Yes the AG of Honduras should have clapped the president, and every other citizen in irons who took part in executing the illegal referendum to be.

Yes they should have allowed the made in Venezuela ballots, and other imports, to be distributed and set the stage for civil war and or the end of democracy.

Yes they should have adhered to Barack Obama's sense of right and wrong (they are right and we are wrong) and aided in the ascendance of forces inimical to the freedom and security of the not only the Honduran people, but OUR people.

Why don't we just let the Hondurans whose ruling and opposition parties, courts and military ALL AGREE, govern themselves, Barry, and do in our our neighborhood with a REAL democracy, what you ingratiatingly and obsequiously sought to do with genocidal freaks?

Sometimes you just have wonder at the galactic stupidity of other nations identification of what their self interest is.

In 2002 I told one of my Arab colleagues that before the war was over, we would see a critical victory gained by a young pizza eating American about 18 years of age, guiding a robot, with a controller from thousands of miles away. They told me I was an arrogant ass hole

Baitullah Mehsud, the head of Pakistan's Taliban, may have been the target of a deadly drone strike that claimed dozens of lives at a funeral in northern Pakistan, but details are still emerging about what looks like the most dramatic and deadly employment of drones in the U.S. military's undeclared war in Pakistan.

CNN, quoting unnamed Pakistani intelligence officials, says the strikes killed at least 55 people, including three top Taliban commanders. Al Jazeera puts the death toll somewhat higher, saying around 60 people were killed as they dispersed after funeral prayers in the Makeen district of South Waziristan. Reuters, quoting Pakistani intelligence sources, puts the toll at 70.

The incident is part of an escalating drone war that has sparked serious controversy in both Pakistan and the United States. It also comes as Pakistan readies an offensive against Mehsud: Pakistani newspapers are also reporting the arrest of some of the Taliban leader's fundraisers in Karachi.

Pakistan's The Nation has details on a first strike that preceded the funeral: A drone fired three missiles into a militant stronghold near Makeen village, northeast of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. Pakistani intelligence officials told The Nation that attack killed six militants and destroyed a compound, a bunker and two vehicles.

A follow-on strike apparently targeted the funeral service for individuals killed in the first attack. Mehsud -- who is suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and has a $5 million bounty on his head -- reportedly paid a visit to the village where the funeral took place, but managed to dodge the strike. The Associated Press quotes two intelligence officials as saying Mehsud left the scene before drone fired the missiles.

Carry on

Kill them ALL

US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday he does not believe that one single Iranian diplomat has accepted invitations to July 4 events at US embassies worldwide.

I hope Mr Obama had fun proving to himself that every single assumption made by the most conservative, and the most neo-con, is objectively CORRECT.

There is little to discuss.
Perhaps NOTHING.
Even with excessive groveling.
Even with apologies.

Just give that green light to Bibi.

The poor Iranian people are totally screwed.

The least risk would have been if they simply SLAY THE LOT.

Instead their own repression is the gateway to all out regional war.

And retaliation by Israel for Iranian use of WMD against them.

From no less than WaPo...

Stay Tuned for More of 'The Obama Show'

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

In his first daytime news conference yesterday, President Obama preempted "All My Children," "Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless." But the soap viewers shouldn't have been disappointed: The president had arranged some prepackaged entertainment for them.

After the obligatory first question from the Associated Press, Obama treated the overflowing White House briefing room to a surprise. "I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post," he announced.

Obama knew this because White House aides had called Pitney the day before to invite him, and they had escorted him into the room. They told him the president was likely to call on him, with the understanding that he would ask a question about Iran that had been submitted online by an Iranian. "I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet," Obama went on. "Do you have a question?"

Pitney recognized his prompt. "That's right," he said, standing in the aisle and wearing a temporary White House press pass. "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian."

Pitney asked his arranged question. Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, "The Obama Show." Missed yesterday's show? Don't worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting "Good Morning America" from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), "World News Tonight" from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room.

"The Obama Show" was the hottest ticket in town yesterday. Forty-five minutes before the start, there were no fewer than 107 people crammed into the narrow aisles, in addition to those in the room's 42 seats. Japanese and Italian could be heard coming from the tangle of elbows, cameras and compressed bodies: "You've got to move! . . . Oh, God, don't step on my foot!" Some had come just for a glimpse of celebrity. And they wanted to know all about him. "As a former smoker, I understand the frustration and the fear that comes with quitting," McClatchy News's Margaret Talev empathized with the president before asking him how much he smokes.

There was a moment after 2006 when Rahm Emanuel who was in charge of the House Dems election campaigning nationwide was feted for finding conservative dems who could capitalize on the manufactured and earned dislike for Bush and the well earned dislike and contempt for the republican majorities. It is CLEAR now, what the plan was. Euchre the american populace by any means necessary for the cause, get dems into office, and WHIP them into line, ...in line with the cause...PROGRESSIVE REALIGNMENT OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.

Forget jihad. This is the near enemy, and it was on FULL DISPLAY in ALL ITS MEANS yesterday,

Just as the execrable Mr Schumer said 'the American people don't care about these issues' so it is plain that Obama and his think alike appointees have as their cause this realigment while holding out the (nonexistent) public largesse of the federal treasuries to the desperate and worried electorate (never let a crisis go to waste) with other hand.

You could hear it in the smarmy diingenuous answer about federally funded health insurance...

Wash Monthly (a sinkhole of analictus for the left):
I believe it was David Jackson, from USA Today, who suggested to the president this afternoon that a public health care option would "drive private insurance out of business." I thoroughly enjoyed the Obama's response.

"Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government -- which they say can't run anything -- suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical........

"But just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they're giving consumers the best possible deal, if they can't compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what's the best deal, that defies logic, which is why I think you've seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan."

Why do people end up buying contaminated ultra cheap flip flops from Walmart? Why are they the largest employers in so many towns? Why is the government backing PUBLICALLY the warranties of Chrysler and GM and not Ford? Why does the post office lose money on every piece of mail?

TO BE THE CHEAPEST, YOU CRETINOUS LIAR, and grab market.

No one but the richest is going to resist the cheap govt alternative. Only those who have no understanding of capital as a force of nature, or human beings and how they behave in self interest, would even IMAGINE the absurd, illogical, stupid and therefore, considering the man, LYING argument of the president.

He is no fool.

But neither are we.

I don't see the middle class out there.

If it's going to be the Robespierre and Danton solution, which is the only one which will obviate the nuclear question, then we need to see men and women 35-60 out there.

Whether thru fear or caution, or lack of support for this spontaneous action, there are none of the critical core I have seen in any youtube or broadcast of the age group whose participation would break the back of the mullahs.

Only growing nationwide strikes provoking ever more extreme backlashes might do this.

And statements of SUPPORT FOR ALL MENS FREEDOMS by the man at the helm of the nation which had a revolution over precisely that issue.

SHAME to him, his legacy and, for him, worst of all, HIS IMAGE

Obama calls on HuffPost for Iran question

In a clearly coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly from Iran.

He then noted that the site had solicited questions from people in the country "who were still courageous enough to be communicating online."

"Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the -- of what the demonstrators there are working towards?"

Reporters typically don't coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences. And it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.

CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was "very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about."

Meanwhile....

President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

"We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran," Kelly said. "We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a different path now."

Barry, listen, invite them all you want, just quote TJ en camera....

The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear arms is,
as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson

JUST

ASK

NEDA

:"[Our] principles [are] founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379

"An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental." --Thomas Jefferson to George Hay, 1807. ME 11:341

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134

"Nothing... is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:48

"The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Adams Wells, 1819. ME 15:200

"Truth is certainly a branch of morality, and a very important one to society." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814. ME 14:139

"It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling." -- Barack Obama to the World, 2009

So, in case you wondered what we stand for:

We stand for not meddling with brutal, fascist, theocracies and the way they treat their people, since it might make even more disagreeable the conversations we might have to have with them

When Vietnam was raging, and we were busy invading the Dominican, and scaring the rest of a Latin America ... filled with Somozas, and other such wannabees waving about the flag of anti communism to survive, the thoughts of LIBERALS were that the USA should never been seen upholding these sons of bitches unless some other knife was at our throat. People had the right to pursue happiness. The right to life. The right to liberty.

UNQUESTIONED.

The Viet Cong certainly did  not fit THAT bill. And not TOO many were concerned that the USSR was really going to comitt suicide by launching on us. Our superiority was absurdly huge.

There was no argument on the left. LBJ was an asshole and THAT was one of the major pieces of evidence. Support for HIDEOUS dictatorships, and refusal to condemn them.

However he was able to at least distinguish between the Politburo's sons of bitches, and as FDR saw clearly of Somoza ("he may be a son of a bitch, but he's OUR son of a bitch"). No illusions, anyway.

Fast forward.

The present president cannot even see the difference between a Musharraf and a Khameinei. In fact his arrogant (towards us) groveling at the waist of the King of Ummahland demonstrates that the crueler the treatment of kufr's the more he will see you as useful for DIALOG.

If you set up an educational system which creates the venue for killing more americans than died at Perarl Harbor, YOU GET A BOW.

And today people who CALL themselves liberals and even more amazingly "progressives" (???) turn to tourtuous explanations to JUSTIFY such extraordinary, exceptional behaviors.

If you threaten long time allies with EXTERMINATION, ...PROUDLY DOING SO, kidnap and hold hostage our diplomats, blow up our men and women in other nations.. why we promise we won't comment on your farcical internal comedies since we wouldn't want to compromise any ability to 'dialog' with you, in case you might feel insulted while calling us the great satan.

I've been saying this for so long now I've lost patience:

JERUSALEM -- A new poll shows only 6 percent of Israeli Jews see President Barack Obama's administration as pro-Israel, while 50 percent see it as pro-Palestinian.

That is a dramatic change from the previous U.S. administration of George W. Bush, which 88 percent termed "pro-Israel" and just 2 percent labeled pro-Palestinian.

Many Israelis reject Obama's call for a total settlement freeze and have come to see him as overly sympathetic to Palestinian claims.

The poll, taken after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said for the first time he supported a demilitarized Palestinian state, found 36 percent of respondents viewed Obama as neutral.

Netanyahu's advisers and aides offered varying explanations for Israelis' negative view of Obama, ranging from blaming the media for focusing on the perception of strained relations between Washington and Jerusalem to the belief that Obama faulted Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East.

Last week, Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that the prime minister believes Obama wants to create a confrontation with Israel to help him improve relations with the Arab world, aides said.

This has been OBVIOUS from the moment he appointed people like Merrill Mcpeak, Brezhinski, and Powers. OVER A YEAR AGO. AS A CANDIDATE.

The stark reality is worse. Not only is he a believer in Walt and Mearsheimer...

Rahm notwithstanding, Mr. Obama has a PROBLEM with people who happen to be Jewish, ESPECIALLY if they believe the absolute existence of AN Israel is compulsory in this world.
His long membership under his religious mentor leaves NO OTHER EXPLANATION POSSIBLE for the gestalt of his actions

Pirate Bay Launches VPN Service

The operators of The Pirate Bay launched a long-awaited VPN service Monday, promising to make file sharers and other internet users more anonymous online.

The IPREDATOR Global Anonymity Service, at about $7 monthly, is named for Sweden's IPRED law that went into force in April. That law empowers copyright owners to acquire data from ISPs identifying people linked to file sharing.

The four operators of the Pirate Bay are staring down a year in prison each, and millions of dollars in fines, after being convicted in a Swedish court for facilitating copyright infringement. They run the world's most notorious BitTorrent search engine. Their fines and imprisonment are pending appeal.

On Monday, The Pirate Bay announced that 180,000 people have signed up for the service. Invitations to the first 3,000 who signed up in April went out Monday.

"There's been some small issues but it's being resolved right now," the Bay announced Monday on its blog. "Then we'll invite more people in... We're hoping that all will have their invite within a month's period."

TorrentFreak notes that the IPREDATOR service, announced in April, likely would be more secure than rank-and-file virtual private networks, which encrypt a user's traffic stream, making it theoretcially invulnerable to interception by a local ISP, or intermediate carriers.

SO WHAT?

Iran Activists Get Assist from 'Anonymous,' Pirate Bay

Iranian democracy activists, meet your new pals: a masked protest movement best known for needling the Church of Scientology, and a group of file-sharers so infamous they're facing a year in jail.

Anonymous Iran is a collaboration between The Pirate Bay -- operators of the world's largest torrent site, convicted in April of copyright infringement -- and Anonymous, the prankster collective dedicated to exposing "Scientology's crimes."

The new site offers tips on how to navigate online in private, upload files through the Iranian firewall, find the best activist Tweeters, and launch attacks on pro-government websites.

CARRY ON DUDES!

You're more Jefferson than our own prez.

Summers Defends Scope of Obama's Financial Regulation Overhaul

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- The regulatory overhaul proposed by the White House today is "far reaching" and will prevent future financial crises, said Lawrence Summers, director of the White House's National Economic Council.

"Every important problem that was a contributor to past crises, and every important problem that we believe is potentially going to shape future crises, has been addressed," Summers said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

'We've thought of everything that might happen one day, aided mightily by our perfection understanding all that has ever happened'

Should I cry? 56% approval.

What are the American people IMAGINING is reality?

There's nothing to worry about America.

Just go shopping, will you?

Both parties when in power are FARCES.

And don't give me any Ron Paul crap about his plans or economics or 'libertarian' ideals. Anyone who knowingly accepts and keeps donations from STORMFRONT is NOT QUALIFIED TO SERVE, or prescribe, actually.

Even with Mousavi in power, Iran's foreign policy would likely be no different than it has been under Ahmadinejad. A 20-year absence from the public eye, coupled with dazzling words of change that skillfully capitalize on the "Obama effect" gripping the world, does wonders to beguile a young generation of supporters who never knew or have forgotten the radicalism and bloodshed that marked Mousavi's tenure as prime minister from 1981 to 1989 (the Iranian Revolution's most significant years).

Indeed, anyone believing Mousavi would be the one to unclench the Iranian fist for a hand-in-hand partnership of peace with the United States is guilty of wishful thinking. It was Mousavi, after all, who was at the center of the Iran hostage crisis and remains complicit in an operation he commended as "the beginning of the second stage of our revolution." And it was Mousavi who was the protégé of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (chief architect of the Iranian Revolution and founder of theocratic Iran), a former member of Hezbollah's leadership council, sworn enemy of Israel, and a prime minister under whose watch thousands of political prisoners were massacred in 1988. And finally, it was Mousavi who initiated Iran's nuclear program in the 1980s and likely would be intent on carrying through Iran's nuclear ambitions, the foremost issue central to any improvement in relations with the West.

Ranj Alaaldin, a political researcher and analyst specializing in the Middle East, is a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Never the less, let's hope there is a real dislocation, and we end up seeing a mullocracy destroyed and replaced by a ???

Could it be worse?

And that's why Obama should be calling to all freedom loving Iranians and quoting Jefferson and the Founding Bros, HOURLY.

From the GUARDIAN:

1. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last night dismissed protests over last week's election as the work of "tension seekers" following a fourth day of protests in Tehran
2. Posts on Twitter seemed to suggest that there were still pockets of unrest. One user who has been posting messages about the situation in Tehran said there had been reports of street fighting in Azadi square and the surrounding streets with pepper gas being used by security forces. Earlier the poster said hundreds had been arrested during the day, and that as the night wore on Basij militamen were ­causing trouble.
3. As the night went on the user posted: "Our lives are in real danger now - we are the eyes - they need to stop us."
4. But numbers on the streets yesterday were far fewer than the 500,000 to 1 ­million who took part in a mass opposition protest in the capital on Monday
5. Ominously, the government ordered ­foreign journalists not ­permanently based in Iran to leave the country at once, and banned resident correspondents from reporting from the streets, a move seen as possibly heralding an intensification of the crackdown.
6. The regime appeared to be following a dual strategy of partial concessions on ­Friday's vote combined with arrests of opposition figures who could give ­coherence to the protests. Those detained yesterday included Muhammad Ali Abtahi and Saeed Hajarian, both Mousavi supporters.
7. In his remarks, Khamenei called for ­tolerance and said those disputing the result were ­tarnishing the ­"beautiful" image created by the record 85% turnout.
8. Mousavi had appealed to his supporters to stay off the streets and remain peaceful.

