Is it too late? Has the heart muscle been so damaged it is beyond repair? If not, will we endure the pain of parsimony? (See 1 and 1a below.)
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This was sent to me by someone who does not like being fleeced. It shows how Soros and former Goldman Sachs players are ripping off the government.
And Obama says he is against wealth formation? Watch this informative youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/fiercefreeleancer
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We can't just spend our way out of bankruptcy but at least we can try! (See 2 below.)
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Now that Obamascare is law we can learn what Pelosi told us and after we find the devil in the details, Republicans might have to resort to plan "B." (See 2a below.)
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I have a good friend and fellow memo reader who believes Obama is beginning to become more favorable to business. I am posting this so he can see that he might be right but actually only if it helps labor unions under the guise of national security. (See 3 below.)
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When a nation chooses not to have an official language it is only a matter of time before the entire society fractures.
That is not to say those with their own language should not retain their cultural heritage and lingual diversity but a democracy, like ours, needs a single official language and all legal documents etc. should be in that language. (See 4 below.)
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Chinese planes make Mid East debut. (See 5 below.)
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Obama's idiotic emphasis on settlements has allowed friction to development where it never was.
Netanyahu trapped Abbas by offering to extend the moratorium if Palestinians would recognize Israel which they would not.
So what we have is an effort to create two states with the new one unwilling to recognize the establish one. Very interesting.
Also, a serious tongue in cheek piece calling attention to Obama's failure in post racial politics which, the author believes, has served to finally even the playing field. (See 6 and 6a below.)
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The best the Democrats can do seems to fall far short of what is needed. (See 7 below.)
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Chamber spokesman responds to Obama's 'the big lie' tactic.(See 8 below.)
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Dick
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1) When Obama wrote a book and said he was mentored as a youth by Frank, (Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist, people said it didn't matter.
When it was discovered that his grandparents, were strong socialists who sent Obama's mother to a socialist school where she was introduced to Frank Marshall Davis. He was later introduced to young Barrack Hussein Obama. People said it didn't matter.
When people found out that Barrack Hussein Obama was enrolled as a Muslim child in school and his father and stepfather were both Muslims, people said it didn't matter.
When he wrote in another book he authored "I will stand with them (Muslims) should the political winds shift in an ugly direction," people said it didn't matter.
When he admittedly, in his book, said he chose Marxist friends and professors in college -- people said it didn't matter.
When he traveled to Pakistan , after college on an unknown national passport, people said it didn't matter.
When he sought the endorsement of the Marxist Party in 1996 as he ran for the Illinois Senate, people said it didn't matter.
When he sat in a Chicago Church for twenty years and listened to a preacher spew hatred for America and preach black liberation theology, people said it didn't matter.
When an independent Washington organization, that tracks Senate voting records, gave him the distinctive title as the "most liberal senator," people said it didn't matter.
When the Palestinians in Gaza set up a fund raising telethon to raise money for his election campaign, people said it didn't matter.
When his voting record supported gun control, people said it didn't matter.
When he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done, people said it didn't matter.
When he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan and Mummar Kadaffi and Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.
When it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing, people said it didn't matter.
When he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary radicals, people said it didn't matter.
When his voting record in the Illinois senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question, people said it didn't matter.
When he refused to wear a flag, lapel pin, and did so only after a public outcry, people said it didn't matter.
When people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises, people said it didn't matter.
When he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance, people said it didn't matter.
When he surrounded himself in the White house with advisors who were pro-gun control, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition, people said it didn't matter.
When he aired his views on abortion, homosexuality and a host of other issues, people said it didn't matter.
When he said he favors sex education in Kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination, people said it didn't matter.
When his personal background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, people said it didn't matter.When the place of his birth was called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate, people said it didn't matter.
When he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezco--a man of questionable character and who is now in prison and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home-- people said it didn't matter.
When it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him elected, people said it didn't matter.
When he started appointing White House Czars that were radicals, revolutionaries, and even avowed Marxist/Communist, people said it didn't matter.
When he stood before the Nation and told us that his intentions were to "fundamentally transform this Nation" into something else, people said it didn't matter.
When it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed cabinet members and several advisors who were tax cheats and socialists, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed a Science Czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed Cass Sunstein as Regulatory Czar who believes in "Explicit Consent," harvesting human organs without family consent, and allowing animals to be represented in court, while banning all hunting, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual, and organizer of a group called gay, lesbian, straight, education network as Safe School
Czar and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed Mark Lloyd, as Diversity Czar, who believes in curtailing free speech; taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth; who supports Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.
When Valerie Jarrett was selected as Obama's Senior White House Advisor and she is an avowed Socialist, people said it didn't matter.
When Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director said Mao Tse Tung was one of her favorite philosophers-- and the person she turned to most for inspiration, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed Carol Browner as Global Warming Czar, and her being a well known socialist working on Cap and trade as the nations largest tax, people said it didn't matter.
When he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar, who since had to resign when this was made known, people said it didn't matter.
When Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health and human services secretary could not be confirmed, because he was a tax cheat, people said it didn't matter..
When as President of the United States , he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , people said it didn't matter.
