Obama Has The Unwashed Attacking The Wealthy!

Why is Obama magic no longer impressing many of his former and strongest supporters within his own party? (See 1 below.)
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Trivia. (See 2 below.)
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My friend Avi recognized for his talent and expertise. (See 3 below.)
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Every being is precious to Israelis and a captured IDF soldier is finally being released but at a very high price. Cpl Shalit for 1000 radical Islamist terrorists.

Sadly, the Christian world has more or less abandoned Egypt's Coptics. The world of Arabs and Muslims treat those of other religions in a manner that is inhumane and diametrically opposed to what they demand for themselves. Yet, Arabs and Muslims continue to be paid off by Western nations. Sad indeed. (See 4 below.)
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Think me crazy but I continue to believe it is not out of the realm of reason to believe Obama will attack Iran before the election is over. Today's announcement of the arrest of an alleged Iranian plot to kill and maim ambassadors in this country could help lay the foundation.

For sure domestic issues will frame the debate but I also believe foreign events will also be shaped for the purpose of impacting the vote.

I further believe attacks on the wealthy and the efforts of misguided youth, as a consequence of Obama's divide and conquer campaign tactics, will result in riots before they play out and will backfire on Democrats. Stay tuned. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)..Democrats wary of their unpopular president
By Thomas Ferraro



Four years ago, Senator Claire McCaskill was one of Barack Obama's biggest boosters in his presidential campaign. But when he recently visited her state of Missouri, she did not have time to join him.

Many of McCaskill's fellow Democrats in Congress may also decide they are too busy to be with Obama, whose approval rating of about 40 percent as the economy struggles threatens to be a drag on their own reelection chances next year.

"You may see a number of Democrats say 'Sorry, I have a scheduling conflict,'" said a senior Democratic lawmaker.

Democrats face a big decision about whether to stand by their man in the November 2012 elections.

Many, particularly those in difficult campaigns like McCaskill, are tempted to keep their distance.

But others figure they can survive any anti-Obama backlash in their predominantly Democratic states. And they want to help their party's top star and fundraiser defeat whoever the Republicans throw at him.

More importantly, Democrats believe their best shot at retaining the Senate and taking back the House of Representatives is to help Obama rally and win a second term.

"If the president does well, we will do well," said Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.

"I don't know what others will do but I say we need to run as a team," said Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, facing a tough reelection race in Ohio. "Let's look ahead."

House Democrat Jim Moran of Virginia said: "The question is how vigorously we embrace him in terms of going the extra mile to get our people to knock on doors."

"I think we will. But the passionate idealism that we were gripped with when he was first elected has dissipated a little bit."

Some Democrats believe Obama has lost so much of his "hope and change" magic that they intend to stay away. That is particularly true if they are from a traditionally Republican or swing state, like West Virginia, hard hit by the weak economy that dogs Obama.

"In West Virginia, politics is not a team sport -- meaning hang on and do the best for yourself," said the state's first-term Democratic senator, Joe Manchin.

WILL DEMOCRATS DUCK OBAMA?

Unpopular presidents traditionally hurt their party in Congress. Voter discontent with Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994 and with Republican President George W. Bush in 2006 were key to their parties losing control of the House and Senate those years.

It's too early to know how many Democrats will duck Obama in 2012. But it could be at least a few dozen, analysts say.

The number may rise or fall in line with how his approval rating, now at 42 percent, and the U.S. jobless rate, at 9.1 percent, move between now and Election Day.

A top Democratic aide, noting polls show most voters like Obama even though they do not approve of his job performance, said: "If his approval rating tops 50 percent and the economy improves, a lot of Democrats will want to be seen with the president."

But congressional Democrats are upset, even angry, with Obama right now.

They complain he has not consulted them, he moved toward the political right after Republicans won the House in the 2010 election and often has not distinguished between them and Republicans in blasting an even more unpopular Congress.

"There's a lot of resentment," one Democratic lawmaker said. "We are the ones who have put our necks on the line for him."

