit to such forces — and heighten expectations, here and abroad, that the rest of us will do so as well.

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New Sanctions on North Korea are a JOKE!

2009-06-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

image by rees

The new U.N. sanctions approve inspecting North Korean Cargo. However, it has to be a "consensual" inspection. That means that if the Captain of the ship or the aircraft does not agree to the inspection, it won't happen. We'll just end up saying to the Captain, "Thanks, sorry to have bothered you, we hope you and your crew will have a great rest of the day" and then we'll have to leave!. Yep, that's it.

Even this article even mentions that North Korea will probably ignore this. I don't think it's probably, I think it's "they will" ignore it. The United Nations provided no means to enforce the inspection of cargo. I would be shocked if we even try to inspect any cargo. If we do, how many times of be told "NO" will it take before we're back at the U.N. trying to fix this pathetic excuse for a sanction. It won't be fixed. The only reason Russia and China supported it was because it was purposely written to be unenforceable. I wouldn't be surprised if China didn't call Kim Jong Il ahead of time and say, "look we're going to vote to approve these new sanctions against you, but don't worry, because no one is going to enforce them."

Susan Rice probably already sprained her arms patting herself on the back, because I'm sure she's got to be real proud of herself.

Hey Susan: The sanctions aren't worth the paper their printed on. Kim Jong Il is laughing at you, Obama and the rest of the United Nations.
Rees

United Nations approves new sanctions against North Korea and China Warns Against Force in Carrying Out the new Sanctions

from Bloomberg
By Peter S. Green and Bill Varner

June 13 (Bloomberg) -- China warned about the dangers involved in inspecting North Korean cargo under United Nations Security Council sanctions approved yesterday, saying countries intercepting vessels should avoid armed action.

“Under no circumstance should there be the use of force or the threat of use of force” in implementing the sanctions in Resolution 1874, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui said in New York. Inspecting vessels carrying North Korean cargo is “complicated” and “sensitive,” he said.

The Security Council voted 15 to O to punish North Korea for its May nuclear-bomb test and missile launches. The resolution authorizes stepped-up inspection of air or sea cargoes suspected of being destined for the development of nuclear arms or ballistic missiles. The measure also calls for new restrictions on loans and money transfers to North Korea.

China’s support for the penalties may be significant given its close political and trade ties with the reclusive North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il. The U.S. is especially concerned about preventing North Korea from selling its nuclear technology to other countries.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said at a White House briefing that the sanctions have “teeth that will bite.” She pointed out that the resolution doesn’t authorize the use of military force.

The U.S. is prepared to “confront” a vessel suspected of carrying an illegal shipment and attempt to board it “consensually,” Rice told reporters. If the crew refuses a boarding or to go to a nearby port for an inspection, the U.S. would make clear “whose vessel it is” and the likely cargo, “to shine a spotlight on it, to make it very difficult for that contraband to continue to be carried forward,” Rice added.

China, Russia Support

The UN vote followed almost three weeks of negotiations on tighter sanctions that began when North Korea detonated a suspected nuclear device on May 25, voided the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War and tested several missiles. Accord on the text by China and Russia, which have resisted sanctions, led to the Security Council consensus.

“The additional measures are substantive and targeted in nature and clearly tied to ending the DPRK program to create nuclear missiles,” Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said after the vote. “The attempt by the DPRK to create nuclear missiles not only doesn’t strengthen security but on the contrary ratchets up tension on the Korean peninsula.”

Churkin said his country was satisfied by the unanimous adoption of the resolution against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK. He said the Russians made sure that the provisions for checking ships on the high seas wouldn’t set a precedent, and that he hoped the resolution would steer North Korea back to six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

Resolution’s ‘Bite’

“It is significant that China and Russia are willing to increase the language on interdiction and financial sanctions, but the resolution will not have that much bite if there is no implementation,” Nicholas Szechenyi of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

Szechenyi said that while enforcement by China is critical to the resolution’s effectiveness, the government in Beijing likely will be reluctant to further provoke North Korea in the midst of a tenuous political situation involving the possible succession to Kim’s dictatorship.

“Though North Korea’s recent behavior has angered the Chinese, causing them to lose face, you might suspect they would opt against enforcing the strongest measures,” Szechenyi said. “I would not expect them to take the lead and, without that, this is something that North Korea could well ignore.”

‘Acutely Concerned’

Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, the American special envoy on North Korea, said this week that China is “acutely concerned about what North Korea is doing,” and that the U.S. is satisfied that China is working to rein in North Korea’s behavior.

The measure “cuts off a significant source of funding for the North Korean nuclear and missile programs,” said Philip Parham, U.K. deputy envoy to the UN. “This is not directed against trade and should have no effect on the already hard- pressed people of North Korea.”

The UN’s previously adopted embargo on tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons would be expanded, and the measure asks for vigilance in the sale of light arms to the regime.

On the money front, member nations are urged “not to enter into new commitments for grants, financial assistance, or concessional loans,” or to “provide public financial support for trade” with North Korea.

If North Korea reacts to the strengthened sanctions by testing a third nuclear device or launching another long-range missile, “we’d take it badly,” Parham said.
Nonproliferation Treaty

The resolution “condemns” the May 25 detonation, and demands that North Korea halt its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The government in Pyongyang also should remain a part to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and rejoin talks with China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

Bosworth said this week that the U.S. is considering targeting North Korean financial deposits held in other countries as part of the effort to compel the regime to change its behavior.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Varner at the United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net; Peter S. Green in New York at psgreen@bloomberg.net.

PALS can't govern Gaza, let alone their own state - what a joke!

2009-06-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

image by rees

Gaza has become a cesspool since Israel vacated it for the peace process. Gaza is a gigantic welfare state supported by the United Nations. The only products the Palestinians export are terrorists and their state-of-the-art suicide bombers, which they now offer in the female versions.

They destroyed the infrastructure that Israel left them. Their mosques, schools and media preach nothing but hate for Western Civilization and Jews in particular. This won't and can't be reversed by this wonderful "peace process" that Obama is trying to shove down everyone's throat. Obama shows his ignorance by believing it can all be just that simple. What a moron!
Rees

from The Jerusalem Post
June 13, 2009
by the Associated Press in Beirut

President Barack Obama's special Mideast envoy George Mitchell said Friday that Washington supports the creation of a Palestinian state "as soon as possible."

Mitchell also sought to reassure Lebanon that US efforts toward a comprehensive peace in the Middle East - including reaching out to Syria and Iran - would not come at Lebanon's expense.

Some Lebanese are wary of Washington's outreach to Syria, which dominated the politically fractured country for decades and continues to maintain some influence through its support of the powerful Hizbullah terror group.

"President Obama remains committed to actively and aggressively seeking comprehensive peace in the Middle East. This includes supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state as a homeland for the Palestinian people as soon as possible," Mitchell told reporters in Beirut.

Mitchell spoke after talks with President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Fuad Saniora in Lebanon, his latest stop on a Mideast tour that will also take him to Syria.

The tour follows the Obama administration's new efforts to revive the stalled peace process. It comes just a week after Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo in which he promised to work aggressively to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Obama specifically demanded Israel freeze all settlement construction on land Palestinians claim for their future state and endorse the concept of such a state - something Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has so far refused to do, leading to the most public US-Israel disagreement in a decade.