When he traveled around the world criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness, people said it didn't matter.
When his actions concerning the Middle-East seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel , our long time ally, people said it didn't matter.
When he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States , people said it didn't matter.
When he upset the Europeans by removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians, people said it didn't matter.
When he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders said they were necessary to win,people said it didn't matter.
When he started spending us into a debt that was so big we could not pay it off, people said it didn't matter.
When he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions, and individuals that got him elected, people said it didn't matter.
When he took over insurance companies, car companies, banks, etc., people said it didn't matter.
When he took away student loans from the banks and put it through the government, people said it didn't matter.
When he designed plans to take over the health care system and put it under government control, people said it didn't matter.
When he claimed he was a Christian during the election and tapes were later made public that showed Obama speaking to a Muslim group and 'stating' that he was raised a Muslim; was educated as a Muslim; and that he is still a Muslim-- people said it didn't matter.
When he set into motion a plan to take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and Trade, people said it didn't matter.
When he finally completed his transformation of America into a Socialist State , people finally woke up--- but it was too late. Add these up one by one and you get a phenomenal score that points to the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama is determined to turn America into a Marxist-Socialist society.
All of the items in the preceding paragraphs have been put into place. All can be documented very easily. Before you disavow this do an internet search. The last paragraph alone is not yet cast in stone. You and I will write that paragraph. Will it read as above or will it be a more happy ending for most of America ?
If you are an Obama Supporter don't be angry with me because I think Barrack Hussein Obama is a socialist. Far too many facts support he is indeed a Socialist.
If you seek the truth you will be richer for it. Don't just belittle the opposition... search for the truth. Democrats, Republicans,Independents, Constitutionalists, Libertarians all need to pull together or watch the demise of a free democratic society. Pray for Americans to seek the truth and take action for it will keep us FREE.
Our biggest enemy is not China , Russia , North Korea , and Iran our biggest enemy is a contingent of politicians in Washington DC . The government will not help, so we need to do it ourselves.
Question....will you delete this, or pass it on to others who don't know about Obama"s actions and plans for the U.S.A. so that they may know and vote intelligently (with knowledge!) in November, and in the ensuing years?
It's your decision.
1a)First the stimulus, now the hangover
By Nicole Gelinas,
Last week's dismal jobs figures tell us exactly what the President Obama's stimulus did: It temporarily saved jobs in state and local government -- thereby slowing our recovery.
Friday's job scorecard for September -- the last before Election Day -- didn't carry even a hint of an imminent boom. Unemployment stayed at 9.6 percent, with private companies adding 64,000 jobs.
And 64,000 jobs is nothing. The economy must create nearly five times that to keep up with population growth and replace 7.6 million jobs lost since 2007.
Worse, the new hires were down a third from August -- and the positions were low-paying, in bars, restaurants and retail.
The report also told us that people who have jobs aren't working much overtime. That means companies aren't overwhelmed by unexpected business -- and won't need to do a lot of extra hiring for the holidays.
The big headlines went to the drop in government jobs. Local and state government lost 83,000 jobs -- the biggest hit in modern history. Teachers lost the most, with school districts cutting nearly 58,000 after summer break.
That's terrible for laid-off workers. Life would be better if nobody had to lose a job. And, of course, Washington should provide unemployment benefits, as it does. But government still has to adjust to a new reality, just like every other part of the economy.
This adjustment has just begun. Even with the latest losses, state governments around the nation still employ 8 percent more people than they did a decade ago (at the peak of the last financial bubble). At the local level, the figure is 9 percent. That's nearly 1.6 million people added to public payrolls in the last decade.
Yes, the US population also grew at about 9 percent over the same period. But the population doesn't pay the taxes that fund public-sector employment. People with private-sector jobs do.
And private companies created few new jobs after 2000 -- and then managed to lose them all, and more: Private job growth is minus 2 percent over the last decade -- there's 2.2 million fewer private workers to pay for those 1.6 million new public-sector workers.
In short, when it comes to private job
growth, the last decade has been a lost decade.
A big part of the reason: State and local governments never got around to adjusting to the last recession. After the tech bubble burst, the private sector shed 3.5 percent of its jobs over two years, or nearly 3 million. But the public sector kept on hiring through the early-2000s slump.
Politicians added 5 percent (647,000 people) to local payrolls and 3 percent (167,000 people) to state ones. Most of these new workers -- nearly half a million -- were, yes, teachers and education administrators.
Back then, because local and state pols chose to spare their workforces the pain, they had to inflict it somewhere else.
So states like New York and California spent the early 2000s raising taxes, slashing infrastructure investments and taking on debt.
That should have left them with no choice but to start firing public workers two years ago, when the bottom fell out of their tax revenues. (After all, the construction industry depends on the same source of revenue -- property values -- as do local governments, and residential-construction jobs are down 31 percent since 2000.)
Instead, the 2009 stimulus law sent more than $220 billion to state and local governments -- without asking them to pare their workforces or workers' benefits.
But now the stimulus cash is running out. So the state and local government jobs that it "saved" are starting to disappear, as governments around the nation do what their voters have been doing for three years now -- cutting back.
