Gay Blood Is As Red As Mine!

If you want to see a fascinating presentation of how 200 nations have progressed in 200 years in terms of per capita wealth and longevity go to this site:
http://www.flixxy.com/200-countries-200-years-4-minutes.htm
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More regarding Seattle's Bus System ads accusing Israel of war crimes.

Freedom of speech should be supported and protected. Lies and outright bias should be challenged. Particularly when public money is sought to sponsor such tripe.

Recently sharks have been attacking Egyptian bathers. No doubt Seattle's next ads could accuse Israel of destroying tourism in Egypt. Loan sharks, real sharks - Israelis/Jews just can't get a break.(See 1 below.)
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Madoff and investors versus politicians and Social Security. Not a dime's worth of difference except Madoff is in jail and politicians remain free. (See 2 below.)
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When Liberal friends defend their head in the sand positions they cite prayer in school, their abject fear of 'The Religious Right,' pledge of allegiance in school, abortion, Justice Thomas, Sarah Palin, Greeness and anything that comes to their lame minds as justification for ignoring the impact of unions bent on destroying education, busting budgets with gold plated pensions etc.and now subtle attempts to take over and restrict the Internet by social extremists. Liberals seldom offer little by way of substance but simply spout little catch words/phrases doing so in a very prideful holier than thou manner.

I understand their single issue angst helps them to protect their PC obnoxiousness but it would be nice if every once in a while, maybe at Christmas time, they quit being two faced and started using their ability to reason. But then, maybe they are incapable of listening to the other side, thinking about it and perhaps acting mature enough to accept the fact that empirical evidence counts for something.

Finally, the devil is usually in the details and the details are generally obscure so the public does not understand until it is too late.

This 'Lame Duck' session was anything but lame. Radicals and their supporters crammed down all sorts of legislation that will come to haunt those who long for an America we once knew. In many instances Republicans broke ranks.

As for DTDA it might surprise many to know that as long as we have a volunteer military I support anyone willing to serve and sacrifice their life for my security. In the unlikely event we restore the draft, then I still would favor anyone serving but would be willing to revisit the issue to make sure we have a viable military because we now know one fourth of those who acvolunteer cannot pass the various tests.

As far as I am concerned gay blood is as red as mine. I doubt military professionalism will die.

Hopefully, everyone should learn, as a result of Obama's radicalism and radical appointments, confirmation hearings count, are critically important and whenever you hear some soothing words attached to legislation beware!(See 3 and 3a below.)
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I worked with Whitney for many years - bright young lady. Diligent analyst, lots of independent thinking and guts. Will she fall on her sword as Gazarelli did or will she be able to change should the dictates demand(See 4 below.)
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Iranian nuclear scientist may be killed after being made to eat poisoned mushrooms! Just kidding. Actually he is going to disappear in a terrorist's mushroom cloud. (See 5 below.)
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The heading of this article sounds like a song about a miner who keeps digging a hole and gets deeper in debt. (See 6 below.)
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Can't upset Syria's dictator even though we know he assassinates those who stand in his way.

Revealing the truth and fear of its consequences drives foreign policies.

Nations no longer call a spade a spade. Did they ever? If not. maybe that is why we keep having those pesky wars and dictators. (See 7 below.)
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Bi-partisanship must be like melting ice cream and could not wait two weeks so The Senate rushed to ratify the Salt Treaty. Time will tell whether we socked ourselves so Obama could claim a victory in order to have something to stuff in his Christmas sock.

Congress reminds me of students who put everything off and then cram for exams. For college students moving toward adulthood such behaviour comes with the territory. For grown men and women that is another issue.(See 8 below.)
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What I find interesting, even fascinating, is that after Obama became president he abdicated his agenda to Pelosi and Reid and they crammed unwanted costly legislation through and then lost power in November. Obama has subsequently learned he can work with 'filthy rich Republicans' and get legislation passed. Does that mean he is now a centrist?

The real test is yet ahead. I would love nothing better than for Obama and Republicans to finally do something meaningful for the nation but that remains a question mark because it means cutting spending and I doubt Republicans or Obama understand that is an bullet they cannot continue dodging.
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Dick
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1) Metro's acceptance of 'Israeli war crimes' bus ad draws complaints
An advertisement alleging "Israeli war crimes" won't appear on the sides of some Metro Transit buses for another week, but it's already ignited a political firestorm.
By Keith Ervin


These ads from the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign are scheduled to appear on the sides of 12 Metro buses on Seattle routes beginning Monday. The group, seeking tax-exempt nonprofit status, paid $2,760 for a one-month run.