Mitchell is the first high-ranking US official to visit Lebanon since a pro-Western coalition defeated the Iranian-backed Hizbullah in Sunday's parliamentary election.

Mitchell stressed that "there can be no lasting solution reached at Lebanon's expense."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other US officials have said before that Beirut does not have to fear that Washington's efforts to engage Syria could hurt Lebanon.

Lebanese factions have long been concerned that an improvement of US-Syrian relations might help restore Syria's influence in Lebanon.

Syria caved to international pressure and withdrew its troops from Lebanon after the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a killing many Lebanese blamed on Damascus. Syria has denied the claim.

The Lebanese also worry an Arab-Israeli settlement could prompt many of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees that live in the country to stay permanently, altering Lebanon's delicate sectarian demographic balance.

Lebanese officials stressed their opposition to such an outcome in meetings with the US envoy.

Before leaving for Syria, Mitchell also held talks with Saad Hariri, the billionaire businessman and son of the slain former prime minister, who is emerging as the favorite to lead Lebanon's government after the election. Hariri, 39, is leader of the largest parliamentary bloc in the winning coalition.
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Hey Obama: Ahmadinejad won! The debate is still a go...

2009-06-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

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Tehran: Ahmadinejad wins second presidential term up to 2013
DEBKAfile Special Report
June 13, 2009

Tehran rules: Ahmadinejad is the winner. Mousavi claims election irregularities

With most of the votes counted, the election committee chairman in Tehran awarded president Mahound Ahmadinejad a 66 percent victory over his main reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi's 33 percent with the remainder divided among the two last contestants in Iran's highly-charged presidential election. .

Earlier, Mousavi claimed to have toppled the president with 65 percent of the record-breaking turnout and alleged widespread irregularities. His disappointed supporters clashed with police in Tehran when the apparent results unfolded.

Turnout is estimated to top 80 percent of Iran's 46 million eligible voters. If the official results are confirmed, no run-off will be necessary.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that the Islamic Republic's authorities appear to have swung into action to ensure the hard-line president's re-election and try and stop Moussavi, whose promise of change attracted many of the under-30s who make up three-quarters of the electorate.

The apparent freedom of debate permitted in the election campaign was held up in the West as denoting a certain easing in the regime's autocratic rule and a pointer to Mousavi's election which was heavily staked by the US administration, Western and Israeli media. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that in Tehran, the winner is preparing to raise the ante for consenting to dialogue with the parties who backed his rival.

While improving its image abroad, the authorities were accused by Mousavi's supporters of quietly preparing mechanisms to rig the results to make sure Ahmadinejad won the election in the first round.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 400 published June 11 disclosed some of the alleged ruses:

Interior minister Sadeqh Mahsooli was accused of planting "mirror ballot boxes" at voting stations, pre-stuffed with mostly Ahmadinejad ballots ready to switch with the real ballots in precincts where opposition support was preponderant. [Sounds like ACORN at work - my comment]

By not requiring voters to present photo IDs and running off more than a million fake IDs in Qatar for use by the hundreds of thousands of loyal "bassij" (voluntary militiamen), the Tehran establishment made it possible for a huge number of voters to cast ballots in more than one polling station and substantially pad Ahmadinejad's support.

The Iranian government also set up a vast number of mobile ballots where voters were not required to provide their addresses. In former elections, bogus votes were uncovered by comparing the numbers cast with the number of registered voters in a given precinct. This kind of supervision is ruled out by mobile stations.

Crucial policies are not determined by the president but by the clerical establishment headed by the supreme ruler and the president of Iran

And Obama Comes A Crumblin' Down

2009-06-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

image modified by rees

from Dick Morris.com
By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann
Published in the New York Post on June 11, 2009

It’s increasingly looking like President Obama may be sunk by his own deficit.

Yes, the recession started under George W. Bush — and voters will still blame him for unemployment and related woes. But rising interest rates and inflation are the coming fears — and Americans will increasingly see Obama’s big-spending ways as the cause.

Deficit spending has always been Americans’ bete noir; the gospel of balanced budgets is deeply ingrained in our political and economic psyche. Through all the Keynesian experiments of the ’60s and ’70s, voters remained committed to a balanced budget. They worried as deficits rose in the Reagan years — then calmed as the economy turned up.

But when the news turned bad under the first President George Bush, they blamed the deficit — the issue was a major source of Ross Perot’s appeal in the 1992 election. And when President Bill Clinton (and a Republican Congress) finally balanced the budget, the economy bloomed — reinforcing public beliefs about the dangers of deficits.

Still in shock over the financial collapse, voters tolerated the massive government stimulus package in January. But now they’re starting to turn on the deficit-makers.

In the latest Gallup Poll, Obama’s favorability remains high (67 percent), as does his job-approval rating (61 percent). But only 55 percent approve of his handling of the economy, just 45 percent approve of his handling of federal spending and only 46 percent approve of his treatment of the budget deficit.

Meanwhile, the Rasmussen poll finds that the public now trusts Republicans over Democrats in managing the economy (for the first time in two years) by 42 percent to 36 percent.

There lies the president’s vulnerability. As the consensus among economists and journalists grows that the deficit is pushing up interest rates and weakening the dollar, Obama’s weakest link will come under strain. If, say, the falling dollar pushes up gasoline prices and rising interest rates kill off any revival in the construction industry, the deficit will cause a perfect economic storm for the president.

The United States has to borrow a net $3 trillion to $4 trillion over the next two years — far more than the $1 trillion a year average of the last three years. Obama may well face a tough choice: Print more money (monetizing the debt), triggering a run on the dollar — or let interest rates skyrocket, killing off the recovery.

Alternately, he could raise taxes to try to fund his programs (particularly his health-care proposals). But even tax hikes confined to the upper brackets will undermine his popularity — and slow the economy.

Plus, voters will fear that the added government spending will just grow the deficit further. They won’t believe Obama’s claims that he can save by spending, worrying instead that he’s just on another big spending spree.

Indeed, deficit fears — rather than concerns about whether the program will work, or even opposition to the needed tax hikes — may prove to be the telling argument against Obama’s health-care plans.

The one thing Obama should do is the one thing he won’t do: cut spending.

The public has begun to realize that the stimulus package is doing little to help the economy. Obama’s answer is to ramp up spending — but voters in the Rasmussen poll believe, 45-36, that he should cancel the rest of the stimulus outlays.

Stoked by ongoing bad economic news, the firm public conviction that new deficit spending will do more harm than good will increasingly wear on Obama’s popularity — and may bring him down.

Hey Obama: Americans Say Your Takeover Of GM Sucks!

2009-06-11T13:57:00.000-07:00

image by rees

from Fox News
June 11, 2009

Most Americans are unhappy with the actions the federal government has taken with General Motors, and people are uncertain about GM's future -- even with the government's help, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday.

Considering economic conditions overall, most people say things haven't been this bad since the Great Depression. Views are split, however, over whether the economy is getting better or worse.

By 58 percent to 38 percent voters across the country say they disapprove of the government takeover and majority ownership stake in General Motors. Majorities of Republicans (79 percent) and independents (59 percent) think it was a bad move, as well as a sizable minority of Democrats (39 percent).

