Another Obama government energy company bites the dust and we, the tax payers, are on the hook. Good thing Obama wasn't a stock adviser and just a phony lawyer and law professor. (See 1 below.)
---
If he does not serve the interests of the 'messiah's" legal needs cast him off and if he is on the wrong end of Obama's divisive racial pursuits cuff and hang him. (See 2 below.)
---
If Santorum was politically astute he should fold his tent and start backing Romney but that creates a dilemma because: a) Santorum has so trashed Romney he ripped any coat tails he might have had with Romney and b) Santorum probably ain't that astute. He seems more motivated by an ideological internal desire to dig a hole for himself from which he may not recover.
He is young enough to be a 'come back kid' but seems to dumb to understand.
Santorum could have a future if he backs down but he seems hell bent on self immolation- 'If I cannot win I will take Romney so far down, the nation will be saddled with Obama.' Now that's something to be proud about!
---
Obama continues lying. Now it is about Ryan's budget but it is understandable because Obama needs another 'pinata' since he cannot run on his failed record both domestic and foreign and attacking The Supreme Court will backfire.
Obama has no intention of offering solutions. He simply wishes to simply attack everything proposed and those proposing them so he can divide and conquer through outright distortions and lies. That's presidential leadership? Yes, just more petulant and childish Obama sour grapes!
Obama is the epitome of an 'affirmative action' product. Everything was handed to him without having earned it and when he runs the risk, by reason of his own failures, he get nasty and negative. (See 3 and 3a below.)
---
This from my friend who is the development officer of the largest private University in Israel: This is what Israel is all about and contrast this greeting with any other nation in the region and you may understand why Israel and the U.S. have shared values and our relationship transcends respective leaders. (See 4 below.)
---
Libs and Progressives hate Limbaugh because they really have no coherent response to his consistent logic. They may not agree that his solutions would be theirs but they simply attack him as they did Palin which is their method de jour.
But he has their number and it rolls off his back as water does a duck. (See 5 below.)
More on Obama and The Supreme Court. (See 5a below.)
---
Last night Israel's Consul General, Opher Aviran, came to speak. He was here to cement relations with the various political , business and social interests and to extend an invitation to our Mayor to visit Israel which she accepted.
The job of a Consul General is to build relationships for his country with the domestic region in which he serves and for Jews, in particular, it is important to inform youthful blacks of the role Jews played in helping them defeat segregation.
My own father was very instrumental in ridding Birmingham of their neanderthal police chief - Bull Connor.
The Consul General was diplomatic in answering questions and evaded answering questions which were pointed. I wanted to ask how he felt about the administration's recent leak of the Israeli air Bases in Azerbaijan but was not called upon by the director of the community center probably out of fear I would put Opher on the spot.
All evidence to the contrary and illogical as it might be,I continue to maintain Obama has maneuvered himself into a corner vis a vis Iran because of his off again on again style of 'walking the extra mile' in the face of rejection after rejection and therefore, being the totally political animal that he is, I continue to believe an 'October Surprise' whereby he launches an attack on Iran is not out of the realm of speculation. Particularly if he loses The Supreme Court battle and his poll numbers are flagging.
It would seem incongruous for a Nobel Peace Prize President to go to war but it is always politics with Obama and winning re-election is far more important than some peace prize when peace was never actually obtainable unobtainable and was only an illusion and figment of his own naivety. The Middle East is in turmoil, Russia believes it must support its allies - Syria and Iran - or its influence will slip away. Russia - Putin - believe the tide is on their side because of Iran's nuclear achievements and strategy and Obama's inept handling of events which he helped create and Putin's belief he is a weak person. Sometimes weak people get cornered and come out lashing and will surprise you! Stay tuned!(See 6 and 6a below.)
---
al Qaeda and the cyber attack? (See 7 below.)