So as President Obama stumps for Democrats, reminding voters that the GOP tried to thwart $26 billion in new stimulus to states this past summer, voters should remember that some harsh public-sector labor austerity now will be good for the economy later -- as it will minimize state and local tax hikes and allow for long-term investment.
We can't afford another lost decade -- and neither can the freshly laid-off public workers, who must now find jobs in a growing private sector.
Nicole Gelinas is contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal
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2)The 2010 Spending Record
In two years, a 21.4% increase. .Article Video Comments (184) more in Opinion ».EmailPrintSave This ↓ More.
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close Yahoo! BuzzMySpacedel.icio.usRedditFacebookLinkedInFarkViadeoOrkut Text Perhaps you missed it, but then so did the Washington press corps. Late last week the Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary budget tallies for fiscal year 2010, and the news is that the U.S. government had another fabulous year—in spending your money. We didn't expect President Obama to hold a press conference, but why are Republicans so quiet?
Spending rolled in for the year that ended September 30 at $3.45 trillion, second only to 2009's $3.52 trillion in the record books. But don't think this means Washington was relatively less spendthrift. CBO reports that the modest overall spending decline results from three one-time events.
The costs of TARP declined by $262 billion from 2009 as banks repaid their bailout cash, payments to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were $51 billion lower (though still a $40 billion net loser for the taxpayer), and deposit insurance payments fell by $55 billion year over year. "Excluding those three programs, spending rose by about 9 percent in 2010, somewhat faster than in recent years," CBO says.
Somewhat faster. You've got to laugh, or cry, when a 9% annual increase qualifies as only "somewhat faster" than normal.
What did Washington spend more money on? Well, despite two wars, defense spending rose by 4.7% to $667 billion, down from an annual average increase of 8% from 2005 to 2009.
Once again domestic accounts far and away led the increases. Medicaid rose by 8.7%, and unemployment benefits by an astonishing 34.3%—to $160 billion. The costs of jobless insurance have tripled in two years. CBO adds that if you take out the savings for deposit insurance, funding for all "other activities" of government—education, transportation, foreign aid, housing, and so on—rose by 13% in 2010.
As for the deficits, the 2010 total was $1.29 trillion, down slightly from $1.42 trillion. That's a two-year total of $2.7 trillion, or more than the entire amount during the Reagan Administration, when deficits were supposed to be ruinous. Now liberal economists tell us that deficits are the key to restoring prosperity. But all we have to show for spending nearly 25% of GDP for two years running is a growth rate of 1.7% and 9.6% unemployment.
Those slow growth numbers have contributed to the deficits by yielding paltry tax revenues. Individual income tax receipts fell again in 2010, by 1.6% to $901 billion. As recently as 2008, individual income tax revenues were $1.15 trillion. Corporate tax revenue climbed a healthy 38.6% to $192 billion, but that's still well below the $304 billion of 2008. This only underscores how much deficit reduction depends on a growth revival.
Here's the kicker: By far the biggest percentage-gain revenue winner for the taxpayer in 2010 was . . . the Federal Reserve. Thanks to the expansion of its balance sheet with riskier assets, the Fed earned $76 billion during the year, a 121% increase. The Fed's windfall is a perfect symbol of our current economic policy. The government is making money because it now controls so much capital, but it is robbing that money from the private economy in the process. It is never a good sign when your central bank is a national profit center.
The nearby table shows the increases in spending overall and in certain major categories over the last two fiscal years. You might call it the fiscal scorecard for the 111th Congress, and that's before the ObamaCare subsidies begin in earnest. (We've excluded TARP and deposit insurance to better capture the underlying spending trend.)
The 21.4% federal spending increase in two years ought to put to rest any debate about the nature of America's fiscal problem. The Pelosi Congress has used the recession as an excuse to send spending to record heights, and its economic policies have contributed to a lousy recovery. The solution is to stop the spending and change the policies. Polls open on November 2.
2b)Boehner's 'Plan B' for ObamaCare Hearings can be used to sell market-friendly fixes.
By WILLIAM MCGURN
When it comes to repealing ObamaCare, plan B for John Boehner (R., Ohio) will be more important than plan A.
Plan A, of course, is to repeal the new health-care law whole hog. If Republicans take the House in next month's elections, they will surely introduce—and pass—a bill to do so. The question is: What happens when that bill then goes nowhere in the Senate, where even a Republican majority will not be large enough to rebuff a filibuster, much less override a presidential veto?
That's where plan B comes in. Republicans would do exactly what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi so memorably predicted would happen once the health-care bill passed: find out what's inside it. Mr. Boehner says his priority is full repeal. But he also knows he is in for a fight. In this fight, hearings would help Republicans accomplish several things.
First, they would help define the law's problems for the American people.
Second, by defining the problems, Republicans would be in a better position to define and sell their more market-friendly fixes.
Third, by doing the first two, Republicans might get enough votes here and there to kick out key rungs of ObamaCare.
Even if Republicans could not get the president to sign anything into law, by forcing votes and vetoes Republicans would drive home an important point: If the American people really want repeal, they will need to vote for a Republican president in 2012.