And by an 8 percentage point margin slightly more Americans think the government should have let the market decide GM's fate (52 percent) than believe it was in the country's best interest to save the car maker (44 percent).

A majority of Democrats (62 percent) support the government intervening in GM, while majorities of Republicans (72 percent) and independents (54 percent) back letting market forces decide.

Does the government takeover mean GM will get back on track? When asked to look five years down the road, about half of Americans think the company will be profitable (22 percent) or breaking even (32 percent). Others are more pessimistic, including about one in five (21 percent) who think GM will be out of business, and 17 percent think it will still be losing money.

Among Democrats, who are more likely to support the government takeover, nearly a third think GM will either be gone (15 percent) or still showing red ink (13 percent).

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from June 9 to June 10. The poll has a 3-point error margin.

Labor unions have been front and center in the government's rescue of GM -- and Chrysler as well. The largest number of Americans -- 43 percent -- think labor unions have too much influence on the Obama administration, 29 percent say the right amount and 12 percent too little influence.

Economic Conditions

The public is split on how things are going today, as about equal numbers say the economy is getting better (40 percent) as say it is getting worse (42 percent). Even this question reveals a partisan divide: Half of Democrats (50 percent) say things are getting better -- that's almost double the number of Republicans (27 percent) who feel the same way. A 57 percent majority of Republicans say things are getting worse. Independents split: 41 percent better and 41 percent worse.

Similarly, when asked if the government stimulus spending is working, 46 percent of Americans say yes, while almost as many people -- 39 percent -- say no. Three months ago sentiments were reversed, as 38 percent thought government actions were working and 44 percent disagreed (3-4 March 2009).

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) think the country is in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Do the tough times make you more appreciative for what you have? You bet -- 84 percent say they feel more grateful these days. Only 9 percent are "angry" they don't have as much as they used to have.

Among the car companies tested, Ford -- which has not taken government bailout money -- has the highest favorable rating at 72 percent, followed by Honda at 69 percent favorable. Just under half of Americans have a positive view of General Motors (48 percent) and Chrysler (46 percent).

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Swine flu declared a pandemic - no vaccine available

2009-06-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

from Yahoo News
by Maria Cheng And Frank Jordans
Associated Press Writer

GENEVA – The World Health Organization told its member nations it was declaring a swine flu pandemic Thursday — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years — as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.

In a statement sent to health officials, WHO said it decided to raise the pandemic warning level from phase 5 to 6 — its highest alert — after holding an emergency meeting with its flu experts.

WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan was expected to make a formal announcement on the pandemic later Thursday.

The long-awaited pandemic decision is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. It will trigger drugmakers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine and prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.

"At this early stage, the pandemic can be characterized globally as being moderate in severity," WHO said in the statement, urging nations not to close borders or restrict travel and trade.

WHO also told countries it was in "close dialogue" with flu vaccine makers and it believed the firms would work "to ensure the largest possible supply of pandemic vaccine in the months to come."

Flu vaccine makers like GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Sanofi-Aventis have been working since last month on a swine flu vaccine. GlaxoSmithKline spokesman Stephen Rea said the company was ready to start making swine flu vaccine in large quantities once it finished its regular flu vaccine production in July.

On Wednesday, WHO said 74 countries had reported nearly 27,737 cases of swine flu, including 141 deaths. The agency has stressed that most cases have been mild and required no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities — especially in poorer countries.

Still, about half of the people who have died from swine flu, also known by its scientific name H1N1, were previously young and healthy — people who are not usually susceptible to flu.

Swine flu is also continuing to spread during the start of summer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappear with warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.

The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.

Many health experts say WHO's pandemic declaration could have come weeks earlier but the agency became bogged down by politics. In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would cause social and economic turmoil.

"This is WHO finally catching up with the facts," said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota who has advised the U.S. government on pandemic preparations.

Despite WHO's hopes, raising the epidemic alert to the highest level will almost certainly spark some panic about spread of swine flu.

Fear has already gripped Argentina, where thousands worried about swine flu flooded into hospitals this week, bringing emergency health services in Buenos Aires, the capital, to the brink of collapse. Last month, a bus arriving in Argentina from Chile was stoned by people who thought a passenger on it had swine flu. Chile has the most swine flu cases in South America.

In Hong Kong on Thursday, the government ordered all kindergartens and primary schools closed for two weeks after a dozen students tested positive for swine flu — a move that some health experts would consider an overreaction.

In the United States, where there have been more than 13,000 cases and at least 27 deaths from swine flu, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the move would not change how the U.S. tackled swine flu.

"Our actions in the past month have been as if there was a pandemic in this country," Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesman, said Thursday.

The U.S. government has already taken steps like increasing availability of flu-fighting medicines and authorizing $1 billion for the development of a new vaccine against the novel virus. In addition, new cases seem to be declining in many parts of the country, U.S. health officials say, as North America moves out of its traditional winter flu season.

Still, Osterholm said Thursday's decision was a wake-up call for the world.

"I think a lot of people think we're done with swine flu, but you can't fall asleep at the wheel," he said. "We don't know what's going to happen in the next 6 to 12 months."

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London. AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in Atlanta and reporters Jill Lawless in London, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Vincente L. Panetta in Buenos Aires and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva also contributed to this report.

Obama Insults Israel With Oval Office Picture

2009-06-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

image modified by rees

Some Israelis Insulted By Obama Picture
from CBS News
Posted by Howard Arenstein

Israeli TV newscasters Tuesday night interpreted a photo taken Monday in the Oval Office of President Obama talking on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an "insult" to Israel.

They saw the incident as somewhat akin to an incident last year, when the Iraqi reporter threw a shoe at President Bush in Baghdad.

It is considered an insult in the Arab world to show the sole of your shoe to someone. It is not a Jewish custom necessarily, but Israel feels enough a part of the Middle East after 60 years to be insulted too.

Was there a subliminal message intended from the White House to Netanyahu in Jerusalem, who is publicly resisting attempts by Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to force Israel to stop any kind of settlement activity in occupied territories once and forever?

Whether or not it is true, it shows the mood in Israel. They feel cornered. The reactions out of Israel reflect that feeling.

Netanyahu is making a speech Sunday, in part as a response to Mr. Obama's address to the Arab world last week in Cairo.

Israel's Channel One TV reported that Netanyahu was told Tuesday by an "American official" in Jerusalem that, "We are going to change the world. Please, don't interfere." The report said Netanyahu's aides interpreted this as a "threat."

Netanyahu met with George Mitchell today for four hours in Jerusalem. The State Department announced this afternoon that Mitchell will be stopping in Beirut and Damascus when he finishes his visits to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Click to read the more than 500 comments

Known Terrorists Were On Board Air France 447

2009-06-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

from Sky News
by Peter Allen in Paris

Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.

French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31.

Flight AF 447 crashed in the mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.

While it is certain there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out.

Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.

It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly-classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.

A source working for the French security services told Paris weekly L'Express that the link was "highly significant".

Agents are now trying to establish dates of birth for the two dead passengers, and family connections.