---
Dick
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Another solar boondoggle bites the dust…
Last April, the U.S. Department of Energy loaned $2.1 billion to Solar Trust of America (STA). STA is the world's largest solar project, and its loan was the second-largest handed out by the Energy Department during current Secretary Steven Chu's tenure. "This project construction is expected to create over 1,000 direct jobs in Southern California, 7,500 indirect jobs in related industries throughout the United States, and more than 200 long-term operational jobs at the facility itself," said Uwe T. Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Solar Trust of America. "It will play a key role in stimulating the American economy."
Yesterday, the Solar Trust of America, LLC, the parent company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)The Obama Administration's Dispensable People
By James V Capua
Last week, Donald Verilli and George Zimmerman learned officially that they have become dispensable people. Both men exhibit more than a qualifying level of characteristics that should place them solidly in the ranks of protected classes, but nevertheless, a confused and panicked Legacy Media has decided that they must be sacrificed. The twin gods --Victory for Obama and All His Works and Socio/Cultural Orthodoxies That Sustain Progressive Policies -- are disturbed and demand propitiation. Obediently, the Legacy Media unleashes its torments on Verilli and Zimmerman, whose fates should be a warning to others believing themselves secure in their special status.
Consider Donald Verilli: a native of the New York metropolitan area without a trace of hayseed, Yale- and Columbia Law-educated, and holder of the same glittering distinction as is enjoyed by the president himself (but in his case, probably actually earned): editor in chief of an Ivy League law review. With a solid legal career before coming to Washington, Verilli, until last week, was the exemplar of the incandescent brilliance with which the Obama administration has allegedly illuminated every corner of every government building from sea to shining sea. And now we are told he is a dope -- a stammering, nerve-wracked, and exhausted blunderer, whose lame arguments, delivered between copious hydrating, might well have led the wisecracking Justice Scalia to comment, echoing Groucho Marx in A Night at the Opera, that "[w]e're OK as long as the water holds out."
Voices from the White House have provided a ritual defense -- Verilli did serve as deputy counsel to the president, and it is just not prudent to alienate one's own lawyer, and yet the Obamacare-supportive media has been merciless. It is not unreasonable, though, to believe that Verilli was drawn and quartered in the pliant media as much for what they regarded as discrediting so prominently the aura of Obama administration brilliance as for a lot of ignorant commentators' frivolous judgments about his effectiveness in defending the indefensible.
Verilli's fate should not go unnoticed to others serving Obama. Immediately the brilliant Stephen Chu comes to mind, but there are plenty of other candidates for media sacrifice should the political need arise. For example, Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has already agonized publicly over what is called mortgage principal forgiveness. DeMarco says he takes seriously the job of minimizing further taxpayer losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and there are legitimate fears that banks would likely be the biggest winners of any mortgage principal gimmick. But the pressures on him are already increasing, and if DeMarco' s scruples come up against a full-blown Plouffe-Axelrod political imperative to appear to be doing something for underwater homeowners, does anyone imagine that he will end up portrayed on MSNBC as anything but a stubborn, cruel, pencil-necked bean-counter? Eddie, maybe you should give Newt a call -- if he starts up that Fannie/Freddie historian gig again, he might be able to use you.
Then of course there are some of the figures who exercised their particular brand of brilliance in connection with the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme, like Kevin O'Reilly, a White House aide now being pursued energetically by Messrs. Grassley and Issa. A degree of nervousness must occasionally visit one who could be caricatured falsely by a pliant media as an anti-gun zealot and Star Trek convention aficionado. After all, apparently, O'Reilly himself connived with some low-level state university graduates and night school lawyers at the Department of Justice in a nefarious plot to undermine the Second Amendment against the expressed wishes of Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, and the constitutional law expert-in-chief. As sacrifices to continue the blessings of Hope and Change, disposable people can and will be found as needed, even in the ranks of Obama's best and brilliantest.