An advertisement alleging "Israeli war crimes" won't appear on the sides of some Metro Transit buses for another week, but it's already ignited a political firestorm.

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, which bought the ad, says it's intended to break through what it calls the silence over Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians.

Others have organized a campaign to block the ad, which they say will inflame bigotry against Jews and Jewish organizations.

King County Executive Dow Constantine was advised by county lawyers that the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Metro from rejecting the ad if the transit agency continues to accept ads from other advertisers, spokesman Frank Abe said Monday.

While declining to discuss his feelings about the ad, Constantine said in a statement that interest groups sometimes leverage a small ad buy into news coverage "worth many times their investment ... ."

"These provocative ads bring in a negligible amount of revenue, but cost hundreds of hours staff time to address the intended controversy — time that is better spent providing bus service."

Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke said the transit agency received 600 e-mails protesting the ad between Friday, when KING-TV broke the news, and noon Monday. A large number of phone calls about the ad were interfering with Metro's ability to answer phone inquiries about bus schedules, she said.

The large ad is scheduled to appear on the sides of 12 buses serving Seattle routes starting Monday. The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, which is seeking tax-exempt nonprofit status, paid $2,760 for the ad to run for one month.

A photo purportedly showing children looking at a collapsed building during Israel's three-week air-and-ground offensive on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, appears next to these words:

"ISRAELI WAR CRIMES

"YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

"www.Stop30Billion-Seattle.org"



"Stop30billion" is a reference to $30 billion in military aid that the ad sponsor says the United States has pledged to Israel over the next decade.

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign said the bus ad was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of Israel's assault on Gaza after rocket attacks that Israel blamed on Hamas militants.

"The ads are to raise awareness that our tax dollars are being spent in one-sided support of the state of Israel and particularly of those policies of Israel that violate human rights and maintain the bad situation, which is that one people has power over another," said Ed Mast, spokesman for the group sponsoring the ad. "We're all committed to the simplest of solutions, which is equal rights."

Mast is a Seattle playwright and longtime activist against U.S. military involvement in Israel and Iraq.

Richard Fruchter, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, said Metro shouldn't have accepted the ad.

"We certainly as an organization support the First Amendment right to free speech, but we feel that this violates Metro's own policy that running ads shouldn't insult specific groups" to the point that public safety could be threatened, he said.

"I think that this is an ad that's designed to insult Israelis and the 50,000 members of the Jewish community, many of whom support Israel," Fruchter said.

Metro policy bars advertising "so insulting, degrading or offensive as to be reasonably forseeable that it will incite or produce imminent lawless action ... ." Metro was advised by the Prosecuting Attorney's Office that the ad doesn't violate that guideline, Thielke said.

Fruchter said the Jewish Federation was "particularly sensitized" by Naveed Haq's fatal shooting of one woman and wounding of five others at the organization's building in Seattle in 2006. "Sadly, we have had to put money toward security at all our Jewish community institutions," Fruchter said. "It means that we're always on guard."

Metropolitan King County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer, in a letter before Constantine's statement Monday, urged the executive to re-evaluate Metro's decision to accept the ad, saying "dangerous language can create dangerous environments in a society."

Von Reichbauer wrote that the ad appears to violate Metro's prohibition against advertising that would incite " 'a breach of public safety, peace and order.' ... I am a strong advocate of freedom of speech and a strong believer of common sense."

Pamela Scharaga, a Port Townsend jewelry designer, wrote to members of the King County and Seattle councils that if the ad runs on buses, "I for one will give up excursions to Seattle."

Asked about claims that the ad could incite violence, Mast said, "My experience is that those who want to defend Israel right or wrong want also to stop dialogue, stop discussion, stop education, stop public awareness, and will use a wide range of tactics, and this is one."

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign's website says the group opposes racism "against Jews, Arabs and any other people. Criticism of Israel is not criticism of the Jewish people."

Metro asks that citizens who wish to express their views on the ad send e-mail to customer.comments@kingcounty.gov.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com
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2)Why did Bernie Madoff go to prison? To make it simple, he talked people into investing with him.