There is a possibility the name similarities are simply a "macabre coincidence", the source added, but the revelation is still being "taken very seriously".

France has received numerous threats from Islamic terrorist groups in recent months, especially since French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan.

Security chiefs have been particularly worried about airborne suicide attacks similar to the ones on the US on September 11, 2001.

New Chairman of GM: "I don't know Jack about cars!" - he actually said "anything"

2009-06-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

This should make the taxpayers who involunteerily invested billons into GM, feel good about the odds that GM might actually recover. Nice job Obama! Way to install the right people into the critical positions to give GM it's best chance to survive. You have your car czar who doesn't know Jack, choose a chairman of the board who also doesn't know Jack.

Hey Obama: You, the new GM CEO and the new Chairman of the Board are all morons. Good luck on your future success.
Rees

from Cheat-Seeking Missiles
by Laer
June 10, 2009
"I don’t know anything about cars.” - Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., Newly
Annointed Chairman Of GM

I really can’t believe I’m in America, reading in American media what an American president is doing to an American enterprise. But I am. It is true. The government has named a new chairman for General Motors. Not the GM board of directors, not the shareholders, but Steven Rattner, Obama’s car czar, who knows about as much about cars as the new chairman, Edward Whitacre.

This is far more radical than anything I thought Obama would be able to pull off, even in eight years, let alone 14 weeks. Following on yesterday’s SCOTUS decision which said, basically, a contract is no longer a contract so investors can expect no protections, the critical condition of glorious American capitalism could not be more apparent. I worry that it will not survive until 2010’s mid-term elections.

Whitacre was picked for two reasons. The published one is that he guided AT&T through the transition from land-based wire telephone carrier to a leader in the wireless industry. The Obamaites see a similar future for GM, with it transforming from a market-driven car company to a government-driven car company, manufacturing cars Big Brother wants us to drive, whether we want to or not.

The unspoken reason for his selection is because Whitacre can be counted on to do what government tells him to do, as was evident when he quickly (and rightly) acquiesced to government pressure to open AT&T’s hardware to the feds for post-9/11 surveillance purposes. Not all telcom CEOs folded so quickly to government pressure, and since folding to government pressure is what’s in store for GM, Whitacre will make an ideal Obama-era chairman for the company.

The appointment should infuriate the Left. Besides being a lackey to George Bush’s gestapo security machine, Whitacre received a peon-snubbing $158.8 million retirement package from AT&T and was involved in some pretty brutal corporate downsizings (probably in no small part due to shifting jobs overseas). Oh, and let’s not forget that under his tenure AT&T censored (oops!) a Pearl Jam concert right when the band was blasting George Bush.

But Daily Kos has nothing posted on him as of his hour. Democratic Underground? Mum. [By the way, I typed "democraticunderground" instead of "democraticunderground.com," and was redirected to one of those stupid sponsored-link pages. Guess who came out on top? Barbara Boxer!] As for Huffington Post, which as I predicted in a tweet earlier today leads with how Homeland Security foresaw today’s attack on the Holocaust Museum in its report on right-wing radicalism, it also couldn’t find a reason to cover - let alone criticize - Whitacre’s appointment.

Of course not. They know what’s going on. Their long-awaited revolution is happening and they don’t want to crow about it too early because suddenly they’re very concerned about the enemy getting wind of our intentions. Not al-Qaeda - tell them anything - they don’t want their enemy, normal Americans, to wake up to what’s going on. No, they want to be much further down the road to economic ruin in the name of wealth redistribution before they haul out the red flags and have a victory parade.
Click to read the comments and other excellent articles at Cheat-Seeking Missiles

Fed threatened bank CEO - Obama Thugocracy

2009-06-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

image by rees

from Yahoo News
By Anne Flaherty
Associated Press Writer
Jun 10, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve threatened to force the ouster of Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis if he didn't follow through with plans to buy Merrill Lynch & Co., Republicans said Wednesday after reviewing internal documents.

Republicans also said there was evidence that the government tried to restrict information related to the merger from being publicly released.

However, none of the documents showed that the government explicitly instructed Bank of America to hide Merrill Lynch's losses from shareholders, they said.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating claims that top government officials, including then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, urged Lewis to go through with the acquisition and not disclose to shareholders the details of Merrill Lynch's deteriorating financial state.

Lewis was scheduled to testify on Thursday before the panel, which is chaired by Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.

Bank of America has received $45 billion from the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. As part of that money, the bank received $20 billion in January after Lewis requested it to help offset mounting losses at Merrill Lynch.

According to an internal memo prepared by the committee's Republican staff, Paulson and Bernanke "put a gun to the head" of Lewis and Bank of America's board of directors to force the merger even though Lewis "felt it was his duty to his shareholders to try his luck in the legal system and back out of the deal."

As proof, Republicans cite several documents including an e-mail by an employee at the Richmond Federal Reserve who said Bernake had made it clear that if Bank of America backed out and needed financial assistance, "management is gone."

Just a few weeks after the deal was completed, Bank of America's fourth-quarter earnings report showed the hit its balance sheet took on the Merrill Lynch transaction, making Lewis the target of shareholder anger.

In January, Bank of America reported a $2.39 billion fourth-quarter loss and Merrill Lynch disclosed a loss of more than $15 billion.

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Miranda Warnings for Terrorists - what's next, a telephone call home?

2009-06-10T16:09:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine a soldier after a firefight having to read a captured prisoner-of-war (terrorist) their Miranda rights? First of all, the terrorist won't have a clue as to what his Miranda rights are, and secondly, the soldier will have to have an interpreter available to do it. It's unbelievable to even imagine.

I was in the Army NG for 12 years, and if I was a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, I would make sure there would be no survivors to read their Miranda rights to. Hey, it's war. That's just the way it is. Maybe Obama should go through basic training and get a clue.
Rees

from The Corner
at The National Review
by Andy McCarthy

Miranda Warnings for Terrorists — Thank Sen. McCain

Steve Hayes is getting lots of well deserved attention for his report at the Weekly Standard today about how the Obama/Holder Justice Department has quietly instructed the FBI to start giving Miranda warnings to captured alien combatant terrorists — the next logical move in the ongoing effort to move us away from a war approach and return us to the law-enforcement paradigm for dealing with international terrorism.

Obama will obviously be embarrassed by the revelation, especially since, as the Standard's John McCormack recounts, candidate Obama (and fledgling President Obama) scoffed at the claim by us knuckle-draggers that he wanted foreign terrorists to get Miranda protection upon capture. But once he recovers his footing, I guarantee the president will argue that he is merely bringing government agents operating overseas into compliance with the McCain Amendment (enacted as part of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act).

I hate to say I told you so, but back when we were having this debate, thanks to Senator McCain's grandstanding on "torture," I warned that his amendment would lead to the legal claim that American agents — including the military — were now required to give Miranda warnings to captured terrorists outside the U.S. (See, e.g., here, here, here and here (under "The Domestic Agenda")). Live by demagoguery, die by demagoguery.

In fact, it was Sarah Palin who said at the GOP convention: "Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's (Obama) worried that someone won't read them their rights."

