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Think what you want about Rove, when it comes to politics and understanding political strategy I want him in my corner. State legislators will prove critical in this cycle. (See 2 below.)
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The big complaint is that Republicans are obstructionists. The truth is Paul Ryan, speaking for the Republicans, offered a rational response to Obama's 'Obamascare' but it fell on deaf ears because Obama and the Democrats have no rational response.
Obama continues to perfect 'political erectness' - stand up straight and bend facts. (See 3 and a below.)
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Farrakhan looks well considering he lives in a sewer. (See 4 below.)
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Yigal Allon - who was he and is his legacy a lesson for Israel's leaders? (See 5 below.)
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I asked a well connected Israel friend what he thought about Obama's position and actions on Iran. His response: "Iran is laughing all of the way to the bank with Obama. Very weak leader."
I then asked what will be. His response: "Difficult to know but Israel needs to and will take care of itself because we have no choice."
Then I asked what about Netanyahu, is he up to it? His response:" Netanyahu and Barak are good for sacking the quarterback." By blackberry from --.
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Edwards to be indicted. Poetic justice for another Populist fraud. (See 6 below.)
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Off to celebrate anniversary and back late Monday.
Dick
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1)Washington Ways and Means: Charlie Rangel, Jim Bunning and your money
Charlie Rangel stepped down—temporarily, he said—as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday until his many ethics travails are sorted out. Anyone who thinks this means a better direction for Washington policy hasn't met his replacement.
The Manhattan Democrat said he chose to take a leave only a day after he told reporters he wouldn't—which is usually a sign that he had no choice. Republicans planned to force a vote on a resolution urging him to resign as chairman, and Democrats feared they might lose too many of their own Members on the House floor. Speaker Nancy Pelosi had made ethics a big part of her 2006 campaign to retake Congress, and now Mr. Rangel is being hoist on that charade.
His replacement is Pete Stark, the 78-year-old Californian and ally of the Speaker who makes Mr. Rangel look like a conservative. First elected in 1972, Mr. Stark thinks ObamaCare is too moderate because it would preserve at least the formality of private insurance. He was an architect of the Catastrophic Health Care Act of 1988 that was repealed in 1989 after protests by the elderly.
Unlike Mr. Rangel, Mr. Stark is a protectionist, and he was one of only two Members to vote against the repeal of the 3% telephone excise tax in 2006. Also unlike Mr. Rangel, he's not known for his bonhomie, famously calling one of his female Republican colleagues in a 1995 debate "a whore for the insurance industry." Don't expect a new spirit of comity to sweep the committee.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning relented late Tuesday on his quixotic request to make Congress pay for what it spends. But he's already being vindicated as the Senate quickly passed the $10 billion bill he'd been holding up and is now moving on a $100 billion exercise that will also be mostly unpaid for. And that's just the first spending bid. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent-Socialist, wants to add $14 billion to give retirees a $250 check, among other not-so-free lunches.
The White House budget office says the deficit this year will be $1.6 trillion. And the press says Jim Bunning is crazy?
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2)The GOP Targets State Legislatures: He who controls redistricting can control Congress
By KARL ROVE
The political world is fixated on whether this year's elections will deliver an epic rebuke of President Barack Obama and his party. If that happens, it could end up costing Democrats congressional seats for a decade to come.
Some of the most important contests this fall will be way down the ballot in communities like Portsmouth, Ohio and West Lafayette, Ind., and neighborhoods like Brushy Creek in Round Rock, Texas, and Murrysville Township in Westmoreland County, Pa. These are state legislative races that will determine who redraws congressional district lines after this year's census, a process that could determine which party controls upwards of 20 seats and whether many other seats will be competitive.
Next year, legislatures in the 44 states with more than one congressional seat will adjust their districts' boundaries to account for changes in population.
Some 18 state legislatures could have an additional task. As many as 10 states will have to combine districts as they lose House seats. Eight states are expected to gain at least one seat each.
Seats will almost certainly move out of Democratic states (such as Michigan, New York and Massachusetts) and into Republican-leaning, faster-growing states (such as Arizona, Georgia, Texas and Utah). Battleground states such as Iowa and Ohio might also lose seats. This process will be marked by a historic event: For the first time since joining the union in 1850, California will probably not get any additional seat in Congress.