Properly speaking, of course, the people's representatives are supposed to hold hearings before they pass legislation. Plainly Americans have issues with much of the new health-care law. Its unpopularity, however, owes just as much to the way it was rammed through—with little real debate and even less in the way of real information about consequences.
In the latter part of the Bush years, Democrats used hearings to go after people in the West Wing. If Mr. Boehner can keep Republicans from indulging in "gotcha"—and instead focus on the actual legislation—we'll learn a great many useful things.
Let's start with pre-existing conditions. Perhaps the central promise of ObamaCare is that by getting tough on insurers, more Americans with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes would get coverage. But now it's being reported that the new requirements are leading companies that provide child-only policies to drop out of the business altogether.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain proposed expanding federal support for people in high-risk state insurance pools. These pools would subsidize those who have medical conditions that make it harder for them to get coverage. It's not the only answer. But hearings would help Republicans show that there are ways to handle tough challenges such as pre-existing conditions that cost less and do not require imposing more mandates on the insurance industry.
The same goes for ObamaCare's infamous 1099 provision. Under the new health law, companies have to issue a Form 1099 whenever they do more than $600 worth of business with someone in any given year. The purpose was to help the IRS scare up more revenue. Republicans might use hearings to focus on the added costs to small business, as well as the larger issue of involving the IRS in the health care of American citizens.
Or take abortion funding. For years the Hyde Amendment has reflected an American consensus that tax dollars should not pay for abortions. Indeed, the whole health-care bill almost went down until President Obama gave wavering Democrats a fig leaf in the form of an executive order prohibiting abortion funding. But no executive order can trump the law. Surely Americans have the right to know who is telling the truth here: Mr. Obama, who says the law is not about abortion, or those who say it opens the door to federal funding on a large scale.
Then there's the individual mandate. During the debate, Mr. Obama insisted that "Nobody considers that a tax." But when state attorneys general began challenging the constitutionality of the law, his Justice Department defended it as the exercise of Congress's "power to lay and collect taxes." Which is it?
In his January 2008 primary debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama said that on health-care legislation, he was committed to "bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are." Come January, Speaker Boehner is likely to find that using hearings to make good on Mr. Obama's promise of transparency may be the Republicans' most potent weapon.
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3)Obama and the Politics of Outsourcing
For every job outsourced to Bangalore, nearly two jobs are created in Buffalo or other American cities.
By WILLIAM S. COHEN
In the opening scene of the new NBC comedy "Outsourced," lead character Todd Dempsy arrives at work to find the call center he is supposed to manage has been moved to India. Suddenly a brick flies through the window with an angry anti-outsourcing message attached. Todd's boss laughs and adds it to a pile of bricks beside his desk.
In recent weeks, Congress and the AFL-CIO have thrown some bricks of their own through the windows of American businesses. Last Thursday the union unveiled a new searchable database of more than 400,000 U.S. companies and subsidiaries it says have shipped jobs overseas. The database is part of organized labor's campaign to harness anti-outsourcing sentiment to energize union voters for the midterm elections. Meanwhile, the Senate voted 53-45 last month to raise taxes on companies that move operations abroad and lower payroll taxes for jobs created in the U.S.
The Senate vote was seven shy of the 60 needed to get the "Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act" past a filibuster, but the angry message was received loud and clear: Protectionist sentiment is taking hold in America and in Congress. If this sentiment is allowed to grow unchecked, the damage to our economy and relations with key allies could be severe.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sept. 28 found that outsourcing was the top reason cited by Americans as the cause of the country's economic problems—and that for the first time in years a majority (53%) of Americans say free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S.
Politicians are responding to this antitrade sentiment by enacting protectionist measures. In August, Congress voted to raise fees for H1-B and L1 visas to discourage skilled workers from India and other countries from coming to the U.S. That same month, the state of Ohio banned the use of public funds for offshore services—including IT services from India.
Most people treat outsourcing as a zero-sum game—one foreign worker replaces one American worker. But this is not how the dynamic global economy works. In 2007, Matthew Slaughter, an economist at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, published a comprehensive study of the hiring practices of 2,500 U.S.-based multinational companies.
He found that when U.S. firms hired lower-cost labor at foreign subsidiaries overseas, their parent companies hired even more people in the U.S. to support expanded operations. Between 1991 and 2001, employment at foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals rose by 2.8 million jobs; during that same period, employment at their parent firms in the U.S. rose by 5.5 million jobs. For every job "outsourced" to India and other foreign countries, nearly two new jobs were generated here in the U.S.
Those new U.S. jobs were higher-skilled and better-paying—filled by scientists, engineers, marketing professionals and others hired to meet the new demand created by their foreign subsidiaries. Todd, the American call center manager transferred to India in "Outsourced," keeps a framed picture of an executive suite back home on his desk—a reminder of the more prestigious job he is working towards. That job is more likely to be created because of the call center in India.
Putting up protectionist barriers against outsourcing also risks retaliation by foreign trading partners, whose businesses also hire workers abroad—including here in the U.S. A 2004 study by Prof. Slaughter titled "Insourcing: The Often Overlooked Aspect of Globalization" found that the number of American jobs created by the subsidiaries of foreign-based multinationals has more than doubled over the past generation.
