The Teleprompter Against An Intellect?

Obama's fecklessness resurrects the ghost of Chamberlain. (See 1 below.)
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Apparently Daley was not Chicago enough for Obama's tastes and ambitions. (See 2 below.
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A little humor is food for the soul! (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Now for a little lesson exposing exploitation. (See 4 below.)

Then a comparable one of betrayal. (See 4a below.)
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Christmas will be a bit less bright as Obama's Agriculture Departments plans to levy a tax on trees. It is 'Barak Humbug' time! (See 5 below.)
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The rationale behind the release of Barghouti. (See 6 below.)
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There never seems to be an end to fraud and abuse by public unions. For that matter, unions in general. They have become the personification of corruption. (See 7 below.)
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Several months ago I wrote about Obama the Affirmative Action President. Here is another take on the same theme.

An entitled man whose culture of entitlements has led him to expand a government which cannot survive if it continues along the current path of making citizens dependent and turning them against their fellow man while breaking the bank. Look at Greece and all of Europe. (See 8 below.)
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More proof of why Baradei was intellectually corrupt and purposely blind to what was going on in Iran. However, he served a purpose: he allowed feckless Western leaders to deny reality and hide from taking effective action.

These same dolts now call Netanyahu a liar and see him as a pariah.

Now Western media and news Lilliputians are mounting an effort to turn Netanyahu and Israel in Gulliver's.(See 9, 9a, 9b and 9c below.)
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The constant trashing by the Left of Conservative candidates for public office - Bork and Thomas simply to name a few, may have served to refresh our belief in fair play and after Clinton and the despicable behaviour of more recent politicians and public figures, Newt's past heavy baggage may appear lighter and less a deterrent.

Newt has the intellect, has proven capability at getting legislation passed and would be a worthy debater against 'teleprompter' Obama. (See 10 below.)
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Dick
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1)Sanctions Won't Stop Iran's Nuclear Bomb Program
By Reza Kahlili


The International Atomic Energy Agency has now provided credible evidence that Iran is clandestinely developing nuclear weapons, adding its considerable weight to warnings that the Islamic state is on the threshold of nuclear capability.
The IAEA's latest report details the military aspects of the program for the first time since the start of its inspections of Iranian nuclear sites nearly two decades ago. Previous IAEA reports had indicated grave concern about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organizations, and that "new information" received by the IAEA "related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile."

Iran is under four sets of U.N. sanctions for its illicit nuclear activities. Security Council Resolution 1737, passed on December 2006, banned the supply of nuclear-related materials and technology and froze the assets of key individuals and companies related to the program. Because Iranian leaders refused to halt their uranium enrichment program, another set of U.N. sanctions, in March 2007, imposed an arms embargo and expanded the freeze on Iranian assets.
The Iranian leaders called the U.N. resolutions worthless pieces of paper and continued with their nuclear ambitions, which caused the Bush administration to push for yet another set of sanctions, passed in March 2008. These extended the asset freezes and called upon member-nations to monitor the activities of Iranian banks, inspect Iranian ships and aircraft, and monitor the movement of individuals involved with the program through their territories.

When President Obama took office in 2009, he immediately changed the U.S. approach toward Iran, believing that the mullahs would change behavior only if a kinder, gentler approach were implemented. His appeasement of the mullahs started when he sent his video message on the occasion of the Iranian New Year in 2009, stating his desire for friendship with the Iranian leaders. That was followed by a letter to the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he reiterated his desire for better relations between the two countries.

Obama then turned his back on the Iranian people, who had taken to the streets by the millions after the fraudulent elections of 2009, demanding an end to the thugocracy in Iran. Obama believed that the Iranian leaders were ready to negotiate over their nuclear program and that the Iranian people's desire for regime change was not of interest to the U.S.

Months later Obama realized that the radicals had no intention of negotiating over their nuclear program and that they were only buying time. Obama started his second approach, a continuation of the Bush policy that promised harsh sanctions on Iran.
A fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, passed in June 2010, banned Iran from participating in any activities related to ballistic missiles, tightened the arms embargo, froze the funds and assets of the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian shipping lines, and much more. In the following year, many other sanctions were imposed by the United States and the European Union aside from those of the U.N.
Years of negotiations and sanctions have failed to stop Iran from its pursuit of a nuclear bomb and its missile program, nor have they convinced the jihadists in Tehran to change behavior. Today Iran holds enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs, has over 1,000 ballistic missiles, and is tripling its production of highly enriched uranium.

Iran's strategy has been effective: First, buy time with promises of holding talks and denying any illicit nuclear activity. Second, engage the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan through proxies, believing that it would make it difficult and costly for the U.S. to continue those operations and be forced to withdraw from the region. Last, incite uprisings within Islamic nations such as Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and others with the hope of overthrowing U.S.-backed governments while strengthening Iran's own position through its proxies in the region.

The Iranian leaders have concluded that due to the current events in the Middle East and the global economic crisis, the U.S. and the West have no option but to tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and that any talk of military action is an empty bluff. A recent analysis in the Iranian Keyhan newspaper, under direct supervision of Khamenei's office, best describes their view: the U.S. has been defeated and soon will be buried.