Control of the state legislature matters whether a state loses or gains seats. Take fast-growing Texas, which is expected to pick up as many as four seats next year. Democrats had a 17-13 edge in the state's congressional delegation after the 2000 elections. Republicans won control of the Texas House in 2002 and redrew the state's congressional map. As a result, the GOP now controls 20 congressional seats in Texas while Democrats control 12. Similarly in Georgia, following the 2000 census Democrats redrew district lines to give themselves control of the state's two new congressional seats.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans controlled 11 congressional seats and Democrats 10 before reapportionment cost the Keystone State two seats in 2001. Afterward, the Republican legislature redrew the map to the GOP's advantage, creating 12 Republican seats and seven Democratic ones. (Democrats later picked up some of those GOP seats.)
To understand the broader political implications, consider that the GOP gained somewhere between 25 and 30 seats because of the redistricting that followed the 1990 census. Without those seats, Republicans would not have won the House in 1994.
Control of redistricting also has huge financial implications. The average winner of a competitive House race in 2008 spent $2 million, while a noncompetitive seat can be defended for far less than half that amount. Moving, say, 20 districts from competitive to out-of-reach could save a party $100 million or more over the course of a decade.
There are 18 state legislative chambers that have four or fewer seats separating the two parties that are important for redistricting. Seven of these are controlled by Republicans and the other 11 are controlled by Democrats, including the lower houses in Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana and Pennsylvania.
Republican strategists are focused on 107 seats in 16 states. Winning these seats would give them control of drawing district lines for nearly 190 congressional seats. Six of these states are projected to pick up a total of nine seats, and five are expected to lose a combined six seats.
Nationally, the GOP's effort will be spearheaded by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). Funded by 80,000 donors, it spent more than $20 million in the last election cycle on legislative races and for attorney general, lieutenant governor and secretary of state campaigns.
The group recently announced that former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie will serve as its chairman and former New York Rep. Tom Reynolds will serve as both the group's vice chairman and chair of a special redistricting effort.
Democrats already have a galaxy of at least six national groups coordinating on state legislative races. Among them are the union-based Foundation for the Future, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, and the Democracy Alliance. The last group has distributed $110 million for down-ballot races in recent years.
Over the past year and a half, Republicans have picked up six seats in the Virginia House of Delegates and one seat in the New Jersey Assembly and won 48 state legislative special elections, for a net gain nationally of 19 seats.
If the president's dismal approval ratings cost his party additional state legislative seats and with them control of redistricting this fall, there will be plenty of Democrats bitter about how Mr. Obama has brought low his party's fortunes. It seems that no Democrat, at any level, is immune to the politically poisonous effects of the Obama presidency.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions), due out next week.
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3)Paul Ryan v. the President: The Republican dissects ObamaCare's real costs. Democrats stay mute.
'Every argument has been made. Everything that there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everybody has said it," President Obama declared yesterday as he urged Democrats to steamroll his plan through Congress. What hasn't been heard, however, is even a shred of White House honesty about the true costs of ObamaCare, or its fiscal consequences.
Nearby, we reprint Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's remarks at the health summit last week, which methodically dismantle the falsehoods—there is no other way of putting it—that Mr. Obama has used to sell "reform" and repeated again yesterday. No one in the political class has even tried to refute Mr. Ryan's arguments, though he made them directly to the President and his allies, no doubt because they are irrefutable. If Democrats are willing to ignore overwhelming public opposition to ObamaCare and pass it anyway, then what's a trifling dispute over a couple of trillion dollars?
At his press conference yesterday, Mr. Obama claimed that "my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions—families, businesses and the federal government." He said it is "fully paid for" and "brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next two decades." Never before has a vast new entitlement been sold on the basis of fiscal responsibility, and one reason ObamaCare is so unpopular is that Americans understand the contradiction between untold new government subsidies and claims of spending restraint. They know a Big Con when they hear one.
Mr. Obama's fiscal assertions are possible only because of the fraudulent accounting and budget gimmicks that Democrats spent months calibrating. Readers can find the gory details in Mr. Ryan's pre-emptive rebuttal nearby, though one of the most egregious deceptions is that the bill counts 10 years of taxes but only six years of spending.