George Zimmerman, the man who claims he shot Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in self-defense, is like Mr. Verilli -- a disposable person from what should be a media-protected category. According to prevailing orthodoxies, he is actually more deserving of special status than the average Hispanic; while, oddly, The New York Times seemed to imply that his mixed lineage as a "white Hispanic" renders him less worthy of consideration, since identity is supposed to be everything, is not Zimmerman a living embodiment of the kind of racial diversity the Legacy Media claim to cherish and promote? He is also an active member of his local community watch, and he engages in a variety of other good works. As such, George Zimmerman, a registered Democrat, dutifully follows the admonitions to engage in community service from a president who "often credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life."
All in all, Zimmerman should not be treated in the tame media like Dick Cheney. But now that it is imperative to reinforce monolithic black support for the president, Obama has seen fit to embrace Trayvon Martin as a virtual "son" and scramble to the front of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson's parade. Meanwhile, progressive media figures must make spectacles of themselves competing to condemn Zimmerman's assumed racism and even the nefariousness of anyone who tries to stand up for him. Of course, Zimmerman makes the usual whipping boy for the anti-gun crowd -- and, I suspect, even more importantly, in connection with the media-induced confusion over Stand Your Ground laws, he provides a convenient warning of the untold evils that can arise when citizens assume any kind of active role, including but not restricted to the defense of themselves and their property. In this transformative moment, we are, after all, supposed to be learning to be passive takers and leave the rest to a benevolent government. In the interest of this greater good, Zimmerman must be sacrificed.
From Zimmerman to Verilli, no individual's fate matters when weighed against the monumental hubris of an administration and its running dogs who believe genuinely that they have the authority and the capacity to redesign and to manage this entire nation. These people move from disaster to fiasco with neither regret nor shame. And there will be plenty more sacrifices of dispensable people, individuals and groups, before this is over.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Obama: GOP plan 'a prescription for decline'
Comments
By David Jackson
President Obama plans to blast the proposed Republican budget today as "a Trojan horse" that is promoted as a deficit reduction plan but is "really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country."
"By gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last -- education and training; research and development -- it's a prescription for decline," Obama plans to say, according to excerpts released by the White House.
Obama plans to speak -- and take questions -- from a group of newspaper editors in the early afternoon.
One focus of his remarks is the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and adopted by the House Republican majority.
Ryan and other Republicans said their budget is designed to reduce the record $15 trillion-plus debt that Obama has failed to address.
Obama and other Democrats say the GOP plan offers tax cuts for wealthy Americans and budget cuts for middle class programs.
The president's speech comes the same day that Republicans Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum battle in the GOP's Wisconsin primary.
Here are some excerpts from the president's speech, as released by the White House:
"Whoever he may be, the next president will inherit an economy that is recovering, but not yet recovered, from the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. Too many Americans will still be looking for a job that pays enough to cover their bills or their mortgage. Too many of our citizens will still lack the sort of financial security that started slipping away years before the recession hit. And a debt that has grown over the last decade, primarily as a result of two wars, two massive tax cuts, and an unprecedented financial crisis, will have to be paid down."
"In this country, broad-based prosperity has never trickled-down from the success of a wealthy few. It has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class. That's how a generation who went to college on the GI Bill, including my grandfather, helped build the most prosperous economy the world has ever known. That's why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so they could buy the cars that they made. That's why studies have shown that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run."
"This Congressional Republican budget, however, is something different altogether. It's a Trojan horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It's nothing but thinly-veiled Social Darwinism. It's antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who's willing to work for it -- a place where prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last -- education and training; research and development -- it's a prescription for decline.
3a)Obama's Endless Energy
By William L. Gensert
Anyone who still believes a word out of Barack Obama's mouth has to be a complete idiot. The man is a lie-machine. Every speech, every utterance and aside, is designed to mislead -- whether by misstatement, omission, or outright licentious license.
ObamaCare? He really does care, even if it costs much more, to do much less, than he said it would, and even if you do not get to keep your health plan, despite how much you like it. And the mandate is not a tax -- remember that. Oh...and it's not unconstitutional overreach.