Any talk of further sanctions will only verify that the West fears war and further instability in the region and must accept a nuclear-armed Iran.
The radicals in Iran are, at best, only months away from arming their missiles with nuclear warheads. Mutually assured destruction will not deter those who call themselves the soldiers of the Hidden Imam, Imam Mahdi, the last Islamic Messiah who they believe will bring chaos on the world.

Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake. We have to move beyond what's politically expedient, for there's only a small window of opportunity to avert great destruction to humanity. We have the ability to help Iranians rid themselves from this jihadist regime, but if we fail to do so, you can be assured that there will be war -- and it won't be on our terms.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double-life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, published by Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, April 2010. A Time to Betray was the winner of the 2010 National Best Book Award, and the 2011 International Best Book Award.
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2)Top Obama Aide, Under Pressure, Relinquishes Some Duties
By MARK LANDLER

President Obama’s chief of staff, William M. Daley, has turned over some of his day-to-day management responsibilities to another senior aide, Pete Rouse, according to several officials with knowledge of the change. The shift comes after a turbulent period in which the White House has struggled with a weak economy and a hostile Congress.


Mr. Daley made the announcement in a staff meeting on Monday, these officials said, though it was unclear exactly what his new role would look like. He told a Chicago television station recently that he planned to return to his home there after the 2012 election.

The news of the management changes was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

A banker with deep connections on Wall Street and in Democratic politics, Mr. Daley was recruited by Mr. Obama last fall to smooth relations with the business world. But after the administration’s failure to strike a deficit-reduction deal with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Mr. Daley found that his deal-making skills were of less use.

Officials said the shift was designed to better coordinate the work of the White House staff, and it came at Mr. Daley’s request.

Mr. Rouse, a low-key but highly regarded administrator who spent most of his career as an aide on Capitol Hill, served as interim chief of staff after the departure of Rahm Emanuel to run for mayor of Chicago. In an interview in September, Mr. Daley said he was frustrated that the breakdown in negotiations with Congress over the debt ceiling had led to a more confrontational strategy, in which the White House and Republicans in Congress trade accusations.
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3)Berlusconi Steps Down; Will Run National Restaurant Association
‘A Dream Job for Me,’ Says Italian PM


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Showing the resiliency that has frustrated foes throughout his storied career, Silvio Berlusconi today stepped down as Italian Prime Minister and assumed the helm of the National Restaurant Association.

“This is a dream job for me,” Mr. Berlusconi told reporters as he settled into his new offices in Washington. “I love working with people and I intend to be very hands-on.”

Mr. Berlusconi won the coveted position after beating out several rivals, including former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

“I must admit I am envious of Silvio,” Mr. Strauss-Kahn said. “There isn’t a red-blooded man alive who wouldn’t want to run the National Restaurant Association.”

But even as he settled into his new post, Mr. Berlusconi served notice that there were going to be big changes ahead for the trade association: “I’ve taken a look at the employees, and they’re way too old.”


3a)Football and the Blonde


A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked it.
"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."
Dumbfounded, her boyfriend asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was... 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' I'm like...Helloooooo? It's only 25 cents!!!!"
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4)Ignorance Exploited
By Walter E. Williams

Many Wall Street occupiers are echoing the Communist Party USA's call to "Save the nation! Tax corporations! Tax the rich!" There are other Americans, on both the left and the right -- for example, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner -- who call for reductions in corporate taxes. But the University of California, Berkeley's pretend economist Robert Reich disagrees, saying, "The economy needs two whopping corporate tax cuts right now as much as someone with a serious heart condition needs Botox." Let's look at corporate taxes and ask, "Who pays them?"

Virginia has a car tax. Does the car pay the tax? In most political jurisdictions, there's a property tax. Does property pay the tax? You say: "Williams, that's lunacy. Neither a car nor property pays taxes. Only flesh-and-blood people pay taxes!" What about a corporation? As it turns out, a corporation is an artificial creation of the legal system and, as such, a legal fiction. A corporation is not a person and therefore cannot pay taxes. When tax is levied on a corporation, who pays it?

There's an entire subject area in economics, known as tax incidence, that investigates who bears the burden of a tax. It turns out that the burden of a tax is not necessarily borne by the party or entity upon whom it is levied. For example, if a sales tax is levied on a cigarette retailer, the retailer does not bear the full burden of the tax. Part of it will be shifted forward to customers in the form of higher product prices. The exact amount of the shifting depends upon market supply and demand conditions.

What about raising taxes on corporations as a means to get them to pay their "rightful share of government"? If a tax is levied on a corporation and if it is to survive, it will have one of several responses or some combination thereof. One response is to raise the price of its product, so customers share part of the burden. Another response is to lower dividends, so shareholders share a part of the burden. And a considerable portion of reduced dividend burden falls on ordinary non-rich people. According to the Tax Foundation, 19 percent of federal tax returns report dividend income but 42 percent of taxpayers older than 65 report dividend income. Therefore, it is people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, who bear the burden of the tax. Because corporations have these responses to the imposition of a tax, they are merely government tax collectors.