Click to read this and other great articles at The National Review

Gates & Russia Both Need Better Intel On Iranian Missile Threat

2009-06-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

This is an excellent update on missile defense regarding Iranian capabilities and also Russian concern about deployment of the missile defense system in Poland.
Rees

from Closing Velocity
by John McKittrick
June 10, 2009

A couple of months ago, the Russian ambassador to the United States asserted:

Iran poses no threat to the United States, Russia said Tuesday, rebuffing a key argument of President Barack Obama on whether to go ahead with a European missile shield bitterly opposed by Moscow.

"I don't see any threat to the United States coming from Iran anytime soon," Kislyak told a conference of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Weeks after this confident proclamation, Iran test fired a new ballistic missile that can reach the majority of European capital cities. Including Moscow, Comrade Ambassador.

Rightly on the congressional hot seat for his Obama-directed gutting of the missile defense budget, Secretary of Defense Gates says the Russians are full of it:
Gates recounted a meeting he had with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during which the then-president "basically dismissed the idea that the Iranians would have a missile that would have the range to reach much of western Europe and much of Russia before 2020 or so."

"And he showed me a map that his intelligence guys had prepared," Gates told a Senate Appropriations panel. "I told him he needed a new intelligence service."

As I've stated many times, there is only one reason the Russians fear US missile defense bases in Eastern Europe .... and it has nothing to do with "missile defense" and everything to do with "US bases in Eastern Europe":

Click to read the comments and other great articles at Closing Velocity

New Criticism Of Obama’s Czars - he has 18 of them!!!

2009-06-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

image by rees

from Cheat-Seeking Missiles
by Laer
June 10, 2009

Sen. John Barrasso delivered a bit of a barn-burner at yesterday’s Committee on Oversight joint hearing on “Scientific Integrity and Transparency Reforms at the Environmental Protection Agency.” He’s been carrying this particular flag for a while, all but ignored by the Dem power structure. Following are excerpts from his statement:

I am concerned about the shadow cabinet position of Energy and Climate Czar. This vague position “coordinates” energy and climate change policy in the cabinet. This person is not confirmed by the Senate. How the EPA Administrator and the Czar work together remains highly ambiguous. The person appointed to this post is Carol Browner. Browner, coincidently, was the EPA Director under President Clinton. By appointing Browner, the Administration now has two EPA Directors, one confirmed by Congress, the other not. One accountable to Congress, the other not.
Obama has now appointed 18 czars - imagine what the Left would have said if “Bushitler” had done the same. They’re all problematic, but Browner is particulary so, especially given the economy-crushing global warming agenda Obama is pushing. Barrasso details some of the more nefarious acts Browner undertook while she was Clinton’s Congressionally overseen EPA chief:

She [a Washington Examiner reporter] stated that “Browner ordered Virginia to reduce the amount of ambient nitrogen oxide, not because levels were anywhere near dangerous, but because that was the only pollutant that had not declined in the past 25 years.” She stated that that Browner proposed banning chlorine, used as a disinfectant in 98 percent of municipal water treatment, “in the absence of any evidence that chlorine leads to cancer or birth defects.” Indeed, the author points out that Peru was suing the United States for classifying chlorine as a possible carcinogen “because then Peru removed chorine from its water supply, and the resulting cholera epidemic killed thousands.” She also cited Browner’s attempt to get the Food and Drug Administration to ban anti-asthma inhalers because the EPA "considered it more important to get rid of devices that release trace amounts of chlorofluorcarbons than to allow 30 million Americans to breathe easily.” She stated “public outcry, not science, caused the EPA to back off.” These are just a few examples in a larger column that cites many more.
Now this woman is operating in Jack Bauer-like fashion, with no hand, save Obama’s, constraining her. This is not exactly the model of that transparency thing Obama promised during the campaign.

The Czar positions that the Obama Administration has created seem to be designed to not be transparent. We won’t ever know whether or not politics is trumping science because we can’t get the Czar to come here and testify. Everything will be done in secret, behind closed doors, out of the view of the American people.We need not look much farther than Energy and Climate Czar Browner’s actions over the last few months.
Want an example of how untransparent the czar process is? Barrosso provided a gem:

The New York Times ran an article in May entitled “Vow of silence key to White House-California Fuel Economy Talks.” The article stated that there was a simple rule for negotiations between the White House and California on vehicle fuel economy – “Put nothing in writing.” Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, stated that Browner “quietly orchestrated private discussions from the White House with auto industry officials.” The paper said Nichols and Browner “decided to keep their discussions as quiet as possible, holding no group meetings and taking care to not leak updates to the press.” Nichols was quoted as saying “We put nothing in writing, ever.” This is unacceptable Madame Chairman.

How are we, the oversight committee, able to do our job with Administration officials putting nothing in writing, holding secret meetings in the dark of night without other officials present. All of this occurring outside the prying eyes of the people. This is not transparency. This is not good government. This threatens scientific integrity.
I wonder how that Times story would have run if it had occurred during the Bush admin and they caught an uncomfirmed Bush appointee saying “put nothing in writing.” We’ll never know.

The good senator concluded by repeating his longstanding request for committee hearings into Browner’s role as energy czar, a request committee chair Babs Boxer ignored. Fat chance any such hearings will happen any sooner than January 2013, when, hopefully, a new Republican majority will rule the Senate.

Click to read the comments and other great articles at Cheat-Seeking Missiles

Obama moves to outlaw 8 of 10 pocketknives - what's next hammers, screwdrivers?

2009-06-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

Why doesn't Obama outlaw cars and trucks too? More people die in auto accidents each day than are murdered with knives. He's working towards making all weapons illegal.

Here are the government statistics for 2002. Knives aren't even listed because they are such an insignificant percentage.
Rees

Cause of Death - All Ages
Total Number of Deaths - 2,403,351
Major Cadiovascular Diseases - 936,923 - 2,567 people per day
Malignant Neoplasms - 553,091
Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases - 122,009
Diabetes Mellitus - 69,301
Influenza and Pneumonia - 65,313
Alzheimers - 49,558
Motor Vehicle Accidents - 43,354 = 668 people per day
Renal Failure - 36,471
Septicemia - 31,224
Firearms - 28,663
knives - ?
screwdrivers - ?
hammers - ?
2x4's - ?
frying pans - ?
NOTE: Firearms Statistics Include Gang Warfare, Self Defense Shootings and Criminals Killed by Police

'If this were to pass and you cross the state line with one, it's a felony'

By Bob Unruh
from WorldNetDaily

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency is proposing a new definition that could be used to eliminate 8 of 10 legal pocketknives in the United States right now, according to activists who are gearing up to fight the plan.

The federal bureaucracy is accepting comments – written only – that must be received by June 21 before its planned changes could become final, but Doug Ritter of KnifeRights.org, said the implications of the decision would be far-reaching, since many state and federal agencies depend on the agency's definitions to determine what is legal in the United States.

For a long time, those switchblades that have long stiletto blades that are spring-ejected powerfully from the side or end of the handle have been illegal in the United States, but now a review by the agency of its own approval in 2008 of a particular type of knife for import is raising serious alarms.

Ritter said the effect of the proposed change would be that the new design in knives, many of which contain a tiny spring to help the user pull open the blade and lock it into position, would be classified alongside those true weapons where the user just presses a button and the blade is ejected

"They are saying that any knife that you can open quickly or any knife that you can open with one hand is therefore a switchblade," Ritter told WND.

