We have serious problems in this country but women are being asked, by this administration, to disregard them and focus on abortion, birth control pill costs while ignoring Iran , N Korea, mounting deficits which their unborn children will have to cope with and then we have some of our Secret Service people stiffing prostitutes. (See 1, 1a, 1band 1c below.)
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Talk about building pipelines. Where there is a will there is a way! Really Interesting. … Consider what it would take to do this today. This was probably built in months...
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This analyst says stop worrying about asset deflation because Bernanke will keep rates low since unemployment is high, inflation is low and he is a student of Depression Economics.
Sjuggerud's apporach is simplistic and could be right but I have a problem believing inflation is as low as the government would have us believe according to their statistics, and he seems to ignore a host of other serious problems that could alter his forecast and The Fed's policies but then what do I know..(See 2 below.)
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Netanyahu senses Obama has given away 'freebies' in America's negotiations with Iran. It's that knife at the back thing rearing its head again.
Netanyahu may regret trusting Obama. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Jonathan Tobin writes that Catholics should not have to fight religious freedom on their own. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)The Democrats' Biggest Lie
By Larrey Anderson
There are white lies. There are ordinary lies. There are big lies. And then there are lies that are so huge that it is difficult for a rational person to believe that such a lie has been attempted. The left's talking points about the GOP, contraception, and women in America in the year 2012 are based on the biggest[i] lie of our century: the GOP is attempting to ban contraception in America.
This lie cannot stand examination. The left lies about Social Security reform, unemployment numbers, the state of the economy, global warming, etc. The list is long. The script is methodical and boring. The politicians who deliver the lines of that script are boorish. But the assertion that the GOP is attempting to deny women contraception at the state level is so absurd and so heinous that the Party must not be silent. It must not sit quietly or offer up tepid rebuttals. The GOP must respond loudly and rationally. It must do so now.
Before we examine the reasons why this lie is blatantly egregious, let's look at one instance of the peddling of this pernicious propaganda. The example chosen is a recent press release from KCBS -- the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. The title of the release is "Women's Health Forum At SFSU Focuses On Access To Contraceptives." [Emphasis added.] Here is the opening paragraph:
SAN FRANCISCO - A women's health forum held Thursday at San Francisco State University focused on the timely topic of access to contraceptives. Advocates equated the recent debates on the issue to watching a battle won 50 years ago being waged again. [Emphases added.]
This is propaganda as defined and practiced by Joseph Goebbels. (The numbers that follow are from Leonard Doob's numeration of Goebbels' propaganda methods. Doob's system has become something of a standard for monitoring and explaining propaganda. The system and Doob's rationale for creating that system are here. An abbreviated version is here.)
[6] "Propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium." The conference was held in a leftist university setting before a group of concerned women -- an audience predisposed to trust the word of the speakers. The event received radio (and other media) coverage.
[7] "Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false." The reporter defined access to contraception as a "timely topic." Thus, giving the false premise of the story credibility. The "news" was tainted and biased from the first sentence of the story. (As we saw above, even the title of the release was biased.) In the second line the reporter attempts to establish her objectivity by distancing herself from the "advocates." Yet it is crystal-clear that the reporter has chosen to report as factual a fabricated issue.
[12] "Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige." This press release was posted on the website of Democrat Congresswoman Jackie Speier -- one of the speakers at this conference. With the requisite rhetorical vagueness practiced by the members of Congress who can only be described as subversive -- rather than progressive -- Congresswoman Speier couched her remarks to those assembled this way:
There have been 1,100 bills introduced across this country to reduce sources for women as it relates to their health. And 80[ii] of them have been signed into law. This is an unprecedented assault on women's health and the status of women in this country. [Emphases added.]
Only one part of this sweeping accusation is in some sense true. There probably are 1,100 bills that address, and possibly impact, funding for health issues -- whether it be health issues for all adults (e.g., Medicaid) or health issues limited to women. It would be surprising if this were not the case.
When I was chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee in the Idaho State Senate, our committee handled at least twenty of what could be called "women's health care" proposals each session. (E.g., almost every Medicaid bill contained some verbiage about women's health care.) About 25% of the proposals made it to the floor for a vote, and perhaps 5% (probably less) became laws as originally written.