The largest burden of corporate taxes is borne by workers. We discover that by asking a simple question, such as: Which workers on a road construction project earn the higher pay, those employed moving dirt with shovels and wheelbarrows or those doing the same atop giant earthmovers? You'd guess the guys operating the earthmovers, but why? It's not because they're unionized or because construction contractors have a fondness for earthmover operators. It's because those workers have more capital (tools) to work with and are thereby more productive. Higher productivity translates into higher wages.

Tax policies that raise the cost of capital formation -- such as capital gains taxes, low depreciation allowances and corporate taxes -- reduce capital formation. As a result, workers have less capital, lower productivity and lower wage growth. In 1980, Joseph Stiglitz, now a Nobel laureate, said that workers share the highest corporate tax burden in the form of lower wages. A number of economic studies, including that of the Congressional Budget Office, show that workers bear anywhere from 45 to 75 percent of the corporate tax burden. Adding to the burden is the fact that capital has the kind of mobility that labor doesn't. Corporate capital can flee to other countries easily, but workers cannot.

Politicians and leftist elite get away with corporate tax demagoguery because economists haven't done well in making our subject understandable to ordinary people, not to mention that we have derelict news media people with little understanding.

Walter E. Williams
Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of 'Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?' and 'Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.'


4a)Why Obama Betrayed the Iranian People
By Pamela Geller


Why did President Obama refuse to support the demonstrators in Iran in 2009, but supported the "Arab Spring" in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere more recently?

In 2009, demonstrators filled the streets of Iran, denouncing the regime and crying out for freedom. It was a glorious opportunity for the leader of the free world to demonstrate his support for free people everywhere and strike a decisive blow against the bloody regime that had considered itself at war with the United States for three decades.

But Barack Obama didn't help them. Quite the contrary. The leader of the free world was too busy extending his hand to those same mullahs.

It was monstrous when Obama stood by and did nothing during the abortive Iranian revolution; instead, he bought ice cream and posed for photo ops on the golf course while the only revolution against Islamic rule in a Muslim country was taking flight in Iran.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed one reason why last week: the Obama administration's Iranian advisers told them not to express support for the protesters.

"At the time," Hillary said, "the most insistent voices within the Green Movement and the supporters from outside of Iran were that we, the United States, had to be very careful not to look like what was happening inside Iran was directed by... the United States. So we were torn. ... [W]e kept being cautioned that we would put people's lives in danger, we would discredit the movement, we would undermine their aspirations."

Now the Foundation for Democracy in Iran has revealed that Hillary's advisors on Iran included Trita Parsi.

Trita Parsi is the president of the George Soros-funded National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a powerful Iranian lobbying group in Washington. Arash Irandoost of the Pro-Democracy Movement of Iran calls Parsi "an intellectually dishonest regime apologist and an unofficial and unregistered lobbyist for the Iranian regime." According to Irandoost, "Trita Parsi contributes to the regime's agenda and serves the interests of those in power in the Islamic Republic of Iran, not the Iranians, nor the Iranian-Americans."

And the Progressive American-Iranian Committee says that when NIAC and Parsi received funding for various projects from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), "NIAC's projects were approved and welcomed by the Iranian regime." NIAC coordinated its work inside Iran with Hamyaran, a "government initiated agency incepted, initiated, founded and managed by the Iranian regime." NIAC and Parsi even lobbied the U.S. Congress to "stop appropriating funds for independent democratic movements and NGOs that were not under Hamyaran or regime's control."

Not surprisingly, Parsi opposes sanctions against the Islamic Republic, claiming that "imposing new sanctions prior to diplomacy having begun will only decrease the chances of successful diplomacy." The NIAC has opposed sanctions for quite some time. Iranian dissident Hassan Daioleslam notes that "in 2008, when [the] U.S. Congress was showing some teeth to the Iranian regime," a coalition of Islamic groups, antiwar groups, and others founded the Campaign for New American Policy on Iran to fight against new sanctions against Iran called for by the advisory resolution H.R. 362. This resolution was not passed, and "NIAC and Parsi," says Daioleslam, "were on top of this event."

No strike on Iran. No sanctions. Just diplomacy -- with a genocidally inclined and fanatically intransigent regime whose contempt for Obama's overtures made the president look increasingly beggarly as his presidency wore on.

It is no mystery why many wonder which side NIAC is really on. And as long as it continued to wield such influence in Washington and held the ear of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the freedom-fighters in Tehran didn't stand a chance.

From the beginning of the unrest, the CIA should have been at work inside Iran, helping the dissidents and reformers and strategizing about the removal of the country's nuclear weapons. And the president of the United States should have spoken out strongly in favor of the demonstrators, and freedom. But instead, Obama said: "I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering with Iran's affairs."

Imagine: the people of Iran -- not the jihadis and the devout, but the women and the secularists -- were all calling for the head of the snake. Iran is indeed the head of the snake. Imagine the direction that the world might have taken if the greatest force for good, the United States, had stepped in to help the people of Iran remove that key part of the Axis of Evil. Iran is now doing business as Hezb'allah in Lebanon and is the engine and puppetmaster behind Syria. It supports Hamas and the Taliban, is agitating the Shia in Bahrain, and more.