The real cost over a decade is about $2.3 trillion on paper, Mr. Ryan estimates, and even that is a lowball estimate considering how many people will flood to "free" health care and how many businesses will be induced to drop coverage. Mr. Obama claimed yesterday that the plan will cost "about $100 billion per year," but in fact the costs ramp up each year the program exists. The far more likely deficits are $460 billion over the first 10 years, and $1.4 trillion over the next 10.
What Mr. Ryan calls "probably the most cynical gimmick" deserves special attention, which is known in Washington as the "doc fix." Next month Medicare physician payments are scheduled to be cut by 22% and deeper thereafter, though Congress is sure to postpone the reductions as it always does. Failing to account for this inevitability takes nearly a quarter-trillion dollars off the ObamaCare books and by itself wipes out the "savings" that the White House continues to take credit for.
The House Budget Committee ranking Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
.Some in the liberal cheering section now claim that this Medicare ruse isn't Mr. Obama's problem because it was first promised by Republicans and Bill Clinton in 1997. But then why did Democrats include the "doc fix" in all early versions of the bill to buy the support of the American Medical Association, only to dump this pricey item later when hiding it would make it easier to fake-reduce the deficit?
The President was (miraculously) struck dumb by Mr. Ryan's critique, and in his response drifted off into an irrelevant tangent about Medicare Advantage, while California Democrat Xavier Becerra claimed "you essentially said you can't trust the Congressional Budget Office." But Mr. Ryan was careful to note that he didn't doubt the professionalism of CBO, only the truthfulness of the Democratic gimmicks that the budget gnomes are asked to score.
Yesterday Mr. Obama again invoked the "nonpartisan, independent" authority of CBO, which misses the reality that if you feed the agency phony premises, you are going to get phony results at the other end.
The President also claimed the reason his plan is in trouble, and the reason Democrats must abuse the Senate's rules to ram this plan into law, is that "many Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies." So most of Mr. Obama's first year in office has been paralyzed over nothing more than minor regulatory hair-splitting. This is so preposterous that the President can't possibly believe it.
Congress's spring break begins on March 29, and Democratic leaders plan on jamming this monster through Congress before then. Americans have to hope that enough rank-and-file Democrats aren't as deaf to fiscal honesty as this President.
3a)Dissecting the Real Cost of ObamaCare: The President's own chief Medicare actuary says the Senate and House bills are bending the cost curve up
By PAUL D. RYAN
The following are remarks made by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, about the cost of the House and Senate health-care bills at President Obama's Blair House summit on health care, Feb. 25:
Look, we agree on the problem here. And the problem is health inflation is driving us off of a fiscal cliff.
Mr. President, you said health-care reform is budget reform. You're right. We agree with that. Medicare, right now, has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That's $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation. Medicaid's growing at 21 percent each year. It's suffocating states' budgets. It's adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for . . .
Now, you're right to frame the debate on cost and health inflation. And in September, when you spoke to us in the well of the House, you basically said—and I totally agree with this—I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future.
Since the Congressional Budget Office can't score your bill, because it doesn't have sufficient detail, but it tracks very similar to the Senate bill, I want to unpack the Senate score a little bit.
And if you take a look at the CBO analysis—analysis from your chief actuary—I think it's very revealing. This bill does not control costs. This bill does not reduce deficits. Instead, this bill adds a new health-care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.
Now let me go through why I say that. The majority leader said the bill scores as reducing the deficit $131 billion over the next 10 years. First, a little bit about CBO. I work with them every single day—very good people, great professionals. They do their jobs well. But their job is to score what is placed in front of them. And what has been placed in front of them is a bill that is full of gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors.
Now, what do I mean when I say that? Well, first off, the bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending.
Now, what's the true 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years? That's $2.3 trillion.
[The Senate bill] does [a] couple of other things. It takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that's really reserved for Social Security. So either we're double-counting them or we don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits.
It takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That's the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets.
The Senate Budget Committee chairman [Kent Conrad] said that this is a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.
Now, when you take a look at the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does [is treat] Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.
. . . [A]ccording to the chief actuary of Medicare . . . as much as 20 percent of Medicare's providers will either go out of business or will have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries. Millions of seniors . . . who have chosen Medicare Advantage will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.
You can't say that you're using this money to either extend Medicare solvency and also offset the cost of this new program. That's double counting.