In 2002 those subsidiaries employed over 5.4 million American workers, nearly 5% of total private-sector employment. They also paid American workers 31% more than their American nonsubsidiary competitors—an average of $56,667 per year. If Congress enacts legislation to stop American companies from outsourcing, foreign governments could do the same—and that could put at risk millions of high-paying jobs in the U.S.
During difficult economic periods, people are tempted to seek refuge in the false promise of protectionism. This is true of both America and India. Today, India maintains protectionist limits on foreign direct investment in such areas of its economy as infrastructure, insurance, retail and defense. And Indian politicians continue to put up obstacles to foreign investment in nuclear power. If India wants the U.S. Congress to resist protectionism, New Delhi has a responsibility to remove barriers against American investment.
Politicians are not above exploiting an issue by appealing to popular sentiment even when that sentiment is belied by economic reality. President Obama has succumbed to this temptation, warning that we should not tell U.S. companies that they will be treated the same "if you create a job in Bangalore, than if you create one in Buffalo."
That may play well in Buffalo. But the fact is that for every job outsourced to Bangalore, nearly two jobs are created in Buffalo and other American cities. That's a good deal for America—and something our president, and even Todd from "Outsourced," should understand.
Mr. Cohen, a former U.S. secretary of defense, is CEO of The Cohen Group, a business consulting firm.
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4)The following senators voted against making English the official language of America.
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Domenici (R-NM) (You know why he voted No)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)
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5)Chinese warplanes make Mid East debut in Turkey and Iran
The arrival of a new Middle East player startled Washington and Jerusalem: Military sources disclose that when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan met Syrian president Bashar Assad in Damascus Monday, Oct. 11, they talked less about the Kurdish question and more about the role China is willing to play in the military-intelligence alliance binding Syria,Iran and Turkey.
Erdogan took credit for China's unfolding involvement in the alliance in the role of big-power backer. Two recent events illustrate Beijing's intent:
1. From Sept. 20 to Oct. 6, the Turkish Air Force conducted its regular annual Anatolian Eagle exercise, this time without US and Israeli participation. Israel was not invited and America opted out. However, their place was taken by Chinese Sukhoi Su-27 and Mig-29 warplanes making their first appearance in Turkish skies.
Military sources reported Chinese warplanes began touching down at the big Konya air base in central Turkey in mid-September for their debut performance in the Middle East and Europe.
Konya has served NATO and the United States for decades as one of their most important air bases.
2. The Chinese planes refueled only once on their journey to Turkey in… Iran. When they touched down at the Gayem al-Mohammad air base in central Iran, their crews were made welcome by the Iranian air force commander Gen. Ahmad Migani.
It was the first time Chinese fighter-bombers are known to have visited the Islamic Republic.
The Gayem al-Mohammed facility, located near the town of Birjand in South Khorasan, is situated directly opposite the big American base of East Afghanistan near the Afghan-Iranian border town of Herat.
The Turkish prime minister painted the military alliance binding Tehran, Ankara and Damascus in rosy colors for Assad's benefit as more central to the region and more powerful than Israel's armed forces after overcoming the IDF's military edge.
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6) Our World: The rise of the suicide protests
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
Since 2000, there has been escalating cooperation between Israeli leftist organizations with foreign pro-jihad groups and Palestinian terror and political warfare outfits at demonstrations.
David Be’eri is either much admired or much hated, depending on how you feel about Israel and Jewish heritage. Be’eri is the founder and head of the Ir David Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to excavating, preserving and developing biblical Jerusalem, the City of David.
When Be’eri began his project in 1986, the City of David, located just opposite the Old City, was in shambles. Former excavations were hidden beneath heaps of garbage and debris.
Owing to his efforts, today the City of David is one of Israel’s most beloved tourist attractions. Some 500,000 tourists visit the site each year. Seventeen archaeological excavations have been undertaken there or are currently ongoing. Annual archaeological conferences at the site attract leading scholars from all over the world.
One of the keys to Be’eri’s success has been the close relations he has cultivated with the local Arabs. Hundreds of local Arabs have worked in the City of David on the various excavations.
But in the past few months, and particularly since the Obama administration began pressuring Israel to curb its sovereignty in Jerusalem, things have begun to change. Leftist groups including Peace Now, Ir Amim, B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Emek Shaveh have begun organizing frequent protests.
According to Udi Ragones, the spokesman for Ir David, the various leftist groups collaborate openly with two Arab groups that have been formed over the past year: Silwannet and the Wadi Hilweh Information Center. Peace Now’s Hagit Ofran is often seen working with Jawad Sayam from the information center.
One of the information center’s employees also works for Emek Shaveh, an organization of anti-Zionist archaeologists.
OVER THE past month, what began as non-violent protests against Ir David turned violent. A month ago, anti-Israel activists set several cars ablaze. Local Arabs who work with the Ir David Foundation began receiving threats. The car of one such Arab was set on fire.