Ethan Siegal of The Washington Exchange, a private firm that tracks Washington for institutional investors, downplays tension between Obama and congressional Democrats.

"A political party is like a family. Some days you get along. Some days you don't. But you're still family," Siegal said. "The challenge for Obama is to gin up Democrats and get them to really want to go out there and campaign for him."

Back on Capitol Hill, Democrat McGovern said: "Every time I look at the Republican alternatives, my enthusiasm for Obama gets stronger and stronger and stronger. God Almighty, the Republicans are awful."

To the relief of Democrats, Obama recently got feistier. He took on Republicans with a populist $447 billion jobs package that he wants to fund largely with tax hikes on the rich.

Liberal Democrats want to see if he keeps fighting.

Dozens of Democrats, primarily House moderates, kept their distance from Obama in the 2010 election dominated by a near double-digit jobless rate. But most lost anyway in a Republican tidal wave aided by the Tea Party movement.

There are now about two dozen moderate Democrats left in the House. Most are expected to stay away from Obama next year. Currently, a half dozen or so of what will be 33 Senate Democratic nominees are likely to campaign without Obama.

McCaskill was an early backer of Obama in 2008. Yet with her state seen as leaning Republican, she stayed in Washington when Obama made a campaign visit to Missouri on October 4.

Republicans ran an ad mocking McCaskill for declining to join the president. The spot showed her endorsing him with the words "Our economy needs Barack Obama as president."

McCaskill said she could not go back to Missouri because of a scheduling conflict and dismissed criticism as unfounded.

"People making a big deal of this is silly," McCaskill said. "They don't know me very well if they think I'm going to run away from the president. I'm not."

One of her Democratic colleagues sounded skeptical.

"If Obama's approval rating was at 70 percent, she would have been there in a heartbeat," the lawmaker said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney reportedly spent the night before his wedding at Yom Kippur services.

McCartney married Jewish-American heiress Nancy Shevell in London on Sunday. They reportedly attended Yom Kippur services and a break fast at a local London synagogue, where Shevell, 51, received a blessing in honor of her upcoming marriage.

The couple married Sunday in a civil ceremony at London’s Marylebone Register Office, followed by a small reception at McCartney’s north London home.

McCartney’s first wife, Linda Eastman, also was Jewish. She died in 1998 after a battle with breast cancer.

Nu? Maybe he'll write a song titled, "Hey, Jewed"
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3) Avi Jorisch, National Security and Counter-Terrorism Analyst, Joins UANI Advisory Board

New York, NY - United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is pleased to announce that Avi Jorisch, prominent author and former advisor to the U.S. Treasury and Defense Departments, will join UANI's Advisory Board.

Said UANI President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace:

UANI is honored to add Avi Jorisch to our advisory board. Avi is widely respected among his peers for his expertise on Iran and its banking system, and he will contribute greatly to UANI's work. UANI will continue to pressure companies, banks, and nations that do business with Iran, until the regime stops pursuing nuclear weapons, sponsoring terrorists, and threatening the U.S. and its allies.


Jorisch is founder and President of the Red Cell Intelligence Group, a consulting and staffing firm that specializes in national security issues relating to terrorism, threat finance, and radical Islam. In addition, he is an Adjunct Scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Fellow at the Air Force Special Operations School.


Jorisch previously served as a Policy Advisor at the Treasury Department's office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and as a terrorism consultant for the Department of Defense. He is the author of several books, including Iran's Dirty Banking: How the Islamic Republic Skirts International Financial Sanctions, and Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah's al-Manar Television. His writing is frequently published in international newspapers, such as his August 1, 2011 Op-Ed in The New York Times: "To Punish Iran, Seize Its Embassy."


Jorish earned a bachelor's degree in history from Binghamton University and a master's degree in Islamic history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has also studied Arabic and Islamic Philosophy at the American University in Cairo and al-Azhar University, and has traveled extensively in the Middle East.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran's development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race. In short, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran is a danger to world peace.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.