Trouble was, he didn't invest their money. As time rolled on he simply
took the money from the new investors to pay off the old investors..

Finally there were too many old investors and not enough money from
new investors coming in to keep the payments going.

Next thing you know Madoff is one of the most hated men in America and he is off to jail. Some of you know this. but not enough of you.

Madoff did to his investors what the government has been doing to us for over 70 years with Social Security. There is no meaningful difference between the two schemes, except that one was operated by a private individual who is now in
jail, and the other is operated by politicians who enjoy perks, privileges and status in spite of their actions.

Do you need a side-by-side comparison here? Well here's a nifty little chart.



BERNIE MADOFF

Takes money from investors money will be invested and made available to them later.

Instead of investing the money Madoff spends it on nice homes in the Hamptons and yachts.

When the time comes to pay the investors back Madoff simply uses some of the new funds from newer investors to pay back the older investors.

When Madoff's scheme is discovered all hell breaks loose. New investors won't give him any more cash.

Bernie Madoff is in jail.




Social Security

Takes money from wage partners with promise that the money will be invested
in a "Trust Fund" and made available later.

Instead of depositing money in a Trust Fund the politicians use it for general spending and vote buying.

When benefits for older investors become due the politicians pay them with money taken from younger and newer wage earners to pay the geezers.

When Social Security runs out of money they simply force the taxpayers to send them some more.

Politicians remain in Washington

..
'The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but

doesn't have to take the civil service examination. '- Ronald Reagan
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3)The Net Neutrality Coup
The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who's who of left-liberal foundations..Article Video Comments (364) more in Opinion ».EmailPrintSave This ↓ More.
By JOHN FUND

The Federal Communications Commission's new "net neutrality" rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.

There's little evidence the public is demanding these rules, which purport to stop the non-problem of phone and cable companies blocking access to websites and interfering with Internet traffic. Over 300 House and Senate members have signed a letter opposing FCC Internet regulation, and there will undoubtedly be even less support in the next Congress.

The FCC has approved rules that would give the federal government authority to regulate Internet traffic and prevent broadband providers from selectively blocking web traffic. WSJ's Amy Schatz explains what the new rules really mean.

Yet President Obama, long an ardent backer of net neutrality, is ignoring both Congress and adverse court rulings, especially by a federal appeals court in April that the agency doesn't have the power to enforce net neutrality. He is seeking to impose his will on the Internet through the executive branch. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a former law school friend of Mr. Obama, has worked closely with the White House on the issue. Official visitor logs show he's had at least 11 personal meetings with the president.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney's agenda? "At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies," he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. "But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that "any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself." Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been "taken out of context." He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was "hesitant to say I'm not a Marxist."


For a man with such radical views, Mr. McChesney and his Free Press group have had astonishing influence. Mr. Genachowski's press secretary at the FCC, Jen Howard, used to handle media relations at Free Press. The FCC's chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, co-authored a Free Press report calling for regulation of political talk radio.

Free Press has been funded by a network of liberal foundations that helped the lobby invent the purported problem that net neutrality is supposed to solve. They then fashioned a political strategy similar to the one employed by activists behind the political speech restrictions of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill. The methods of that earlier campaign were discussed in 2004 by Sean Treglia, a former program officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts, during a talk at the University of Southern California. Far from being the efforts of genuine grass-roots activists, Mr. Treglia noted, the campaign-finance reform lobby was controlled and funded by foundations like Pew.

"The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot," he told his audience. He noted that "If Congress thought this was a Pew effort, it'd be worthless." A study by the Political Money Line, a nonpartisan website dealing with issues of campaign funding, found that of the $140 million spent to directly promote campaign-finance reform in the last decade, $123 million came from eight liberal foundations.

After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to "media reform"—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct "Fairness Doctrine" that used to regulate TV and radio companies. In a 2005 interview with the progressive website Buzzflash, Mr. McChesney said that campaign-finance reform advocate Josh Silver approached him and "said let's get to work on getting popular involvement in media policy making." Together the two founded Free Press.

Free Press and allied groups such as MoveOn.org quickly got funding. Of the eight major foundations that provided the vast bulk of money for campaign-finance reform, six became major funders of the media-reform movement. (They are the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers's Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.) Free Press today has 40 staffers and an annual budget of $4 million.

