"Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1784
A Bone Chilling video
Possibly the reason Obama does not get along with Netanyahu is not because Netanyahu is too Israeli but because he is too 'red blooded' American?
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Is India getting ready to cool its relationship with Israel, over trumped up charges, in order to get closer to Russia and China as they defend Iran? Another disaster in Obama's foreign policy calculations in the making should India move closer to Russia and China regarding protecting Iran? (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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This article is about Obama and his appeal to the 'enraged.'
All candidates for president, at one time or another, have appealed to the disaffected .
In Obama's case, I have never seen a president so intent on dividing and that is where I depart ways with him not because he is appealing to those who have some special beef.
Second, he campaigned and won on the basis he would heal the nation and he has done nothing of the sort. So my second reason for my distaste is that he is an unmitigated liar. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Is Obama's October surprise going to be a selling down the river event like knifed in the back? (See 3 below.)
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Obama AWOL when it comes to anything but getting re-elected. (See 4 below.)
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A response to some recent memos from a fellow memo reader.
I believe Obama will , should and can be beat by simply replaying his own words, calling attention to his own deeds and/or misdeeds. Define Obama by what he has proven himself to be a lying incompetent.. That is fair if it is factual. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)India confiscates Israeli defense firm’s $70m guarantee, clouding relations
Indian army's 155mm howitzers - out of ordnance
The Israeli government spared no effort to save the day. However, even after Prime Minister Netanyahu’s security adviser Yaacov Amidror visited New Delhi to intercede with top security and government officials, India decided, for the first time in its history, to penalize a foreign defense vendor, Israel’s Military Industries (IMI), for alleged breach of contract.
To the dismay of officials in Jerusalem, the IMI was singled out for the penalty with loud publicity from among five defense vendors – three foreign and two Indian - recommended for blacklisting in March for alleged involvement in a graft case. Its $70 million guarantee was accordingly confiscated.
In Jerusalem, it is strongly suspected that India is deliberately cooling its defense relations with Israel to fit in with its new alignment with Tehran and Moscow. All three refuse to join US and European sanctions against Iran.
The IMI signed a contract with the Indian OFB-Ordinance Factory Board to build ordnance factories at Nalanda in Bihar for manufacturing bi-modular charges for the Indian Army’s 155mm howitzers. The $260 million contract contained an “integrity pact” covering a commitment to abstain from “malpractice.”
Delhi says the IMI forfeited its guarantee because it was allegedly involved in the offer of a bribe to former OFB director general Sudipto Ghosh in 2010.
IMI sources pointed out that an Indian court had ruled the encashment of the guarantee improper. The firm operated within the law and intends to appeal the decision and the handling of the case before the competent authorities. The decision, they say, was based on disputed facts and ignored the documents and information refuting the charges which were presented to the Indian Defense Ministry.
Military sources add that Israel’s defense leaders made every effort, including an appeal by Yaacov Amidror to Indian defense minister A.K. Antony, to get its military industries removed from the blacklist banning its operations in India for 10 years, and reinstated.
It was all in vain. New Delhi’s decision to confiscate the $70 million guarantee was taken and published Tuesday without letting Jerusalem know it was coming.
The next day, Antony visited the OFB ordnance factory and approved a special operating budget for getting production at Nalanda up and running without outside help.
On March 12, the Indian Chief of Staff Gen. V.K. Singh sent a letter to the prime minister in Delhi complaining that the army’s tank fleet is short of guns and ammunition for fighting off a potential enemy (Pakistani) tank assault; 97 percent of its air defense systems are inoperative; and its special forces have neither the right arms for their operations nor ammo. The situation in the Indian infantry, engineering and signals corps is no better.
The letter, say our military sources was fired off as a shot in the feud among India’s top generals, security chiefs and politicians. In the free-for-all, they all accuse each other of corruption and graft related to military procurement. Gen. Singh said he too was offered a $2.8 billion bribe in 2010.
All Israel’s efforts to keep its defense transactions with New Delhi clear of its domestic infighting were fruitless.
To the dismay of officials in Jerusalem, the IMI was singled out for the penalty with loud publicity from among five defense vendors – three foreign and two Indian - recommended for blacklisting in March for alleged involvement in a graft case. Its $70 million guarantee was accordingly confiscated.