On his organization's website there are suggested letters for consumers to reproduce and dispatch to both the Customs agency as well as their members of Congress over the issue.

Ritter suggested that up to 80 percent of the pocketknives sold in America today either are one-handed opening knives or so-called assisted opening knives – and they all suddenly would be classified as illegal switchblades.

The agency change came in a case involving a knife called the "VanHoy Assist," whose importers were represented in a request for affirmation of its legality by a San Francisco law firm.

Such determinations are not unusual since an importer does not want to have a shipment of products sitting on a ship waiting for unloading only to have a federal agent call them illegal.

The knives first were approved by the agency in 2008. But only a few weeks ago, Frederick McCray of the agency's Intellectual Property Rights and Restricted Merchandise Branch did a review.

"This is in reference to Headquarters Ruling Letter ('HQ') H032255, dated August 12, 2008, which concerned the admissibility of the 'VanHoy Assist,' a 'release-assisted' knife described below, pursuant to the Switchblade Knife Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1241, et seq. In the referenced ruling, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (hereinafter 'CBP') determined that the knives at issue were admissible into the United States pursuant to the Switchblade Knife Act. We have reconsidered the rationale of, and the admissibility determination made in HQ H032255 and found both to be in error. For the reasons set forth below, we hereby revoke HQ H032255," the letter said.

That could mean headaches for the knife industry, Ritter said.

"Customs," continued Ritter, "is the only place where the switchblade is interpreted in various rulings. Whenever a federal, state, or local jurisdiction is looking at what a switchblade is, whenever there's a court case or whatever … they will look to the feds."

He said the change came after the incoming administration of President Barack Obama reassigned some managers at the agency.

"What we do know is when the incoming administration reshuffled assignments at Customs, it moved the responsibility for knives and switchblades from one organization with Customs to a new organization," he said. "That group has, as far we can tell, virtually no experiences, background or anything with knives."

Officials with Customs told WND that they do not comment on issues during an open comment period, such as going on for the regulation change right now.

"We do not comment on pending proposals for changes in our rulings under 19 USC 1625. We are in the comment period and we will carefully weigh the comments that we receive before deciding whether to proceed to a final decision," the prepared statement e-mailed to WND said.

Ritter said the reason for the change isn't clear, "but certainly this administration is no friend to things like knives and guns," he said.

A successful campaign to change the definition would mean thousands would be out of work in the knife industry, and the impact would have far-reaching effects.

For example, if someone would be caught with a newly-illegal "pocketknife," would the resulting charges be structured to allege that person was dangerous or had an illegal weapon, and how would that change the defendant's right to own a firearm, he wondered.

"If this law were to pass and you cross the state line with a folder (pocketknife) in your pocket, it would be a federal felony," he said.

In reality, pocketknives are tools, he said. "Certainly they can be used as a weapon." But so could a screw driver or other hand tools.

He said the proposal, which puts pocketknives in the classification of switchblades – described by a Senate committee as "almost exclusively the weapon of the thug and the delinquent" – isn't fair.

"There are 40 million people in America walking around with pocketknives in their pocket," he said.

Further, the majority of crimes committed with knives are done with the "lowly kitchen knife," he said.

According to Ritter's website, the proposed revocation of the approval for "assisted opening knives," would impact "most other pocketknives, even simple old-fashioned slip-joints."

Click to read the article and the comments

Israel politely tells Mitchell to "Take A Hike"

2009-06-10T02:39:00.000-07:00

Israel tells Mitchell it won't halt natural growth in settlements

from The Jerusalem Post
By Herb Keinon
June 10, 2009

While outwardly US envoy George Mitchell tried to downplay tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, the settlement construction issue continued to be a central source of contention when Mitchell met with Israel's leaders on Tuesday.

Mitchell, during a day of meetings that included four hours with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, was told that Israel would not bring all settlement construction to a complete halt, even though this continues to be the US's stated position.

One senior official said that there appeared to be some "convergence" between the sides, and they were moving toward a definition of the issues.

Following the evening meeting with Mitchell, which included a two-hour one-on-one conversation, Netanyahu's office issued a statement that the meeting was "friendly and positive and encompassed the whole range of issues on the agenda."

Netanyahu, according to the statement, said that "Israel is working to promote peace and security with our Palestinian neighbors and the wider Arab world."

In front of the cameras, Mitchell took pains to stress the importance of the US-Israeli relationship, and Washington's commitment to Israel's security.

Mitchell, after a meeting earlier in the day with President Shimon Peres, said he wanted to state again "clearly and emphatically, beyond any doubt, that the United States' commitment to the security of Israel remains unshakeable."

He stressed that the current disagreements "are not disagreements among adversaries. The United States and Israel are and will remain close allies and friends. My meetings today with the president and other Israeli officials are discussions among friends who share a common set of objectives: Peace, security and prosperity to all the people of this region."

Mitchell said the objective of the Obama administration was a "comprehensive peace in the Middle East," including "a Palestinian state side by side in peace and security with the Jewish State of Israel. The president and the secretary of state have made our policy clear. Israelis and Palestinians have a responsibility to meet their obligations under the road map. It's not just their responsibility. We believe it's in their security interest as well."

Giving voice to the Obama administration's focus on the regional element of the diplomatic process, Mitchell said the US was engaged in "serious discussions" with Israel, the Palestinians and regional partners in the hopes of creating the conditions "for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations."

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Hey Obama: Israel can politically and financially respond to your strong-armed tactics

2009-06-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Peled proposes Israeli sanctions on U.S.

from The Jerusalem Post
By Gil Hoffman and Hilary Leila Krieger
June 9, 2009

In a sign of growing concern in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government over US President Barack Obama's Middle East policies, Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled proposed Israeli sanctions on the US in a letter to cabinet ministers on Sunday.

In the 11-page letter, obtained by The Jerusalem Post from a minister on Monday, Peled recommends steps Israel can take to compensate for the shift in American policy, which he believes has become hostile to Israel.

"Obama's ascendance represents a turning point in America's approach to the region, especially to Israel," he wrote in the letter. "The new administration believes that in order to fight terror, guarantee stability and withdraw from Iraq, a new diplomatic slant is needed involving drastic steps to pacify the Muslim world and the adoption of a more balanced approach to Israel, including intensive pressure to stop building in settlements, remove outposts and advance the formation of a Palestinian state."

Peled added that faced with an American government with an activist agenda that does not mesh with Israel's, traditional reactions are no longer relevant. He said he expected that Obama would eventually realize that appeasement and dialogue with countries that support terror would not have positive results.

But in the interim, the minister suggests reconsidering military and civilian purchases from the US, selling sensitive equipment that the Washington opposes distributing internationally, and allowing other countries that compete with the US to get involved with the peace process and be given a foothold for their military forces and intelligence agencies.

Peled said that shifting military acquisition to America's competition would make Israel less dependent on the US. For instance, he suggested buying planes from the France-based Airbus firm instead of the American Boeing.

In what may be his most controversial suggestion, Peled recommends intervening in American congressional races to weaken Obama and asking American Jewish donors not to contribute to Democratic congressional candidates. He predicted that this would result in Democratic candidates pressuring Obama to become more pro-Israel.