And if that weren't heinous enough, now the colluder in the White House is hiding behind his empty shell of a secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, as she throws the blame for the administration's betrayal of the Iranian demonstrators onto the stealth jihadists and Khomeini-aligned quislings they threw in with. They should have thrown them out of country for working for our mortal enemy.
History will not be kind to Obama for his siding with evil and brutally aggressive oppression over freedom.

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.
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5) Obama’s New ‘Christmas Tree Tax

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.
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6)Release Marwan Barghouti
By AVINOAM BAR-YOSEF

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently called on Israel to release more Palestinian prisoners in advance of any possible negotiations, he was setting a condition that he probably knew Israel would balk at. One of the prisoners on his list, Ahmed Saadat, is accused of killing an Israeli minister. More significantly, another one, if released, would most likely soon take Abbas’s place.

That has not escaped Israeli leaders. In fact, freeing Marwan Barghouti, who is regarded as the sole Palestinian leader who enjoys the full trust of Fatah and the Palestinian public, is said to have figured prominently in high-level Israeli consultations as a means of retaliating against Abbas for his bid for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, and as a way of ushering in a new and less corrupt generation of Palestinian leaders.

The Israeli peace camp has often called for the release of Barghouti, but the security establishment has strongly opposed it. The 52-year-old, life-long activist is held responsible by Israel for directing many attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, and he was sentenced in 2004 to five life sentences.

But in his earlier years as a Palestinian student leader and then member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, he also opened channels not only with the Israeli left, but also with the Israeli center-right, because he believed that an agreement could not be achieved with only the “peaceniks.”

I knew him well in those years, before he turned militant. He speaks Hebrew, and never denied the right of the Jewish people to a Jewish state. And while he always made clear to his counterparts that a Palestinian state would have an Islamic character, and was proud of being a Muslim, he also expressed contempt for Islamic fundamentalists.

Above all, he has never been associated with the corruption of the Palestinian establishment that formed around Yasser Arafat. While a student at Ramallah’s Birzeit University, his main efforts were invested in the refugee camps: social work, aid to the ill and the poor, cleaning the streets.

In 1987 he was deported by the late Yitzhak Rabin, then minister of defense, because of his role in preparing the first, less violent, intifada. Barghouti spent seven years in exile, keeping his distance from Arafat’s corrupted entourage in Tunis. He was allowed back in 1994, under the Oslo Accords signed by the same Rabin, and in 1996 elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, where he was a strong critic of the corruption in Fatah. In 1995 he was among the founders of Tanzim, an armed, grassroots offshoot which played a significant role in the second intifada, far more violent than the first.

So why would Israelis, including some from the intelligence community, seriously consider releasing Barghouti?

For one thing, he and Tanzim represent the next generation of secular Palestinian leaders. One of the biggest mistakes of the Israeli establishment and American envoys over the past two years has been their failure to open back channels to Tanzim, a group also ignored by Abbas and his officials.

Barghouti would also form a powerful leadership team with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Like Barghouti, Fayyad is regarded as being above any dirty dealings. He has structured an impressively efficient bureaucracy. He is rightly courted by the Obama administration and many Israelis. It is well known that there is no love lost between him and Abbas, but the Palestinian president needs Fayyad to ensure a flow of funds from the West

The trouble is that Fayyad is regarded by the Palestinians as a professional, as the C.E.O. of the Palestinian Authority, but not as its leader. Many experts believe that Israeli and Western negotiators should encourage cooperation between Fayyad and Barghouti. The endorsement of Tanzim would bring Fayyad and his reforms critical support from the Palestinians.

This may be why some in the Israeli leadership, those who are interested in achieving a two-state solution to the conflict, see Barghouti as a possible partner, even if his sins are not forgiven. At least he is honest, and has the trust of the Palestinian people. Abbas, after all, is Arafat’s former deputy, and hardly a saint in Jewish eyes, and at 76 he appears largely concerned now with his legacy.

To hold the peace process hostage to Barghouti’s release raises an impossible hurdle for any Israeli politician. Abbas and his associates understand this well. But even if the Israelis cannot release him now, at least they should immediately initiate a back channel to Tanzim, and allow its representatives unencumbered communication with the jailed Barghouti.

The world should understand that there is a new Israeli phenomenon: most Israelis have moved to the left when it comes to the peace process and are ready for compromise even if, for tactical reasons, they vote for the right.

A majority of Israelis would support a two-state deal if it included a Palestinian state that recognized Israel as what it is, a Jewish state, and the Palestinian right of return was limited to the new Palestine, while the Jewish right of return was limited to Israel proper. They do not believe that Abbas is ready at this point to accept this.

If such an understanding could be reached with Tanzim and Fayyad, then Barghouti could be released to take his place in the landscape of Palestinian leadership.