BIG MISTAKE DUDE.. you are going to disappear in about a year ..maybe a car accident
Khameinei is going to believe your personal ambition threatened the Islamic revolution, fellah. The minute you appeared in the street, it was ALL OR NOTHING.

The Guardian Council will NEVER allow anything like this to happen again. That means increased powers for the Basij, and the IRGC, and people like A'jad.

We should be airdropping twenty million miniskirts, jeans, and tight sweaters from Rodeo Drive. They would be worth EVERY PENNY.

U.S. officials said last week that North Korea's second nuclear test is not likely to trigger Tokyo to break out of its anti-military posture and develop nuclear weapons.

Not alone, you jackasses. However....

non-government observers say Japan's well-developed nuclear power infrastructure, which includes large quantities of fissile material, could be easily converted, in secret, to a nuclear weapon program, if Japan made the decision.

U.S. officials said a small but significant core of nationalist politicians, defense experts, and pundits are still actively pressing for a new public debate on nuclear weapons development.

The key to preventing Japan from going nuclear will be continued trust and reliance on U.S. nuclear assurances

You mean from their steadfast, dependable, all weather friend the USA?

Yesterday, Pyongyang threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships under the new sanctions approved by the UN security council on Friday.

It is unclear whether North Korea's statements are simply rhetoric. But they are a setback for international attempts to rein in the country's nuclear ambitions following its second nuclear test on 25 May.

In yesterday's statement, Pyongyang said it has been enriching uranium to provide fuel for its light-water reactor. It was the first public acknowledgment that the North is running such a programme in addition to its known plutonium one.

Is there ANYONE who believes that RIGHT NOW, THIS SECOND, serious people in leadership in Japan WHICH AS ALREADY SUFFERED TWO NUCLEAR ATTACKS, are not planning to convert guided weapons to nuclear weapons? Are not putting in place plans to have such weapons ready in DAYS, not weeks? Are not developing plans to USE such weapons preemptively? Is there anyone serious who thinks that having Japan converted to a nuclear power is in the long range strategic interest of the USA?

This will NOT be because our strength or deterrent is physically weakened (yet) .. it will be because it is PERCEIVED by friends, allies, and enemies that OUR leadership is vacillating, undependable, unsure of the correct course, and liable to come up with any plan imaginable... all possible because the american people decided to believe in the promises of this man. Promises whose goals were clearly unreal, never possible, and based on dreams and the weakness of humans to believe what they want to rather than what reality compels, because it is unpleasant.

From Gertz on a story about Obama avoiding all first person contact with Mubarak's son...Gamal (which can be understood, frankly)... HOWEVER...

Unlike Bush, Obama has signaled that he would seek a dialogue with Egypt's opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama also suggested that his administration would recognize any MB victory, including in parliamentary elections scheduled for 2010 in Egypt.

"There are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others," Obama said. "No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion." 

It might be a good idea to convince, via your genius conversational and rhetorical skills the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine of this, you know. - HAMAS?

So sorry but:

U.S. White House counterterrorism chief Juan Zarate, says "The Muslim Brotherhood is a group that worries us not because it deals with philosophical or ideological ideas but because it defends the use of violence against civilians.

Columnist and former Kuwaiti official Dr. Ahmad Al-Rabi, who has written that the "beginnings of all of the religious terrorism that we are witnessing today were in the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology."

Former U.S. Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross (WHO WAS JUST FIRED BY OBAMA AS AMBASSADOR TO IRANIAN ISSUES AND 'DIALOGGING'), told Asharq Alawsat newspaper that the Muslim Brotherhood is a global, not a local organization, governed by a Shura (Consultative) Council, which rejects cessation of violence in Israel, and supports violence to achieve its political objectives elsewhere too

Magdy Khalil, executive editor of Egypt's Watani International, reports consistent MB deceit concerning Egypt's 12.5% Coptic Christian population, so as to oppress and dhimmify them

The Brotherhood is widely believed to have had a `secret apparatus` responsible for terrorist attacks in Egypt including the assassination of Egypt's prime minister in 1948.

Newsweek journalists Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff report connections between al-Qaeda and Brotherhood figures Mamoun Darkazanli and Youssef Nada.


MB Member Mohammed Qutb, brother of Sayd, ran to KSA to teach after the arrest and execution of Sayd, and did at Abdul Aziz U, School of Islamic studies teaching both Abdullah Azzam, and OBL.

A similar article in the Financial Times reported financial links between 74-year-old Swiss Muslim convert, businessman and neo-Nazi Ahmed Huber, and MB members, notably Youssef Nada, Ali Ghaleb Himmat and who founded the Al Taqwa Bank. According to the U.S. government, Al Taqwa "has long acted as financial advisers to al-Qaeda." Huber himself is noted in Europe for his links with alleged neo-Nazi and other far right elements. He is reported to have "confirmed" having "had contact with associates of Osama bin Laden at an Islamic conference in Beirut," whom he called `very discreet, well-educated, very intelligent people.`

Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, an "expert in the art of deception" was an influential lobbyist and founder and head of the Brotherhood-linked American Muslim Council before being convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison for conspiracy to murder Saudi Prince Abdullah at the behest of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.

In 1997 Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashhur told journalist Khalid Daoud that he thought Egypt's Coptic Christians should pay the long-abandoned jizya poll tax, levied on non-Muslims (In exchange for protection from the state, due to the fact that non-Muslims are exempt from military service, while it is compulsory for Muslims.). He went on to say that while `we do not mind having Christians members in the People's Assembly... the top officials, especially in the army, should be Muslims since we are a Muslim country... This is necessary, Mashhur explained because `when a Christian country attacks the Muslim country and the army has Christian elements, they can facilitate our defeat by the enemy.`"

Barack Obama and his ideas of how to live in this world, and protect the lives, security, and way of life of everyday american people, are totally disconnected from objective reality, and will lead DIRECTLY to a lot of american people getting killed for absolutely NO OTHER REASON than his determination to cling to delusional ideas

GERTZ - WASHINGTON -- Gulf Arab states share Israel's concern about the pro-Iranian shift by the United States, Israeli officials said.

The officials reported initiatives by several of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states to discuss strategy toward Iran amid the new U.S. dialogue by President Barack Obama. They said GCC representatives expressed deep concern that Obama's new policy would ensure Iranian dominance in the Gulf region.

"We don't know if the U.S. administration will be assertive enough, and if Iran goes nuclear it's going to be hell for all of us," a senior Israeli official quoted a GCC representative as saying.

An anti-aircraft gun at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran. AFP/Behrouz Mehri

Michael Herzog, chief of staff to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said he has been approached by GCC and other Arab officials regarding Iran. Herzog, a reserve brigadier general in the intelligence corps, recalled a meeting with a "very prominent figure" from an unidentified GCC state.

"'We are on the same side," Herzog quoted the GCC official as saying. '"We feel threatened by the Iranian nuclear projects, by their political ambitions, by their subversion and so on. And frankly,' he said, 'we are skeptical of whether Iran could be stopped.'"

Herzog reported similar conversations with officials in Egypt, Jordan and North African states. He said all of them sought talks with Israel regarding the Iranian threat.

"The No. 1 topic that comes up is Iran," Herzog told a May 7 briefing at the Washington Institute. "They are scared by the Iranian projects and ambitions. They are willing to do a lot in order to stop it. They don't know exactly what. They are skeptical -- some of them -- of whether Iran could be stopped."

Other Israelis with contacts in the Middle East agreed. Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said Arab allies of the United States were preparing to cooperate with Israel to stop Iran.

"It is hard to believe that the State Department does not understand that the moderate Arab states will cooperate to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb regardless of the Palestinian issue," Inbar said. "The Iranian threat dwarfs any potential repercussions of an impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian track."

Inbar said moderate Arab states have concluded that Iran was bolstering Hamas and Hizbullah to destabilize the region. He said Arab leaders have become alarmed by Hamas's military buildup in the Gaza Strip.

"The struggle against Hamas, just as the quest to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, serves American interests and those of its allies in the Middle East. It is only marginally related to Israel," Inbar said. "Unfortunately, Obama's Washington does not get it yet."

Officials said the biggest change in attitude has been that of Egypt. They said Egypt, which sees Hamas as a threat, did not try to disrupt the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip in January 2009.

"They basically, without saying so, gave us a free hand and wished that we would crush Hamas," Herzog said. "By the way, many of our neighbors privately used to tell us, 'Why don't you destroy Hamas,' while, of course, publicly condemning us."

Herzog said the GCC has been divided over Iran. He said Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have sought partners to counter Iran while Qatar was seeking an alliance with Teheran.

"We once were told by a Qatar leader," Herzog recalled. "He said, 'Look, Iran is like a few dozen meters from our shore. I have to take that into consideration. That's why I behave the way I behave.'"

That reason was Europe

French prosecutor seeks dissolution of Scientology

It's a religion every bit as much as Islam, you maroons

Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity ...in England

And it's a politically critical blog

And these nations are the good guys.

We can all argue about whether we are better or not.

But we ARE different.

So what if they give it to Mousavi?

Who is he?

They all hate us, he just wants lower rhetoric. He is a father of what occurred in 1979 with J Carter's vapid hand at the helm here.

But now the Ulema/Guardian Council, the Council of Expediancy, the Safavi's, Larijani's, Mesbah Yazdi's, Jannati's, and Khameini's, can decide if it is now expedient to feed A'jad into the gaping maw of miscalculation.

THEIR GRIP, the BASIJ's power, the IRGC's power will increase nomatter what...

UNLESS.

The mullahs have no place to go , you see.
Unlike Idi Amin, there is no Saudi Arabia for exile.
There will be no home on the shores of Lake Geneva for the likes of them

It's Danton and Robespierre for the mullahs.
And THAT is the big unless....

There will be no change in the path the planet is on UNLESS the Iranians storm the Bastille and start taking names. There will be no change in path unless Barack Obama finds a way to help that along, and then we will be all blessed by the LEGITIMATE, INTERNAL change in Iran.

The mullahs, the Hoatieh, the Basij, the IRGC must be swept away, even if it looks like 1794 at the Place de la Concorde

"Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace."

According to Egyptian news agencies, Mubarak further added that "not Egypt, nor any other Arab country would support Netanyahu's approach"

We understand. There can be no Jewish state on an Islamic Waqf. You are just a kinder gentler face.

the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Muslim generations till Judgement Day?

So I guess what pisses you off, president Mubarak, about HAMAS is not it's objective, but the source of their support, your own personal security, some of their inopportune violence, and their impatience, being unencumbered by that foolish treaty the crazy Sadat signed, eh?

This is the truth behind the coming fiasco and failure of the delusion of Barack Obama.

Truce is postponement.
Peace is only Islamic Peace.

It has always been so.

More as previously reported here...

TEL AVIV -- Israel has drafted a delivery schedule for the first export of unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia.

Officials said the first Israeli tactical UAVs would be delivered to the Russian military in late 2009. They said the delivery would include the Searcher Mk-2 medium-range UAV as well as miniature I-View and Bird Eye-400 platforms.

"There has been an agreement to accelerate the project," an official said.

In April 2009, Israel and Russia signed a $50 million deal for the delivery of UAVs by the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. This would mark the first Israeli military sale to Russia.

Officials said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin was expected to visit IAI in June to examine UAV production lines. They said Popovkin would also be briefed on IAI's Heron medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, sold to India and Turkey.

The decision to accelerate the UAV project was reported in wake of Russia's decision to halt the MiG-31E fighter-jet project for Syria. Officials said Israel's Defense Ministry was encouraged by the Kremlin's decision to suspend the $500 million deal, and then pressed for an expanded military relationship with Moscow.

"The Russian move bolstered our confidence that we could have a trustworthy relationship with Moscow," the official said.

Just great, Barry.
These developments and what they PORTEND are not in america's best interests.

We wonder if you have a  real clue

The DHS report predicted Brunn's lunacy the way a broken clock is correct.

We will NEVER have a govt which can predict, prevent or calculate the details of a Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Kennedy, King, Kennedy, event without massive effort in the minutiae of our daily lives, and EVEN THEN IT IS DOUBTFUL. Even highly organized we could not predict the fall of the USSR, and we want to be able to use a federal authority to identify domestic danger via thought process and political motivation and opposition? File under 'how freedom is lost'.

Oswald, Brunn, and even someone like Gavrilo Princep (who was 'part' and not part of a conspiracy, yet motivated by his small stature) all share LUNATIC COMPULSIONS.

At the right moment such idiots can unfortunately change all history.

They are not some kind of political movement which can be identified by some method except in general terms.

Was the existance of a Sirhan Sirhan predictable? An Oswald? Sure, but so what?

Are deniers and conspiracists right wing? Are A'jad, Larijani, and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Brunn does not justify the DHS thinking "DON'T TREAD ON ME" = right wing loonie violence.

EVER.

No more than the existence of Sayyid el Nosair, KSM (who was taught here) and Khomeini mean if you pray 5 times a day you are ready to kill everyone.

Shepherd Smith's EMBARASSING remark, is in the same family as 'OH THE HUMANITY' loss of control.

He should rethink, apologize, and CONTROL HIMSELF..something I believe he is paid to do.

We're busy with a Norkland that says if one of Dearleader's valuable ships is stopped at sea to ensure they aren't doing what we think they might be, selling nuke tech, they will respond with a 'merciless nuclear assault'. Pakistan shakes on the edge of ....what? 28 dead this morning in Iraq. Oil is expected to bust $71 today on the way to $250/barrel amid falling proven reserves (good thing we are pressuring Israel, huh?), making gasoline $10/gallon. Sales of US Treasury Bonds are falling short (meaning we have to offer higher interest to get them to sell) so we cannot finance our profligate, insane, irresponsible govt in the normal way, so the US Treasury is buying on the 2nd floor, the new debt instruments of the Fed in the basement, who then send the 'cash' into the system (i.e. someplace they and the Congress won't say), China is getting out of the dollar in new investments, and Russia is as well, proving SOMEONE CAN ADD, and yet THEONE and his minions and acolytes in congress despite feeling public pressure to STOP WHAT THEY ARE DOING, insists it's ok to borrow more for health care, and not only that ...

FREE DENTAL ! Why not free Dodge minivans for all ! If you want a Chrysler Van, you have to pay (thats only fair for a more luxurious ride, right?)

Politico

Dems double down on health care

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are double-teaming powerful chairmen and rank-and-file members to save health care reform from a repeat of the Democratic Party infighting that helped kill it in 1994.

In a closed-door session Tuesday, Pelosi assured rank-and-file Democrats that she won't move forward on a bill without their consent. "We have to hear from you," one participant quoted Pelosi as saying.

In a separate closed-door session in the speaker's office, Pelosi and Hoyer urged Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to heed the concerns of moderate Democrats.

That meeting came on the heels of a joint memo prepared by top aides to the speaker and the majority leader.

While Hoyer has been marshaling support for health care reform for months, Pelosi's increasingly hands-on involvement reflects the pressure to move quickly on President Barack Obama's top first-year legislative priority -- and it's a signal that there's no daylight to exploit between the speaker and her No. 2.

"The point is to send a message clearly that they're not going to play the speaker off of Hoyer on this stuff," said a Democratic health care lobbyist.

Waxman, Miller and Rangel -- along with their respective aides -- are trying to draft legislation in concert with each other so their committees will take up the same bill later this summer.

"This is the year we have to do it," Waxman told reporters after the caucus meeting. "There's an overwhelming commitment to getting this done."

"We'll all go together," Miller said Tuesday.

"Ultimately," said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), "our job is to come together as a caucus."

But that's easier said than done -- especially on an issue as contentious as this one.

During the closed-door session Tuesday, Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told colleagues that any bill should include mental health and dental insurance. 

California Rep. Pete Stark, an outspoken liberal who chairs the Health Subcommittee on Ways and Means, would like to see more government funding than party leaders will allow. But he predicted that members will put their individual priorities aside in the hopes of getting a bill through Congress.