Solyndra? It was not his program..."per se," even if the principal investor with no principles was a bundler for Barack and the eternal campaign. What is a half a billion dollars between friends? Besides, the subject is raised only by obstructionists and people trying to prevent Obama from realizing his greatness.
Fast and Furious? He never heard of it, and either did any of his people, and mentioning the 300 dead Mexicans is a racist assault on Barack, simply because he once wore a hoodie. If Eric Holder had a son, he would look like Barack Obama -- remember that, too.
A leader takes responsibility and gives credit. Barack Obama takes credit and shirks responsibility. He has to lie. How else could he claim to be the father of all success, while maintaining his failures have many daddies -- George Bush, the tsunami, those bastards the Canadians who want to send us "sharia-free" oil -- in other words, anyone but Barack?
He is now the "Energy President," taking credit for the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline still being built -- after he rejected the entire pipeline twice -- and the increase in domestic oil production.
The particular leg of the pipeline that is going forward didn't need his approval, and the increase in production is happening on private land -- something Barack couldn't prevent.
Obama, the oiliest president in American history, has done everything in his power to destroy the oil industry in America, virtually shutting down production in the Gulf of Mexico, off our continental shelf, and in and around Alaska -- anywhere he could, except on private land. Give the man another four years, and he'll have more "flexibility" in stopping that, too...among other things.
While claiming that America has only 2% of the world's reserves, he asks, why drill? Then he says drilling is not the path to lower gasoline prices. The 2% figure is a perfect example of the man's ever-abating affinity for the truth. It counts only the reserves from wells currently pumping. If Bill Gates leaves his house with $2 in his pocket, does that mean he is poor?
Using today's technology, America has 1.4 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, according to the Institute for Energy Research. This is enough to meet all of our energy needs for more than 200 years, without imports from enemies. Of course, it is of no use if we are not allowed to drill for it.
There are people who voted for Obama in 2008 not because they were progressives, but because they bought into the chimera of hope and change. Many can remember Obama blaming Bush for rising gasoline prices. His denial of responsibility today makes him sound like the demagogic hypocrite he is -- and always has been.
The price of gasoline is high because Barack Obama wants it to be high. How do we know this? He told us, over and over again. Raising the price of energy has always been his plan to win the future, and his strategic retreat from his only successful policy is exactly that: a strategy.
Sure, he doesn't like the price of gasoline now, but that is only a political calculation -- it is costing him electoral support. People are loath to vote for a man who has destroyed their household budgets by increasing the price of a necessity. With re-election, Barack unbound will give the nation $10-a-gallon gasoline. It's for our own good -- he knows best.
The president's imbecilic battle against the fossil fuel industry, prosperity, and energy self-sufficiency is a losing proposition, disastrous for our economic well-being. He wants it both ways: waging war against fossil fuels while taking credit when, in spite of his best efforts, oil production increases.
Yet Barack Obama's endless war on energy is not just about restricting oil production; he wants to destroy the coal industry as well. For this he tasks the EPA. He couldn't get cap-and-tax through the Senate, even when his party had a super-majority. Instead, he will impose the cap portion by regulatory fiat, and his EPA is only too happy to oblige.
Every policy from Obama's EPA seems to hurt the economy, the consumer, and the nation in general. The agency is a monster, with over 17,000 employees and a budget in excess of $8 billion. Yet as far as government is concerned, a budget of $8 billion is small potatoes. As Barack is fond of saying, "they punch above their weight." As a tool of Barack Obama, Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, is destroying America and Americans, one industry at a time. The first industry up is coal.
The administration recently celebrated the closing of the 100th coal power plant since 2010, and the EPA has issued new regulations on CO2, which will prevent the building of any coal plants in the future. Since coal provides 45% of our electricity needs, and we are not replacing the generating capacity, at some point there will be rolling blackouts. As the president promised, the price of electricity will "necessarily skyrocket." Our coal will be shipped to China, the world's biggest polluter. There it will be used to keep Chinese electricity cheap. Makes sense, doesn't it?