In Jerusalem, it is strongly suspected that India is deliberately cooling its defense relations with Israel to fit in with its new alignment with Tehran and Moscow. All three refuse to join US and European sanctions against Iran.
The IMI signed a contract with the Indian OFB-Ordinance Factory Board to build ordnance factories at Nalanda in Bihar for manufacturing bi-modular charges for the Indian Army’s 155mm howitzers. The $260 million contract contained an “integrity pact” covering a commitment to abstain from “malpractice.”
Delhi says the IMI forfeited its guarantee because it was allegedly involved in the offer of a bribe to former OFB director general Sudipto Ghosh in 2010.
IMI sources pointed out that an Indian court had ruled the encashment of the guarantee improper. The firm operated within the law and intends to appeal the decision and the handling of the case before the competent authorities. The decision, they say, was based on disputed facts and ignored the documents and information refuting the charges which were presented to the Indian Defense Ministry.
Military sources add that Israel’s defense leaders made every effort, including an appeal by Yaacov Amidror to Indian defense minister A.K. Antony, to get its military industries removed from the blacklist banning its operations in India for 10 years, and reinstated.
It was all in vain. New Delhi’s decision to confiscate the $70 million guarantee was taken and published Tuesday without letting Jerusalem know it was coming.
The next day, Antony visited the OFB ordnance factory and approved a special operating budget for getting production at Nalanda up and running without outside help.
On March 12, the Indian Chief of Staff Gen. V.K. Singh sent a letter to the prime minister in Delhi complaining that the army’s tank fleet is short of guns and ammunition for fighting off a potential enemy (Pakistani) tank assault; 97 percent of its air defense systems are inoperative; and its special forces have neither the right arms for their operations nor ammo. The situation in the Indian infantry, engineering and signals corps is no better.
The letter, say our military sources was fired off as a shot in the feud among India’s top generals, security chiefs and politicians. In the free-for-all, they all accuse each other of corruption and graft related to military procurement. Gen. Singh said he too was offered a $2.8 billion bribe in 2010.
All Israel’s efforts to keep its defense transactions with New Delhi clear of its domestic infighting were fruitless.
1a)The Legacy of European Colonialism
By Eli E. Hertz
Israel is often referred to as a colonial power responsible for much of the instability in the Middle East. The problem is that this labeling is a total fallacy. Unlike nation-states in Europe, modern Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi nationalities did not evolve; they were arbitrarily created by colonial powers.
In 1919, in the wake of World War I, England and France carved up the former Ottoman Empire into geographic spheres of influence, dividing the Mideast into new political entities with new names and frontiers. Some of the newly created states' names came from classical antiquity, such as Syria and Palestine, while others were based on geographic designations, such as Jordan and Lebanon. Iraq, for example, was a medieval province with borders very different from those of the modern state, which excluded Mesopotamia in the north and included part of what is now western Iran.
Territory was divided along map meridians without regard for traditional frontiers (i.e., geographic logic and sustainability) or the ethnic composition of indigenous populations. The prevailing rationale behind these artificially created states was how they served the imperial and commercial needs of their colonial masters. Iraq and Jordan, for instance, were created as emirates to reward the noble Hashemite family from Saudi Arabia for its loyalty to the British against the Ottoman Turks during World War I, under the leadership of Lawrence of Arabia. Iraq was given to Faisal in 1918. To reward his elder brother Abdullah with an emirate, in 1922 Britain cut away 77 percent of their mandate over Palestine earmarked for the Jews and gave it to him, creating the new country of Transjordan or Jordan, as it later was named.
The European nation-state model was ill suited to the structure of social organization indigenous to the Middle East where clans, tribes, ethnic groups, Islamic sects, and regional loyalties dominate social units. Much of the conflict in Arab states today reflects that reality, and anti-Zionism has become the glue that holds them together.