Two weeks ago, the demonstrations morphed into suicide protests as activists set up a roadblock in the middle of the street, ambushed an Ir David security guard and began violently attacking him. In order to fend off his attackers, the guard shot his pistol and killed one of them. Using faux footage, the protesters accused the guard of murder in cold blood. The police rejected the accusation. Channel 2 initially backed up the protesters’ claim, but later its reporter recognized he had been used.
Last Friday, the violence was ratcheted up several notches when Be’eri was targeted by an ambush. As he drove to his home in Ir David with his 13-year-old son, the car in front of him suddenly hit the breaks.
Be’eri drove around the car and was greeted by an ambush of demonstrators who attacked him with stones.
Blocked from backing away by a car that had suddenly stopped, Be’eri had to decide between opening fire and driving through the protest. He drove through, hitting two of his attackers. Both were minors. Neither sustained serious injuries and were out and about within hours of the event.
The stone throwers were not the only people who participated in the ambush. Six or seven photographers and at least one employee of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center were also on the scene. The photographers hailed from the far Left Hebrew-language Walla web portal and from several European media outlets. They filmed Be’eri running over his attackers from multiple angles. They then quickly sold the story to the world as a tale of a vicious “settler” who ran over two innocent children on their way home from the mosque, just because he is an evil settler.
But as Ragones notes, “We were actually lucky that the media were there. The photos that were supposed to frame Be’eri showed clearly that the whole thing was a setup.”
Not only does the footage show that Be’eri was ambushed, it shows that the photographers were integral members of the ambush team. The children’s role was to provoke Be’eri into killing or injuring them by attacking him with rocks. The photographers’ role was to photograph the children getting killed or hurt.
The Ir David Foundation accuses the Wadi Hilweh Information Center of organizing the incident. The presence of the center’s employees on the scene in the footage lends credence to the allegation. Ir David also argues that the entire episode was the product of close coordination between the information center and the leftist groups that work with it to demonize, discredit and otherwise harm Ir David specifically and Israeli control over unified Jerusalem generally.
WHAT IS new about Friday’s incident is not its nature, but its location. As Marc Prowissor, the director of security projects for the One Israel Fund, a non-profit that supports stressed Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, the Galilee and the Negev notes, these sorts of suicide protests have been going on for at least a decade.
Early incidents that had strategic impact on Israel’s international standing were the Muhammad al-Dura affair in October 2000 and the Rachel Corrie incident in 2003. In the former, Palestinian security forces worked with a Palestinian cameraman and France 2 to cook up the libel accusing IDF forces of killing the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura. A French court ruled last year that the footage, which shows al Dura moving after he allegedly died, was falsified.
In the second incident, Corrie was brought to Gaza by the non-Israeli International Solidarity Movement and deployed to block IDF forces from carrying out counterterror operations. Corrie became the poster girl for suicide protesters when an IDF bulldozer operator, who could not see her, ran Corrie over as she sought to block his operations.
Since 2000, there has been escalating cooperation between Israeli leftist organizations with foreign projihad groups like ISM and Palestinian terror and political warfare outfits. This new cooperation first gained prominence as the Israeli group Anarchists Against the Wall began participating in the weekly Palestinian/ ISM riots against IDF units at Bi’ilin and Na’alin in 2003.
Prowissor notes that throughout Judea and Samaria, especially around olive harvest season, Rabbis for Human Rights and likeminded radical groups bus Arab protesters into areas where they do not live to stir up and participate in protests.
“Their modus operandi is always the same,” Prowissor explains. “They stage violent attacks in front of their own cameras with the aim of provoking local Israelis to defend themselves. For instance, they stone Jewish cars and if a Jewish driver gets out and tries to fend off his attackers, they film him and accuse him of attacking them for no reason.”
The weekly protests at Bi’ilin and Na’alin involve Palestinian, Western and Israeli rioters attacking IDF forces and Border Police units with stones and Molotov cocktails.
Five months ago, the protesters began using the same tactics against Israeli civilians at Neveh Tzuf in the Binyamin region. A few weeks ago they added the Carmei Tzur community in Gush Etzion to their list of targets.
As for Jerusalem, the riots in Sheikh Jarrah every Friday have been going on for several months. They spread to Ir David on Friday.
The reason for this is clear enough. Suicide protests are an effective means of harming Israel. Just look at the Turkish terror shop Mavi Marmara. The nine suicide protesters onboard who were killed while attacking IDF naval commandos with knives, guns and bats are a bonanza for Israel’s enemies. They are being used to drag Israel before the international hanging jury at the UN, the Hague, in US university campuses and throughout Europe.
What can be done about this growing menace? How can Israel defend itself against it? SUICIDE PROTESTS work on three levels simultaneously.
To neutralize their impact, Israeli citizens and officials have to develop strategies to contend with them on all three levels.
The most basic level is the criminal level. It is criminal to solicit violence. It is criminal to foment violence against citizens and security and police forces. It is criminal to conspire to carry out violence or impede soldiers, police and other security forces in the lawful dispatch of their duties.
Bearing this in mind, the police and the IDF should be directed to investigate all organizations suspected of planning, directing or participating in violent protests. When they get advance notice of protests, they can and should be preempted. It is legal for the police to arrest the protesters en route to illegal demonstrations.