Avinoam Bar-Yosef is the president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute and a former chief diplomatic correspondent for the daily Maariv.
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7)The Public-Union Albatross

What it means when 90% of an agency's workers retire with disability benefits.
By PHILIP K. HOWARD

The indictment of seven Long Island Rail Road workers for disability fraud last week cast a spotlight on a troubled government agency. Until recently, over 90% of LIRR workers retired with a disability—even those who worked desk jobs—adding about $36,000 to their annual pensions. The cost to New York taxpayers over the past decade was $300 million.

As one investigator put it, fraud of this kind "became a culture of sorts among the LIRR workers, who took to gathering in doctor's waiting rooms bragging to each [other] about their disabilities while simultaneously talking about their golf game." How could almost every employee think fraud was the right thing to do?

The LIRR disability epidemic is hardly unique—82% of senior California state troopers are "disabled" in their last year before retirement. Pension abuses are so common—for example, "spiking" pensions with excess overtime in the last year of employment—that they're taken for granted.

Governors in Wisconsin and Ohio this year have led well-publicized showdowns with public unions. Union leaders argue they are "decimat[ing] the collective bargaining rights of public employees." What are these so-called "rights"? The dispute has focused on rich benefit packages that are drowning public budgets. Far more important is the lack of productivity.

"I've never seen anyone terminated for incompetence," observed a long-time human relations official in New York City. In Cincinnati, police personnel records must be expunged every few years—making periodic misconduct essentially unaccountable. Over the past decade, Los Angeles succeeded in firing five teachers (out of 33,000), at a cost of $3.5 million.

Collective-bargaining rights have made government virtually unmanageable. Promotions, reassignments and layoffs are dictated by rigid rules, without any opportunity for managerial judgment. In 2010, shortly after receiving an award as best first-year teacher in Wisconsin, Megan Sampson had to be let go under "last in, first out" provisions of the union contract.
Even what task someone should do on a given day is subject to detailed rules. Last year, when a virus disabled two computers in a shared federal office in Washington, D.C., the IT technician fixed one but said he was unable to fix the other because it wasn't listed on his form.

Making things work better is an affront to union prerogatives. The refuse-collection union in Toledo sued when the city proposed consolidating garbage collection with the surrounding county. (Toledo ended up making a cash settlement.) In Wisconsin, when budget cuts eliminated funding to mow the grass along the roads, the union sued to stop the county executive from giving the job to inmates.

No decision is too small for union micromanagement. Under the New York City union contract, when new equipment is installed the city must reopen collective bargaining "for the sole purpose of negotiating with the union on the practical impact, if any, such equipment has on the affected employees." Trying to get ideas from public employees can be illegal. A deputy mayor of New York City was "warned not to talk with employees in order to get suggestions" because it might violate the "direct dealing law."

How inefficient is this system? Ten percent? Thirty percent? Pause on the math here. Over 20 million people work for federal, state and local government, or one in seven workers in America. Their salaries and benefits total roughly $1.5 trillion of taxpayer funds each year (about 10% of GDP). They spend another $2 trillion. If government could be run more efficiently by 30%, that would result in annual savings worth $1 trillion.

What's amazing is that anything gets done in government. This is a tribute to countless public employees who render public service, against all odds, by their personal pride and willpower, despite having to wrestle daily choices through a slimy bureaucracy.

One huge hurdle stands in the way of making government manageable: public unions. The head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees recently bragged that the union had contributed $90 million in the 2010 off-year election alone. Where did the unions get all that money? The power is imbedded in an artificial legal construct—a "collective-bargaining right" that deducts union dues from all public employees, whether or not they want to belong to the union.
Some states, such as Indiana, have succeeded in eliminating this requirement. I would go further: America should ban political contributions by public unions, by constitutional amendment if necessary. Government is supposed to serve the public, not public employees.

America must bulldoze the current system and start over. Only then can we balance budgets and restore competence, dignity and purpose to public service.

Howard, a lawyer and author, is chair of Common Good (www.commongood.org).
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8)The Affirmative Action President
By Matt Patterson

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present") ; and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator.

And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?

Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal:

To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.

Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -- held to a lower standard -- because of the color of his skin. Podhoretz continues:

And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon -- affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist.

Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin -- that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Obama.

True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks?

In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people -- conservatives included -- ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliches, and that's when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth -- it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.
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9)A stinging indictment of ElBaradei
By Eyal Zisser


The authors of the International Atomic Energy Agency's report on Iran, which highlights Tehran's deception on the way to a nuclear weapon, deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for their important contribution to world peace.
They deserve the prize more than those who actually won it over the past few years - people who talked a lot about peace, even signed peace agreements, but failed to actually achieve it. One of those who talked peace, but actually pushed it further away, was Mohamed ElBaradei, who served as director-general of the IAEA during the years 1997-2009. ElBaradei and the IAEA jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

ElBaradei won his fame when he claimed that the American war against Saddam Hussein was unjustified. In recent years, he has insisted that there is no proof of Iran's intention to develop nuclear weapons, and retroactively softened or even prevented the publication of sensational reports against Iran on these issues.

Jerusalem has often hinted at ElBaradei's Egyptian origins as the reason for his delicate handling of Iran. For his part, ElBaradei has made sure to visit Israel often and carry on a dialogue with its government, but he also does not hide his opinion, in the best Egyptian tradition, that the international community needs to focus its attention on Israel's nuclear programs, instead of Iran's.