These wealthy funders pay for more than publicity and conferences. In 2009, Free Press commissioned a poll, released by the Harmony Institute, on net neutrality. Harmony reported that "more than 50% of the public argued that, as a private resource, the Internet should not be regulated by the federal government." The poll went on to say that since "currently the public likes the way the Internet works . . . messaging should target supporters by asking them to act vigilantly" to prevent a "centrally controlled Internet."

To that end, Free Press and other groups helped manufacture "research" on net neutrality. In 2009, for example, the FCC commissioned Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to conduct an "independent review of existing information" for the agency in order to "lay the foundation for enlightened, data-driven decision making."

Considering how openly activist the Berkman Center has been on these issues, it was an odd decision for the FCC to delegate its broadband research to this outfit. Unless, of course, the FCC already knew the answer it wanted to get.

The Berkman Center's FCC- commissioned report, "Next Generation Connectivity," wound up being funded in large part by the Ford and MacArthur foundations. So some of the same foundations that have spent years funding net neutrality advocacy research ended up funding the FCC-commissioned study that evaluated net neutrality research.

The FCC's "National Broadband Plan," released last spring, included only five citations of respected think tanks such as the International Technology and Innovation Foundation or the Brookings Institution. But the report cited research from liberal groups such as Free Press, Public Knowledge, Pew and the New America Foundation more than 50 times.

So the "media reform" movement paid for research that backed its views, paid activists to promote the research, saw its allies installed in the FCC and other key agencies, and paid for the FCC research that evaluated the research they had already paid for. Now they have their policy. That's quite a coup.

3a)Sebelius's Price Controls

States must order more health benefits but also lower rates And seasons greetings from the folks at Health and Human Services too. Yesterday the department dropped one of ObamaCare's more destructive regulations, which will further increase political control of health care and impose price controls on private insurance premiums.

Under the 136-page rule, the federal government will now decide what counts as an "unreasonable" rate increase, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote to Governors yesterday urging them "to prevent unjustified and excessive health insurance premium growth." Apparently, "unreasonable" means rate increases that exceed 10% next year, except when it doesn't. If an insurer crosses this arbitrary threshold, "The review process would then determine if the increase is, in fact, unreasonable." So that's cleared up.

This discretion is typical of the vast ad hoc powers that ObamaCare handed to regulators, though Ms. Sebelius's true goal is to punish the insurance industry for rising health costs that the new entitlement is already turbocharging. Like so much else in U.S. health care, no one seems to find it odd that the government is decreeing how much businesses are allowed to charge for a product that consumers want to buy, regardless of the economic reality.

ObamaCare mandates greater insurance benefits and other regulations that distort market pricing, while also accelerating the explosive costs of medical services. Premiums will naturally climb to cover those costs. It won't take much to hit 10% when the Standard & Poor's Healthcare Economic Commercial Index, which tracks private spending, increased 8.5% over the last year—and that's prior to the worst of ObamaCare kicking in.

Contrary to the HHS caricature of a pitiless free market, 43 states already regulate and approve premiums in the individual or small-business markets, or both, based on actuarial and solvency data. HHS will allow state insurance commissioners to continue under the status quo, unless it decides that their reviews aren't "effective," whatever that means.

This is all an effort to end-run Congress, which by some miracle declined to give HHS the formal legal authority to explicitly block premium increases, despite a direct appeal from President Obama. Instead, Ms. Sebelius is creating by regulatory fiat larger de facto powers to achieve the same end.

Yesterday, HHS reiterated Ms. Sebelius's threat to exclude certain insurers from ObamaCare's insurance exchanges if they show "a pattern" of unjustified rate increases. In practice, that would be a corporate death warrant. In September, after some carriers spoke honestly about rising costs, she warned that "there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases."

To understand how this political thuggery will operate, look to Connecticut and the recent campaign of intimidation against former insurance commissioner Tom Sullivan. In September, following a thorough actuarial analysis, Mr. Sullivan approved some rate increases reaching 20% for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest state insurer by membership.

The higher rates applied to new customers only (not existing policy holders) and were largely the result of ObamaCare's mandates. In one case, a single stray provision increased the cost of a prescription drug benefit by nearly 23%. Yet Attorney General Richard Blumenthal made the approval a centerpiece of his Senate bid, while Mr. Sullivan was demonized by local labor unions.