High court justice delays Chrysler sale

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg yesterday delayed Chrysler's sale of most of its assets to a group led by Italy's Fiat, but didn't say how long the deal would remain on hold.

Ginsburg said in an order that the sale was "stayed pending further order," indicating that the delay may only be temporary.

Chrysler L.L.C. has said the sale must close by June 15, or Fiat Group SpA has the option to walk away, leaving the Auburn Hills, Mich., automaker with little option but to liquidate.

A federal appeals court in New York approved the sale Friday but gave opponents until 4 p.m. yesterday to try to get the Supreme Court to intervene. Ginsburg issued her order right before the deadline.

Ginsburg could decide on her own whether to end the delay, or she could ask the full court to decide.

I've finally figured out the Obama economic strategy. President Barack Obama and his team have been having so much fun wielding dictatorial power while rescuing "failed" firms, that they have developed a scheme to gain the same power over every business. The plan is to enact policies that are so anticompetitive that every firm needs a bailout.

Once that happens, their new pay czar Kenneth Feinberg can set the wage for everybody and Rahm Emanuel can stack the boards of all of our companies with his political cronies.

I know, it sounds like an exaggeration. But look at it this way. If there were a power ranking of U.S. companies, like the ones compiled by football writers for National Football League teams, Microsoft would surely be first or second to Google. But last week, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer came to Washington to announce what Microsoft would do if Obama's multinational tax policy is enacted.

"It makes U.S. jobs more expensive," Ballmer said, "We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S." If Microsoft, perhaps our most competitive company, has to abandon the U.S. in order to continue to thrive, who exactly is going to stay?

At issue is Obama's policy to end the deferral of multinational taxation.

The U.S. now has about the highest combined corporate tax rate, second only to Japan among industrialized countries. That rate is so high that U.S. firms have an enormous disadvantage versus competitors. The average corporate tax rate for the major developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2008 was about 27 percent, more than 10 percentage points lower than the U.S. rate.

Weak towards sons of bitches overseas, and perceived as even weaker

Insulting towards not only allies, but those who share our interests, and wish us well.

PERSONALLY insulting towards valuable allied leaders in a repeated and undeniable fashion

Exhibiting a NEED to be loved by those who hate the American people and our values.

Politically motivated with force as no president has been since Nixon.

A believer in government force over individuals

A believer in domestic central control based on HIS VALUE SET, which views opponents as EVIL

A believer that government can do better than individuals at nearly everything individuals can do.

A believer that what the founders created WAS LARGELY IN ERROR, and must be radically changed.

A denier .. of brutal reality.

How long until the American people realize?

Right now his approval rating is 67%, though his handling of the economy falls below 50% for the first time.

Amid the reviews of the Cairo episode of Pres. Obama we see those on the left lauding the effort, the words and the 'new beginning' after another reset button has been pressed. We see those on the right who think it was not 'too' bad and had some good points, and those who point to the historically factual errors as engendering another set of non apology apologies.

I have a very different view.

Sometimes the idea that talking set off a series of expectations about results that fires off it's own mandatory process in which the end becomes not only possible, but a demanding and nagging target.

What was the actual purpose of this speech?

1. Was there to be a general recognition from Morocco to Indonesia that the same people who elected Bush are now apologizing for this affront by presenting the new era of Obama?
2. Was he trying to convince the same people, hey, we're not so bad?
3. Was he trying to avoid Huntington's 'Clash'?
4. Just another stop on his 'we've been bad' tour?
5. Was he trying to pry moderate Muslims away from Tantawi-esque, MesbahYazdi, Jannatti Islam? If so, was the effort laudable regardless of the likelihood of the desired outcome?

I cannot imagine that if Barack Obama is as smart as we hear, that anything other than 1 and 5 are the main answers.
I think he succeeded with 1.

But 5 is a farce.

During the run up to the war in Iraq among the hundreds of Arabs 'debating' me over the worthiness of the endeavor's correlative effect (democracy in a middle eastern land) among those who scored worthy points was one who said 'NEVER FROM YOUR HANDS', and then began a chorus amid these mostly Sunnis from the gulf that underlying the western idea of democracy was the idea that law created by man trumped all in the end.

Of course, one must submit to the Quran. End of story.

I have no doubt there is a majority of humans who happen to be Muslim by birth that are appalled by the actions of the killers (though certainly more appalled when the victims are Muslims), and I have no doubt as well, no words of an American who may be argued to be born Muslim (by their rules), now elected President, about us or them which can invalidate the crux of the issue.

We make up our laws which are supreme, which means the words of God cannot be.
They submit to the word of God as they must, and part of those words are that in the end we must submit, pay the tax or, well, you know. Many here would like to argue that we can ignore certain unpleasant parts of the uncreated words of a perfect being.

Many feel we cannot, unless of course, Muslims admit to the idea the Quran is written by Mohammad and a committee of peers who collected all the differing Qurans in the years after his death.

So the idea moderate Muslims can be pryed from the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Nasrallah, Tantawi, Qaradawi, Bin Baz, Khomeini Islam, when the very fact that these names are referenced as the authorities of the ascendant form of Islam due to their POPULARITY, and the accepted basis of their ideas, formed over 1500 years of Islam is a forlorn hope.

No deist Jefferson, rejecting man's religious authority to interpret and punish thru organized religious thought is in the offing over there to relieve this conundrum.

Better to say, 'we will never bridge this gap of western man's law being supreme vs the Quran, but do we have to kill each other? Can 9:29 (among other tasty treats) be ignored, or is Hudna the only way?'

And direct the question from the president of the USA in Cairo, OUTRIGHT to Tantawi, to Nasrallah, to Khameini.

Was this worth the effort?

If it aids us in seeing the truth.

Any takers?

I thought so.

So, was there a point to that speech?

Exactly as predicted....

The much-anticipated meeting between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu on May 18 went off smoothly, if a bit tensely, as predicted. Everyone was on best behavior and the event excited so little attention that the New York Times reported it on page 12.

As expected, however, the gloves came off immediately thereafter, with a series of tough American demands, especially U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's insistence on May 27 that the Netanyahu government end residential building for Israelis in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. This prompted a defiant response. The Israeli governing coalition chairman pointed out the mistake of prior "American dictates," a minister compared Obama to pharaoh, and the government press office director cheekily mock-admired "the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem."

We are going to end up on opposites sides from the only real ally we have ever had in the middle east, and at it's heart the reason is a little problem Mr. Obama has in his soul.

If the specifics of who-lives-where have little strategic import, the Obama administration's rapid and harsh turn against Israel has potentially great significance. Not only did the administration end George W. Bush's focus on changes on the Palestinian side but it even disregarded oral understandings Bush had reached with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

Yasir Arafat smiles as Barack Obama meets Mahmoud Abbas in July 2008.

An article by Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post captures this shift most vividly. Diehl notes, based on an interview with Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, that by publicly and repeatedly stressing the need for a without-exception freeze of Israeli building on the West Bank, Obama

has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud. "The Americans are the leaders of the world. ... They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You have to comply with the conditions'."

Of course, telling the Israelis is one thing and getting their compliance quite another. To this, Abbas also has an answer. Expecting that Netanyahu's agreeing to a complete freeze on building would bring down his coalition, Diehl explains that Abbas plans "to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office." One Palestinian Authority official predicted this would happen within "a couple of years" - exactly when Obama is said to expect a Palestinian state in place.

I wonder what Hassan Nasrallah and Ajad are saying to each other about the mysterious ways of Allah, hmmmmm?

Ever wonder what an Israeli Il-76 with Phalcon AEW systems linked to IAF SU-30's and SU-34's armed with Israeli designed and built weapons can do? When Saudi and UAE F-15's and F-16's start dropping from the sky ..what then?

Barack Obama's PURPOSE is to drive Israel into direct opposition to american policy and strategic goals.

What does Barack Obama have in mind for the USA that these actions which give Israel the choice of isolation from the USA or death by demographic and terror means are imagined to be to our long term advantage?

Daniel Pipes has said that the golden age for Jews in America is OVER. And we can see in Barack Obama it's means. All who oppose his plans for the mideast will be portrayed without real objection as anti peace, pro Likud, with dual loyalties, and NOT PATRIOTIC. Buchanan, Moran, and other freaks of the bigoted left and paleo right with find themselves together.

Even Dershowitz, one of the truly delusional 53% and 78% now sees Obama is a danger to that tiny state. How long until he recognizes the dangers to this large one?

Get ready for it.

Politico:
A day after his big Cairo speech, President Obama is saying 'the moment is now' for action on Mideast peace. 'I am confident that if we stick with it, having started early, we can make some serious progress this year,' Obama said this morning at a joint news conference in Dresden with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

President Obama today visits Buchenwald, the concentration camp his Uncle Charlie helped liberate at the end of World War II.

PS:

ASK NOT AND YOU SHALL NOT RECEIVE: Obama says he has not yet asked Germany to take any Gitmo detainees. 'Chancellor Merkel has been very open to discussions with us,' he said this morning. 'We have not asked her for hard commitments and she has not given us any hard commitments.'

WSJ-

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to appoint a "Special Master for Compensation" to ensure that companies receiving federal bailout funds are abiding by executive-pay guidelines, according to people familiar with the matter.

The administration is expected to name Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the federal government's compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to act as a pay czar for the Treasury Department, these people said.

In 1931, under the Hoover Admin, no less, Senator Huey Long cast his first Senate vote for a bill which limited executive pay to $15,000 in companies which received federal loans. Look it up.

Needless to say, the depression was totally unaffected by this.

MASTURBATION is not action.

Ballmer Says Tax Would Move Microsoft Jobs Offshore (Update3)

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world's largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama's plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies' foreign profits.

"It makes U.S. jobs more expensive," Ballmer said in an interview. "We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S."

Obama on May 4 proposed outlawing or restricting about $190 billion in tax breaks for offshore companies over the next decade. Such business groups as the National Foreign Trade Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable have denounced the proposed overhaul.

U.S. tax rules let companies defer paying corporate rates as high as 35 percent on most types of foreign profits as long as that money remains invested overseas. Obama says he wants to end such incentives to keep foreign profits tax-deferred so that companies would invest them in the U.S.

Microsoft reported an overall effective tax rate of 26 percent for 2008 in its last annual report. "Our effective tax rates are less than the statutory tax rate due to foreign earnings taxed at lower rates," the report said.

Barry Bosworth, an economist in Washington at the Brookings Institution research center, said many software companies such as Microsoft have exploited tax and trade rules in the U.S. and other countries to achieve a low overall tax rate.

Ireland Subsidiary

Typically, he said, a company like Microsoft develops a product like Windows in the United States and deducts those costs against U.S. income. It then transfers the technology to a subsidiary in Ireland, where corporate tax rates are lower, without charging licensing fees. The company then assigns its foreign sales to the Irish subsidiary so it doesn't have to claim the income in the United States.

"What Microsoft wants to do is deduct the cost at a high tax rate and report the profits at a low tax rate," Bosworth said. "Relative to where they are now, the administration's proposals are less favorable, so there will be some rebalancing on their part."

It may not be Ein Volk... but it is, taken at the goal, ..ONE PLAN

Politico:

Code Pink first made headlines by disrupting congressional hearings with anti-war rhetoric. Today, it's helping disrupt health care meetings -- even though it's in favor of reform.

What's up with that?

Call it a classic case of Washington mission creep -- and Code Pink is hardly the only group facing it.

A host of progressive advocacy groups that spent years warring with Republicans are now finding new causes to justify their existence and stay relevant in the Democratic-controlled city.

VoteVets, known for advertising against Republicans who voted against funding better body armor for combat troops, is now pushing Congress to pass climate change and pro-union legislation.

MoveOn.org is returning to its roots as an issue advocacy group.

And the Center for Community Change, a granddaddy in the progressive movement, is shifting its organizing strategy to concentrate on Washington instead of the local communities that have been its usual domain for pushing immigration, health care reform and other social justice issues.

"My group and other groups have made a radical switch in our approach because we think there's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make change on some very long-held progressive goals," said the center's executive director, Deepak Bhargava.

Still, he concedes: "It is a very difficult challenge because most of us have built up a culture that is deeply adversarial and oppositional."

Read more: "Liberal groups get makeover - Chris Frates - POLITICO.com" - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23329.html#ixzz0HSyoHZUu&A

....

In the first 100 days of Obama's administration, the VoteVets brought 350,000 people to Washington, made more than 100,000 phone calls on health care and economic recovery legislation, and held more than 800 local meetings with congressional lawmakers.The 40-year-old center also is devoting 90 percent of its $13 million budget to passing major national reforms of health care, immigration and other big-ticket issues.

Meanwhile Rush and Steele are fighting over who is allowed to use the word republican in front of their name.

Are you kidding me?

Read the facts presented, if you can find them, for why fewer sales outlets are a better choice for companies with declining sales.

Dealers don't cost a manufacturer...ANYTHING

They buy vehicles.
They own them until they are sold.
They buy parts for inventory.
They service the vehicles
They pay for both sales and service training.

If you have too high an inventory of vehicles you BUILD FEWER, and you sell them off, and it would seem the more outlets you have willing to compete, the better off you are.

But not in Obama's Newamerica, where:

After GM's bondholders last weekend refused to answer the bell for another round with Uncle Sam, the White House put out a statement: "As a result, the President has deemed GM's plan viable and will be making available about $30 billion of additional federal assistance to support GM's restructuring plan."

Read that sentence again, slowly. It holds what look like the keywords of the American future: the president, deems, viable, making available, federal assistance, support, restructuring plan.

When a politician chooses who can stay in business or not, the result WILL BE POLITICAL, not commercial. IPSO FACTO.

This used to be a hell of a country.

We need the Schecter brothers. Come out come out wherever you are.

Telegraph UK:

Barack Hussein Obama. Say it proud. Say it out loud. The middle moniker that dared not speak its name during the election campaign is now front and centre of the US president's attempt to woo the Muslim world, the theme of his visits to Riyadh on Wednesday and Cairo on Thursday.

No words can express my disgust for the gullibility, stupidity, naivety, and wishful thinking fantasy voting 53%, ESPECIALLY 78% of the idiot liberal wishing, seeing Seymour or Irving or Shoshana 'do good' , Tikkun Olan (heal the world) Americans who happen to be Jewish who swallowed the absolute MANURE put out by Barack Hussein Obama and his lying, disgusting, sleight of hand running dogs who portrayed HONEST QUESTIONING as vile extremism and then accused the right of doing PRECISELY what they knew they were guilty of.

Americans, you are idiots.

Petrified of the potential political fallout of being branded a Muslim, Candidate Obama - a practicing Christian - never used the name "Hussein" and its use was frowned upon as a forbidden code for the nutty accusation that he was some kind of Islamic Manchurian candidate.

No more. To say Barack Hussein Obama - BHO for short - now appears to be the height of political correctness.

As I argue in this analysis for the Telegraph dead tree edition, Obama is seeking to return to a Middle East policy based on realism - buttressed by the bona fides of his own multi-cultural (including Muslim) background.

In other words it's back to George Marshall speaking to Truman in 1947, who told the president if he recognized Israel not only would he lose his Secretary of State (Marshall) but he would lose his vote in 1948.

The State Dept wins. And all of American Israeli policy is conflated with American Jews, 2500 years of history, a president who is now liable to admit (or CLAIM) he was born Muslim, and the idea that American interests are served by oil from Wahabbis scared of nuclear Shia for a year or two who might be induced to not hate hate us with 205% of their souls, reducing it temporarily to 189%, and we will all be AGOG at the politics of religion mixed into this complete coming FIASCO

Make no mistake about the path we are on.

Israel and the USA are going in opposite directions, and will very shortly find themselves on OPPOSITE SIDES in the middle east.

OPPOSITE SIDES

The USA is going to try and impose a peace and will find Israel resistant to ideas which will kill it and in absolute, black and white terms RESIST AMERICAN POLICY GOALS.

Freeing Barack Hussein Obama to tack the other way, and radically change American policy AGAINST DEMOCRACY and TOWARDS OUTRIGHT POLICE STATES, AND THEOCRATIC DICTATORSHIPS for blurry goals of soft landings among those who see lions and lambs in the same bed.