States with larger populations usually see more of these bills. An average of only 22 bills per state equals 1,100 bills. If anything, the congresswoman has lowballed the numbers of bills that, in some fashion, touch on women's health concerns. Most states are cutting, and some have already cut, budgets in many areas that receive state financing -- certainly not just programs that affect "women's health." Speier's express thesis, that the states are "reducing sources" for women's health programs, is not a GOP plot or even a shift in the GOP's political ideology -- it is economic survival. And, one hopes, economic survival is not a province solely of Republicans.
More important, if a controversial bill (on a women's health issue -- e.g., abortion) was introduced in our committee, this guaranteed that the opposition of that bill would have a counter-proposal, and so would those seeking middle ground. Some of those groups would split and propose other bills, etc. We might see five proposals on abortion from several different angles in a single year. And the House of Representatives had a different set of competing proposals! Yet I never saw a bill limiting, let alone banning, contraception for adults. And as chairman of the germane committee, I saw every bill that dealt with the issue of contraception. I'll explain why there was no such legislation in a moment.
The expected nonspecific insinuations are there in Speier's speech. The congresswoman said nothing and made it sound like something. Truth is used when convenient. The message broadcast from the conference was this: there is an avalanche of legislation concerning women's health care (true -- because it is true every year for all health issues) that is turning back the clock (false) by denying women contraception (false).
In this propaganda, the last clause is true only if "contraception" is universally redefined as "women's health issues." In other words, "reduced access to contraception" means "reduction in any women's health program." And that is the switch in the press release. Speier doesn't say that 1,100 bills reducing or banning contraception have been introduced. She said, "There have been 1,100 bills introduced ... to reduce sources for women as it [sic] relates to their health." The title of the piece -- as it appears on her website -- uses the word "contraception." Before she is quoted in the piece, the topic is explicitly stated to be contraception. The congresswoman said "reduced sources." Which sources? The logical and emotional conclusion is: contraceptive sources.
[14a] "Propaganda must be boomerang-proof." If the opposition can be confused about the definition of the terms, that opposition can provide no rational rebuttal; there is no "blowback" to the proponent. That's why "contraception" must no longer be limited to preventing pregnancies, but rather broadened to all "women's health issues." The overreaching generalities in this press release were put there on purpose. The congresswoman cannot be accused of claiming that these 1,100 bills will reduce or ban contraception. She doesn't say it -- the media does the dirty work for her.
As Goebbels also taught [16a], "[p]ropaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat." The women who left the conference, or who read the press release, have been purposely deceived. They have, in effect, been told that there are 1,100 Republican-sponsored bills destined to take away their contraception. This is a lie. The lie is cloaked in unconscionable dissimulation. The dissimulation drives the propaganda.
Proving that the GOP cannot limit access to contraception at the state level is easy. Unlike the left, I will define my terms. "Contraception: (noun) the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse." [Emphasis added.]
Let's go one step further. Contraception is from two Latin words. "Contra" = "against," and "ception" = a shortened form of "conception." This confirms the common usage and definition of the term "contraception." By definition, and according to the etymology, contraception is something that is used before conception. As a contrast, abortion, by definition, cannot be contraception.
On the issue of state control of contraception, women have nothing to fear. It has long been unconstitutional for any state to prohibit access to contraceptive methods, techniques, or devices when used by adults.
Here is why. In the early 1960s, a married Connecticut couple went to their local Planned Parenthood office and asked for advice about abortion. They received a prescription for contraceptives. At that time, Connecticut had a state law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. In 1965 the Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, held the Connecticut law unconstitutional [iii].
No state can prohibit the sale of contraceptives. This should be the end of the argument; everything written either asserting or implying that the GOP can or will ban contraceptives is a lie. For once, just once, the GOP should stand up and, with every resource available to the Party, expose this propaganda and the politicians pitching it for what it is...a lie coming from liars.
Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and senior editor for American Thinker. He is the author of the award-winning novel The Order of the Beloved and the memoir Underground. He is working on a new book, The Death of Culture
1a)War on Women? Count Me for the Defense!