And so when you take a look at all of this; when you strip out the double-counting and what I would call these gimmicks, the full 10-year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit.
. . . [P]robably the most cynical gimmick in this bill is something that we all probably agree on. We don't think we should cut doctors [annual federal reimbursements] 21 percent next year. We've stopped those cuts from occurring every year for the last seven years.
We all call this, here in Washington, the doc fix. Well, the doc fix, according to your numbers, costs $371 billion. It was in the first iteration of all of these bills, but because it was a big price tag and it made the score look bad, made it look like a deficit . . . that provision was taken out, and it's been going on in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending. And so when you take a look at all of this, it just doesn't add up.
. . . I'll finish with the cost curve. Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up?
Well, if you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we're bending it up. He's claiming that we're going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have.
And so, when you take a look at this, it's really deeper than the deficits or the budget gimmicks or the actuarial analysis. There really is a difference between us.
. . . [W]e've been talking about how much we agree on different issues, but there really is a difference between us. And it's basically this. We don't think the government should be in control of all of this. We want people to be in control. And that, at the end of the day, is the big difference.
Now, we've offered lots of ideas all last year, all this year. Because we agree the status quo is unsustainable. It's got to get fixed.
It's bankrupting families. It's bankrupting our government. It's hurting families with pre-existing conditions. We all want to fix this.
But we don't think that this is the . . . the solution. And all of the analysis we get proves that point.
Now, I'll just simply say this. . . . [W]e are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them.
So what we simply want to do is start over, work on a clean-sheeted paper, move through these issues, step by step, and fix them, and bring down health-care costs and not raise them. And that's basically the point.
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4)Nation of Islam Leader Reprises "Vintage" Anti-Semitism; ADL Says Farrakhan's Racism 'As Ugly As It Ever Was'
Louis Farrakhan, the racist and anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, used his annual address to revisit vintage anti-Semitic and racist themes, with accusations that "Zionists" control Congress and that the "white right" was attempting to set up the assassination of President Barack Obama, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
During his annual Saviours' Day address in Chicago, titled "The Time and What Must Be Done," Farrakhan accused "Zionists" of having undue control of Congress and the Obama Administration and charged that elected officials from both parties align "whenever something comes up that Israel does not like � because the Congress is controlled."
"Anyone who thought the old Farrakhan was gone is sadly mistaken. He never was gone," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "This is vintage Farrakhan: anti-Semitism, racism conspiracy theories about Jews and money. Farrakhan's racism and anti-Semitism is as ugly as it ever was. Indeed, with age it appears to be getting worse."
Among the conspiracy theories and remarks from Minister Farrakhan during his 3-and-1/2 hour speech to an audience of an estimated 20,000 followers at The United Center in Chicago, Ill. on February 28th:
� Farrakhan claimed that Zionists are pressuring President Obama to launch a war against Iran. "The Zionists want Barack to bomb Iran," he said, adding that Obama, "�wants to write a new page from the Muslim world but the Zionists won't let him."
� "You have a Congress that can't vote on nothing together. But whenever something comes up that Israel does not like, Democrats and Republicans vote alike because the Congress is controlled."
� He asserted that potential conflicts with the Jewish community are resolved by the Obama Administration during closed-door meetings in the Oval Office. "Jewish leaders from every Jewish organization met him in the Oval Office and they said, 'Barack, if you have differences with us, you should keep it behind the doors.'"
� Farrakhan blamed "Zionists" for interfering with his visit to Panama City in the 1980s, during which he claims multiple hotels refused him entry. "That's the reach of the Zionists," he said.
� He claimed the "white right" was trying to assassinate President Obama. "The white right is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated." He added: "There are Christians praying for God to kill Obama."
� "And guess who made Goldman Sachs rich? Guess who made Lehman brothers rich? Did you know Lehman Brothers was a slave baron in Alabama? And he had so many slaves picking so much cotton, he was all over all the cotton in Alabama, and after he made so much money, he went into banking. Goldman Sachs was backed by Rothschild, that's Rockefeller and the boys."