This is NOT A LIBERAL POLICY.

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS
JIMMY CARTER ON CRACK

Now having worked in voter registration WAY BACK in KKK land, I can tell you, I never saw anything like that in reverse.

So when this showed up on TV, it had my attention.

This is pretty obvious stuff.
Now add in these two mind blowing factoids FROM THE OLD SCHOOL/NEW SCHOOL left..the ADL and the SPLC...BOTH call the New Black Panthers a hate group. Whoa, right? Ok so now...

WASH TIMES:Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

The incident - which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube - had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.

Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.

Here's the REAL RUB ... when charged at the outset, these thugs DID NOT SHOW UP to answer the charges, and had the govt just done NOTHING, they would have been found guilty. Instead Eric Holder went out of his way to DROP THE CHARGES against people who in 1965, and of another hue, would have been doing the frog march with raincoats over theitr heads as they wound their way to a multi year sentence someplace like MARION, IL.

The people running the admin are simply WAY WAY WAY out there.

Apparently they see this as their chance to,,...... what?

HUGE MISTAKE.

A Justice Department spokesman on Thursday confirmed that the agency had dropped the case, dismissing two of the men from the lawsuit with no penalty and winning an order against the third man that simply prohibits him from bringing a weapon to a polling place in future elections.

Can you imagine that outcome in 1966 against some cracker in Dothan Alabama who bought a weapon along with this buds to a voting place to keep black people away?

The people running this govt are NOT LIBERALS. They are against all that liberals worked for in the 60's.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Remember that

U.S. officials are worried by what they described as a chill in relations with Saudi Arabia.The officials said the Saudis have been dismayed by President Barack Obama's decision to seek a reconciliation with Iran. They said Saudi leaders have sent a series of warnings that this would directly harm U.S. allies in the Gulf.

"The Saudis are beginning to back away from us and consider other strategic alliances," an official said.

Obama plans to visit Saudi Arabia on June 3 during his three-day trip to Egypt, Germany and France. Officials said the president added Riyad to his itinerary amid warnings that Saudi leaders were becoming increasingly frustrated with the U.S. policy of reconciliation with Iran. The Saudi royal family was not assuaged by the visit of Defense Secretary Robert Gates in May, officials said. They said Gates, despite his promises of additional U.S. weapons and training, was treated cooly by Abdullah and his aides.

It's really quite unbelievable what is going on in a few short months.

Perhaps Mr. Obama is depending on Abbas to be our key ally in the coming years of wandering in our diplomatic, military, and economic desert.

Can you imagine what they are planning, while viewing all this from Teheran?

From Moscow?

From Beijing?

And what plans to ameliorate thier positions are being concocted right now in Canberra, London, Prague, Warsaw, Seoul and Tokyo?

Who could consider themselves our ally?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN ALLY
OF THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED BARACK OBAMA?

Administration blocks helicopters for Israel due to civilian casualties in Gaza

Government sources said the administration has held up Israel's request for the AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter. The sources said the request was undergoing an interagency review to determine whether additional Longbow helicopters would threaten Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

You mean the folks who voted by 60% plus to get HAMAS, which wants all jews in Israel (and probably everywhere) dead as their govt?

"During the recent war, Israel made considerable use of the Longbow, and there were high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip," a source close to the administration said.

And in a parallel story from July 1945, Boeing representatives have stopped deliveries of B-29's to the Army Air Force due to high civilian casualties in Nagoya, and Tokyo when the smell of burning flesh could be detected inside the bombing aircraft.

The Israel Air Force has also requested U.S. permission to integrate the Spike extended-range anti-tank missile into the AH-64D. Spike ER, developed by the state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, has a range of eight kilometers and was installed on the Eurocopter Tiger and AgustaWestland A129 helicopters.

The sources said the deployment of Spike would require integration into the Longbow's millimeter-wave fire control and acquisition system. They said this would require permission from both Boeing and the U.S. government.

Israel's Defense Ministry and air force have discussed procurement of additional Longbows with the U.S. firm Boeing. But the sources said the Longbow as well as other defense requests have been shelved by the administration amid its review of the potential use of American weapons platforms by Israel.

The Russians WILL sell to anyone. The Israelis ARE fighting for their lives.

Can you believe it?

Days after we are informed that given the same facts a female latino judge can reach a better conclusion than a white male judge we get this ...

The inner assumptions of the progressive left are NAKEDLY revealed.

DISGUSTING

These people are the results of elections.

We are totally screwed.

It begins and end with human nature. Which is nature itself. Undeniable. Apparently unchangeable.

Those who rule nations which are not ruled by their own people imagine themselves strong for having taken by force and imagination and daring what others could not, would not or were defeated while trying to achieve. They see themselves as doing good for their people through their strength. Some see this strength as god given. It really is irrelevant.

They see the leaders of nations whose people rule themselves as hamstrung, weaker, and risk averse. By comparison, of course, they are, since they must be in order to prevent them (our leaders)  from taking power themselves gradually or suddenly.

Today we see the leader of a tiny starving nation offer up, precisely after each warning from nations whose people rule themselves, another provocation. Each and every time a warning is issued, missles get launched, armistices are abrogated, allies are threatened. It is clear no matter WHAT they actually have in mind, North Korea has little fear of anything actually occurring as a result of actions of the West.

The North Koreans have been taught this certainly since at least B Clinton was president. But it was certainly articulated when Carter was president, by Khomenei. 'The Americans cannot do a damned thing', he said after Desert One.

In Teheran Khamenei, Safavi, Rezai, Abbassi, Mesba-Yazdi, Jannati, Rafsanjani, and Larijani are all observing. So are those in other capitals. Wonder why China has been no help to the USA? This is a real life lab. They want some answers about us. At little risk to them, they have a nice science experiment going.

Iran sees Iraq as a last gasp, and an exception. They have said so. STRATEGICALLY. Others must wonder. MUST WONDER.

The West is now lead by someone of reason, who wishes to reason with former and present enemies and reach a rational conclusion to enmity.

This is not wrong.

The others just don't want the same kind of conclusion.

They believe if they keep pushing the West will keep falling back and offering up reason for them to halt. In the 1930's we know now that the German leadership actually became FRUSTRATED with the West because no provocation would cause the war which would lead to the dominance of Germany. Of course one is always found.

The others are going to conclude they can do almost anything and the ultimate price will never be paid.

They are wrong, but they don't know it. They are being brought to these conclusion by the same kinds of mistakes, made in the same old way.

The American people just don't want war. They don't want the confrontations which remind them of it. They don't want leaders who warn them about it and make them think about it. It's really quite natural. It's not 'wrong'. Leaders who reflect this reality get elected. Baldwin and Chamberlain were immensely popular for a reason. These leaders cause the others to imagine they are facing a weak entity which cannot be provoked enough. Those leaders with the temerity to warn, and act are ridiculed and characterized as evil characters from the movies.

The others don't know where the uncrossable line is.

Neither do I.

But I know it's there.

The others will no longer believe it, though. Sooner or later.

And there we have it.

And we will incinerate them again, because that's what we do, and for what but to begin this cycle anew?

That is nature

The economy shows only manipulated numbers of some kind of hope for the end of the year for those who emotionally or politically cannot bear the realities of mild deflation (checked those LCD screen prices lately ?) .

Prices on homes, appliances, vehicles, even some foods are falling.

Jobs continue to disappear.

But gasoline here in Maine gas has gone from just over $2 to $2.47 in less than a month despite softening of demand, and incredibly high inventories.

When supply outstrips demand, and prices rise what shall we think?

Huh, Wahabbis? Huh, A'jad, Hugo and thugs?

Oil and gasoline prices hit a new high for the year Wednesday despite expectations that OPEC will not cut production again and more bad news arrived for the nation's automakers.

Benchmark crude for July delivery rose $1 to settle at $63.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices haven't been that high since early November.

Retail gasoline prices, which are up 19 percent in the past month, rose 0.9 cents overnight to $2.434 a gallon (64 cents a liter), according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Prices are now 10 cents higher than a week ago and 38.4 cents a gallon higher than a month ago. It's also a high for the year.

Oil prices dipped below $35 a barrel as recently as March.

Many experts say that fundamentally, there is little reason for the recent price spikes and that consumers should expect related costs to come down before the summer is over.

Major U.S. industries continue to struggle and on Wednesday, a bankruptcy filing by General Motors Corp. appeared inevitable.

Jim Ritterbusch of Ritterbusch and Associates said U.S. gasoline prices could be back down to nearly $2 a gallon by the end of summer.

"Demand is going to remain weak, and we've got plenty of excess refining capacity to crank up production," he said.

ANY TAKERS WHEN DEMAND IS DOWN
NOW BUT PRICES RISE DRAMATICALLY?

TOO LATE FOR THAT AMERICAN FUEL CELL CAR NOW, HUH?

THIS PERSON WAS:

Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870-July 9, 1938) was a well-known American lawyer and Supreme Court Justice, remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, in addition to his modesty, philosophy, and vivid prose style. Although Cardozo served on the Supreme Court from 1932 until his death, the majority of his landmark decisions were delivered during his 18-year tenure on the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court of that state.

In 1932, President Herbert Hoover appointed Cardozo to the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The New York Times said of Cardozo's appointment that "seldom, if ever, in the history of the Court has an appointment been so universally commended."^[5] Democratic Cardozo's appointment by a Republican president has been referred to as one of the few Supreme Court appointments in history not motivated by partisanship or politics, but strictly based on the nominee's contribution to law.^[6]

Cardozo was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate on February 24.^[7] On a radio broadcast on March 1, 1932, the day of Cardozo's confirmation, Clarence C. Dill, Democratic Senator for Washington, called Hoover's appointment of Cardozo "the finest act of his career as President"^[8] The entire faculty of the University of Chicago Law School had urged Hoover to nominate him, as did the deans of the law schools at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone strongly urged Hoover to name Cardozo, even offering to resign to make room for him if Hoover had his heart set on someone else (Stone had in fact suggested to Calvin Coolidge that he should nominate Cardozo rather than himself back in 1925).^[9] Hoover, however, originally demurred: there were already two justices from New York, and a Jew on the court; in addition, Justice James McReynolds was a notorious anti-Semite. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William E. Borah of Idaho, added his strong support for Cardozo, however, Hoover finally bowed to the pressure.

They have had several famines since embarking on this seemingly absurd quest.
They have arguably increased instability in an unstable nation
They have seemingly increased tension with their main benefactor, China
They have publicly embarrassed the United States,and several presidents by admitting to cheating on international accords in such a way as to leave no doubt they never intended to honor the accords they signed, doing so (signing them) solely in order to facilitate national goals.
Namely,reliably accurate short and long range missiles, deliverable nuclear weapons, and steady assembly line nuclear weapons technology.

WHY?

The best case explanation is that all this is some counter intuitive psychotic plea for aid.

The worst case is that this is all an ADVERTISEMENT to those with the cash but not the physical production means.

One thing is certain.

They are not just plain crazy.

If these guys can't be trusted to follow the agreements they signed, how can we trust they can even be 'bought off' from delivering a 15 kiloton device to Chavez or ANYONE with a buck?

So all that zakat going to HAMAS, or the $$ in the KSA treasury ( if Iran keeps on keeping on), or to anyone with reserves, and the demonstration that the USA will not do a damned thing,...it's an ad.

And only days ago, the Obama admin professed to being "relaxed" about the way the Nork situation was developing.

Anyone want to see Japan with a few thousand advanced nuclear weapons? Anyone want to guarantee our national goals will still be identical to theirs in 10-15 years?

Can you do this job Mr. Obama?

Obviously the Euro's continuous carping about our loss of values is something that would shield them from the murderers since they would have been upholding our values when we were not, right? I mean them complaining about Gitmo, secret prisons in eastern europe, rendition, water boarding, pushing killers into foam rubber whiplash protected walls being evidence of an america much akin to nazi germany means THEY were more in line with ObamaReidPelosiMoveOnSorosRomero values, right?

GERTZ:

Al Qaida cell in southern Italy was planning mass casualty strike

LONDON -- Al Qaida was said to have planned a series of mass-casualty strikes in the European Union.

Officials said Al Qaida has organized an operational cell ordered to carry out major attacks in Britain and France. They said the cell was based in Italy and included Arabs and Europeans, including those who fought in Afghanistan.

An Italian police officer shows pictures of suspected Al Qaida members Bassam Ayachi, left and French Raphael GeIfndron who were arrested in Bari.    AFP/Giovanni Marino

"This was to have been the kind of attack that would have exceeded that in Spain," an official said.

The official was referring to the bombings of the commuter train system in Madrid in 2004. At the time, nearly 200 people were killed by a cell of North Africans linked to Al Qaida.

So far, two members of the Al Qaida cell were arrested in the southern Italian city of Bari in December 2008. One of them was a Syrian national identified as Bassam Ayachi, 62, who also carries a French passport.

Officials said cell members, including French nationals, planned to attack Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris. They did not elaborate.

The two suspected Al Qaida members have been arraigned in front of an Italian judge. Ayachi was said to have been the spiritual leader of the Belgian Assabil Islamic Center and helped establish a training center for suicide bombers. Officials said Ayachi was also under investigation in Belgium.

Men identified as Bassam Ayachi, left, and Raphael Gendron in an undated photo released by Italian police in Bari on May 12.    Reuters/Polizia di Stato

"Bassam Ayachi appears to be one of the spiritual guides at the European level while Raphael Gendron, a computer expert, had an important role in media propaganda," Italian police said in a statement.

On May 12, Italy brought charges against Ayachi and Gendron in connection with the alleged Al Qaida plot. The two suspects were also charged with membership in and operating recruitment cells for Al Qaida.

France has not confirmed the purported Al Qaida plot against its international airport in Paris. Officials said Italy shared the results of the six-month investigation with Paris.

"We do not have any facts leading us to seriously believe that there was a threat to attack Roissy," French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said.

If we vote to elect people we want, and we vote to make up our own laws, WE ARE THE ENEMY to these people who are willing to act on the basis of the Quran- since making up our own laws will always be usruping god's, and his authority.

That's ALL THERE IS TO IT, delusionary morons.

"We uphold our fundamental principles and values not just because we choose to, but because we swear to -- not because they feel good, but because they help keep us safe,""When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops."


"United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples."

"Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation."

"the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula. All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims"

Our enemies hate us in the final analysis SPECIFICALLY because we choose to rule ourselves and have in their eyes, usurped god's rightful authority


In the end we are the enemies of god.

Read it to believe this is a considered opinion:

Mr. Netanyahu, in his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, earned a reputation for conspicuous insincerity. It is therefore possible to interpret his fixation on Iran -- he told me in a recent conversation that it is ruled by a "messianic apocalyptic cult" -- as a way of avoiding the mare's nest of problems associated with the Middle East peace process, especially the escalating pressure from the Obama administration to curb Jewish settlement on the West Bank.

That's right - the concern Israel feels for the expressed opinion of EVERY SINGLE IRANIAN LEADER SINCE THE 1979 CARTER REVOLUTION that Israel is a tumor to be removed before it kills the world, joined with their achievement of nuclear weapons and the expressed opinion of one of it's MODERATE LEADERS that the Jews will die the day they get nukes is actually a canard by a lying leader to avoid giving the Palestinians, who could have had a state on May 15, 1948 or anytime from then until 1967, a new state as a gift from Israel and Obama.

The NYT then honors this incredible angle with a column undoubtedly since this kind of torturous mental gymastic exercise is compulsory if one is going to look for a way to justify the Obamanoid delusion that an agreement of peace with jews and palestinians, and a new palestine (joined by highway with Gaza to allow quickly subsuming Abbas by Iranian controlled HAMAS), will solv e all middle easta problems, and end muslim's HATRED for the USA.

Hey IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND, Keller and Sulzberger.

It is the END of the mullahs, by killing a lot of support for HAMAS, Hizballah, the nuclear program as it is, isolating Syria and making the Wahabbis quiescent for a bit which will give peace and the existence of a Palestinian state a chance.