Then too, cases should be built against sponsoring organizations. Groups instigating violence should be banned.
Suicide protests, like suicide bombs, use violence to advance political goals. In Israel’s case, they are used to demonize the state and its citizens in a bid to coerce the government into acting in a manner that endangers it.
Bureaucratic and political tools should be employed to scuttle these efforts. For instance, in the aftermath of Friday’s ambush in Ir David, the media watch group Tadmit sent a letter to the Government Press Office requesting that it withdraw the press credentials from the photographers present at the scene. The GPO should act on Tadmit’s request and deny or remove press credentials from any self-proclaimed reporter or photographer that participates in violent, illegal activities aimed against the state.
Beyond that, Israeli citizens’ groups and the government should actively discredit groups involved in suicide protests. Data should be gathered against participating organizations and should be rapidly released every time an event like last Friday’s ambush takes place.
Finally, there is the legal aspect of the suicide protest strategy. The alliance of Arab, Israeli and Western anti- Israel groups use suicide protests as a means of attacking Israel in foreign and international legal areas, like British courts and the Hague. Both private citizens and the government should sue local groups who collaborate with such initiatives for damages. To the extent that enabling legislation is required to bring such suits, the Knesset should pass such legislation.
The local media initially ran the story of Be’eri’s ambush just as the leftist-Arab coalition wanted them too. Be’eri was portrayed as an aggressive, violent settler who ran over two innocent Palestinian children for no reason. But then the suicide protesters overreached.
On Sunday they ambushed and stoned a Channel 2 camera crew. Sunday night the truth was out.
But next time they will probably be more careful.
Suicide protests are the newest and, so far, most effective weapon in the political war against Israel. It is the task of the government and citizens alike to develop and implement strategies to blunt its effectiveness.
6a)Obama: Our First Post-Racial Failure
By Stuart Schwartz
Barack Obama has become the nation's first post-racial failure...and we are all the stronger for it. After almost two years in office, he is living proof that America has managed to safely cross the racial divide. Failure is no longer the sole preserve of white presidents and Caucasian New York Times publishers. Obama has fashioned what Harvard historians would call a watershed in modern American history, right up there with the creation of MSNBC and the 1978 Star Wars Christmas television special, Happy Life Day. He has failed.
Indeed, Obama has failed so obviously and on such a grand scale that historians will look back in awe from an exceptionally American future and say that his presidency inarguably established as truism that failure knows no color, and fecklessness transcends all races and religions. Generations of schoolchildren will learn that obtuseness is not the sole preserve of the DNA strands that weave their way toward a pale John Kerry or inextricably combine to produce a lighter-shade-of-pale Jimmy Carter.
Barack Obama has failed not because he is black, but, as one PajamasMedia reader put it, because "everything he has done or wants to do is a disaster!" For the country, that is -- Democrat leadership, the faculty lounge, and the Upper West Side of Manhattan view Obama's governance and our misery as success...but that's another story for another day. The rest of the nation, however, sees a decimated free market, out-of-control regulation, shrinking liberty, and historic deficits fueling a descent into what Thomas Lifson terms "progressive feudalism," in which "even the most mundane tasks" will be regulated by government. And we don't like it.
The inimitable Rush Limbaugh, asked what is "sinking" the Democrats, put it this way: "It's Obama's Jackassian Policies." Leave it to the Maha Rushie to get to the heart of the matter. He put it in such a way that even the simplest of the simple (MSNBC's Ed Schultz, for example, or a New York Times columnist) can understand: an African-American can be every bit of a "jackass" as a dunderhead of the white persuasion. And, extending the logic, ignorance may now also be associated with brown and yellow skin, with females as well as males, with gays and lesbians...why, the possibilities are endless.
"Stupid is as stupid does" is no longer just white and Forest Gump; it is black and Barack Obama (three months into his presidency, the Philadelphia Bulletin, a mainstream newspaper that also doubles as the Democratic house organ in Philadelphia, whined that he is setting "a record for incompetence"), or brown and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (a Latino whose latest achievement is making the "America's Worst Governor" list, having already achieved fame as one of the nation's worst cabinet members during the Clinton era). Washington has shown us the way, colorblind and brain-dead from the top down. What a wonderful country!
Traditional media (a.k.a. dying media) helped give us the nation's first black president. A recurring theme in elite insider coverage was that the election of Barack Obama would usher in a new era of harmony, a "post-racial" United States. A defeat would be due solely to "the color of his skin," was the way the Washington Post's Slate put it in 2008. But the nation's voters came through, and on Election Day, "the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal" as American entered its post-racial era -- or so declared Barack Obama and a worshipful media. This is what you get when God occupies the oval office, crowed Newsweek. Chris Matthews' leg tingled, while New York Times columnists saw a cleaned-up Jesus with a "perfectly creased pant leg." The British press hailed "the rise of a new JFK," signaling the end of racism in its former colonies across the pond.
They were right. Barack Obama has shown that the American dream is both accessible and, depending upon the totality of one's work, inaccessible. In a nation which remains largely free, where competence and savvy are prized and appreciated, Obama has shown that, despite the categories and quotas of a half-century of regressive Democrat policies, a black in a position of responsibility can fail as gloriously and ignominiously as a person of the white or brown persuasion.