Iraq is a case in point. Writing in the Guardian, Oxford historian Avi Shlaim notes that in the 1920s, pan-Arabists hoped Iraq "would be a national prototype for other Arab nations - a 'Prussia of the Middle East.' Iraq however was an artificial state," said Shlaim, "cobbled together by Britain out of three ex-Ottoman provinces, and bereft of any ethnic or religious rationale ... lack[ing] the essential underpinnings of a national bond." The Kurds in the north, comprising 20 percent of the Iraqi population, are a non-Arab Indo-European ethnic group that aspired to political independence as part of Kurdistan. The Shiite Muslims in the south (50 percent of the population) viewed Arab nationalism as a devilish plan by the rival Sunni Muslims (30 percent) to dominate them. "In the face of such deep and pervasive divisions, it was a well-nigh impossible task to achieve the two basic objectives of the Arab national movement: unity and independence." Yet many Arabs, writes Shlaim, saw anti-Zi onism as a convenient tool and grand cause that would unite Arabs by "keeping Palestine in Arab hands. ... Unity would be forged on the anvil of war against the common enemy."
Still, the Arabs' hatred of Israel has never been strong enough to prevent the bloody rivalries that repeatedly rock the Middle East from civil wars in Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria to the war between Iraq and Iran, or gassing of countless Kurds in Iraq. Since their creation as states, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq (and their respective national identities) have been held together by demographic balancing acts or dictatorial regimes and anti-Zionist glue. The fragility of these national identities has been demonstrated time and again in civil wars, feuds, assassinations, coups, and uprisings sparked by tribal, ethnic and religious rivalries, and conflicting loyalties.
The manner in which European colonial powers carved out political entities with little regard to their ethnic composition not only leads to inter-ethnic violence, but also encouraged dictatorial rule as the only force capable of holding such entities together, according to Hebrew University Professor Shlomo Avineri. That phenomenon also poses a stumbling block that to this day makes democratization a difficult objective to achieve in places like Iraq.
Against this backdrop, members of the EU want another chance to remold the Middle East, including a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which the British were unable to resolve during 30 years of British Mandate rule. Even during that period, Great Britain's track record was poor, conjuring up a series of so-called peace plans that attempted to appease the Arabs so that they would accept the Jews. Today, the EU aims to solve the conflict at Israel's expense for a host of self-serving reasons.
1b)A Deal in the Works With Iran?
By David Ignatius
1b)A Deal in the Works With Iran?
By David Ignatius
WASHINGTON -- The nuclear talks with Iran have just begun, but already the smart money in Tehran is betting on a deal. That piece of intelligence comes from the Tehran stock index, which on the day after the talks opened posted its largest daily rise in months and closed at a record high.
Tehran investors may be guilty of wishful thinking in their eagerness for an agreement that would ease the economic sanctions squeezing their country. My guess is that they probably have it right. So far, Iran is following the script for a gradual, face-saving exit from a nuclear program that even Russia and China have signaled is too dangerous. The Iranians will bargain up to the edge of the cliff, but they don't seem eager to jump.
The mechanics of an eventual settlement are clear enough after Saturday's first session in Istanbul: Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium to the 20 percent level, and would halt work at an underground facility near Qom built for higher enrichment. Iran would export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium for final processing to 20 percent, for use in medical isotopes.
In the language of these talks, the Iranians could describe their actions not as concessions to the West, but as "confidence-building" measures, aimed at demonstrating the seriousness of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's public pledge in February not to commit the "grave sin" of building a nuclear weapon. And the West would describe its easing of sanctions not as a climb down, but as "reciprocity."
The basic framework was set weeks ago, in an exchange of letters between the chief negotiators. Catherine Ashton, who represents the "P5+1" group of permanent U.N. security council members and Germany, proposed a "confidence-building exercise aimed at facilitating a constructive dialogue on the basis of reciprocity and a step-by-step approach."
The Iranian negotiator, Saeed Jalili, responded that because the West was willing to recognize Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, "our talks for cooperation based on step-by-step principles and reciprocity on Iran's nuclear issue could be commenced." Jalili's status as personal representative of the supreme leader was important, too.