"I find myself in an unprecedented place and time, as do my counterparts throughout the country," Mr. Sullivan wrote to Mr. Blumenthal, "in overseeing the implementation of one of the most far-reaching policy initiatives enacted by the federal government in recent history." State regulators, he continued, are "in an unenviable position as we are required by Congress to approve richer benefit packages, while simultaneously being called upon by you to reduce rates."

In October, Jay Angoff, the HHS director of insurer oversight, sent a very public letter calling the Anthem approval "particularly troubling" and demanding a re-evaluation, including a new public hearing. Under duress, Mr. Sullivan resigned in November, and his successor promptly overturned his ruling.

A similar premium drive-by continues to play out in Massachusetts—and is coming soon to a state near you. Politicized rate-setting is the new reality of the U.S. health insurance market, not that consumers will in any way benefit.
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4)Meredith Whitney: Muni Defaults, Social Unrest Ahead
By Greg Brown

Meredith Whitney, the former Oppenheimer analyst whose dead-on predictions on the banking crisis vaulted her to fame, stands by her controversial new call: Massive unrest across the country as the municipal-bond market sells off.

Whitney appeared Sunday on “60 Minutes” to predict defaults in as many as 100 cities and towns, followed by European-style public demonstrations as cities slash budgets in response.

"States clearly have been funding municipal governments — for now up to 40 percent of their total expenditures," she tells CNBC

"As the states become more compromised from a fiscal standpoint, that funding is going to end."

She defended the reaction of ratings agencies and others, who called her predictions overblown.

"I didn't put the debt on these states. We're looking at the numbers. This is how it plays out,” she said, adding that the federal government is also unlikely to bail out broke states.

Hoping to get ahead of a ballooning public spending problem, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has signed into law a cap on pay increases for firefighters and police in that state when contract negotiations break down.

Starting Jan. 1, the new law limits increases made by arbitrators to 2 percent.

"Everyone is going to have to make tough choices," Christie said at the law’s signing, reported The Star-Ledger.

"We are handing over a significant set of tools. That doesn’t mean their choices are going to be easy, it just means they’re going to have choices now."
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5)Jundallah is on point of executing abducted Iranian nuclear scientist


The Iranian Sunni Baluchi underground Jund Allah announced Wednesday, Dec. 22, that it intends to execute Amir Hossein Shirani, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist, whom the organization abducted on Oct. 8 at the entrance of the secret Iranian nuclear facility in Isfahan, 340 kilometers south of Tehran. If Jund Allah carries out its decision, Amir Shirani will become the first senior Iranian nuclear expert to be captured and put to death by a terrorist organization. He will also be the second nuclear scientist Iran has lost in a single month: On Nov. 29, unknown killers assassinated Dr. Majid Shahriari, head of the program combating the Stuxnet malworm invading Iran's computers.

The Jund Allah spokesman Abdel Raouf Rigi made this announcement Wednesday: "We will execute this man after the Iranian authorities refused to respond to our demands."

Those demands, counter-terror sources report, were for the release of 200 jailed individuals defined as "Iranian Baluchi politicians" and Jundallah members. e denied that the 11 men Iran hanged Monday, Dec. 20, were members of Jund Allah, as claimed by Tehran.

"Iran is lying as usual," said Rigi. Those [hanged] were not members of the organization. They have tribal links to some resistance fighters, but they had nothing to do with our recent operations in Iran."

Intelligence sources report after Shirani was kidnapped, Tehran claimed he was only a common driver and cleaner at Isfahan and had nothing to do with the plant's scientific activities. Western intelligence knew better and even identified him as a cousin of Ahmed Sultani, one of the leading lights of Iran's nuclear program and director of the Isfahan facility, which is a secret uranium enrichment plant for nuclear weapons.

Iran makes a practice of employing members of the same family in its most secretive plants as a precaution against leaks of information, espionage and defections.
On Nov. 28, Jund Allah aired a recorded interview with the captured scientist on the Saudi Al Arabiyah TV channel, in which he admitted he had worked for three years in enriching uranium at the secret nuclear research center in Isfahan, having been recruited by a relative Ahmed Sultani, general manager of the facility. "During the time I worked there, I learnt the center was enriching uranium for manufacturing nuclear weapons," he said. "Because engineer Sultani was my relative, I got toattend most of the meetings," said the captured scientist.