In 2009, ElBaradei completed his term as the head of the IAEA, and began working on his next project: the struggle to bring down Egypt's then-president, Hosni Mubarak.
When Mubarak was toppled earlier this year, ElBaradei announced his intention to run for president. And thus those same Israeli officials who sought to remove ElBaradai from his position at the IAEA for his incompetence in dealing with Iran, could now find him in the president's seat, where he is apt to return to the question of Israel's nuclear capabilities, and may even attempt to promote an Egyptian nuclear project.


9a)Second Iranian threat to destroy Israel names its Dimona reactor


For the second time in four days, Iran has threatened to annihilate Israel. Sunday, Nov. 6, Tehran said four missiles would be enough to kill a million Israelis.

Wednesday, Nov. 9, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, deputy commander of Iran's armed forces, said an American or Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would not only result in the Jewish state's extinction - "Dimona is the most accessible target" - but generate a response that "would not be limited to the Middle East."

Military sources interpret this to mean a missile attack on American bases in Europe and US Sixth Fleet vessels in the Mediterranean.

"The smallest action by Israel [against Iran] and we will see its destruction," Gen. Jazayeri went on to say. "We have plans of reprisal ready for any attack."

Iranian sources report all this muscle-flexing is a sign of mounting edginess in Tehran as the debate in the United States and Israel over the need for a military operation against Iran gains momentum following the UN nuclear agency (IAEA)'s exposure of its nuclear program as weapon-focused.

Some American papers have responded with stories designed to discourage the Netanyahu government from a military offensive. They claim Israel is short of the bombers and air crews needed to conduct the 1,000 rapid-fire sorties required for a successful operation. The damage would therefore be slight, they argue, enough only to hold Iran's nuclear progress back by no more than a year or two at best. Israel would have to repeat its operation every few years.

Other US sources maintain that a unilateral Israel strike on Iran would seriously undercut America's Middle East influence and call for unwilling US intervention in the war to rescue Israel from the fury of Iranian missiles.

According to another view expounded by certain US columnists Wednesday, no American or Israel attack is to be expected in the coming days, but must eventually take place. President Barack Obama swore Iran would not be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon. He is bound to make good on his pledge just as he kept his promise to liquidate Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has told his office to offer no comment on the nuclear agency's evidence of Iran's work on an atomic bomb until he is ready and ordered cabinet ministers to keep silent.

There is a certain amount of frustration in Jerusalem over the nuclear agency's report, mainly because it conceals as much as it reveals. Its researches cover Iran's nuclear and missile developments only in the years 2008 and 2009 whereas both programs took off dramatically and ominously later.

Jerusalem sources have registered two other dominant responses:

1. If as government sources claim Iran can attain an operational nuclear weapon within a year, why is the Netanyahu government talking about sanctions which everyone knows are useless instead of exercising its military option before it is too late?

2. Israeli intelligence and military sources and commentators say the agency's findings are not new but have been known for some years.

If that is the case, many Israelis ask, why was Iran's nuclear progress kept dark and why didn't a military attack come up for debate much sooner when it would have been more expeditious?

And if the truth was kept hidden for two or three years, why should anyone believe that the data released this week covers the true picture? The conclusion is inescapable that Iran's nuclear doings are a lot more dangerous than the agency and the Israeli government would have people believe.

A minority of former government officials in opposition today maintain in response to the IAEA report that Israel should learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran and in fact has already managed to survive for some years and even prosper in its shadow without coming to harm.

However, most Israelis now suspect that Iran already has the N-bomb but no one responsible is willing to admit it.

9b)Western world has failed
Op-ed: For 15 years, Israel warned that Iran is seeking a bomb, but world didn’t listen
By Alex Fishman


The information published by the International Atomic Energy Agency Tuesday has been known to Western intelligence agencies for at least two years. The IAEA report in fact comprises information handed over to the organization by at least 10 states. And this precisely is the global tragedy.

If the IAEA report tells us what the world knew some two years ago, we can assume that the situation today is much graver than what was leaked Tuesday. And if anyone has been asking himself why there is so much anxiety in Israel over the Iranian threat, this is where the answer may lie.
Nuke Threat

What Israel and the world feared has materialized: The Iranian nuclear bomb is racing forward and is already at its last stop. Iran has the capabilities to produce nuclear weapons independently, without relying on any outside source. It has the know-how and most of the needed components; Tehran only needs to decide.

If this is the harsh bottom line of the IAEA report, which describes the state of Iran’s military nuclear developments some two years ago, where is Tehran today?

The immediate lesson is this: Western civilization has failed to counter the Shiite, fundamentalist Iran. When a dictatorial state of Iran’s scope seeks to acquire nuclear weapons, it turns out that no moderate diplomatic or economic pressure can stop it.

For more than 15 years, Israel warned the world about this last stop. Jerusalem did everything it could to persuade the global community. The world listened, at first ignored it, later repressed it, and ultimately – only in 2007 – started to internalize it. However, until now, world leaders headed by the United States merely played with the Iranians.