"Step-by-step" and "reciprocity" are the two guideposts for this exercise. They mark a dignified process for making concessions, much like the formula that President Obama used in his January 2009 inaugural address when he first signaled his outreach to Iran: "We seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played his expected role in this choreography, criticizing the negotiators for agreeing to another round of talks on May 23 in Baghdad without getting concessions in return. "My initial impression is that Iran has been given a freebie," Netanyahu said. "It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition." A perfect rebuff -- just scornful enough to keep the Iranians (and Americans, too) worried that the Israelis might launch a military attack this summer if no real progress is made in the talks.
The Iranians seem to be preparing their public for a deal that limits enrichment, while preserving the right to enrich. In an interview Monday with the Iranian student news agency, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi explained that "making 20 percent fuel is our right," but that "if they guarantee that they will provide us with the different levels of enriched fuel that we need, then that would be another issue." Salehi seemed to be reviving a 2009 Turkish plan to export Iran's low-enriched uranium abroad, and receive back 20 percent fuel for its Tehran research reactor, supposedly to make the isotopes. That earlier deal collapsed because of opposition from Khamenei, who apparently is now ready to bargain.
Jalili struck the same upbeat tone in comments printed in the Tehran Times. "We witnessed progress," he said, explaining that the supreme leader's religious edict renouncing nuclear weapons "created an opportunity for concrete steps toward disarmament and non-proliferation." He said "the next talks should be based on confidence-building measures, which would build the confidence of Iranians."
Translation: The Iranians expect to be paid, in "step-by-step" increments, as they move toward a deal. At a minimum, they will want a delay of the U.S. and European sanctions that take full effect June 28 and July 1, respectively. That timetable gives the West leverage, too -- to keep the threatened sanctions in place until the Iranians have made the required concessions. It's a well-prepared negotiation, in other words, and it seems likely to succeed if each side keeps to the script and doesn't muff its lines.
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2)Obama's Coalition of the EnragedBy Fay Voshell
The president and his allies are wooing various groups of angry and disaffected minorities. These, along with unhappy entitlement dependents, are to constitute most of the voters Obama seeks to lure into granting him another term, during which he hopes to complete his promise to "fundamentally transform" America.
In an ironic reversal of the emphases of Madison's Federalist Paper #10, in which that great thinker carefully outlined the dangers of factionalism and pressed for the need for stability of the Republic of the United States, Obama and his supporters are seeking to achieve electoral hegemony by playing to minorities and supportingfactionalism.
Anger, rather than hope, is to be the glue which keeps the disparate minorities together.
In turn, the rage of minorities against fellow Americans is to be the president's means to re-election. The result, should Obama be re-elected, will be a new class order characterized by the tyranny of minority rule.
The encouragement and incitements offered to the enraged have been numerous.
Among the factors is the White House's telling silence concerning the New Black Panthers' bounty on George Zimmerman, shooter of Trayvon Martin. More silence has greeted the Panthers' threats to wage war. Unless wiser heads prevail, Trayvon Martin, whose early death is truly and grievously lamentable, may become the Panthers' equivalent to Horst Wessel.
The president's own comment -- "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon" -- could be interpreted not as genuine sympathy for Trayvon's family, but as outrageous pandering for black votes. His comments and calculated silences also could serve as the matches that ignite race warfare. The president may literally be playing with fire. Anyone who recalls the 1960s will remember the conflagrations in cities like Los Angeles. Huge sections of the city were torched or trashed beyond recognition by enraged blacks protesting the arrest of Marquette Frye, 1965s near-equivalent of today's Trayvon Martin.
Meanwhile, the administration's incessant attacks against the "rich" continue unabated. Such are the unserious proclivities of our president that he puts forth the absurd "Buffett rule" -- which would rake in approximately 31 billion dollars over the next eleven years -- as a legitimate remedy for our economic ills, among which is a seven-trillion-dollar national debt. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the real purpose of the so-called "Buffett Rule" is to gather votes from the less well-off by inflaming their resentment of wealthier citizens.
The demonization of conservative women, as witnessed by the recent salvo against Ann Romney by Hilary Rosen, indicates an attempt to divide women into two camps: the liberals vs. the conservatives -- with the hope that independents will join liberals in voting for Obama. This is to say nothing of the attempts to tar the Republican Party as anti-woman by declaring that it is trying to keep women from obtaining birth control.
The war against Arizona and other states' attempts to secure borders, as continued undiminished as the Obama camp, could be a ploy to anger Hispanics enough to cause their stampede to the election booths.