"Work at the center," he disclosed added, "went on 24 hours a day and was divided into three shifts. Around 50 engineers worked in each shift."

Having extracted all the kidnapped expert's secrets, including the names and functions of the staff at Isfahan, Jund Allah offered to hand him over in return for inmates held in Iranian jails. But Tehran decided it had no further need of the expert and had no qualms about abandoning him to his fate with his captors.
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6)US Sinks $2 Trillion Deeper Into the Red as Debt, Benefits Soar


The U.S. government fell deeper into the red in fiscal 2010 with net liabilities swelling more than $2 trillion as commitments on government debt and federal benefits rose, a U.S. Treasury report showed Tuesday.

The Financial Report of the United States, which applies corporate-style accrual accounting methods to Washington, showed the government's liabilities exceeded assets by $13.473 trillion. That compared with an $11.456 trillion gap a year earlier.

Unlike the normal measurement of government intake of receipts against cash outlays, accrual accounting measures costs such as interest on the debt and federal benefits payable when they are incurred, not when funds are actually disbursed.

The report was instituted under former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, the first Treasury secretary in the George W. Bush administration, to illustrate the mounting liabilities of government entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The government's net operating cost, or deficit, in the report grew to $2.080 trillion for the year ended Sept. 30 from $1.253 trillion the prior year as spending and liabilities increased for social programs. Actual and anticipated revenues were roughly unchanged.

The cash budget deficit narrowed in fiscal 2010 to $1.294 trillion from $1.417 trillion in 2009. But the $858 billion tax cut extension package enacted last week is expected to keep the deficit well above the $1 trillion mark for another year.

BUDGET CUT DEBATE

The latest Treasury report should fuel debate in Congress over spending cuts next year as a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives takes office.

The U.S. Senate Tuesday approved a compromise bill to fund the government until March 4, 2011. After that, Republicans will have the chance to push through dramatic budget cuts.

"Today, we must balance our efforts to accelerate economic recovery and job growth in the near term with continued efforts to address the challenges posed by the long-term deficit outlook," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter accompanying the report.

"The administration's top priority remains restoring good jobs to American workers and accelerating the pace of economic recovery."

Among key differences between the operating deficit and the cash deficit were sharp increases in costs accrued for veterans' compensation, government and military employee benefits and anticipated losses at mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The biggest increase in net liabilities in fiscal 2010 stemmed from a $1.477 trillion increase in federal debt repayment and interest obligations, largely to finance programs to stabilize the economy and pull it out of recession.

The federal balance sheet liabilities do not include long-term projections for social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, but these showed a positive improvement.

The report said the present value of future net expenditures for those now eligible to participate in these programs over the next 75 years declined to $43.058 trillion from $52.145 trillion a year ago — a change attributed to the enactment of healthcare reform legislation aimed at boosting coverage and limiting long-term cost growth.

The overall projection, including for those under 15 years of age and not yet born, is much rosier, with the 75-year projected cost falling to $30.857 trillion from last year's projection of $43.878 trillion.

The report noted, however, that there was "uncertainty about whether the projected reductions in healthcare cost growth will be fully achieved."
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7)Op-ed: Everyone knows truth about Hariri assassination but prefers to remain silent
By Alex Fishman

Since the early 1980s, the Syrian regime murdered, methodically, more than 30 Lebanese leaders and public figures, and nobody opened his mouth or said anything. Anyone who threatened Syria’s position in Lebanon was removed. And so, leading figures in some of Lebanon’s most prominent families were assassinated, as were religious leaders, security officials, and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Islamic Republic's leader says UN court probing ex-Lebanese premier's assassination in 2005 'receiving orders from elsewhere'

With the exception of one anomaly, nobody was ever indicted over these acts. This is the case even though there isn’t a child in Lebanon – or one spy agency in the world – who doesn’t know who really stands behind these murders.

When the international probe into the Hariri murder (as well as the other 14 Lebanese, some of them senior officials, who died along with him) was launched, and we started hearing reports that pointed the finger at Hezbollah, the Lebanese people were scared. Suddenly, it became possible that a Lebanese organization was a party to the series of political assassinations of legitimate, popular leaders.