A chance.

No wonder these guys are going out of business.

I wonder if they even have a CLUE how far out of it they are

 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives accused the CIA of lying publicly. Accused them of a conspiracy to mislead congress about how they get information.

One thing is for sure.

If there is no such conspiracy, then she is a criminally negligent FOOL, and a really terrible liar under pressure.
But in throwing down such a gauntlet in such a way, then only hard and real damage to our intelligence organs and their roguish behaviors can be an acceptable outcome to her, the Speaker of the House

Let's take the wayback machine to 1975, and Gerald Ford, post Nixon-Watergate, and a year before J Carter:
The Church Committee:

"They were very specific about their effort to destroy American intelligence [capabilities]," remembers Robert Ellsworth, a U.S. diplomat. "It was Senator Church who said our intelligence agencies were 'rogue elephants.' They were supposedly out there assassinating people and playing dirty tricks and so forth...Well, that just wasn't true." Rumsfeld and Ellsworth prevented the committees from dismantling the CIA and other intelligence organizations.

We are faced now with hearings over torture (Conyers, Waxman, Leahy) , and recrimination parties held for PURELY partisan political reasons. We have now added the public cry of the Speaker, who would not have undertaken such a charge without condifence in the knowledge of what is going to unfold in Congress.

In 1975 we had the years long exposes of the Church Committee, and by 1979 we were blind to what unfolded in Afghanistan. But no one was trying to bomb NY and Washington and  LA then.

We cannot have the CIA engaging in a conspiracy to mislead the people they serve, US.

We cannot have the Speaker of the House publicly accusing the CIA of this for personal survival to avoid the chains of hippocracy I believe she has earned rather well.

Nancy Pelosi will now allow hearings thru Conyers et al, and will attempt to obfuscate what she has done.

What she has earned is RESIGNATION.

But maybe she will serve the nation better where she is, as a big fat lying target to rally opposition around, if the Repiblicans have the brains to take advantage of her.

She is an icon of what is wrong.

It goes like this ...drawn from Ted Belman and other places such as China Confidential and the great Ms Glick...but MANY other sources as well...

Obama's grand bargain (IS DONE) with Iran is to get their support (sort of like France's in Afghanistan?) to 'allow' us to carry out a (ready for it?) limited modified invasion of Pakistan to get their nukes as their nation crumbles.

For this the trade becomes (according to Jordan's king)

1. Israel in something like 67-49 borders
2. Limited right of return (undefined numbers)
3. They keep some settlements
4. Israeli Arabs become part of palestine as a trade for that
5. Jerusalem is the capital of Arab Palestine which will be a demilitarized state
6. Palestine will be a demilitarized state
7. Normal relations and trade with all arab nations for Israel
8. Israel is recognized by the Palis as a jewish state
   

FORGET IT
2. is a non starter since that is the end of a two state solution right there
4. has already been rejected by the arabs themselves (2000, with Clinton) who would have to become palestinian citizens. They seem to find this disadvantageous for some reason, I can't imagine why
5. Would cause revolution inside Israel
6. Yah sure, when even this week HAMAS reiterates they will never accept two states? And Abbas says, 'hey I can agree to anything but I can't be expected to force our people to agree and act like it'. Further, does ANYONE ANYWHERE believe that having come all this way HAMAS would LISTEN to an Iran even if the IRGC did say CUT IT OUT boyz of the MB? Or that there is not enough loon wahabbi individual arab money to make up some/most/all the difference? Hell, WE ARE giving HAMAS almost a billion
7. Nice but who really cares?
8. Yes, one they will kill soon enough

All this to invade a nation of 168 million, 8 times the population of Iraq the vast majority of whom hate our guts before we invade to look for an unknown number probably in the 80-200 range of nukes the length of a kitchen table and the width of a basketball, while Iran simply does not blast us verbally all over the world and takes no other action?

And after ... we leave behind a nascent caliphate.chaos and disorder for who, India?

DELUSION if true.

Can Obama be that stupid and delusional?

Leave peace in Israel up to Israel and its enemies, and get special forces backed by massive air ready to carry out this mission which is a RAID, which we should have been training for since AT LEAST 2001.

Gertz:

WASHINGTON -- The regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was said to have been alarmed by the new U.S. policy to reconcile with Iran.

A report by the Washington Institute asserted that the new reconciliation policy with Iran by U.S. President Barack Obama has sparked alarm in Cairo.

The report, authored by researchers David Pollock and Mohammad Yaghi, said Egyptian other Arab diplomats have not been assuaged by U.S. assurances that engagement with Iran did not mean abandoning Washington's opposition to Teheran's nuclear and regional destabilization efforts.

I guess they're not as stupid as the look. I wonder if the Obamanoids have a clue what all this around them means?

"Such sharp exchanges reflect genuine anxiety among the Egyptian elite, observed by one of the authors during a visit to Cairo last week, not only about Iran's own activities, but also in regard to the new U.S. willingness to engage Teheran," the report, titled "Egypt's Campaign against Iran Sends Washington a Signal, said.

The report said the Egyptian announcement of a Hizbullah network in Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula was meant to express Mubarak's dismay over U.S. policy toward Iran. Pollack and Yaghi said the Egyptian position has been shared by other Arab states.

"At a recent State Department briefing for a select group of friendly Arab states, including Egypt, the U.S. message reportedly emphasized that its efforts to engage Iran now would improve the prospects of confronting Iran later, if necessary," the report said.

"The Arab diplomats apparently did not find this message entirely reassuring, with some asking pointedly about more immediate Iranian threats. Egypt's new revelations about the Hizbullah plot on its own territory present the most vivid case in point."

The report said Egypt has been most concerned over Iranian attempts to infiltrate Arab states. The Hizbullah cell, said to have been financed by Iran, was regarded as part of Teheran's policy to destabilize pro-U.S. allies in the Middle East.

"Cairo is sending a signal to Washington that the nuclear file is not the only -- or even the most urgent -- aspect of the Iranian threat," the report said.

Unfortunately for Hosni et al, the Obamanerds dialectic does not fit the objective reality of the planet.

The report said Egypt arrested the commander of the Hizbullah network in November 2008. But the Mubarak regime refrained from disclosing the network until Egypt decided to influence U.S. and Arab policy toward Teheran.

That would make the Egyptians BEYOND STUPID.

"It clearly reflects that Cairo is taking sides in an increasingly polarized pan-Arab debate on Iranian influence in the region," the report said. "Especially striking in this case is Cairo's outspoken challenge not just to Hizbullah, but also to its Iranian patrons."

Pollack and Yaghi urged the Obama administration to help Egypt battle Iranian destabilization efforts. They said the Egyptian campaign against Hizbullah would provide Washington with an opportunity to demonstrate its support for pro-U.S. allies in the Arab world.

"The United States should move quickly to provide strong public support and tangible assistance to Egypt and other Arab governments in their efforts to counter Iran's increasingly brazen subversion," the report said. "Such a stance is not incompatible with Washington's search for a way to engage Iran. On the contrary, the essence of smart statecraft lies precisely in the ability to talk while simultaneously protecting one's interests and preserving one's principles."

SEVEN EXISTENTIAL THREATS .. by Michael Oren

Israel's Diplomatic Isolation by John Bolton

How Obama's America Might Threaten Israel by Norman Podhoretz

Israel Today, the West Tomorrow by Mark Steyn

An Ominous Turn in Elite Opinion by Jonathan Tobin

It's going to be very tight when Bibi meets the One.
I predict ANIMUS and I believe that is precisely what Obama wants.
Prepare for greater polarization in this nation.

GERTZ:

Saudis weigh alternative alliances as U.S. pursues opening with Iran

WASHINGTON -- The United States faces increasing opposition from Gulf Arab allies to its new dialogue with Iran.

They're even hoping for hand from the Yahoooooodis.

Officials acknowledged that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council states have relayed messages of deep concern over the new Iranian policy of President Barack Obama. They said the six GCC states, which have been key energy and military allies of Washington, believed that they would be the first victims of any U.S. reconciliation with Teheran.

What's it gonna take?

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, center, at Riyadh Airport with Charge d' Affaires David Rundell, 2nd left, and Ibrahim Al-Malik, Director of Saudi Arabia's Armed Forces Public Affairs on May 5.    Reuters/Jason Reed

Saudi Arabia has also sent warnings that it would build alliances with countries other than the United States.

Officials said Riyad has been discussing strategic relations with Britain, China, India, Pakistan and Russia.

"While we're willing to reach out to the Iranians, as the president said, with an open hand, I think everybody in the administration from the president on down is pretty realistic and will be pretty tough-minded if we still encounter a closed fist," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

On May 4, Gates launched a Middle East tour designed to assuage GCC states of U.S. policy toward Iran. The defense secretary acknowledged that Gulf Arab allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been bracing for the emergence of close relations between Teheran and Washington.

"One important message will be, particularly for the Saudis, that any kind of outreach to Iran will not be at the expense of our long-term relationships with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states that have been our partners and friends for decades," Gates said. "There's probably some concerns in the region that may draw on an exaggerated sense of what's possible."

These people are a joke. A joke

Officials said the administration has sought to reassure GCC states that the United States would maintain its military presence in the Gulf. They said Gates and other senior administration representatives have also stressed that the White House would press Israel to accept the Saudi plan for peace with the Arab states and Palestinians.

"The Saudis in particular have considerable influence in Pakistan," Gates said.

Of course the Chinese have already hacked this information, BUT...

JPOST:

A refusal by the United States to allow Israel to repair computer systems in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is at the heart of disagreements between the Defense Ministry and the Pentagon that have been holding up an official Israeli order for the fifth-generation fighter jet.

The JSF, also known as the F-35, is a stealth fighter jet under development by Lockheed Martin. Last year, Israel received approval from the Pentagon to purchase up to 75 aircraft in a deal that could reach close to $20 billion.

The US has closed down production and canceled production of the F-22, which the Pentagon says is the only fighter we have which could penetrate the Russian sold but not yet installed S300PMU air defense system in Iran, rather than sell these to any of Israel, Japan or Australia, all of whom have asked to buy them.

Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that talks between the Israeli defense delegation in Washington and the Pentagon have picked up speed in recent weeks but have yet to result in agreement due to the US's refusal to grant Israel access to the plane's internal computer mainframe.

The Americans are concerned that by allowing Israel to independently repair the computers, the Israel Air Force will get its hands on the classified technology that was used to make the plane.

Israel, on the other hand, has argued that due to its operational requirements it needs to have the ability to repair damaged or broken computer systems in "real time" and cannot wait for a computer system to be sent to the US for repairs in the middle of a war.

The Americans have told Israel it will receive a number of spare computer systems that it could install in place of a damaged system but would still have to send the damaged system to the US for repairs.

"This is the core of the disagreements right now," explained one senior defense official. "We have major operational constraints and need to have the ability to repair the systems on our own."

Due to the disagreements regarding the computer, as well as American opposition to the integration of Israeli systems into the plane and its overall soaring cost - now reaching $100 million - the Defense Ministry has recently asked Boeing for details on the new and advanced model of the F-15 Eagle, which is claimed to have enhanced stealth capabilities.

There is also an option to upgrade existing F-15s to the Silent Eagle model at a much lower cost.

In March, Boeing unveiled the F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15SE), a new configuration of the F-15 which has undergone improvements and modifications that, according to media reports, give the plane a stealth capability that is effective in evading radars on enemy aircraft but not against ground-based radar systems.

Improvements in stealth include coatings and treatments to the aircraft, as well as a new design for the conformal fuel tanks that includes the possibility of carrying weapons inside them instead of fuel.

Israel operates several squadrons of F-15s, including one of 25 F-15Is, the aircraft with the longest-range in the IAF.

I see an Israeli designed and built stealth fighter, and stealth drones in the future which will compete on the open market with and perhaps for American sales, and absolutely WILL end up sold to any purchaser.

Is that really the desired outcome here?

Considering what Kissinger did in 1973, in both pre war threat 'had Israel struck first, they would not have received "so much as a nail" ' (rather than the Israeli policy which was to preempt), and in withholding resupply, and where we are with the administration and it's appointments, stated goals and speeches both during the campaign and now, the USA is proving that Israel's (i.e., the Jewish people in history in this case) original foreign policy in the face of the 1948-1966 US arms embargo - Israel will never be able to look to or depend on any other nation or people, and will never have real allies or friends, and should look only to itself - is utterly correct. Of course at that time, the mullahs and their genocidal compulsions DID NOT EVEN EXIST. There was no Hizballah, no HAMAS, no IRGC.

It will be the USA which faces the most problems in the ME, and in the world as a result of the choices it is making in foreign policy, defense and intelligence now. Problems CREATED by this admin which will last 50 years or more.

In whose long term interest is it that Iran remains without nukes, or the mullahs are destroyed?

What policies are we engaged in which will deliver these goals?

The concrete objective conclusions based on actual events is that, we are forcing Israel to be physically weaker, and politically weaker in order to compel them to commit acts not in their own interest because we believe a peace in the ME on our terms will serve our goals. We do not consider serious the idea that such a peace will kill Israel in the end.

This means the USA inside this administration regards ISRAEL (and another group here) as the problem in the middle east.

They believe that Israel compelled to act as we wish means Iran will understand our actions be cognizant that we mean them no harm and will feel that way towards us.

This 'reality' in the minds of this admin underlies all their actions.

It is my observation, therefore, that this administration believes Walt and Mearsheimer as well.

Watch what happens here in America as a result of this belief by the administration.

Obama's (adult) lifelong preacher, Wright said Israel was a gangster state...publicly. Obama is going to act as if it is and cast a baleful eye at those who support the idea that this gangster state is one of our key allies in this world.

I don't know how Obama's economic ideas are going to play out, but he is going to be the largest and most calamitous failure in American history as president in foreign affairs as history records, over the fullness of time.

You reformat, fill every every byte with 255, then 0 or the revers, or an even more rigorous procedure.
UGH !

Computer hard drive sold on eBay 'had details of top secret U.S. missile defence system'

Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defence system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay.

The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) ground to air missile defence system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq.

The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin - who designed and built the system.

A missile launch in California: Details of the ground-to-air defence system were found on a computer hard drive

British researchers found the data while studying more than 300 hard disks bought at computer auctions, computer fairs and eBay.

The experts also uncovered other sensitive information including bank account details, medical records, confidential business plans, financial company data, personal id numbers, and job descriptions.

The drives were bought from the UK, America, Germany, France and Australia by BT's Security Research Centre in collaboration with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US.

A spokesman for BT said they found 34 per cent of the hard disks scrutinised contained 'information of either personal data that could be identified to an individual or commercial data identifying a company or organisation.'

And researchers said a 'surprisingly large range and quantity of information that could have a potentially commercially damaging impact or pose a threat to the identity and privacy of the individuals involved was recovered as a result of the survey.'

Two disks appear to have been formerly used by Lanarkshire NHS Trust to hold information from the Monklands and Hairmyres hospitals including patient medical records, images of x-rays, medical staff shifts and sensitive and confidential staff letters.

In Australia, one disk came from a nursing home and contained pictures of patients and their wounds.

Confidential material including network data and security logs from the German Embassy in Paris were also discovered on a disk from France.

And the trading performances and budgets of a UK-based fashion company, corporate data from a major motor manufacturing company were discovered along with details of a proposed 50 billion currency exchange through Spain involving a US-based consultant.

Dr Andy Jones, head of information security research at BT, who led the survey, said: 'This is the fourth time we have carried out this research and it is clear that a majority of organisations and private individuals still have no idea about the potential volume and type of information that is stored on computer hard disks.

'For a very large proportion of the disks we looked at we found enough information to expose both individuals and companies to a range of potential crimes such as fraud, blackmail and identity theft.

'Businesses also need to be aware that they could also be acting illegally by not disposing of this kind of data properly.'

Dr Iain Sutherland of the University of Glamorgan said: 'Of significant concern is the number of large organisations that are still not disposing of confidential information in a secure manner. In the current financial climate they risk losing highly valuable propriety data.'

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin, who make the THADD launch system, said: 'Lockheed Martin is not aware of any compromise of data related to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence programme.