The Objectives of United Against a Nuclear Iran

1.Inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad;

2.Heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran poses to the region and the world;

3.Mobilize public support, utilize media outreach, and persuade our elected leaders to voice a robust and united American opposition to a nuclear Iran;

4.Lay the groundwork for effective US policies in coordination with European and other allies;

5.Persuade the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people, and;

6.Promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures.
UANI is led by an advisory board of outstanding national figures representing all sectors of our country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4)The forgotten Christians of the East
By Caroline B. Glick


It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world

On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt's state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.

According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.

State television Sunday night reported only that three soldiers had been killed. According to al-Ahram Online, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra television on Sunday night to block its broadcast of information on the military assault on the Copts.

Apparently the attempt to control information about what happened worked. Monday's news reports about the violence gave little indication of the identity of the dead or wounded. They certainly left untold the story of what actually happened in Cairo on Sunday night.

In a not unrelated event, Lebanon's Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai caused a storm two weeks ago. During an official visit to Paris, Rai warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria could be a disaster for Christians in Syria and throughout the region. Today the Western-backed Syrian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Rai cautioned that the overthrow of President Bashar Assad could lead to civil war and the establishment of an Islamic regime.

In Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored insurgency that followed the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in 2003 fomented a bloody jihad against Iraq's Christian population. This month marks the anniversary of last year's massacre of 58 Christian worshippers in a Catholic church in Baghdad. A decade ago there were 800,000 Christians in Iraq. Today there are 150,000.

Under the Shah of Iran, Iran's Christians were more or less free to practice their religion.

Today, they are subject to the whims of Islamic overlords who know no law other than Islamic supremacism.

Take the plight of Yousef Nadarkhani, an evangelical Protestant preacher who was arrested two years ago, tried and sentenced to death for apostasy and refusal to disavow his Christian faith. There is no law against apostasy in Iran, but no matter. Ayatollah Khomeini opposed apostasy. And so does Islamic law.

Once Nadarkhani's story was publicized in the West the Iranians changed their course.

Now they have reportedly abandoned the apostasy charge and are sentencing Nadarkhani to death for rape. The fact that he was never charged or convicted of rape is neither here nor there.

Palestinian Christians have similarly suffered under their popularly elected governments.

When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Christians made up 80 percent of Bethlehem's population. Today they comprise less than 20% of the population.

Since Hamas "liberated" Gaza in 2007, the area's ancient Christian minority has been under constant attack. With only 3,000 members, Gaza's Christian community has seen its churches, convents, book stores and libraries burned by Hamas members and their allies. Its members have been killed and assaulted. While Hamas has pledged to protect the Christians of Gaza, no one has been arrested for anti-Christian violence.

JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world.

For instance, at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30% of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the Christian population has dwindled from 2 million at the end of World War I to less than 100,000 today. In Syria, at the time of independence Christians made up nearly half of the population. Today 4% of Syrians are Christian. In Jordan half a century ago 18% of the population was Christian. Today 2% of Jordanians are Christian.

Christians are prohibited from practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Christian population is being systematically destroyed by regime-supported Islamic groups. Church burnings, forced conversions, rape, murder, kidnap and legal persecution of Pakistani Christians has become a daily occurrence.

Sadly for the Christians of the Islamic world, their cause is not being championed either by Western governments or by Western Christians. Rather than condition French support for the Syrian opposition on its leaders' commitment to religious freedom for all in a post-Assad Syria, the French Foreign Ministry reacted with anger to Rai's warning of what is liable to befall Syria's Christians in the event President Bashar Assad and his regime are overthrown. The Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming it was "surprised and disappointed," by Rai's statement.

The Obama administration was even less sympathetic. Rai is now travelling through the US and Latin America on a three week visit to �migr� Maronite communities. The existence of these communities is a direct result of Arab and Islamic persecution of Lebanese Maronite Christians.

Rai's visit to the US was supposed to begin with a visit to Washington and meetings with senior administration officials including President Barack Obama. Yet, following his statement in Paris, the administration cancelled all of its scheduled meetings with him. That is, rather than consider the dangers that Rai warned about and use US influence to increase the power of Christians and Kurds and other minorities in any post- Assad Syrian government, the Obama administration decided to blackball Rai for pointing out the dangers.