By Luba Sindler
In all my years growing up in the good old Soviet Union, I never met a non-working woman. Let me put it another way: because all citizens were required to work and the government had officially abolished the differences between sexes in the workplace, one hundred percent of women were doing their part in creating paradise. The result was general misery, as usually is the case in going against human nature.
One consequence of this pretend equality was the diminishing number of offspring. My generation was the generation of only children. While our parents had plenty of siblings, my husband and I don't have any. I don't even remember anyone in my school having a brother or sister. It was not an official policy like the present one-child policy in China, but just a reaction by women to a terribly oppressive life. When my children had to create a family tree in elementary school, they were shocked to discover that they had no uncles, aunts, or first cousins. None.
When I had my first child, I used to go to a small park where about twenty new mothers would gather every day with their baby carriages to chat and exchange tips. Faced with returning to work after a year of caring for our babies or suffering extremely unpleasant repercussions, the women in my circle split approximately 60-40: 60% would have liked nothing better than being able to stay home and take care of the family, while some 40% could not wait to go back to work. Yes, I know, it's not scientific, but since then I've observed the same pattern virtually everywhere. Sadly, the analysis was more or less pointless because nobody really had a choice. That's how the Soviet Union became known as a country with full employment.
Naturally, life in America brought a lot of changes along with some interesting linguistic surprises. For example, I was informed by my dear friend and classmate in a doctoral program that I am a feminist. Who knew? I felt like Moliere's M. Jourdain in "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" discovering that all his life, he was speaking prose. Immediately I started looking at the thousands of women calling themselves "feminists" and screaming about "speaking for women," and I didn't like the bunch one bit. First, who the heck was asking you to? I am perfectly capable of speaking for myself, as is, I am sure, any other sane woman. Secondly, it seemed that there were three qualifications for being a professional feminist: aggressiveness, narrow-mindedness, and bad taste in clothing. Each was unappealing, but all three together was much more than I could tolerate.
So I became extremely disappointed in women in public life. I decided that Margaret Thatcher was that exception that proved the rule, and we'd be stuck with sanctimonious time-servers as far as I could see. Then Sarah Palin showed up, proving in her own inimitable way that the type of women presumed to be extinct is alive and well. All of a sudden, commonsense women realized that it's better to utilize their spines than wait for the men to grow a backbone. Turned out Margaret Thatcher was not an aberration, and there are now ladies in the public eye, like Susana Martinez or Nikki Haley, who display more toughness than the opposite sex. I am convinced that if the governor of Arizona were male instead of Jan Brewer, he'd have folded like a cheap camera under the pressure from all sides (could we declare Scott Walker of Wisconsin an honorary female?).
The risible "War on Women" is not about free contraception. It is about taking away the ability to decide what to do with your life and forcing women into "one-size-fits-all" shackles. I have lived that reality, and it's not pretty.
So I'll take Ann Romney, who "never worked a day in her life," over the overpaid professional loudmouth who led the charge against her. I'll even vote for Mitt if Ann promises to keep him in line.
Luba Sindler would like to thank her daughters for being young women with common sense and her husband for his understanding and support.
1b)Hilary Rosen Fails to Execute Obama's Mission
There's also this telling and damning fact: Rosen, reports Jim Geraghty, has visited the White House 35 times.
That's "four times as often as CIA director/Afghanistan commander David Petraeus, three times as often as Defense Secretary/CIA director Leon Panetta, twice as often as Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki or Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and slightly less often than Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner." And five of Rosen's White House meetings, Geraghty notes, were with President Obama himself.
Given these facts, it's clear beyond a reasonable doubt that, despite their caterwauling, the Obama reelection campaign has been in bed, so to speak, with Rosen. She is their political surrogate and lackey. And, last night, they sent her out on a search-and-destroy mission to take out and discredit Ann Romney.
Unfortunately for the White House, Rosen failed miserably to execute her mission and is now furiously backpedaling. Team Obama, meanwhile, is trying to claim plausible deniability.(Hilary Rosen? Who's she?!)
But what does it say about our commander-in-chief that he and his staff devote more of their time to consulting with a partisan hack such as Rosen than they do a veteran military commander such as Gen. Petraeus?