For nearly 30 years, Farrakhan, 76, has marked himself a notable figure on the extremist scene by making hateful statements targeting Jews, whites and homosexuals, according to ADL. His bigoted and anti-Semitic rhetoric has included statements calling whites "blue eyed devils" and Jews "bloodsuckers" that controlled the slave trade, the government, the media and various Black individuals and organizations. In 2006, he blamed Jews and Israel for the war in Iraq, for controlling Hollywood and for promoting what he considers immorality.
Farrakhan's history of anti-Semitism and racism is detailed in the online ADL report, Louis Farrakhan In His Own Words.
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5)Yigal Allon – Ideologue, Politician and Military Commander
By Yisrael Ne'eman
Sometimes it is worth while looking back, even if just for a moment. This week, thirty years ago Yigal Allon died at the age of 61 (Feb. 29, 1980). I still remember the day clearly as if it was just yesterday as I came home from the army in an old Egged bus bounding through the Jordan Rift Valley. It was pouring rain outside and the news came on announcing his death. In those days when the news was broadcast everyone went quiet and as soon as it was over the chatter resumed. Not this time, an eerie silence enveloped the bus for the remaining hour of the ride. This was a sign that a generation was surely passing – along with its ideology.
Labor had been thrown into the opposition by the Likud landslide in May 1977 and in preparation for the party primaries Allon was in the middle of an election campaign to replace Shimon Peres as party chairman and become the prime ministerial candidate. But it was not to be. A man of principle, he had left the moshava (private landowners farming community) where he grew up in Kfar Tavor as a teenager, rebelling against his father's capitalist perspective on the world and as a great believer in collectivism he joined Kibbutz Ginossar in its early stages, never to leave. He grew up the youngest son of Reuven Pichovich, one of the heroic early farmers and legends from the First and Second Aliyiot (1882-1903 and 1904-1914). Yigal changed his last name to Allon at the behest of Ben Gurion during the War of Independence when the PM demanded that all his commanders have fully Hebrew names.
Before he was thirty he replaced the venerable Yitzchak Sadeh to become commander of the Palmach, the strike force or commando unit originally formed by the British to battle the Vichy French Nazis in Lebanon and Syria during WWII. Allon took over in time for the 1948 War and found himself and his men at virtually every crucial crossroad as the Palestinian Arabs battled the Jewish community and five Arab states invaded the new born State of Israel. Where others frayed, he stayed calm, not only blocking the Jordanian advance and the attempt to cut the road from Tel Aviv and thereby ensuring the supply of Jewish Jerusalem but by the end of the War he was commander of the Southern Front having cut off and surrounded the Egyptians in Gaza, bringing about a cessation of hostilities.
The Palmach however was disbanded by Ben Gurion in the summer of 1948 and the hard line socialist/communist ideology held by its fighters began to dissipate. Yet as the hero of the 1948 War it appeared he would become IDF commander in chief, but it never happened. Ideologically he and the PM David Ben Gurion crossed swords and Allon was replaced by Moshe Dayan on the southern front. A year later in 1952 Dayan gained the chief of staff post.
Forced out of the IDF, over the next decade and a half Allon dealt in labor movement politics after having completed his graduate studies. During the tense "waiting period" prior to the Six Day War he did his best to calm nerves as the cabinet member with the most military experience despite his junior cabinet member status (minister of labor). He almost became defense minister (a post held by the PM, Levi Eshkol) but would once again be bypassed in favor of Dayan in a political deal made on the first of June, just four days before the outbreak of the 1967 War.
He remained in Labor politics as a cabinet member and was education minister and deputy PM in Golda Meir's first government (1969-74) established after Eshkol's death. For three weeks he had been Acting Prime Minister until Golda formed her cabinet. Later on he would serve as foreign minister under Yitzchak Rabin's first government. Politically Allon was an "almost", never taking the premiership or the defense ministry. With others in positions of authority his voice was not heard during the Yom Kippur War crisis.
But he was a loyal kibbutznik and ideologue, as many were in his generation. As a Laborite style socialist to the end he did not take a break from politics to go into business to take advantage of his connections and skills, but rather remained loyal to the cause, even if it was dying. Labor wallowed in disgraced opposition after Menachem Begin and the Likud took power in 1977.