The last wave of “harsh” sanctions continued for a year and a half, yet the Iranian nuclear program also continued. We indeed saw mishaps, sabotage and assassinations of nuke scientists, the project was delayed by a few years, but pressed on. If Israel’s Mossad marked the effort to curb Iran’s nuclear program as its top mission in the past eight years, it can only register partial success. The threat was merely postponed.

Israel still alone

Anyone who thinks that the report’s publication would fundamentally change the way world powers address the Iranian nuclear program is deluded. Every serious intelligence organization knows much more than what the IAEA reported. So what. Have you seen anyone in the world becoming truly outraged because of it?

The Iranians were right all along. Patience pays off. Nobody would do anything dramatic to stop them. Not even the American president, who pledged not to allow nuke weapons in Iranian hands – he knows, more than IAEA inspectors, how close Iran is to acquiring such weapons.

The Russians, who were cynical enough to claim that the Iranians most certainly do not have a military nuclear program, have no trouble having the cake and eating it too. And what about European states? They will stop doing business with Iran only when they see an Iranian mushroom cloud in the sky.

Now, as was the case in the past two years, Israel is facing the Iranians alone – in “coordination” with the Americans. In other words, we have a wonderful understanding with the US whereby we must coordinate our solitude with them. Israel’s only hope is that the report’s publication and Jerusalem’s threats to strike would (maybe) prompt the US and Europeans will show more vigor in weakening the Iranian regime, even without the Security Council.

Israel can only hope that the sanctions will not only be limited to Iran’s central bank- which will suffocate Tehran’s international trade – but also undermine the importation and exportation of oil products. The chances for this are not high.

Hence, the region and the world must prepare for one of two scenarios: Either the story shall end with some kind of military operation that would delay the Iranian nuclear project, or the Iranians voluntarily and for their own reasons would stop their nuke project.


In any case, the State of Israel would do well to prepare for an era of a regional nuclear threat.


9c)Iran could be the unmaking of Obama's presidency

The die is not yet cast, but for Barack Obama to attack Iran would be a rupture of faith in the change he once represented
By Simon Tisdall


Obama speaking before a UN meeting in September to consider a potential vote on Palestinian statehood. The US excercised its veto. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Iran presents Barack Obama with the biggest international test of a presidency mired in underachievement. Having fluffed his lines on Afghanistan, climate change and the Arab spring, he is under growing pressure to fulfil his pledge to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to indicate that Obama is steadily failing in this objective, too. So what should he do? A wrong move now, and all the disappointments of the past three years could be wholly eclipsed by the most profound of moral ruptures.

It all comes down to Obama because, in the end, the US alone has the military firepower to stop Tehran in its tracks. Now Libya, supposedly, is done and dusted, Israeli officials have turned hyper, talking up the Iranian threat and arguing the time for diplomacy has all but passed. Those glum doomsayers, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defence chief Ehud Barak, and president Shimon Peres, are frantically ringing alarm bells like a trio of demented churchwardens. Something, they say, must be done, preferably involving some very large American bombs.

Republican hopefuls in the 2012 presidential election are beating the war drums too, sensing that Iran is a bunker-buster issue that could penetrate Obama's strong record on national security. Governor Rick Perry of Texas, a leading candidate, is saying he would fully support a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations. Another aspiring commander-in-chief, former senator Rick Santorum, describes Iran as the "enemy". It is campaign-trail nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense – and it ramps up the pressure on Obama.

While Perry and the pacemakers play drums, the Gulf's Sunni-led monarchies, historical enemies of revolutionary Shia Iran, are on acoustic guitar. Their lament, orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, is music to the ears of tone-deaf neocons and oil executives everywhere: Iran is the snake skulking under every stone – backing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the blood-drenched Alawite regime in Syria. An Iran armed with the bomb, they warn, would terrorise the region, threaten energy supplies, and provoke a pan-Arab nuclear arms race. Their solution? By "cutting off the head of the snake", Washington would defang these troubles and maybe get Syria (and pro-Tehran Iraq) thrown in for free.

So far the Obama White House is holding the line. Officials describe the IAEA report as "deeply troubling" and say all options remain open. But Obama's spokesman, Jay Carney, insists the US continues to focus primarily on diplomacy and sanctions to bring pressure to bear on Iran. This circumspection has solid foundations. Expert opinion suggests military action against Iran's numerous dispersed and protected nuclear-related targets would probably not work, would likely kill and maim many civilians, and would certainly provoke unpredictable, potentially devastating consequences.

A 2006 study produced by the US Army War College, Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, suggested up to 1,000 air sorties might be required to ensure underground sites were eradicated, including possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Thus a pre-emptive strike would actually mean all out, escalating nuclear war with Iran, military retaliation against Israel, hostilities in neighbouring states, and a global oil shock. This might not look so great as Obama goes before the American people next November to seek a second term.