America may be at war overseas, but the Obama White House cares only about its own domestic political wars.
1c)Secret Service hooker flap over $47 (or just 83,475 naughty lil’ pesos)
By GEOFF EARLE in DC and DON KAPLAN
A Secret Service agent shamed the United States after a wild night of babes and booze that ended in an argument with a Colombian hooker over as little as $47.One of 11 elite agents assigned to ensure President Obama’s protection at a summit meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, was busted after his lady of the evening refused to leave his hotel room in the morning without her fee.
That woman was one of 11 hookers hired by the agents — and the only one who hadn’t left Cartagena’s swank Hotel Caribe, where White House staffers, members of the press and dignitaries are staying during the Summit of the Americas meeting, sources said.
President Obama's Secret Service team was reeling from a prostitution scandal.
The confrontation occurred early last week, said Rep. Pete King, a Long Island Republican who was briefed on the incident yesterday.
One of the agents sent home after agency bosses in DC learned what was going on was “in a supervisory role,” said King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
A hotel employee told The Associated Press that agents arrived at the beachfront hotel a week ago and drank heavily during their stay.
Prostitution is legal in much of Colombia inside “tolerance zones” controlled by police. The going rate for hookers in Cartagena is around $47, according to Colombian TV.
The trouble began for the Secret Service after the agents’ night of carousing, when a hotel employee noticed a hooker’s ID was still at the front desk at 7 a.m., in violation of hotel policy on overnight guests, King said.
The manager went to the agent’s room where the woman had spent the night and saw the two inside arguing, King said.
“She said the agent owed her money,” King said. “He said he didn’t have to pay her.”
He eventually forked over the money and the situation was resolved. But the cops were called and they filed a report, which was sent to the US Embassy.
The probe widened yesterday to include five members of the US military who were allegedly involved in the same incident, officials said.
The service members, with the Southern Command, are still in Colombia “because of the expertise and the knowledge that these guys have,” a military spokesman told CBS News.
A statement released by the Southern Command said the service members “violated the curfew . . . and may have been involved in inappropriate conduct.”
An expert on the Secret Service yesterday said that, although the agents involved in the scandal were not breaking Colombian law, most of them are married and could have been exposed to blackmail.
“It could have resulted in a potential assassination attempt on the president,” said Ronald Kessler, author of “In the President’s Secret Service.”
“It the biggest scandal in the history of the Secret Service and the most basic breach of security,” the author said.
Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said that Obama’s security was not compromised because of the incident.
“This entire matter has been turned over to our Office of Professional Responsibility, which serves as the agency’s internal- affairs component,” he said.
None of the agents involved was directly assigned to protect the president. Donovan said the agents involved were relieved from duty and replaced.
But the scandal has made the United States the laughingstock of the important summit, as diplomats have been gossiping about hooker high jinx rather than focusing on Obama’s goals in the region.
“I had a breakfast meeting to discuss trade and drugs, but the only thing the other delegates wanted to talk about was the story of the agents and the hookers,” chuckled one Latin American diplomat.
Without mentioning the Secret Service scandal specifically, Obama — who arrived in Cartagena on Friday — blasted “flashy” coverage of the controversy.