This is, indeed, good news. In fact, it is worthy of at least a few graduate theses at, perhaps, some of those second-rate state and religious-affiliated universities busily churning out Tea Party members and shapely-but-dead-from-the-neck-up citizen-politicians. Or throw in a few anti-Semitic call-outs and you have a doctoral dissertation at Harvard or Berkeley. America has moved into the post-racial era, and the failure of Barack Obama makes it official: American exceptionalism rides again.
Obama has shown that blacks are like everyone else. Arrogance, ignorance of history, inability to reason, lack of savvy, and self-absorption -- all are ingredients for post-racial failure. You don't have to be white to exhibit what American Thinker publisher Thomas Lifson calls the "shallowness ... of intellect and ... lack of rigor" displayed by the current president. Even actress Janeane Garofalo (a favorite of leftist cable hosts for her reasoned discourses on politics that begin with "you white pig" and end with a Columbia University debating favorite, "shut the **** up") laments, "I have to say I was surprised how disappointing the Obama administration has turned out to be."
Except for the usual suspects (the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.), few are blaming the dismal record of Obama's Washington on racism. Indeed, this has become an even more wonderful country thanks to the post-racial failures of Barack Obama. Up until now, the greatest presidential failure of the modern age has been Jimmy Carter, who was so spectacularly poor a president that even the reliably leftist San Francisco Chronicle called his years in the White House a "legacy of failure." But a post-racial America has given even respected academics the freedom to ask, "Is Obama the new Carter?" with little fear of the racist label. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal last month noted that "comparisons between the Obama White House and the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter are increasingly being made...by Democrats."
The consensus is growing that the greatest failure of the modern presidency is no longer a self-absorbed, mean-spirited white guy who embraces dictators and tyrants, can't manage his way out of a paper bag, and blames everything from earthquakes in Pakistan to bedbugs at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Israel. Rather, it is a self-absorbed, mean-spirited black guy who embraces dictators and tyrants, can't manage his way out of a paper bag, and blames everything from earthquakes in Pakistan to bed bugs at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Israel.
Indeed. Barack Obama has transcended race. He has led America into the post-racial era by failing on his merits -- not his skin color. We are, once again, a wonderful country -- of which even Michelle Obama can be proud!
Stuart Schwartz, formerly a media and retail executive, is on the faculty at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
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7)Epitaph for Barack Obama's Democrats: 'Is that the best you can do?'
By Toby Harnden
Bob Schieffer and Mark Halperin are not exactly Tea Party activists. Within their respective generations, they are archetypes of the media elite, inside-the-Beltway, liberal-leaning purveyors of the conventional wisdom. They don’t want to be wrong, of course, so at times they are also weather vanes – when the conventional wisdom has undeniably changed, they swivel.
So the White House and the hapless Democrats running for re-election on November 2nd must be in near despair over David Axelrod’s interview with Shieffer yesterday. In it, the host of CBS’s Face the Nation was incredulous at Axelrod’s focus not on the economy or jobs or health care or the Islamist threat or the wars America is engaged in but, er, the possibility that the US Chamber may be funding ads with foreign money. A charge, of course, which would be called racist if Republicans had levelled it against Obama.
The last comment from Schieffer? “I guess I would put it this way. If the only charge Democrats can make three weeks into the election is that somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?” Ouch.
Obama himself has been ditching the hope ‘n’ change riffs to make the charge, drawing on a report posted on the liberal blog Think Progress, even though it has been thoroughly debunked by the New York Times, again not normally seen as a tool of the vast Right-wing conspiracy.
Then today we have Time’s Halperin piling on with a piece carrying the web-bait headline “Obama Is in the Jaws of Political Death” (since, apparently, changed to the much tamer “Why Obama is Losing the Political War” – no doubt there were some anguished calls from the White House). With a metaphorical knee to Obama’s groin, he writes:
With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.
Double ouch. Accusing Obama of losing bitter clingers, blue collars voters, moderates, independents, Reagan Democrats etc etc is one thing. But “politically engaged elites”? Halperin certainly knows how to hurt a Harvard Law grad.
Axelrod is not backing down. When the post-mortems are done on the mid-term campaigns, the fact that Obama himself and the rest of the Democratic party saw fit to try to frame the election by hitting out at George W. Bush, Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce will certainly be prominent.
Toby Harnden is the Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC. You can read more about Toby here.
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8)Chamber Of Commerce Responds To Attacks By White House, Dems
Bruce Josten, the Executive VP of Government Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, appears on FOX News to respond to claims by the White House and Democrats that the group is using foreign money to run ads against their party.
Josten says the Chamber does not solicit any foreign groups for funding of their "issue advocacy" ads. Josten says the group does not run ads for or against candidates, but rather uses money to promote issues important to them.
Josten categorically denies any foreign involvement to fund ads. "Absolutely none," he tells FOX News.
"I have never seen anything that rises to the level of this with any administration and I think it speaks of really grasping of straws at this late in the [campaign] cycle to try to convert something into a pariah for the public that just isn't going to hold water," Josten says of the recent attacks on his organization.
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