The recent ominous attack against the Supreme Court indicates the administration's utter contempt for the constitutionally established balance of power. A seed of doubt as to the Court's integrity has been sown in the minds of millions who may have been persuaded that the Court doesn't care about the average citizen, but Obama does. Ergo, more votes for him and his odious agenda.
All the above are worrying indicators that the president's aim is to create a coalition of the disaffected and the angry while marginalizing the majority and bypassing constitutionally established institutions.
The president and his allies fail to see that there is a huge distinction between righteous indignation and raw rage. Righteous indignation is a struggle against genuine injustices. Such a struggle was the driving force behind the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s.
Who among those who lived during those decades then can forget the signature injustices that characterized racial apartheid in America? Who can forget the separate drinking fountains, the back door entrances, the segregated lunch counters and schools? Who can forget the intransigence of racists like Bull Conner and George Wallace of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" infamy? Who can erase the memory of the 1963 KKK church bombing and the deaths of four innocent little girls? Who still remembers the fire hoses turned on innocent protestors?
We should never forget.
But there is a big difference between righteous indignation and ginned-up rage that divides classes and races in order that votes are garnered and wealth redistributed. The first is salutary, absolutely necessary, and transformative of society, as it speaks to universal rights as human beings standing as equals before God and mankind.
But what we see being incited in recent incidents, including the Trayvon Martin incident, is ginned-up rage that bears little or no resemblance to righteous indignation. On the contrary, it is tantamount to malicious pandering to anger. It smells like an attempt to divide Americans and garner votes from the disaffected and enraged. It looks like duplicitous behavior designed to foster war among American classes and ethnicities.
In sum, it is the kind of anger that resembles "Burn, baby, burn" more than "We shall overcome one day."
Leaders of the new faux race rage, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson among them, are like old soldiers who had their little hour but want to continue strutting their stuff on a tiny stage. The background sets are faded imitations of the truly great civil rights battles of the past.
In contrast to the current administration's and race warfare-mongers' agenda of anger expressed in class and ethnic warfare, conservatives of every stripe must offer not only blunt analyses of what this administration is up to, but also a plan of real hope -- not hype.
A good beginning would be to heed Madison's advice to promote a "well constructed Union" which controls by the constitutionally appointed and balanced means of government institutions "the violence of faction" while ensuring that minorities retain their full rights and privileges as citizens.
Real "hope and change" cannot possibly be engendered by rage characterized by class warfare. Unbridled rage always results in destruction of societal order and human happiness. Peaceful change based on righteous indignation and the desire to reform existing institutions and to soften class rigidities that prevent upward mobility has far more potential to create and sustain a stable, orderly, and happy society.
If we are to be friends of our own country as Madison was, we must resist with all that is within us the anger of factionalism and any "instability, injustice and confusion introduced into the public councils" in order that this great land not perish from the face of the earth by means of division, strife and anger.
2a)Shredding the Constitution
By Janet LevyThe U.S. Constitution, which has guided American society for over two centuries, inspiring nations worldwide and serving as a model for governance, is under serious threat today. Ironically, that threat comes from the very individuals charged with protecting the Constitution -- federal, state, and local government officials.
All these public officials take an oath to support the Constitution and to refrain from actions or laws that interfere with individual rights and liberties specified in the Constitution. Yet President Obama and officials all along the way down to local police chiefs are today actively engaged in the daily shredding of the U.S. Constitution.
The Obama administration has expanded its executive branch powers under a comprehensive czar system and myriad executive orders. Meanwhile, Congress quietly passes questionable legislation with the potential to limit personal freedoms -- and U.S. agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), engage in activities that raise serious concerns about constitutional violations. Even local law enforcement officials have become increasingly intrusive and hostile to civil liberties.
Several dramatic examples illustrate this growing problem and highlight the need for increased vigilance and public scrutiny if we are to remain a constitutional republic with our individual rights intact.