Yet alarmingly, the assumption that Obama would never be so dumb as to start another Middle East war is questioned. Author Jeffrey Goldberg suggests Obama would act militarily against Iran if he were persuaded Israel was at critical risk. "He doesn't want to be remembered as the president who failed to guarantee Israel's existence," Goldberg said. David Rothkopf, writing in Foreign Policy, is similarly sceptical. "If the president believes there is no other alternative to stopping Iran from gaining the ability to … manufacture nuclear weapons, he will seriously consider military action and it is hardly a certainty he won't take it." Cynical electoral calculations about walking tall in the world could influence such a decision.

The die is not yet cast. Unlike George Bush and Tony Blair contemplating Iraq in 2002, Obama has not already decided what to do. But here in dismal prospect, if he gets it wrong, is the unmaking of the Obama presidency, the betrayal of all those who believed his election heralded a shift away from the confrontational behaviours of the past. For Obama to attack Iran would be morally insupportable: it would be a rupture of faith. As a politician and as a leader, he would place himself beyond redemption.
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10)Why Gingrich Could Win
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls—from near zero to the third slot in several polls—should come as no surprise to people who have been watching the Republican debates, now drawing television viewers as never before. The former speaker has stood out at these forums, the debater whose audiences seem to hang on his words and on a flow of thought rich in substance, a world apart from the usual that the political season brings.

"Substance" is too cold a word, perhaps, for the intense feeling that candidate Gingrich delivers so coolly in debates. Too cold too, no doubt, to describe the reactions of his listeners, visible on the faces of the crowds attending these forums—in their expressions, caught on C-SPAN's cameras, in the speed with which their desultory politeness disappears once a Gingrich talk begins. Their disengagement—the tendency to look around the room, chat with their neighbors—vanishes. The room is on high alert.

The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives. Michele Bachmann told how, after struggle and indecision, she had found her way to God. So did Rick Perry. Rick Santorum provided a lengthy narrative on his personal commitment to the battle against partial-birth abortion—a history evidently from which no detail had been omitted. Ron Paul offered quotes from the Old and New Testaments where, it seems, he located support for his views on the dollar.


There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, "because stupid people are running America." The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else's remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.

He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.

He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.

Mr. Gingrich predicted, too, that late on Election Night—after it was clear that President Obama had been defeated along with the Democrats in the Senate—the recovery would begin, at once. His audience roared with pleasure. No other Republican candidate could have made the promise so persuasive.

Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. "I think I can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total confusion in the economy."

When it came time to answer questions from a panel of journalists, he was asked first about energy, one of those vital subjects that don't tend to yield lively commentary. How would Mr. Gingrich's policies differ from those of the current administration?

Mr. Gingrich launched into a lethal thumbnail description of the Obama administration's energy policy. The president, he said, had gone to Brazil and told the Brazilians he was really glad they were drilling offshore and that he would like America to be their best customer. "The job of the American president," Mr. Gingrich told the panel, "is not to be a purchasing agent for a foreign country—it's to be a salesman for the United States of America."


The former speaker of the House is a dab hand at drawing listeners in, for good reason—he showers them with details, facts and history in a degree no candidate in recent memory has even approached. Audiences have a way of rewarding such trust.

No one listening that night to candidate Gingrich's reflections on the menace of radical judges from Lincoln's time on down could have ignored the power of his fiery assessment—including the Dred Scott decision, others by courts today that threaten our national security, and much in between.

The Iowa contest ahead is all important for Mr. Gingrich. The same is truer still for Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Ms. Bachmann has been looking increasingly aware that her hopes are fading. Mr. Santorum now seems to inhabit a world so nearly exclusive in its focus on family and family values that it's hard to imagine him a successful contender for the presidency of a large and varied nation of Americans with other concerns, the non-family kind included.

Then there's Congressman Ron Paul, who last weekend let it be known that if he doesn't like the views of the person who wins the nomination, he won't support the Republican candidate. This is a good reason—one of many—for Mr. Paul to retire himself from further debates. It's a certainty, to put it mildly, that he's not going to be the nominee.

It would be passing strange to have as a candidate for the presidency of the United States an envenomed crank who regularly offers justification for the 9/11 attacks that resulted in the annihilation of 3,000 Americans. It was an act, Mr. Paul explains in these exculpatory sermonettes, to which the terrorists were driven by American policies. Mr. Paul may get all the fond buddy treatment in the world from his fellow debaters, but few Americans outside of his devoted army of isolationist fanatics will forget these views.

That leaves Mitt Romney, and Messrs. Perry, Cain and Gingrich heading the list of competitors for Iowa. Mr. Cain's prospects were good until this week brought accusatory testimony from another woman—one who showed up in person, with plenty of detail. Charges of lies, financial motives and conspiracies notwithstanding, it's hard to see how Mr. Cain weathers this disaster. No outsider can know what actually did or did not happen. But all the snorting in the world about Gloria Allred, the accuser's attorney, isn't going to change the impact of this highly specific accusation.

Whoever his competitors are in Iowa and beyond, Mr. Gingrich faces a hard fight for the nomination. His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There's no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.

His rise in the polls suggests that more and more Republicans are absorbing that fact, along with the possibility that Mr. Gingrich's qualifications all 'round could well make him the most formidable contender for the contest with Barack Obama.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
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