'Until Lockheed Martin can evaluate the hard drive in question, it is not possible to comment further on its potential contents or source.'

A spokesman for NHS Lanarkshire said: 'This study refers to hard disks which were disposed of in 2006. At that time NHS Lanarkshire had a contractual agreement with an external company for the disposal of computer equipment.

'In this instance the hard drives had been subjected to a basic level of data removal by the company and had then been disposed of inappropriately. This was clearly in breach of contract and was wholly unacceptable.'

The spokesman said the trust now destroy equipment containing data on the premises, so no longer use external companies to dispose of IT equipment.

Lately immigration has been a warmer subject to this blog, and the the other blog where I write. I have extolled the value to America of immigration of those who WISH to be Americans.

In another of the series of talks we have had which has had it's highs and lows - frank recognition of the difficulties engendered by a religious founding doc which must be regarded as the perfect uncreated word, and recommendations for us to read intros to Islam by utterly dhimmified fools, last night we had a discussion of the experience of Muslims in America.

I am going to lay it out dispassionately.

The word CAIR was never mentioned.

There are some aspects and suggestions in the objective data (all from Pew)  that at this point Muslims in the USA, 2/3 of whom, are 1st generation immigrants that we may be seeing just what was present in other 1st generation groups.

Consider this.

Of the 35% native born muslims, the vast majority, converts to Islam are actually the folks who used to be the Nation of Islam but were brought into the maintream of Sunni Islam by the son of Elijah Muhammad.

One huge difference between those who came here  as muslims and earlier waves (though the numbers are too small to call this a wave, this prof estimated about 1.5 million) is education level. Here in a america, among measured religious groups only jews have a higher college graduate percentage.

71% of Muslim Americans agree that most people who
want to get ahead in the U.S. can make it if they are willing to work hard.

78% are happy or very happy with their lives.

In the mid 40%'s they would tell other muslims coming to assimilate, in the mid 20%'s they would say, don't.
(I canot find numbers like this for the early 20th century groupings)

Here is a VERY INTERESTING ITEM.... look at the first line and then the last. In a first generation group of immigrants I wonder if any of the southern europeans, or jews would have polled much differently.

Or maybe we should all be alarmed that very low numbers think of themselves as american first.

Of those muslims who thought of themselves as americans first, a two thirds hardly go to mosque, a few days a year ... in other words the equivalent of Easter-Xmas or Jewish High Holidays.

Of those who think of themselves as muslims first, 74% go never to a few times.

????????

Since we had an open discussion which had been announced we had one muslima (covered) and 4 gusy show up from U Maine.

They seemd quite relaxed and had some questions and did not seem reticent to ask and take part.

Of course the subject of Israel never came up in discussion except to say that an astonishing 61% of muslims here believe that peace can be reached there. I said nothing.
Data for Europe is very dismal compared to the USA. There is little assimilation or hope for it. Earnings data shows them pitifully behind. I remarked as how across 1900 years assimilation for jews in europe did not go too well either.

After the occasion we hade tea, dessert, and soda. The crowd mixed easily.  This congregation is essentially professional people, either professors at the university, or medical and legal people. The muslims who came along were right in that milieu.

Perhaps that explains the vast majority of muslims here more than anything else.

While we were in discussions with some I notice others, praying in the rabbi's office. They asked only for a place. I saw the door close so I got it, but it was a truly remarkable moment, if incongruous.

Soon I hope to have Dr. Bostom up here, and bring a crow like dose of reality to some of this. While we are far from the center of things, CAIR is real, the Muslim Brotherhood is real, and we all know that movements are created with a small number of actors who have broad unstated support. But it is just as important to be sure we also know it is not all HAMAS and Qaradawi, and recognize that we may skirt by some problems because the big party known as America is just too pretty to resist, ALL the time.

Maybe.

The data give one warning, but it is one true across all religions in america right now .. younger people take religion much more seriously. I am one who has differentiated Islam because of the Quran being mandatorily taken as the perfect word of a perfect being, so HERE is something to mull about the attitude of americans who happen to be muslim.

Wash Times:

President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.

The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones.

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

"Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," Ms. Gottemoeller told the meeting, according to Reuters.

...snip

Asked by The Washington Times whether the administration would press Israel to join the NPT, the official said, "We support universal adherence to the NPT.

...snip

For the past 40 years, Israel and the U.S. have kept quiet about an Israeli nuclear arsenal that is now estimated at 80 to 200 weapons. (Most estimates I have seen put that number 450-600) . Israel has promised not to test nuclear weapons while the U.S. has not pressed Israel to sign the nuclear NPT, which permits only five countries - the U.S., France, Britain, China and Russia - to have nuclear arms.

The U.S. also has opposed most regional calls for a "nuclear-free Middle East." The accord was forged at a summit between Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and President Nixon on Sept. 25, 1969, according to recently released documents, but remains so secret that there is no explicit record of it. Mr. Cohen has referred to the deal as "don't ask, don't tell," because it commits both the U.S. and Israel never to acknowledge in public Israels nuclear arsenal.

When asked what the Obama administration's position was on the 1969 understanding, the senior White House official offered no comment. 

...snip

The Obama administration is seeking talks with Iran on its nuclear program and has dropped a precondition for negotiations that Iran first suspend its uranium enrichment program.

"What the Israelis sense, rightly, is that Obama wants to do something new on Iran and this may very well involve doing something new about Israel's program," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington think tank.

Bruce Riedel, a former senior director for the Middle East and South Asia on the White House National Security Council, said, "If you're really serious about a deal with Iran, Israel has to come out of the closet. A policy based on fiction and double standards is bound to fail sooner or later. What's remarkable is that it's lasted so long." Mr. Riedel headed the Obama administration's review of strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan but does not hold a permanent administration position and has returned to private life as a scholar at the Brookings Institution. 

...snip

Israel began its nuclear program shortly after the state was founded in 1948 and produced its first weapons, according to Mr. Cohen's book, on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli defense doctrine considers the nuclear arsenal to be a strategic deterrent against extinction. But its nuclear monopoly is increasingly jeopardized by Iranian advances and the possibility that Iran's program could trigger a nuclear arms race in the region.

Israel's arsenal has also been an open secret for decades, despite the fact that Israeli law forbids Israeli journalists from referring to the state's nuclear weapons unless they quote non-Israeli sources.

In 1986, the Israeli nuclear scientist, Mordecai Vanunu disclosed in the Sunday Times of London photographs and the first insider account of Dimona, the location of Israels primary nuclear facility. Israel responded by convicting him of treason. He was released in 2004 after spending 18 years in prison but has continued to talk about the program on occasion. The government has barred Mr. Vanunu from leaving Israel.

...snip

In 2000, Israeli journalist Aluf Benn disclosed that Mr. Clinton at Wye River promised Mr. Netanyahu that "Israels nuclear capability will be preserved." Mr. Benn described as testy an exchange of letters between the two leaders over the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. He said Mr. Netanyahu wrote Mr. Clinton: "We will never sign the treaty, and do not delude yourselves - no pressure will help. We will not sign the treaty because we will not commit suicide."

The Bush administration largely dropped the treaty in its first term and reopened negotiations in its second term with a proposal that did not include verification.

...snip

Mr. Obama has made nuclear disarmament a bigger priority in part to undercut Iran's and North Korea's rationale for proliferation. His administration has begun negotiations with Russia on a new treaty to reduce U.S. and Russian arsenals. He also has expressed support for the fissile material treaty.

"To cut off the building blocks needed for a bomb, the United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in state nuclear weapons," he said last month in Prague. "If we are serious about stopping the spread of these weapons, then we should put an end to the dedicated production of weapons-grade materials that create them."

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank, said such a treaty would be the first step toward limiting the Israeli nuclear program.

"The question is how much of a priority is this for the Obama administration?" he said.

John R. Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador and undersecretary of state, said Israel was right to be concerned.

"If I were the Israeli government, I would be very worried about the Obama administration's attitude on their nuclear deterrent," he said. "You can barely raise the subject of nuclear weapons in the Middle East without someone saying: 'What about Israel?' If Israel's opponents put it on the table, it is entirely possible Obama will pick it up."

However, Ms. Gottemoeller endorsed the concept of a nuclear-free Middle East in a 2005 paper that she co-authored, "Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security."

"Instead of defensively trying to ignore Israels nuclear status, the United States and Israel should proactively call for regional dialogue to specify the conditions necessary to achieve a zone free of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons," she wrote.

The paper recommends that Israel take steps to disarm in exchange for its neighbors getting rid of chemical and biological weapons programs as well as Iran forgoing uranium enrichment.

Can you believe these people?

4.5 million jews, 6 million Israelis, 300 million muslims right there want them dead. And we are talking about removing nuclear weapons from their arsenal.

Hey 53%, hey 87% of jews in America are you HAPPY YET?

Yesterday the same Joe Biden who in late 2001 wanted to send $300 million to Iran to prove we are not against Islam (New Republic  - from his own staffers, no less), and who during the campaign told the world that Israel had better get used to the idea of a nuclear Iran,....

"Israel has to work toward a two-state solution," declared Vice-President Joe Biden today in a speech to the annual conference of a powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington.

"You're not going to like my saying this," he warned the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) before adding that the Jewish state should not build any more settlements on Palestinian territory, and should "dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement".

There are, in the West Bank and Gaza 3 Palestinian movements. One movement is led by the Holocaust Denier/Minimizer Abbas, who only in April again asserted that while the Palestinian Authority may sign agreements which recognize Israel, he has no right to enforce this on the people or other movements. The other two movements are Hizballah and HAMAS. So there's certainly nothing to discuss there. More the idea that a peace deal with this batch will HELP with Iran is too stupid to believe, 2 out of 3 ARE the IRGC. They are Iran.

It is clear that to Obama, Israel is Czechslovakia, and the West Bank and Gaza the Sudetenland.

Meanwhile in the capital of the nation we are 'engaging with our dialog', Syria, the president of Iran says ..

"The Zionist occupiers are destructive microbes, because Zionism itself is occupation, aggression, the use of assassination and annihilation," he told a joint news conference with President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian capital.

"Zionism was created to threaten us. To support the Palestinian resistance is a humanitarian and popular obligation," Ahmadinejad said in remarks in Farsi that were translated into Arabic.

"Syria and Iran are united in supporting the Palestinian resistance."

Syria also is claiming that H5N1 (swine) flu is an american product.Progress on all fronts, eh.

What are other leaders thinking of all this? What are they thinking in other intelligence agencies? What are they going to keep to themselves?

I guess then it should be no surprise that Israel reacts this way..

"Whether or not Israel got the green light from Washington to attack Iran is almost immaterial, as everybody in the region would believe that the U.S. was complicit," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

One U.S. diplomat envisaged Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak telephoning Pentagon chief Robert Gates, unannounced, "to give a heads-up and explain" once the mission were under way.

Since Biden was so idiotic and dhimmish that he wanted to pay jizya to the Mullahs after americans had been killed in 2001, is there ANYONE in Israel who would trust the VP of the US with a moment's advance knowledge of an attack?

With each statement and admonishment, with every lack of undertstanding of the nature of the Palestinian desires, this administration brings regional war closer. There may be nothing anyone can do to prevent this, but Obama and his remarkably stupid and dangerous ideas are being noted by those who DO understand, and wonder what else he lacks the ability to move correctly on.

HERE

It's amazing what distance from real life will do to your vision.

WHAT SERVICES?
Here are the services I receive from govt:

1. Garbage Collection (which was FAR superior when we paid private garbage haulers $2/week, and more when we had big stuff to get rid of...NONE OF WHICH can be given to the govt authorized service, local)
2. Roads being maintained (good job plowing, but fix the holes, local)
3. Schools (not anymore, but I'll pay for that...it's called sales and property tax, state and local)
4. Unemployment? Well I needed it once, but when I started my own business, even though I drew no moneys, THEY WANTED IT BACK
5. Clean air and water? We have a well. Air looks good. They create neither.
6. Protection, well locally we can leave our door unlocked at night, and sometime forget and do, nationally .. we need defense, and I'll pay for that.

When I have a problem with 1-3 I go to town hall where an actual human listens. But I live in a town with about 1200 voters. Once we get beyond that, policies are made beyond my ability to strongly influence. Therefore, I prefer as little of that as possible. SMALLER GOVT.

Powell says: "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

I believe that to be either an error by Powell or the American people.

Distant people with weird views of life, who have a very different set of experience from yours, different needs, different wants, ... well I don't want more of them deciding things abut what I can do or not.

While I believe conservatism based on religious values are a danger since faith is dangerous in making law for all, and that so called religious conservatives should take caution from Goldwater's admonitions, I am not so sure that a move to be more like democrats is in the interest of either the Republican party or the nation. Powell singles out Eric Cantor who is no right wing freak, and Rush Limbaugh, whose views on only a few topics could be characterized that way, IF YOU ARE OF THE LEFT.

More still, American political views run like a sine wave. Sooner or later the wave returns back to 0 and then above. Sooner or later a theory of governing runs into problems, it's called nature and chance. And when that happens shall we have center-left and way-left be the choices?

I am not so sure that a move to be more like democrats is in the interest of either the Republican party or the nation. I will have to think more.

Being defined as a moderate or independent does not mean one has oatmeal views (hear me, Rush?), it may mean that you have choices which MAY be thought of as considerably left or considerably right on succeeding issues such as I do on respectively, gay marriage, and what defines national security.

By moving to the center the Republican party will narrow my choices. So I will have to think more.

But ironically the leftward lurch in the democratic party and what THEY perceive (after this election which was in REALITY - based on Republican corruption, and mishandling, and Lehman Bros and real estate value bubble economic-shock), as a SEA change in the American people (it isn't sport fans) may in the end cause there to be more republicans, SOONER OR LATER, just as inevitably Hastert, Foley, Delay, Livingstone, et caused there to be fewer.

UNEDITED, and without comment -for your consideration and reflection, straight from the UVA Archives, all sides here, I believe:

"I hold the right of expatriation to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature, and incapable of being rightfully taken from him even by the united will of every other person in the nation. If the laws have provided no particular mode by which the right of expatriation may be exercised, the individual may do it by any effectual and unequivocal act or declaration." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1806. FE 8:458

"Expatriation [is] a natural right, and acted on as such by all nations in all ages." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:12

"Our ancestors... possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice, has placed them, of going in quest of new habitations, and of there establishing new societies, under such laws and regulations as, to them, shall seem most likely to promote public happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:185, Papers 1:121

The Obligation to Provide Asylum

"Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The Constitution, indeed, has wisely provided that for admission to certain offices of important trust a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us?" --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:338

"It [has] been the wise policy of these states to extend the protection of their laws to all those who should settle among them of whatever nation or religion they might be and to admit them to a participation of the benefits of civil and religious freedom, and... the benevolence of this practice as well as its salutary effects [has] rendered it worthy of being continued in future times." --Thomas Jefferson: Proclamation, 1781. Papers 4:505

"America is now, I think, the only country of tranquility and should be the asylum of all those who wish to avoid the scenes which have crushed our friends in [other lands]." --Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Church, 1793. FE 6:289

"[We wish] but to consecrate a sanctuary for those whom the misrule of Europe may compel to seek happiness in other climes. This refuge, once known, will produce reaction on the happiness even of those who remain there by warning their task-masters that when the evils of Egyptian oppression become heavier than those of the abandonment of country, another Canaan is open where their subjects will be received as brothers and secured against like oppressions by a participation in the right of self-government." --Thomas Jefferson to George Flower, 1817. ME 15:141

Rights of Immigrants

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." --Thomas Jefferson to Hugh White, 1801. ME 10:258

Too Rapid Growth by Immigration

"[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible... founded in good policy?... They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass... If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VIII, 1782. ME 2:118

"I mean not that these doubts should be extended to the importation of useful artificers. The policy of that measure depends on very different considerations. Spare no expense in obtaining them. They will after a while go to the plough and the hoe; but in the meantime, they will teach us something we do not know." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VIII, 1782. ME 2:121

"A first question is, whether it is desirable for us to receive at present the dissolute and demoralized handicraftsmen of the old cities of Europe? A second and more difficult one is, when even good handicraftsmen arrive here, is it better for them to set up their trade, or go to the culture of the earth? Whether their labor in their trade is worth more than their labor on the soil, increased by the creative energies of the earth?" --Thomas Jefferson to J. Lithgow, 1805. ME 11:56

"Although as to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation, yet English emigrants are without this inconvenience. They differ from us little but in their principles of government, and most of those (merchants excepted) who come here, are sufficiently disposed to adopt ours." --Thomas Jefferson to George Flower, 1817. ME 15:140

Any takers?
Anyone think Barack Obama will stop Iran?
Or is he bartering ALLOWING ISRAEL TO TRY THAT FOR 1966 borders?
JPOST:

Emanuel: Thwarting Iran easier with Israeli-Palestinian talks

May. 4, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

The task of forming an international coalition to thwart Iran's nuclear program will be made easier if progress is made in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has said, according to sources in Washington.