In killing King Coal, Obama, the merry old soul, is only beginning. Next will be natural gas. Later this year, the EPA will introduce rules regulating hydraulic fracturing, the technique used to maximize gas extraction. Does anyone believe that these rules will make natural gas cheaper? If Obama wins re-election, he will shut down fracking in an attempt to kill natural gas as well.
We have centuries of reserves, and with prices lower than they've been in decades, Obama must act, or America will use godless gas to heat homes and generate electricity, maybe even run cars. He can't have that. In reality, no fossil fuel will ever be acceptable as a source of energy to rabid environmentalists like our president.
All this is done in the name of climate change. First it was going to get colder. Then it was going to get warmer. And now, because it didn't get warmer, it is about any weather that is not predictable. Wow, unpredictable weather...who would have thought that was possible?
The myth of global warming is behind every Obama decision on energy. He believes that green energy is the future, despite its uselessness in the present as a viable replacement for fossil fuel. It is too expensive and inefficient. Climate change radicals like our president insist on nothing less than American economic suicide in order to prevent something that might happen in a hundred years.
Mr. Perfect is positive that his every single idea is a stroke of brilliance. He believes fossil fuels to be bad, therefore they must be bad. His self-appreciation borders on onanism. He is a man so into himself that he is all over himself.
This is why Barack wants high energy prices -- he believes he is saving humanity. It is a mistake to call Obama an idealist who means well, or an evil man intent on the destruction of the nation. In reality, he is a dogmatist who wants his way or no way. He knows what's best for the nation and humanity, and he is going to give it to us even if America is destroyed in the process.
"[T]hose who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -C.S. Lewis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
| |
| Newsletter Maytiv Center - School of Psychology | |
Dear Friends of IDC Herzliya, As we approach the festival of Passover, we are reminded of the motto frequently expressed by Professor Reichman, President and Founder of IDC Herzliya---“Liberty and Responsibility.” Since Passover is the Festival of Freedom and Liberty, this is a good time to be grateful for our democratic values, freedom of expression and pluralism, and the privilege of living in Israel, the Jewish State. On the other hand, we must balance this with “responsibility.” Our students, who volunteer in tens of different projects in underprivileged communities, through legal clinics, tutoring of students, mentoring, visiting Holocaust survivors and the aged, and so many other meaningful projects, are the leaders of the day when it comes to showing responsibility. We also continue to recruit students from poor socioeconomic conditions and provide them with scholarships, so that they too may be nurtured to become future leaders of the country. Another important responsibility is serving in the military reserves, which so many of our students constantly do, and it was indeed a privilege to be ranked number one out of over sixty universities and colleges, by the National Student Union and the Chief of Military Reserves of the IDF, as the institute of higher learning most “user friendly” to student reservists in the country. In closing, please allow me to share with you a lovely publication by the Maytiv Center, located within the School of Psychology at IDC Herzliya. This newsletter emphasizes how the school’s positive psychology philosophy is being implemented by the Maytiv Center to impact kindergartens, children’s books, youth at risk, school principals, the IDF and Education and Welfare Services. It is heartwarming to know that in this volatile neighborhood, a ray of light is making its mark. We will soon break ground for the construction of the School of Psychology’s new building, and the dedicated team of professors and students are most deserving of this new home. On this “positive psychology” note, on behalf of Professor Reichman, and all of the team at IDC Herzliya, please allow me to wish all of you a very happy, healthy, fulfilling, peaceful and prosperous Passover. | |
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) |
LIMBAUGH: Obama Puts Out Bounty on Supreme Court
RUSH: Obama and his attack on the Supreme Court yesterday. It happened toward the end of the program in the last half hour and it was happening on the fly. I didn’t really have enough time to listen in detail to what Obama said, and thus I didn’t have a chance to, in detail, reply. I’ve now listened to what Obama said. I’ve got three sound bites here.When I got home yesterday at about six o’clock last night I got a flash encrypted message from a friend who says, “You know, somebody in the court leaked to Obama. That’s why he went out there and did this today. Somebody called him. He lost the vote, the preliminary vote on Friday. He lost it, and somebody leaked it.” And that became an active theory that began to be bandied about amongst a lot of people that I know. Because people were saying, ”Why go out,” as Obama did yesterday…? It was in the form of a question. We must remember that he was asked a question about this. He didn’t launch into this on his own, but once he got the question, it was, “Katie, bar the door,” and he was off to the races.