Peled called for the formation of a new body intended to influence American public opinion. The groups he suggests courting include Hispanic Americans and Labor unions in industries that benefit from Israeli military acquisitions.

A former OC Northern Command, Peled is considered part of the left flank of the Likud that includes ministers Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan. Unlike Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, he does not have a history of openly criticizing American policies and unlike Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, he does not have personal ties to the Republican Party.

Peled told the Post on Monday that he still hoped common ground could be found with the Obama administration, but just in case that did not happen, Israel must be ready.

"We must make every effort to maintain our relationship with the US and I respect Obama, but Israel has its own interests and we have to know what our alternatives are," Peled said. "I don't think what I suggest is vengeful. I just think that even a superpower must behave like a partner."

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

More Empty Words and Political Showmanship

2009-06-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

This is an excellent article from America's Right detailing Obama's absurd announcement admonishing fiscal restraint. As they say, you can't make this stuff up.
Rees

from America's Right
by Jeff Schreiber
June 9, 2009

I heard him make the announcement today, and tried as hard as I could not to laugh or cry.

What position is Barack Obama in to preach fiscal responsibility and restraint? My goodness, the hypocrisy is so gosh-darned thick here that even Al Gore, riding in his carbon-spewing private jet on the way to a "climate change" conference, is likely shaking his head.

Furthermore, what the AP piece doesn't seem to mention is that Congress already has a "PAYGO" rule in place, and has had that rule in place since 2007. The problem, contends the Heritage Foundation, is that it is "merely a congressional rule" and therefore can be easily waived by elected officials. In fact, such a waiver happened recently -- for Barack Obama's so-called "stimulus" bill.

From that same February 26, 2009 Heritage piece, a list of six problems with PAYGO:

•PAYGO Would Not Decrease the Growth of Federal Spending. PAYGO is not designed to reduce federal spending. It is not even designed to slow the growth rate of spending. It only limits the creation of new entitlement benefits above the spending growth baseline. In fact, entitlement spending grew faster after statutory PAYGO took effect in 1991.[2]

•PAYGO Exempts Discretionary Spending. Discretionary spending programs--which comprise nearly 40 percent of the federal budget--are totally exempt from PAYGO rules. In other words, Congress could provide unlimited budget increases to most defense, education, health research, justice, international, environmental, veterans' health, homeland security, and housing programs without triggering PAYGO. This loophole is a major flaw that substantially weakens PAYGO.

•PAYGO Exempts Current Entitlement Benefits. Under PAYGO, current entitlement programs can continue to grow on autopilot. Only newly created entitlement benefits must be offset. In short, PAYGO would not prevent (a) Social Security from growing 6 percent annually; (b) Medicare and Medicaid from growing 7 percent annually; and (c) Nominal entitlement spending from nearly doubling over the next decade. PAYGO could theoretically slow down the creation of any new entitlements. Yet the nation's main budgetary challenges stem from the $44 trillion unfunded obligation from Social Security and Medicare, as well as the growing costs of current entitlements like Medicaid. PAYGO would do nothing to reduce the growth rate of these programs.

•PAYGO Employs a Double Standard That Raises Taxes. Every few years, Congress must review and renew most entitlement programs and many tax cuts. PAYGO sensibly says that renewing an existing entitlement program is not "new" spending and therefore does not need to be offset. However, PAYGO applies a different standard to tax cuts. It classifies tax cut extensions as "new" tax cuts that violate PAYGO and must be offset. This makes no sense. PAYGO was intended to block the creation of new policies that increase the deficit. Simply keeping current tax policies in place should not be treated as "new" tax cuts. Additionally, the blatant double standard of allowing entitlement spending policies but not tax policies to be extended constitutes a major bias towards higher taxes and spending. For instance, PAYGO allows the extension of expiring SCHIP and farm subsidy laws, but it does not allow the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts or the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) to be patched without offsets. Even President Obama has criticized this double standard, and Congress should eliminate this baseline disparity from any PAYGO statute.

•Previous PAYGO Statutes Were Never Enforced--Even Once. Congress already had a PAYGO statute from 1991 to 2002. But this law was never enforced. Over the statute's 12 years, Congress enacted more than $700 billion in new entitlement spending and tax cuts--and then enacted legislation cancelling every single sequestration. Even if Congress had allowed sequestration, they had already enacted legislation exempting 97 percent of all entitlement spending--all but $31 billion--from being part of any sequestration. The law was practically designed to fail. Entitlement spending actually grew faster during the 12 years of PAYGO (1991-2002) than in the 12 previous years (1980-1991). The budget did temporarily achieve balance during that period. Yet PAYGO had very little to do with it. The budget was balanced by the combination of the dot com bubble revenue boom, defense savings after the Cold War ended, and declining net interest costs.

•Current PAYGO Rules Are Not Enforced. Congress has operated under a PAYGO rule since 2007. In that short period of time, Congress has already bypassed PAYGO to: (a) Enact a stimulus bill that cost $479 billion in new entitlements and tax cuts; (b) Enact a veterans' education entitlement bill costing $63 billion; (c) Enact a student loan expansion costing $15 billion; (d) Twice patch the AMT; and (e) Enact SCHIP and farm bills that used blatant gimmicks to hide tens of billions of dollars in new entitlement benefits.

This is not a fix. This isn't even substantial enough to qualify as a gimmick. Our spendthrift president calling a press conference and advocating PAYGO is merely an act of political gamesmanship born from West Wing worry about the perception of this administration's lack of fiscal restraint and meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator in terms of those who pay attention to the goings-on in Washington, D.C. It's meant for a soundbite to be heard by clueless people from coast to coast as they wait for the five-day forecast from their local news station. It's meant for a headline in Obama-friendly newspapers to be read by people, through the plexi-glass of the vending machine, as they wait on a train or bus or traffic light.

Then again, how is this any different than anything done by this administration so far?
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Hamas female suiciders captured on way to kill Fatah officers

2009-06-09T18:06:00.000-07:00

from the DEBKAfile
June 9, 2009

Hamas is escalating its attacks on fellow Palestinians to demonstrate that US presidential envoy George Mitchell's peace talks in the region, starting Tuesday, June 9, were a mission impossible so long as Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah were at war.

DEBKAfile's counter terror sources disclose that Monday night, three Palestinian female members of Hamas, one of whom wore a bomb vest, were captured in the West Bank town of Qalqilya on their way to kill Palestinian Authority security officers.

The reappearance of suicide bombers on the West Bank is extremely troubling, say military sources, because of the likelihood that they will next attack their old targets in Israel.

This supposition is well founded. On June 7, DEBKAfile revealed exclusively that the Islamist terror organization had been ordered by Damascus headquarters to unleash a new campaign of violence against PA and Israeli targets alike – a first in Palestinian annals.

Ahead of its foiled triple suicide attack, Hamas circulated the photos of six senior Palestinian security officers in Qalqilya over the caption: "These commanders are sentenced to execution." The most prominent was Hussam Sheik Hamed, who is accused of liquidating several Hamas operatives in the town last month. DEBKAfile's security sources emphasize that as matters stand today within the Palestinian camp, President Obama, the Saudi king Abdullah and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak can forget about making headway in their peace moves.