Israeli TV stations had reported Monday night that Emanuel had actually linked the two matters, saying that the efforts to stop Iran hinged on peace talks with the Palestinians. The remarks were reportedly made in a closed-door meeting previous day with 300 major AIPAC donors on Sunday.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Israel that it risks losing Arab support for combating threats from Iran if it rejects peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Sunday, former US House speaker Newt Gingrich blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state.

He called US President Barack Obama's program of engagement with Iran a "fantasy," and his Middle East policies "very dangerous for Israel." He summed up Obama's approach as "the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter."

I do not believe Barack Obama has what it will take to stop Iran. He has NOTHING to barter except letting Israel do easily what it can do now with difficutly. He will never act on his own

PERIOD.

Were I Netanyahu, I'd simply stop talking. What's the point? As Newt says  ..it's a collision course.

It is my observation that Obama believes if there is a US brokered agreement which brings into being the Palestinian state which could have come into existence at any moment from May 1948 until June 1967 ON ITS OWN, all Muslim problems with the USA will cease. All the more so if it is perceived we compelled Israel to yield.

This fits with his appointments, his campaign, and his actions since inauguration.

Barack Obama, certainly in this instance shows the crudest possible understanding of who are our allies, and who are not, and who are enemies.

" Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem's commitment to the peace process." ..Arab nations want Israel to obliterate the mullahs for them because they are PETRIFIED of the persians, NOT because they are altruistic, tolerant nations, correctly identifying threats to their peoples, and want a peace with the state they have rejected every day since 1936.

Barack Obama, certainly in this instance,  demonstrates he is not a man who should be president.

He will cause such long term damage to the USA and our interests, and our allies, that by the time he leaves office no nation will be able to look at us and be secure we are a friend, or what that means.

Barack Obama will fulfill Bernard Lewis warning, that the USA is 'harmless to our enemies, and deadly to our friends', and we will find a world, more filled with enemies, and faced with indifferent friends, who question not the american government and it's will, but the American people and theirs.

U.S. continues military aid to Lebanon despite Hizbullah's rising clout

NICOSIA -- U.S. officials said Washington has completed plans for military and security aid to Lebanon throughout 2009. They said the plans were drafted by the Bush administration and endorsed by President Barack Obama.

Ever wonder where our government gets its ideas? What do our people suppose Hizballah is going to do? DISSOLVE?

"Our ongoing support for the Lebanese armed forces remains a pillar of our bilateral cooperation," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a three-hour visit to Beirut on April 26.

Bilateral implies we get something. WHAT?

Officials said U.S. Central Command has conducted two surveys of the Lebanese Army and security forces since 2005. They said Centcom determined that the Lebanese military has been hampered by lack of transportation, weapons, ammunition and logistics

"It's regrettable that they [Lebanese security forces] don't have a monopoly on the use of force," former Assistant Secretary of State David Welch said on April 27.

Centcom has also determined that the Lebanese Army, with 72,000 soldiers, required a significant improvement in basic skills. The study was said to have cited marksmanship, urban warfare, logistics, maintenance and command.

So let me get this straight .. while using all our diplomatic skills with Syria to get them away from Iran they committed to MAYBE reducing the number of HAMAS secretaries, and our 'allies' against Hizballah (which is actually the IRGC's foreign legion strike force) in Lebanon, has no transport, ammo or weapons, and even if they did they can't shoot, give orders, or keep their stuff working.

"The most important one was that the Lebanese military needed a lot of help in the military basics, which are not always the most glamorous," Christopher Straub, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near East and South Asian affairs, said. "They needed trucks, Humvees, parts and ammunition more than they needed high-end, expensive weaponry."

Officials have warned that the Obama administration and Congress would review U.S. military aid to Lebanon should the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah win parliamentary elections on June 7.

Oh oh, we may call apress conference and object and express our chagrin

So far, the United States, as part of $410 million in security aid since 2006, has shipped 200 trucks, 41 M-198 155 mm artillery systems and 285 Humvee combat vehicles to Lebanon. Officials said another 312 Humvees would arrive by mid-2009 in deliveries monitored by the new U.S.-Lebanese Joint Military Commission.

"Behind it is all basics -- 12 million rounds of ammo, spare helicopter parts, shoulder-fired rockets," Straub said in a recent interview to the Lebanese daily An Nahar. "We want them to play their role in controlling Lebanese territory. We also want them to deter the terrorist threat."

Officials said Washington was also ready to send night-vision systems and tactical unmanned aerial vehicles. They said the shipments could arrive in 2009.

"The next step is more capability for the air, thinking in terms of not only being able to transport things via air, but have a precise close-air support [capability]," Straub said.

How can anyone take this nation seriously? Almost a billion for Gaza, 90% of which will end up buying Fajr 3 missiles for Hamas, almost half billion for the sinkhole of the Lebanese army, which will NEVER defeat, or be ALLOWED (by Iran) to defeat OR DIMINISH Hizballah, and we are kicking our ONLY ALLY in the shins over accepting a state composed of these same people against thier border, 9 miles wide from this new state to the ocean.

We are going to face disaster of drastic consequences.

Is it any wonder that the Iranian morons think god is on their side?

Look at how we conduct ourselves.

Hamas headquarters may leave Damascus as part of U.S.-Syria deal

WOW ! That has real consequences for HAMAS, huh?

NICOSIA -- Palestinian sources said Hamas political bureau chief Khalid Masha'al has been drafting alternatives to the movement's headquarters in Damascus.

The sources said Masha'al has been informed that Hamas could be forced to reduce its presence as part of a U.S. reconciliation effort with the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Wow, they COULD be forced to have fewer people visible..OH NO!

"It's not clear that Hamas headquarters will have to leave to Syria, but it is a possibility," a Palestinian source close to the Islamic movement said.

The sources said the administration of President Barack Obama has raised the prospect of the departure from Syria of groups deemed terrorists. Over the last two months, they said, the proposal has been discussed by both administration officials and leading members of Congress in meetings with Assad.

Masha'al has been considering the relocation of Hamas headquarters from Damascus as part of a reorganization of the leadership. Sources close to Hamas told the Kuwaiti daily Al Jareeda that this could involve the dismantling of the Hamas political bureau, based in Damascus.

Under the proposal, the Hamas political bureau would be replaced by an 18-member executive committee. The panel would consist of six members from the Gaza Strip, six from the West Bank and six from other areas.

The sources said the reorganization would result in an intensification of the rivalry between Egypt and Iran over control of Hamas. Iran has been the leading military supplier to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, while Egypt shares a border with the strip.

Masha'al has been mulling the transfer of Hamas to Sudan. The sources said such a transfer could also be part of a U.S. dialogue with the Islamic movement.

Come again?

WASHINGTON GERTZ -- The U.S. Central Command has approved a proposal to introduce the F-22 Raptor in several exercises with Gulf Cooperation Council states.

Several countries have sought to purchase the F-22 after the U.S. suspended procurement by the U.S. Air Force.

The F-22 Raptor

Industry sources said the F-22 was the only fighter in the U.S. Air Force that could penetrate any Russian air defense system, including the S-300PMU.

Israel has relayed several requests for the aircraft, priced at $140 million per unit.

So far, the F-22, termed the most advanced Western fighter, has not been flown in the Middle East. Officials said the air force wanted to deploy the F-22 to determine its capabilities in the searing heat of the Gulf.

"This is something I have put on my exercise program," Centcom air operations chief Lt. Gen. Gary North said.

North said the F-22 would participate in exercises sponsored by the UAE-based Gulf Air Warfare Center. The center has sought to facilitate interoperability between the air forces of the United States and the GCC as part of regional defense efforts.

"I would like to bring the F-22 into theater as rapidly as possible for exercising," North told a Feb. 26 briefing.

Other Middle East states have expressed interest in the latest variant of the F-15 fighter-jet.

Executives said several Middle East states have relayed interest in the new F-15 Silent Eagle, or F-15SE. They said the aircraft, manufactured by Boeing, would be capable of long-strike missions against such regional adversaries as Iran.

"The F-15 Silent Eagle is designed to meet our international customers' anticipated need for cost-effective stealth technologies, as well as for large and diverse weapons payloads," Boeing vice president Mark Bass said.

Executives said the F-15SE would mark an interim solution until the maturation of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project. They said the latest F-15 included new conformal tanks as well as weapons bays for missiles designed to reduce the aircraft's radar signature.

Some comments have caused me to think a bit further about what these things mean ...

Just as the majority of Americans voted for Obama so Latinos did. Jews despite swinging in increasing numbers towards Republicans earlier, went as heavily for Obama as they did FDR. Catholics increased their vote for Obama. Yadda. What demographic did not? White Anglo Males from 45-60?

That, if anything is a clear warning sign to Republicans.

How did Latinos vote in 2000? 2004? 2006? Historically?

America is NOT WASP.

WASP decline began as early as the immigration waves of the 1840's.

The Irish were not regarded as 'anglos'
The German immigrations which resulted in complete divisions and corps of the Army of the Potomac which could barely speak and communicate (O.O. Howard's at Chancellorsville, for example) was regarded as a sign of decline
The eastern europeans were certainly not regarded as white anglos.

I also take exception to the idea that lots of immigration means socialism and third world-ism.

This is all very similar to the argument which began the day Andrew Jackson ran for president supported by (at the time) the western undereducated, ignorant, uncultured, 'untermenschen'

Those who are attracted to become Americans (as distinguished from those who just want a buck and to return home) do so for a chance to SUCCEED and thrive for themselves and their progeny.

America is a better life, or one free from oppression.

REGARDLESS OF COLOR, RACE OR BACKGROUND.

The very ideas that IMMIGRATION means open borders (when I am clearly calling for secure borders) ... IS THE DEATH KNELL FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, ICONIC FOR IT, AND WILL ACCELERATE THE OUTCOME SOME DON'T WANT WHILE ENSURING THAT IN THE END - CONSERVATIVE MEANS RACIST IN THE PUBLIC MIND, AND PERHAPS IN OBJECTIVE REALITY AS WELL

Conflating these issues GUARANTEES DEMOCRATIC RULE

Precisely what the most left leaning dangerous persons in this nation desire.

MY ANCESTORS, I assure you, did not come as WHITE MALES.

In fact they were 1 male and 9 women arriving here on my dad's side. On my mother's side, an orphaned woman, with 2 girls and a boy. Not one had a cent. Just an address to go to. Not an anglo cultural idea among the lot.

They created 11 who served in WW2 - the from the pacific to D-day at Normandy. 3 more in Korea. 4 in Vietnam. 1 in civil rights. Among them they created tailors, radar developers, bus drivers, hospital admins, teachers, and one cardiac research scientist type.

They all came from the late 19th century to the 1920's. I state all that because I bet IT IS TYPICAL.

Today the Americans who happen to be Asian DOMINATE the high achievement levels in high schools (certainly on the west coast where many attend after school schools in order to ACHIEVE as adults), and form pluralities in many graduate, law and medical schools.

As Christine's fine post points out wordlessly, America's 'culture' is culture less.

Ironically it is PRECISELY that which has held us together amid the forces which have destroyed other nations, and made many more weaker and unable to thrive.

But no matter - I mention the idea of the 1924 immigration law as an idea, and icon of closure. Quotas. Exclusions.

The idea is that conservative, if it means anything must mean BLIND to all but adherence to a set of ideals .. a set which define our ability to thrive as individuals, and rise to the level of our intelligence, hard work, and risk taking guts, unhindered by govt.

But maybe that is too liberal a definition?

GLOBALSECURITY.ORG:

Kurdistan's Zagros TV announced the raids by Iranian helicopters in the border region and quoted Kurdish officials as saying that it was the first time that combat helicopters have been used during months of sporadic border clashes. A Kurdish military spokesman said the helicopters did not violate Iraqi airspace but attacked by flying parallel to the border.

Border officials said Iran's military shelled the PJAK positions before the helicopters struck. Iran has targeted the PJAK with artillery in the past but never followed with air assaults.

Iran has long complained about cross-border activities of the PJAK (Free Life Party of Kurdistan) which normally operates further to the north.

Turkey bombed positions of the terrorist PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party), along its border with Iraqi Kurdistan, several times, this past week. Nine Turkish soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb blast, for which the PKK claimed responsibility, Wednesday.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Turkish President Abdullah Gul agreed to a joint demand that the PKK throw down its arms, during a recent visit by President Gul to Baghdad. The PKK rejected that demand.

26 people were also killed during fierce cross-border gunbattles between Iranian police and Kurdish separatists along the Iraqi-Iranian border, just a week ago. 18 of the dead were Iranian policemen.

Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group said that Iran has been trying to quash PJAK rebels along its border for quite some time:

"The Iranians have been taking action against PJAK, the Kurdish guerilla group from Iran that has worked in cooperation with the PKK, the Turkish-Kurdish group, for some time, and the latest attack is consistent with that, and whether the Iranians shell the PJAK positions or they carry out helicopter attacks in the area where the PJAK is operating doesn't make a huge difference," he said. "Now, some Kurds in Iraq are obviously going to be affected by this. The people living in the border area have suffered a long time from these attacks and it's a big problem for them, but they also are not capable of getting rid of PJAK and the Kurdish regional government is equally incapable of ejecting PJAK from this area," he added.

Western Iran has a large Kurdish population, and Iranian security forces have clashed repeatedly with PJAK separatists, operating out of northern Iraq, in recent years.

WIRED:
Iranian aircraft attacked three villages inside Iraq over the weekend. The airstrikes -- Iran's first on Iraqi soil since the U.S. invasion -- could complicate the Obama administration's efforts to normalize relations with Tehran.

"The bombardments appeared to have targeted the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish separatist group which has launched attacks on Iran from rear-supply bases in the mountains of northern Iraq," AFP reports. Iran has attacked the Kurdish group before, with artillery. But this is the first time the Iranians followed up, with assaults from the air.

"The incident comes a week after reports of a clash between Iranian police officers and suspected PJAK fighters in the country's western province of Kermanshah," Al-Jazeera reports. "At least 10 policemen and 10 fighters were killed in the gun battle."

Details on the airstrikes remain sketchy. Voice of America says the attacks were carried out by helicopters, which remained in Iranian airspace. Al-Arabiyah television, on the other hand, says it was "Iranian planes [that] raided those villages."

It is a serious development because the Iraqi airspace is under the control of the US Air Force and under US protection.  So the raids are either approved by the United States, as was the case when a US nod was previously given to the Turkish Army, or such operation was a surprise by the Iranians.  According to eyewitnesses, the planes were flying at very low altitudes, which may indicate that they were trying to escape detection by radars. So these planes were able to attack many locations.  Eyewitnesses and official Kurdish sources said that the raids were carried out by fighter jets and not helicopters.

In February, American fighter jets shot down an Iranian drone flying over Iraq. Such an incursion would've likely provoked an angry response from the previous administration. But the reaction to the drone incident was muted -- perhaps in the interest of keeping the dialogue with Tehran going.

Open hand, and unclenched fist, indeed.

"I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure," Mr. Obama said Wednesday, "primarily, initially, because the Pakistani Army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands."