And the question everybody was asking is: “Why do this? Why attack the court? Why intimidate them, why threaten them if they had voted to uphold the mandate?” And I have an answer for that. See, I know these people. I know liberals. I don’t want that statement to sound bombastic. You people here — new listeners to the program — that’s not a braggadocios statement. It’s not bombastic. It’s not outrage or any attempt to shock. I just know them, and so when somebody asks me, “Why would Obama say that if he didn’t have to? If he had been told that the preliminary vote on Friday was in his favor, why take the attitude that he took?” There is an answer to that. I don’t know if it’s right, but there is an answer.
He’s a thug.
And again, I’m not trying to be provocative when I say this. I’m just quoting Bill Clinton, folks. Bill Clinton referred to Barack Obama as a Chicago thug during the 2008 presidential campaign. This after Clinton some years earlier had told Juanita Broaddrick, “Put some ice on that lip” after she said he raped her. (I mentioned that for this “war on women” that supposedly the Republicans are waging.) But there’s every possibility that Obama feeling his oats, being told that the vote went his way, would still go out and do this, ’cause he knows there are more votes to come. I’m not predicting it. I’m just saying I could understand it.
It’s easier to understand that somebody leaked to him that the preliminary vote went against him and that the mandate fell by whatever the preliminary vote was and that explains his attitude yesterday. But I can see him saying what he said if the vote went in his favor as well, as a means of further intimidation, making sure they don’t change their minds or whatever. You might say, “Well, how would that work? Wouldn’t that just kind of make them be more resistant?” The reason this is all a crock in the first place is that (and we will go through this as we play the Obama sound bites) it is obvious that to the left this is an entirely political process.
5a)FDR Redux: Obama Challenges SCOTUS
By Fay Voshell
Who is this president who darkens counsel with ignorant words concerning the balance of power established by the Constitution of the United States?
Monday, by declaring that the "unelected" Supreme Court had better rule in favor of the 2,700-page health care act of 2010, the president of our country revealed not only his hypocrisy, but the extent he will go to in order to preserve the key accomplishment of his administration. He seems fully to intend to intimidate the Court into rubber-stamping the Affordable Care Act of 2010 as constitutional.
First, the hypocrisy.
Who is this man making noise about "unelected" bodies of government?
Isn't this the guy whose unelected 45 czars, innumerable agencies, and other bureaucratic entities have already made Congress a joke and an increasingly paralyzed symbolic rump of its former self?
Isn't this the guy whose continual attacks on states like Arizona are making true federalism and state sovereignty a thing of the past?
Isn't this the guy who has openly declared he will bypass an elected Congress by means of executive order and unelected entities such as the EPA?
Isn't this the man who has just ridiculed the opposition's budget plan as "Social Darwinism," thus once again refusing even to attempt to reach across the aisle to duly elected representatives who happen to be Republicans?
Even more importantly, isn't this the president who, by utilization of supra-constitutional entities, has effectively created a substitute government in thrall to the executive branch?
Last, isn't this the guy who has shown distaste for the slowness of elected representatives, expressing admiration for and imitating the centrally planned command economy of China?
Yes. That's the same guy.
Now he has the unmitigated gall to target the Supreme Court as an "unelected" body, the members of which were forewarned about any intransigence they might display against the executive branch during his State of the Union speech of 2010. It was at that time President Obama publicly dressed down the sitting judges in front of the entire legislative body, and indeed, the nation, for a ruling he disagreed with. He said:
With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the supreme court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections[.] ... I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.