Obama Administration
Obama has established a precedent of not working with legislators from both parties to pass congressional bills, instead resorting to changing laws and policies through executive fiat. With over 40 czars controlling various functions, he has structured a second tier of unaccountable government officials that operate behind the scenes away from the glare of public scrutiny. This shadow government undermines Congress, the people's representatives, and the Cabinet secretaries who undergo a Senate vetting process. It subverts the foundational principle of government by representation for government by proxy.
A dramatic example is the Council of Governors, established in January 2010 when Obama signed Executive Order 13528. The stated intent was to solidify the relationship between the federal and state governments and protect the nation. State governors representing ten FEMA regions in the United States were appointed and serve at the pleasure of the president to "represent the Nation as a whole." Their duties include "reviewing matters related to the National Guard of the various states, homeland defense, synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States[.]"
Also on board are the secretaries of defense and homeland security, the U.S. Northern Command commander, the commandant of the Coast Guard, the chief of the National Guard, and other federal officials. The secretary of defense designates an executive director.
One small problem: the Council in effect ignores the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a law that bars the military from exercising domestic police powers. The Council's existence also erodes the power of the states and their ability to control their militias.
Meanwhile, on Friday afternoon, March 16, with little fanfare, Obama issued another executive order, the National Defense Resources Preparedness Order. In this one, he granted himself absolute power over all American resources during times of peace and national emergency, including food, water, livestock, plants, energy, health resources, transportation, and construction material -- all without the consent of Congress and the American people. Although this represented an amendment to an existing order, the new phrase, "under both emergency and non-emergency conditions," fueled speculation that the new order could allow peacetime martial law.
As for who has the authority to declare war, the Obama administration apparently believes that it has no need to consult Congress, although the power to declare war is clearly enumerated to Congress in the U.S. Constitution. In March, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta denied any need for Congressional involvement and explained that the administration would instead seek permission from NATO and the U.N. for an "international legal basis" to commit U.S. troops abroad. This, despite the fact that our country's founders clearly specified that only Congress shall declare war so that the People could be closely involved in a decision that could gravely impact their lives.
Congress
Congress, meanwhile, in February passed the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. Signed into law by President Obama in March, the act empowers the Secret Service to designate areas in which free speech, association, and redress of government grievances are prohibited, even temporarily for specific events or if individuals are attending who are protected by Secret Service. Under the Act, anyone who congregates in a restricted area may be prosecuted and, if found guilty, imprisoned for up to ten years. In other words, Secret Service agents may decide where to create "no free speech zones" in which protests may be banned and protestors subject to arrest. This constitutes blatant government suppression of speech.
Also in February, Congress passed a $63-billion FAA appropriations bill, H.R. 658, that could result in up to 30,000 unmanned aerial vehicles surveilling the United States by the end of the decade. The bill authorizes the government to fly across the country conducting warrantless aerial searches but fails to address serious privacy issues raised by the drones. These unmanned aircraft have sensitive surveillance technology to see, hear and record, including GPS, high-power zooming, infrared, ultraviolet, and see-through capabilities.
Federal Departments
Also involved with drones is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), currently building its drone fleet for deployment along U.S. borders, allegedly to curtail the flow of human trafficking, weapons, and contraband. This stated use for DHS drones seems suspect in light of a recent DHS order for an unprecedented 450 million rounds of hollow-point ammunition. As has been demonstrated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, drones are capable of being weaponized and also hacked and captured by opposition forces. All of this deserves heightened concern in light of the ill-fated Fast and Furious operation, in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under the supervision of the Holder Justice Department, put weapons into the hands of Mexico's narco-terrorists and then lost track of the firearms. The guns were linked to crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Further, recent policies belie the stated purpose for employing drones. The Justice Department is suing Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Utah for upholding immigration laws that are mirror-images of federal illegal immigration statutes, and the DHS is blocking deportation of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Obama signed an executive order to stop the automatic deportation of illegal aliens.
Local Government
On the local government level, the New York police department is testing gun detection technology with a scanner placed on police vehicles to reveal concealed weapons. This could constitute a violation of Second Amendment rights to bear arms as well as a challenge to the 4th Amendment, which prohibits illegal search and seizure. Broad use of this new technology represents a trespass on personal property for information-gathering when a reasonable expectation of privacy exists and law enforcement lacks a judicially sanctioned warrant, which would check police power.