The Obama administration inherited from President Bush a multiyear, $100 million secret American program to help Pakistan build stronger physical protections around some of those facilities, and to train Pakistanis in nuclear security.

But much of that effort has now petered out, and American officials have never been permitted to see how much of the money was spent, the facilities where the weapons are kept or even a tally of how many Pakistan has produced. The facility Pakistan was supposed to build to conduct its own training exercises is running years behind schedule.

For years now, I have been talking about a SECURE BORDER, ALONG WITH a return to pre 1924 immigration rules.

What occurred in this nation from colonial times until 1924 in terms of immigration is what made us great.

We fearlessly (as a nation) let the masses in.

But all nations must have secure borders, and illegal immigration in the millions is proof this is a joke.

The republicans have managed to allow themselves to be painted into a corner of being anti immigration by being for a secure border and seemingly mass deportations.

Immigration reform has come to mean amnesty for criminals and nothing about a border.

Now Obama has called for closed borders and relatively open immigration.

Obama has adopted the position of someone like me, and left the republicans NOWHERE on this critical issue among a rapidly growing voting, catholic (and therefore seemingly more conservative???) demographic.

If the republicans are, LIKE BUCHANAN, against immigration itself, then I have basic problem with them on a large issue, and find myself in (gulp) alignment with Obama (altho I think his call to close the border is a bunch of baloney to shut people up..I'd reccommend he DO THAT FIRST).

I would also say, get ready for a generation of democratic rule.

Somebody with some brains better grip the wheelbarrow by the handles in the republicna party pretty quick, or soon it won't matter.

Just an observation from Maine

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A source with intimate knowledge of the case against two ex-AIPAC staffers accused of passing along classified information says the case has been dropped.

Keith Weissman, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former Iran analyst, and Steve Rosen, its former foreign policy chief, were charged under a rarely used section of the 1917 Espionage Act that makes it a crime for civilians to receive and distribute closely held defense information. Both men were later dismissed by AIPAC, with the organization claiming the two had violated its rules; Rosen, in turn has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against AIPAC.

Federal prosecutors reportedly had been considering dropping the criminal case in the wake of a number of recent judicial decisions that make the prosecution more difficult. Among these was an appeals court rejection of a prosecution request to review the trial judge's order that prosecutors make the case that the defendants harmed the United States and not merely benefited Israel.

Note that this could be applied to people who 'leaked' satellite info to Britain during the war with Argentina over the Falklands in 1982

Some Democrats see the case as a piece with Bush-era efforts to expand government secrecy powers, but the Post quoted its sources as saying that the review would have occurred whether or not Barack Obama had won election as president.

The dropping of the case comes just days before the start Sunday of AIPAC's annual policy conference in Washington.

GERTZ:

The Bedouins were said to have resided in central and eastern Sinai and allegedly were connected to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

Another ..'they'll never work together' story.

Egyptian security sources said Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah ordered the establishment of sleeper cells in Egypt as Israel prepared to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Looks as if even Sharon badly misjudged this entire mess.

The sources said the Hizbullah network contained more than 100 people, located in such cities as Alexandria, Cairo and El Arish.    AP/Ben Curtis

The sources said Hizbullah, directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, intended to use Cairo as well as the Sinai Peninsula to transfer funds, weapons, instructions and recruits to the Gaza Strip.

"Iran and Iran's followers want Egypt to become a maid of honor for the crowned Iranian queen when she enters the Middle East," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu Al Gheit said.

You mean they weren't just enforcing the law so that international chaos and war would be avoided?

The sources said details of the Hizbullah network have been provided by Sami Shihab, identified as a cell chief and captured in April 2009. Shihab, a Lebanese national whose real name is Mustafa Mohammed Yusef Mansour, was said to have told Egyptian interrogators that Hizbullah had prepared a series of attacks on Israeli and other foreign targets in Sinai.

Gee, any guesses who "other" means? Maybe Thais?

"Elements of the cell monitored tourist sites in [Sinai's] Taba, Sharm e-Sheikh, Dahab and Nueiba to conduct operations against Israeli tourists and visitors," Shihab was quoted as telling interrogators. "They monitored Israeli ships moving through the Suez Canal."

The sources said a Hizbullah commander, Mohammed Qublan, was assigned the mission to establish a network in Egypt in 2005. They said Qublan visited Cairo and transferred funds to Egyptian and Palestinian recruits.

The sources said many of the Bedouins were arms and drug smugglers with connections in Israel. They said the Bedouins were ordered to recruit their relatives in Israel to the Hizbullah cell to facilitate smuggling and mass-casualty attacks.

You mean it's not really about the 'occupation' ? I can hardly believe it !

The Hizbullah network in Egypt was used to facilitate the flow of fighters, weapons and ammunition from Africa to the Gaza Strip.

The sources said the network intensified activity in February 2008 in wake of the assassination of Hizbullah operational chief Imad Mughniyeh, a killing blamed on Israel.

In addition, the sources said, Hizbullah planned three at least attacks on Israeli targets.

Hizbullah was said to have planned at least three attacks against Egypt and Israel. One plot stipulated a huge suicide bombing in Tel Aviv meant to result in scores of casualties.

Another plot was to identify and attack an Israeli or U.S. ship in the Suez Canal.

A third target was Israeli vacationers in the southern Sinai.

"This is the tip of the iceberg," the source said. "We are sure that we will uncover additional plots as additional terrorists are captured."

I wonder how Egypt will question them? With Honeyed Chicken and Rice Pilaf and soft walls meant to make a loud noise if you hit it, while preventing whiplash?

"The [Hizbullah] supreme leadership ordered Hizbullah not to stage operations in Egypt, rather within Israel," Shihab was quoted as saying. "The operations have been already approved."

At first, Shihab said, Hizbullah planned to attack Israeli interests in Egypt. He said Hizbullah sent operatives on forged passports to collect intelligence on a range of Israeli targets.

Another Hizbullah operative, Nasser Abu Umra, was said to have confessed to acquiring and concealing suicide explosive belts. Abu Umra was also said to have purchased a house in the divided city of Rafah to store weapons.

"This serious case, which affects the national security of Egypt and its national sovereignty, calls for zero tolerance and the protection of the state within a legal framework," Egyptian Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mufid Shehab told parliament on April 14.

The sources said the Hizbullah network contained more than 100 people, located in such cities as Alexandria, Cairo and El Arish. They said the Sinai network contained at least 25 Hizbullah operatives, believed to have been provided haven by Bedouins in the central part of the peninsula.

"The Central Committee of Hizbullah approved this, and Hizbullah sent Lebanese and Palestinians to form the network," a security source said.

Bedouin smugglers have been clashing with Egyptian security forces throughout eastern Sinai. On April 13, an Egyptian border guard was shot and killed along the Israeli frontier. At the same time, another shootout was reported between Egyptian forces and Bedouins in central Sinai.

Officials said the Hizbullah network was preparing to intensify weapons smuggling to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. They said the network, alleged to have already assembled suicide explosive belts, planned to purchase a boat and bring weapons from Somalia, Sudan and Yemen to Egypt.

"They were observing and locating the tourists groups who repeatedly come to south Sinai resorts and residences paving the way to target them in hostile activities," Shehab, the Egyptian minister, said.

UNBELIEVABLE !
GERTZ:

Israel

"Obama could instruct Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to slow or decrease these purchases, which would send an unmistakable signal that it was no longer business-as-usual." Stephen Walt Position: Professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

WASHINGTON -- A leading ally of President Barack Obama and critic of the Israel lobby in the United States has outlined a proposed U.S. campaign to pressure Israel that would suspend the intelligence dialogue between the two countries.

The timing is good.

Israel's "special relationship" with the United States has been low-hanging fruit for the unrelenting and politically victorious critics of the Bush administration's War on Terror which targeted militants in Iraq, Iran and Syria in coordination with Israel's security agencies.

Stephen Walt, a U.S. professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, who co-authored with John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago a controversial study on the Israeli lobby in the United States, has drafted recommendations for the Obama administration to pressure the new Israeli government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank.

Walt, regarded as influential in the U.S. diplomatic community, said the campaign should begin by administration criticism of Israel and support for United Nations resolutions that condemn the Jewish state.

"U.S. officials could even describe Israel's occupation [of the West Bank] as 'contrary to democracy,' 'unwise,' 'cruel,' or 'unjust,'" Walt wrote in the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy.

"Altering the rhetoric would send a clear signal to the Israeli government and its citizens that their government's opposition to a two-state solution was jeopardizing the special relationship."

Netanyahu was scheduled to fly to Washington to meet Obama in May 2009. But on April 16, the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reported that Netanyahu was expected to cancel his visit amid an assessment that Obama would refuse to meet the Israeli prime minister.

"Within four years there will be a permanent settlement between Israel and Palestinians," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was quoted by Yediot as saying. "We don't care who the prime minister is."

Walt's report, titled "Can the United States Put Pressure on Israel: A User's Guide." marked the latest recommendations to the Obama administration to revise U.S. policy toward Israel.

In March 2009, a report by a bipartisan panel of foreign policy analysts called on the White House to pressure Israel as part of an effort to resolve the U.S. conflict with the Arab world.

Stephen Walt, left, of Harvard University, and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago.  Greg Martin / N.Y. Times

The book by Walt and Mearshimer, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, generated controversy but also served to validate a growing alternative foreign policy consensus for a new administration elected in large part on the basis of the repudiation of the 43rd U.S. president.

But the book was also repudiated by such ideologically opposed former foreign policy officials as former Secretary of State (1982-89) George Shultz and former N.Y. Times correspondent and former President of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie Gelb.

"Anyone who thinks that Jewish groups constitute a homogeneous 'lobby' ought to spend some time dealing with them," Shultz wrote in the U.S. News and World Report. "For example, my decision to open a dialogue with Yasser Arafat after he met certain conditions evoked a wide spectrum of responses from the government of Israel, its political parties, and American Jewish groups who weighed in on one side or the other. ... The United States supports Israel not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence but because the American people, and their leaders, say that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just. ... So, on every level, those who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies they do not support are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin with, support for Israel is in our best interests. They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts, not any other state or any of the myriad lobbies and groups that battle daily--sometimes with lies -- to win America's support."

Leslie Gelb wrote in the New York Times Book Review that the scholarship was shoddy and that the authors were biased. "More troublingly, [Walt and Mearsheimer] don't seriously review the facts of the two most critical issues to Israel and the lobby -- arms sales to Arab states and the question of a Palestinian state -- matters on which the American position has consistently run counter to the so-called all-powerful Jewish lobby. For several decades, administration after administration has sold Saudi Arabia and other Arab states first-rate modern weapons, against the all-out opposition of Israel and the lobby. And make no mistake, these arms have represented genuine security risks to Israel. . . And on the policy issue that has counted most to Israel and the lobby -- preventing the United States from accepting a Palestinian state prior to a negotiated deal between Israel and the Palestinians -- it's fair to say Washington has quietly sided with the Palestinians for a long time."

Walt warned against any immediate attempt by Obama to reduce the $3 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel. He said this would result in a battle with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

"There's a lot of potential leverage here, but it's probably not the best stick to use, at least not at first," Walt said.

"Trying to trim or cut the aid package will trigger an open and undoubtedly ugly confrontation in Congress -- where the influence of AIPAC and other hard-line groups in the Israel lobby is greatest. So that's not where I'd start."

But Walt urged Obama to reduce U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel. He said the administration could suspend the dialogue between the Israeli and U.S. intelligence communities as well as that of the Israeli military and the Defense Department.

"Today, such a step would surely get the attention of Israel's security establishment," Walt said.

Yes and that's why they have shifted to internal weapons production and have completed an alarming agreement to sell drones to Russia last month. The principle and precendent should be an alarm bell. Do we want to give Israel the same freedom to conduct arms sales as Russia? China? Are WE prepared for the consequences? Imagine if Japan was pushed to such an extreme.

Earthquake

Walt also recommended that the United States reduce its procurement of Israeli defense equipment, another step that would not require congressional approval. Israel has sold a range of armor, munitions and platforms deployed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Obama could instruct Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to slow or decrease these purchases, which would send an unmistakable signal that it was no longer business-as-usual," Walt said.

"Given the battering Israel's economy has taken in the current global recession, this step would get noticed too. And most of these measures could be implemented by the Executive Branch alone, thereby outflanking die-hard defenders of the special relationship in Congress."

I wonder what Walt will say when the final result of this is that Israeli Phalcon AEW systems are guiding SU-30's from Russia or China toward intercepts of B-2 stealth bombers. Or when stealth  drones made in Israel and flown by China, are flying near US fleets. Or when Chinese navy ships are guarded by advanced Arrow anti-missile missiles.

All for a few years of oil and appeasement of barbarians whose untrammeled religious consciences give them complete freedom to kill us?

What do we have in common with Jordan? Syria? KSA? Yemen? Egypt?

Saudi says Pakistan can survive Taliban

Urges U.S. out of Afghanistan

An influential member of the Saudi royal family, who headed the country's intelligence service for 25 years, said Monday that Pakistan can survive the Taliban threat provided the military remains intact.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, former ambassador to Washington, also called for the speedy withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, saying that they are "not welcome" there. He did not specify a deadline.

I'm not even sure where to begin to comment on that one.
Also just in....

A key member of the Saudi royal family who headed the country's intelligence service for 25 years accused both the Obama and Bush administrations Monday of "deceiving" the American people that the U.S. can ever end its dependence on foreign oil.

"You can't get rid of oil. You can't get rid of fossil fuels -- gas and coal -- unless you want to price yourself out of existence," Prince Turki al-Faisal, former ambassador to Washington, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

"I'd hope that the general public in the United States would be wiser than to be deceived into thinking that the U.S. can ever be energy independent," he said. 

Relax.

Our madrassahs are harmless.

The Taliban will not destabilize Pakistan and gain control of their nukes

You need our oil

Relax

You always will need our oil

Relax

Why do I envision Obi Wan waving his right arm?

We here in the USA have found it increasingly difficult to make anything for a profit when our people or our machines have to compete against labor costs in places like Indonesia, Malaysia, or any other 3rd world spot where people are happy to work for 10% of the American labor rate.

Yet we still wanted stuff. Life was good and real estate values ramped, so people spent that equity until it tapped out, as sine waves always must.

Today we see what happens when Americans stop spending.

But that doesn't fix the problem.

We read capitalism doesn't work. We know socialism and communism don't work, yet smart people want more central action, and people like George Soros say the USA is the bar to justice in the world. I used to think he meant our desire for others to have their natural rights as free men.

But today I am not so sure,.

Obama keeps talking about another kind of world, but doesn't say what it is, although his aim is to remove worry from our day to day life from above.

The following is strictly 1st coffee musing.

Suppose nations agreed that certain industries, commodities, services, and enforcements, were best served by a dependable future from certain 'areas' (not necessarily geographic in nature). 'Destructive' competitions could be eliminated in favor of a 'stable' situation. Nations and industries could plan on DEPENDABLE rates of growth based on demographic changes, which short of another Black Death, will always be up. Governments would find it easier to implement such a design if they owned a significant portion of private enterprise.

We should look at this first blush as a theory and apply to real life events to test it's predictive ability, and thus it's reality. Scientific method.

I have no idea if this is correct, a plan, or the result of natural international economic and political forces, but it would explain a lot about the actions and beliefs of people like George Soros, wouldn't it?

All the USA stands for, and has stood for would be against the 'justice' of such a system.

Which explains the outlook of progressives. Whether they understand that or not.

Of course in their way is Mr. Galt, and human nature. Otherwise, no problem.

As of today, not one American has even been hospitalized.

Multiples of tens of thousands of flu cases in the USA are positively diagnosed every year. How many more just stay home, take aspirin and whatever, and wait until the symptoms subside then go back to work, and never even make the count?

This whole thing is stupid, and should have been framed as a precaution with a single press conference and we'll get back with you if this all goes south.

No offense but this is not a third world nation and the perils of our exposure is not the same as the slums of Sao Paolo, or Abidjian, or Tripoli.

I don't want to say they don't want to waste a created crisis, but this is a giant stupidity RIGHT NOW, anyway for us.