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal made this clear to Egypt's intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman who summoned him to Cairo from Damascus Tuesday to try and persuade the rejectionist leader to come to terms with the rival Fatah and give the Obama peace diplomacy a chance.

Meshaal refused point blank to call off Hamas' terror campaign against fellow Palestinians. As a pre-condition for reconciliation, he said the US-trained Palestinian Authority security force must end its crackdown on Hamas gunmen. He totally rejected President Obama's call from Cairo to give up violence, reinforcing the message carried by the Hamas-led massive cross-border assault on Israeli forces from Gaza Monday.

Meshaal had a special message for the Egyptian government too.

Shortly after his conversation with Gen. Suleiman in Cairo, Hamas staged its first ever Qassam missile strike on Egyptian security forces guarding the Sinai-Gazan border. This was Hamas' first missile attack ever against Egypt. It was meant to support a fresh Palestinian attempt to break through the border for the first time since January 2008. The missiles exploded 3 kilometers inside Sinai.

In Ramallah, guards escorting the convoy of Palestinian Authority official Saad al Rahim, opened fire on a vehicle racing at high speed on the same road, certain that a Hamas bomb car was about to ram them.
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Obama Triples Deficit then pitches pay-as-you-go plan! - What BS! - Has he no shame?

2009-06-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Obama more than triples the deficit, then pretends to be innocent of the whole process by offering this self-righteous "if you irresponsible people are going to continue to spend foolishly, I'm going to have to impose on you a "pay-as-you-go plan" to reign things in. He is unbelievable. He truly does believe that the majority of American voters are absolutely stupid. He'll find out how stupid we are all in 2010 and 2012.
Rees

Obama pitches pay-as-you-go plan for Congress
from Yahoo News
by Ben Feller
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Tuesday challenged Congress to pay for new increases in federal benefit programs as it goes rather than sink the nation deeper into a debt, calling it a matter of public responsibility. Republicans lashed back that Obama is no voice of fiscal restraint as the deficit soars.

The president's plan would require Congress to pay for new entitlement spending, such as health care, by raising taxes or coming up with budget cuts — a "pay-as-you-go" system that would have the force of law. Under the proposal, if new spending or tax reductions are not offset, there would be automatic cuts in so-called mandatory programs — although Social Security payments and some other programs would be exempt.

Not noted by the president: Tuesday's plan is a watered-down version of the so-called "PAYGO" rules proposed just last month in his own budget plan.

That version would have required, on average, all affected legislation to be paid for in the very first year. The new plan only requires such legislation to be financed over the coming decade. That mirrors congressional rules and reflects the likelihood that health care reform will add to the deficit in the early years.

Obama said the principle is simple: Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar somewhere else.

"It is no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved from record deficits to record surpluses in the 1990s — and that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt," Obama said, flanked at the White House by supportive Democratic lawmakers.

"Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for," he said. "They're not free, and borrowing to finance them is not a sustainable long-term policy."

Republican leaders, critical of the Obama-championed $787 billion stimulus package and other deficit spending, called the president disingenuous.

"It's as if the administration and these Democrat leaders are living in an alternate universe," said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia. "The quickest way to save money is to stop recklessly spending it."

The pay-as-you-go rules would not apply to discretionary spending — the portion that Congress decides how to spend each year — which accounts for almost 40 percent of the budget, said Peter Orszag, the administration's budget director.

Obama's call for binding legislation comes as a reward to moderate-to-conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats who are big believers in pay-as-you go. Their votes were crucial to passing a congressional budget blueprint that generally follows Obama's budget.

The House and Senate already have their own PAYGO rules, but have routinely found ways around them. For example, a bill to effectively double GI Bill education benefits was enacted last year because of a loophole in congressional rules.

Obama's "PAYGO" plan would also require future tax cuts to be financed by tax increases elsewhere in the code, though exceptions are made for extending President George W. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as well as other tax cuts that are scheduled to expire.

The federal deficit is on pace to explode past $1.8 trillion this year, more than four times last year's all-time high.

The deficit figures flow from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout and the cost of the economic stimulus bill. Obama has defended the massive stimulus plan as essential to helping pump some life back in the economy, one that is still shedding jobs but showing more signs of life in recent weeks.

"The fact is, there are few who aren't distressed by deficits," Obama said. He said restoring a pay-as-you-go method under law would force lawmakers to deal not just with the politics and crises of the day, but also remain fixed on the nation's long-term financial health.
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Hey Obama, Match This Rhetoric - Kim Jong-il isn't afraid of you

2009-06-08T22:03:00.000-07:00

image by rees

North Korea would use nuclear weapons in a 'merciless offensive'

from The Independent
via the Associated Press
9 June 2009

North Korea today said it would use nuclear weapons in a "merciless offensive" if provoked — its latest bellicose rhetoric apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its recent atomic test blast.

The tensions emanating from Pyongyang are beginning to hit nascent business ties with the South: a Seoul-based fur manufacturer became the first South Korean company to announce Monday it was pulling out of an industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong.

The complex, which opened in 2004, is a key symbol of rapprochement between the two Koreas but the goodwill is evaporating quickly in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test on May 25 and subsequent missile tests.

Pyongyang raised tensions a notch by reviving its rhetoric in a commentary in the state-run Minju Joson newspaper today.

"Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means...as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country's dignity and sovereignty even a bit," said the commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It appeared to be the first time that North Korea referred to its nuclear arsenal as "offensive" in nature. Pyongyang has long claimed that its nuclear weapons program is a deterrent and only for self-defense against what it calls US attempts to invade it.

The tough talk came as South Korea and the US lead an effort at the UN Security Council to have the North punished for its nuclear test with tough sanctions.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported today that South Korea had doubled the number of naval ships around the disputed sea border with the North amid concern the communist neighbor could provoke an armed clash there — the scene of skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to confirm the report, but said the North has not shown any unusual military moves.

Relations between the two Koreas have significantly worsened since a pro-US, conservative government took office in Seoul last year, advocating a tougher policy on the North. Since then, reconciliation talks have been cut off and all key joint projects except the factory park in Kaesong have been suspended.

Some 40,000 North Koreans are employed at the zone, making everything from electronics and watches to shoes and utensils, providing a major source of revenue for the cash-strapped North. The park combines South Korean technology and management expertise with cheap North Korean labor.

A total of 106 South Korean companies operate in the park. That number will go down by the end of the month when Skinnet, the fur-maker, completes its pullout.

A Skinnet company official said the decision was primarily over "security concerns" for its employees, and also because of a decline in orders from clients concerned over possible disruptions to operations amid the soaring tensions.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.

The industrial park's fate has been in doubt since last month when North Korea threatened to scrap all contracts on running the joint complex and said it would write new rules of its own and the South must accept them or pull out of the zone.

The companies have also been concerned by the detention of a South Korean man working at the complex by North Korean authorities since late March for allegedly denouncing the regime's political system.

The two sides are to hold talks on the fate of the park Thursday.

Intensifying its confrontation with the US, North Korea handed down 12-year prison terms to two detained American journalists on Monday.

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