Police have also stepped up their attacks against the First Amendment right to religious expression. In May 2010, when junior high school students from an Arizona Christian academy visited the U.S. Supreme Court on a field trip and stopped to pray outside the building, a police officer abruptly interrupted their prayers and ordered the group to stop. The students were told they were violating the law. Later, a public information officer for the court stated that no policy prohibits prayer.
In Dearborn, Michigan, in June, 2010, a pastor and two lay Christians were arrested outside an Arab festival, under the pretense that they were blocking a tent entrance, creating a public danger, and "screaming into a crowd." Video footage of the event clearly showed that this was untrue. Last year, an assistant evangelical pastor from a Southern California church and two church members were arrested by the California Highway Patrol for reading the Bible outside a DMV office to those waiting in line almost an hour before opening time. Although the Christians were 50 feet away from the entrance, they were cited for "impeding an open business."
On an individual basis, any of the above orders, laws, and actions might seem innocuous and make concerns over government usurpation and abuse of power seem exaggerated and unsubstantiated. However, taken collectively, they represent an alarming trend of a small and steady overthrow of our constitutional guarantees and liberties by elected representatives and unelected government officials.
At a time when the president is using the EPA to limit access to vital energy resources and to impinge on private property rights and has instituted an unpopular, unprecedented mandate to purchase government health care under threat of legal action, the fight for constitutional restraint couldn't be more critical. If Americans can be ordered to purchase health care and prohibited from the free and clear use of their private property, where does it end? Are our rights, guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, safe?
The Constitution's unprecedented fundamentals -- separation of powers among the three branches of government with its enumerated powers and checks and balances, the principle of limited government and the concept of a government that exists solely to represent the interests of the governed -- were exquisitely designed to protect the natural liberties of the people and prevent government tyranny. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, guarantees specific personal freedoms, limits the government's power in judicial proceedings, and reserves all unspecified power for the states. The time to reaffirm and reinvigorate these constitutional principles, to limit government power, and to preserve individual liberties is now.
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3)Israel: Reported US-Iranian nuclear deal - wishful thinking
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: A nuclear weapon is a sin...
Iran is presented as ready to agree to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent and halt work at its underground facility for higher enrichment near Qom, and export its stockpile of highly enriched uranium for final processing to 20 percent for use in medical isotopes. Israeli sources say this report is false: Far from this being the shape of an eventual settlement, it was the shape of American demands relayed to Tehran in side-channels going via Paris and Vienna. Israel was never informed of Iran accepting this formula or its presentation to the Istanbul meeting.
Above all, they stressed, Netanyahu has not and will not play a role in any choreography of this kind staged by the Obama administration.
The Americans appear to have been taken in by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s public pledge in February not to commit the “grave sin” of building a nuclear weapon as representing the Islamic regime’s face-saver for caving in to US pressure. The WP article is indeed captioned” “The stage is set for a deal with Iran.” Nothing, say military and intelligence sources, is farther from the truth. According to Iranian sources, there is no sign of the Iranians caving .
The article itself appears to represent Washington’s comeback for a radio interview aired a few hours earlier, Tuesday, April 17, by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya'alon, in which he sharply criticized the Obama administration for its handling of the nuclear dispute with Iran: "We (Israel) no longer believe in the Americans, and on the Iran issue, we are not in the same boat."
“Three years ago, Iran had 1,200 kilos of low enriched uranium; today it has five and a half tons,” he pointed out.
Ya'alon also warned that after the way the proceedings went in Istanbul, right after the second round of talks on May 23 in Baghdad, “Israel will review its steps,”
Citing the classical Hebrew adage: If I do not watch out for myself, who will? (אם אין אני לי מי לי?) , he noted: “Obama too has said Israel has the right to self-defense.”The deputy prime minister was the first Israeli national figure to suggest that, after May 23, the Netanyahu government would approach a decision on the date for a countdown to an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
Yaalon certainly said enough to cause some agitation in Washington, judging by the flood of phone calls coming in from Washington with requests for clarifications.