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2)
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| We are in the midst of what I call the Bernanke Asset Bubble. In the end, it could turn out to be the greatest bubble in American history. I expect nearly all assets will soar to prices currently unimaginable today. This is based on a very simple idea… If you understand this idea (and believe it down in your toes), you could make an absolute fortune, simply by doing nothing but staying on board during this bubble. Also, if you understand this idea, you don't have to worry about what is going to happen or what the Fed is going to do. You'll know. Here's the simple idea, fully explained… Ben Bernanke is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He has a dual mandate… His goals are to deliver 1) price stability (no inflation) and 2) full employment. In addition to these two goals, Ben Bernanke is known as a "student" of the Great Depression. The main lesson he learned from the Depression is that you shouldn't raise interest rates too quickly, because you might not be out of the woods yet. Given his mandate and his study of the Great Depression, Ben Bernanke will keep interest rates artificially low for longer than anyone can imagine. And that, in turn will create an asset bubble… in just about everything. In practice, Bernanke's main lever to make adjustments is short-term interest rates. If inflation heats up, Bernanke raises short-term interest rates until inflation cools. And if unemployment is high, Bernanke cuts interest rates until employment improves. Right now, inflation is not an issue… So Bernanke has no need to raise interest rates. And right now, unemployment IS an issue, so Bernanke wants to keep interest rates low. The government expects this situation to remain through 2014… The Fed currently predicts inflation will be below 2% in 2014. And it predicts unemployment will still be above 7% in 2014. The Fed is staying on script… Last week, Bernanke's No. 2 in charge, Janet Yellen, said, "I consider a highly accommodative policy stance [low interest rates] to be appropriate in present circumstances." The world's most influential bond managers are betting the Federal Reserve will do even more to boost the economy and keep interest rates low. On Friday, Bloomberg wrote:
As long as unemployment remains high… and as long as inflation is subdued… the Fed will continue to "juice" the economy. The "juicing" won't stop once the economy appears to be back on its feet, either… Bernanke's worries about the Great Depression will keep him from raising interest rates until it's too late… which will inflate the Bernanke Asset Bubble to its greatest heights. So please, for now, stop worrying so much. We are only partway through the Bernanke Asset Bubble. It should last another two years… at the very least. And asset prices have the potential to soar in this environment. Stop worrying. You've got a "free pass" to make money in your investments through 2014… Take it. Good investing, Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3)Israel: Obama’s secret dealings with Iran conflict with US-Israeli understandings |
Barack Obama and his double diplomatic track
The fundamental rift on Iran between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu burst into the open Monday, April 16 when high-ranking Israeli officials close to Netanyahu directly accused the president of reneging on the US-Israeli understandings reached ahead of the Istanbul talks between the six powers and Iran on April 14.
Behind the show biz of Istanbul, they charged, the US and Iran had reached secret agreements in clandestine bilateral contacts channeled through Paris and Vienna.
The row surfaced Sunday when Netanyahu said the US and world powers by agreeing to hold more talks in Baghdad next month had given Tehran a "freebie" of five more weeks to continue enriching uranium without restrictions. By singling out the US, the prime minister aimed his comment directly at the president.
Obama’s response was fast. At a news conference ending the Western Hemisphere summit in Cartagenia, Colombia, he commented sharply: "The notion that somehow we've given something away or a `freebie' would indicate Iran has gotten something. In fact, they've got some of the toughest sanctions that they're going to be facing coming up in just a few months if they don't take advantage of these talks."
That is the very point on which Israel accuses the US president of being false. American and Israeli officials preceded the Istanbul talks withan understanding for the US to put before Iran agreed demands/concessions: Iran would be allowed to keep 1,000 centrifuges for the low-level enrichment of uranium up to 3.5 percent purity, the first time Israel had accepted the principle of Iran enriching uranium at any grade at all.
It was also agreed between Washington and Jerusalem that Iran would not be permitted to keep 20 percent enriched uranium, which is a short step before weapons-grade, in any quantity.
These understandings, known as the “1,000 principle,” were meant to represent the final upshot of the formal negotiations with Iran, a consensus to which US diplomats would aspire in as short a time possible.
These understandings, known as the “1,000 principle,” were meant to represent the final upshot of the formal negotiations with Iran, a consensus to which US diplomats would aspire in as short a time possible.
In the event, the US delegation did not present any of the agreed demands – or any other - to the Iranians attending the first round of talks in Turkey.
The belated sense of being misled prompted the prime minister’s exceptionally sharp reaction.
Israeli official sources now suspect that in their secret contacts, the US has granted Iran far-reaching concessions on its nuclear program - more than Israel would find unacceptable. The formal talks in Istanbul and in Baghdad on May 23 are seen as nothing but a device to screen the real business the US and Iran have already contracted on the quiet.
Israeli official sources now suspect that in their secret contacts, the US has granted Iran far-reaching concessions on its nuclear program - more than Israel would find unacceptable. The formal talks in Istanbul and in Baghdad on May 23 are seen as nothing but a device to screen the real business the US and Iran have already contracted on the quiet.
3a)
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