Beyond his military prowess he was most known for the security concept which bears his name, the "Allon Plan". The concept was developed in the middle of the Six Day War once the Jordanian West Bank was captured. Already on the evening of the fourth day he realized that Israel could not keep the entire West Bank and Gaza and still remain a Jewish State. To do so would force Israel into a bi-national status and eliminate the raison d'etre of the state - to ensure the continued existence of the Jewish people through the development of a national entity. Breaking with previously declared ideals involving the whole Land of Israel, he would advocate a territorial compromise with Jordan whereby Israel would retain Jerusalem and its environs including the Etzion Bloc and the Jordan Rift Valley as a 10-15 kilometer wide security zone running from the Bet Shean Valley down to Masada as a buffer against an eastern front offensive. It was not Jordan he worried about, but rather Iraq and the possibility of a radical overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy by the Ba'athists, whether from Damascus or Baghdad.
For Allon Israel needed defensible boundaries, had to remain a Jewish State (not a bi-national one) and function as a democracy. This meant a re-division of the West Bank and those heavily populated Arab regions from Jenin to Ramallah and from Bethlehem to Hebron would be handed back to Jordan and demilitarized. Over the years it seemed the Jordanians rejected the idea but just recently documents have emerged whereby in the aftermath of the 1970 PLO attempt to overthrow the regime and the subsequent Israeli support for King Hussein, the Jordanian monarch expressed a willingness to accept the Allon Plan and resolve outstanding differences. Golda and her government refused to discuss the issue, preferring a better offer. Earlier, even the moderate Eshkol could not get his government to discuss the issue.
Although the Plan would be overrun by the "Greater Land of Israel" Gush Emmunim religious settlement development by the 1980s and would seem completely untenable today, its concepts still exist. Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon (without saying so) were among its last advocates. Today it is clearly understood that the Jordan River is Israel's security boundary and a demographic border will need to be established between Israel and the West Bank and any areas leaving Israeli military control must be demilitarized. Any Israeli political and/or military thinker must relate to the fundamentals of the Plan even if such a solution appears inoperable today.
Unfortunately Labor Party ideals are fairly well dead. Today Left and Right pretty well agree on security even if not exactly where the border should fall. PM Benyamin Netanyahu's outline for peace with the Palestinians echoes many Allon Plan ideals even if he, like Sharon will not admit as such. Today there really is no Israeli Left concerning domestic policy. Even social democracy is not in the cards.
Labor Zionism was the dominant ideal with the founding of the country. This did not exclude taking a hard line on defense. Somehow the Left became synonymous with being overly trusting of the Palestinians. Allon was very careful in this respect. Today we are far from the original Laborites who are now an historical artifact. But it does not stop one from taking a moment to look back towards those who selflessly dedicated themselves to building the country and defending it without seeking personal gain.
Allon for sure did not stand alone, but he as much as anyone represents a quite forgotten generation from whom we all could learn quite a bit, political ideology not withstanding. Unfortunately today's leaders are too pragmatic to give pause and learn from the founders of the "distant past" of a generation or two ago.
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6)Former Sen. John Edwards Facing 'Imminent' Indictment
Former Democratic Sen. John Edwards is facing “imminent” indictment relating to his use of campaign funds to cover up an extramarital affair during his 2008 presidential run, according to The National Enquirer.
A grand jury has been investigating the North Carolinian's use of the funds since April, and the Enquirer quotes a friend of Edwards saying that although the former candidate does not believe he did anything wrong, he is “terrified” that he will be made an example of in this case.
And in a soap opera twist, Elizabeth Edwards may in fact testify against her estranged husband, The Hill reported.
The report is being taking seriously because the tabloid has led the reporting of Edwards affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, and its pursuit of the story has earned it an unexpected Pulitzer Prize nomination.
More recently, Hunter has been fighting in court with former Edwards aide Andrew Young over a videotape purportedly showing her and Edwards in a sexual encounter. That video has been turned over to the court and placed under seal.
On Thursday, Young told The Washington Times that Edwards, a multimillionaire former trial lawyer, still believes he has a political future.
"He still has a sense of being bulletproof," Young told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show. "He thinks . . . he's going to come back and have something to offer the world." Most recently, Edwards has been spotting working on earthquake relief in Haiti.
Young, who helped conceal Mr. Edwards affair and child with Miss Hunter for nearly two years, said the grand jury interviewed him. He described the panel's investigation as an exacting process with flow charts and time lines.
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