Aside from Evangelical Protestants, most Western churches are similarly uninterested in defending the rights of their co-religionists in the Islamic world. Most mainline Protestant churches, from the Anglican Church and its US and international branches to the Methodists, Baptists, Mennonite and other churches have organized no sustained efforts to protect or defend the rights of Christians in the Muslim world.

Instead, over the past decade these churches and their related international bodies have made repeated efforts to attack the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has increased in the past 60 years - Israel.

As for the Vatican, in the five years since Pope Benedict XVI laid down the gauntlet at his speech in Regensburg and challenged the Muslim world to act with reason and tolerance it its dealing with other religions, the Vatican has abandoned this principled stand. A true discourse of equals has been replaced by supplication to Islam in the name of ecumenical understanding. Last year Benedict hosted a Synod on Christians in the Middle East that made no mention of the persecution of Christians by Islamic and populist forces and regimes. Instead, Israel was singled out for criticism.

The Vatican's outreach has extended to Iran where it sent a representative to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's faux counter terror conference. As Giulio Meotti wrote this week in Ynet, whereas all the EU ambassadors walked out of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denying speech at the UN's second Durban conference in Geneva in 2009, the Vatican's ambassador remained in his seat. The Vatican has embraced leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the Middle East.

It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday's events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5)The backlash against the rich
By Robert J. Samuelson

The context for Occupy Wall Street and proposals to tax the rich — “rich” being constantly redefined — is the broader issue of economic inequality. For years, liberal politicians, academics and pundits have complained about growing inequality, but their protests barely resonated with the public. When most people are doing okay, the fact that some people are doing better does not arouse much anger. No more. When many people do worse, or fear they might, the rich inspire resentment and envy. Glaring inequalities that once seemed tolerable become offensive.

By and large, Americans regard the rich the way they do the poor. There are the “deserving” and the “undeserving.” The deserving pioneer technologies, manage vibrant businesses or excel at something (law, entertainment, sports). Few resent the wealth of Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. By contrast, the “undeserving” rich succeed through self-dealing or activities lacking broad social value

What’s happening now is that more rich are being disparaged as “undeserving.” Blamed for the financial crisis, Wall Street types top the list. During the 1990s stock market boom, about half of Americans agreed that “people on Wall Street are as honest and moral as other people,” reports the Harris Poll. This year, only 26 percent think so. Two-thirds believe Wall Street’s most successful people are overpaid.

Corporate chief executives stir similar ire. With 9 percent unemployment, languishing stock prices and stagnant wages, CEO pay raises smack of cronyism with compliant directors. When Hewlett-Packard recently fired chief executive Leo Apotheker after 11 months with a $13 million severance package, the disconnect between pay and performance was especially astonishing.

Beyond these familiar scapegoats, what can we say about growing economic inequality? Here are three generalizations.

First, the increase has been stunning. From 1945 to the late 1970s, the richest 10 percent of Americans accounted for about 33 percent to 35 percent of total income, including capital gains (mostly stock profits), estimate economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. By 2007, their share was 50 percent — equivalent to the late 1920s. Most of the gain went to the richest 1 percent, whose share rose from about 10 percent in 1980 to 24 percent in 2007.

Second, it’s a global phenomenon. In a 2008 study, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that inequality had increased for 17 out of 22 countries over two decades, though conditions vary dramatically by country. In Sweden and Denmark, the richest 10 percent have incomes about five times greater than those of the poorest 10 percent. In the United States, the ratio is 14-1. The OECD average is 9-1. Mexico has the highest, 27-1.

Finally, most of America’s rich — however defined — don’t escape taxation. In 2007, the richest 10 percent paid 55 percent of all federal taxes, estimates the Congressional Budget Office. The richest 1 percent paid the lion’s share of that: 28.1 percent of federal taxes. The average tax rate on the top 1 percent was 29.5 percent. Similarly, the richest 3 percent account for 36 percent of charitable contributions.
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