Earlier that Tuesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in another radio interview that the“P5+1” group’s talks with Iran must result in a clear-cut resolution, the end of Iran’s nuclear program. He did not believe they would, although he hoped to be proved wrong.The two Israeli ministers would not have delivered their downbeat comments if indeed US talks with Iran over and under the negotiating table had achieved, or even approached, the breakthrough depicted in Washington.
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4)-Boehner: Obama Has 'Lost His Courage' and 'Checked Out' as Leader
Speaker of the House John Boehner says President Obama “lost his courage” over an agreement on spending and charged that Obama has “checked out” of any efforts to work with Congress to instead concentrate on his re-election.
“It’s shameful,” Boehner declared in an interview with “CBS This Morning” co-host Charlie Rose that aired on Wednesday.
Rose asked the Ohio Republican why he and Obama can’t come to “some understanding” on the budget because the American people want that to happen.
“I sat for months with the president. He wanted revenue,” Boehner responded.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, I'll put revenue on the table that we can achieve out of fixing our tax code. But the only way I'll do it is if you're willing to have real, fundamental reform of our entitlement programs.’ And the fact is we have an agreement. And then two days later, the president decided he wanted $400 billion of more revenue, which was, in effect, a $400 billion tax increase.
“He lost his courage.”
Rose asked: “What did he tell you?”
Boehner: “That we needed more revenue, needed more revenue. He lost his courage.”
Asked if anything would be worked out before the election, Boehner said: “I would hope so. But I'm not optimistic. The president checked out last Labor Day. All he's done is campaign full time for the last six months.
“He's not been engaged in the legislative process at all. There have been no efforts at trying to work with Democrats and Republicans to address this issue at all. And it's shameful.”
Boehner spoke with Rose in his first national interview since Mitt Romney because the presumptive GOP nominee. Boehner endorsed Romney on Tuesday, saying he will be “proud to support Mitt Romney and do everything I can to help him win,” CBS News reported.
Boehner also said the presidential race is “going to be over the president's economic policies, pure and simple. They've made matters worse.
“America should be doing a lot better today. But when you look at his calls for higher taxes, his refusal to deal with the debt, the regulatory regime here in Washington out of control — they've scared every businessperson and investor in America. That's why you see record amounts of cash in these businesses, in banks, because they don't know what tomorrow's going to look like.”
Progressive Catholic leaders charged last week that Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which Romney supports, “disproportionately cuts programs that serve the poor and the vulnerable.”
But in a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Ryan claimed his budget “reflects Catholic teachings of local control and concern for the poor,” according to Politico.
And Boehner told Rose: “I don’t think our budget will hurt the poor in any way. But we can’t continue to spend money that we do not have.”
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5)Dick, "After reading the Podhoretz article , the Obama lawyer article, the White House posted birth certificate article, now acknowledged by their attorney to be a forgery that "means nothing". All of these posted on your Blog.
I am convinced that the time for the unraveling of the Obama mystique has arrived and the next few months it will gain momentum and his reelection possibilities will be reduced substantially.
5)Dick, "After reading the Podhoretz article , the Obama lawyer article, the White House posted birth certificate article, now acknowledged by their attorney to be a forgery that "means nothing". All of these posted on your Blog.
I am convinced that the time for the unraveling of the Obama mystique has arrived and the next few months it will gain momentum and his reelection possibilities will be reduced substantially.
All of the above postings have at their core hidden facts that should not be hidden in any circumstances by elected officials when legitimately questioned. Example why not produce your Birth Certificate? Your application to attend Harvard and your records of achievements during your school years ? What classes did you teach as a Constitutional Lawyer as a professor at the University of Chicago?
I think the answers are simple. Except when you have something to hide, that you don't answer or produce forged documents that "dont matter"
I suspect that most of his Appointments in the White House and the Government of people he has known over the years and who generally have shared his vision for America. All know him and have a history of personal experiences and may have knowledge about him that may not be politically helpful. An exception is Reverend Wright and his warning to the new President at the National Press Club speech after Obama had to distance himself and left his church.
Some of his words to Obama...in effect I know you, I married you, I baptised your children, and you know me and I will be watching everything you do ( so far his pupil has not stepped out of line)
As for the others they all depend on him for their jobs. Have any of them been jettisoned because they messed up? I don't think so. No scapegoats only loyalty.
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