Here in Israel we didn’t quite understand what all the fuss in Lebanon was about. After all, in our view it’s obvious that Hezbollah would join forces with the Syrians or Iranians in order to remove leaders who undermine the interests of these two states. Yet from Lebanon things look differently.

There, despite its problematic nature, Hezbollah is perceived as a patriotic organization. It would be much more convenient for the Lebanese had the international tribunal accused Syria of being the only culprit in the Hariri murder. It would have spared them the earthquake – and possibly civil war – awaiting them upon the expected publication of the names of the murder suspects, some of whom come from Hezbollah’s military leadership.

Godfather-style moves

Hezbollah members murdered Hariri, yet they served as mercenaries on behalf of the Syrian regime. The Americans know this, European spy agencies know this, and we can assume that Israel is quite familiar with the material as well. Yet all of them – each for their own reasons – prefer to ignore Syria’s part in the murder and place Hezbollah in the limelight.

At this time, it’s most convenient for everyone to deal with the mercenary and forget about the mafia Don, who may be a partner for some good business in the future.

The current Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, was forced to head to Damascus not too long ago and kiss his father’s murderers. He did not wish to travel and his supporters demanded that he refrain from doing so. However, the family’s patron – the Saudi royal house – presented him with an ultimatum, just like the Godfather stories. The Mideastern mob families want reconciliation and sent the orphan to clear the murderer’s name.


The next phase in blurring the tracks was the attempt to postpone the publication of the international probe’s conclusions to an unknown date. A pressure campaign on Hariri Jr. got underway to put off, annul, disregard, and not cooperate with the committee. The Americans had to push $10 million into Hariri’s hands in order for him to continue paying the Lebanese government’s part in operating the international investigation mechanism.


The probe conclusions were supposed to be published on December 15, to be followed by the legal phase. Yet it did not happen. The hysterical threats by Nasrallah, who promised anarchy in Lebanon, produced the desired results. Hariri asked to postpone the publication until after Christmas, as not to ruin the holiday’s festivities.


Yet the legal process continues to move forward. The names of the suspects were handed over last week already from the investigators to the jurists, and it’s interesting to see the trick that will be used now in order to put off the indictment by a few more months. Too many elements in the Middle East and in Europe would like to see the inquiry’s conclusions pertaining to Hezbollah evaporating and Syria being cleared again.

We, too, have a part in this. Israel, just like everyone else, knows the truth but remains silent. Who needs a civil war in Lebanon and mess vis-à-vis the Syrians?
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8)Senate Ratifies Nuclear-Arms Treaty .
By JULIAN E. BARNES And NAFTALI BENDAVID

he Senate voted Wednesday to ratify a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, a major foreign policy goal of the Obama administration, which views the pact as a key part of rebuilding relations with Moscow.

While ratification had appeared in jeopardy only days ago, the Senate voted 71-26 to approve the treaty, exceeding the two-thirds majority required. It was one of the final acts of the lame-duck Congress.

The START treaty with Russia was ratified by the Senate Wednesday in a 71-26 vote, handing President Barack Obama a victory on one of his top priorities in the lame-duck session of Congress.

Senators spent much of this week working on side deals aimed at building support among wavering Republicans, including securing promises to continue missile-defense development and to modernize the nation's nuclear arsenal. In the end, 13 Republicans joined Democrats in voting for ratification.

Still, many Republicans declined to back the treaty. Most prominently, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a leader in the GOP on national security issues, voted against ratification.

Republican leaders were divided on the treaty, with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and his top deputy opposed to the pact. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the No. 3 Republican senator, supported ratification.

The treaty cuts the deployed strategic force by about a third, to 1,500 warheads. It also restarts inspections of weapons facilities in the U.S. and Russia.

Supporters say defeat would have weakened President Barack Obama, limiting his ability to negotiate future weapons pacts and his standing to lead efforts to reduce nuclear weapons around the world.

Still, critics remained firm, saying the treaty could eventually lead Russia to build a distinct strategic advantage, if it more aggressively pursued a new generation of nuclear weapons. Opponents also said the treaty could constrain U.S. missile-defense efforts.

Vice President Joe Biden, a former member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, presided over the vote. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also a former senator, came to the chamber for the occasion, hugging and chatting with former colleagues.

The ratification, coming with significant Republican support, was a major victory for Mr. Obama, capping a productive lame-duck session of Congress in which he showed he could cut deals with the GOP.
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