This is not the first time a president of the United States has declared war against the Supreme Court of the United States. Obama is an admirer and imitator of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose own tangles with SCOTUS were legendary. FDR attacked the high Court in his fiery "fireside chats," rebuking the Court for not being in tandem with the executive and legislative branches, explaining to the American public why the court was essentially an excrescence on the body politic because it dared to declare unconstitutional key elements of the Roosevelt agenda in 1935 and 1936. Roosevelt even tried to pack the Supreme Court with justices favorable to his makeover of American society. Impervious to the president's threats, the court still struck down eight pillars of Roosevelt's New Deal.
But that is precisely what the high Court is supposed to do -- namely, strike down unconstitutional legislation. That is one chief reason why the court is an "unelected" body. It was created to stand as an institution that subscribes to the rule of law and to the U.S. Constitution. The members have lifelong tenure in order that the august Court remain the one branch of government which leavens, withstands, and/or tempers the vicissitudes and overreaches of the legislative and executive branches of government. The high court acts as a salutary brake on the nostrums of any one particular administration by subjecting legislation and lower court decisions to tempered and, yes, judicious review of the Constitution.
At this time, the Supreme Court is one of the only effective forces remaining as a deterrent to the unbridled overreach of an overweening executive branch. It is also one of the most respected institutions in the United States. Its rulings still mean something.
President Obama knows the respect in which the court is held, and he has learned from FDR's example. That is why, like FDR, he is seeking to belittle its status by essentially declaring it merely a body of nine unelected officials who are unresponsive to the American people. The prestige of the Court is one reason why the president has gone on the attack from day one and now appears ready to defy the Court's ruling because it is "unelected" and doesn't reflect the will of the people. The battle is now fully enjoined, and a pre-emptive strike has been made.
Now, for perhaps the first time in Obama's administration, the president is looking at potential serious resistance from SCOTUS. The Court might strike down part or all of the president's key legislative victory. In response to that possible eventuality, the president has taken the extraordinary measure of publicly chastising and warning the high Court before it issues its ruling in June of this year. He doubtless is so doing because the justices' questions indicate the unease with which certain members of the court regard the individual mandate as well as other questionable aspects of the law.
For conservatives, the handwriting is on the wall. If the justices cave under the intimidating rebuke of the president and uphold the Affordable Care Act in full or in part, the end of a viable conservative resistance may follow, as the prospect of some 159 controlling, regulation-producing agencies, commissions, and boards governing the most private aspects of our lives essentially would end meaningful representative government and would vitiate the balance of powers as established by our venerable Constitution.
Should Obama be successful in his attempts to intimidate the Supreme Court or attempt to defy a negative ruling on ObamaCare, conservatives face the possibility of being reduced to mere tinkerers on the fringes of a socialist Leviathan that would encompass every aspect of American life.
As I predicted a year ago:
The ultimate battle will be enjoined should the Supreme Court declare Obama Care unconstitutional. When and if the administration chooses to defy the ruling of our most august judicial body, FDR's attempt to pack the court will seem a picayune maneuver compared to what will be an all out assault on the Republic, an assault which could conceivably send it to the graveyard of history.
Conservatives of all stripes, Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike, would do well to heed the warnings emanating from the White House, strongly confront the president, and pray fervently that the Court strikes down at least the individual mandate that is the underpinning of the grotesquerie known as ObamaCare.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6)Iran ducks away from nuclear talks. Moscow: Mid East at boiling point
Mohsen Rezaie, his master's voice
Iranian spokesmen are maneuvering for a postponement of the nuclear negotiations with world powers set to take place April 13-14 in Istanbul, according to Iranian sources. It is feared in Washington and Jerusalem, Tehran is working toward two goals: To have the venue removed from Istanbul and to buy a couple more months before the diplomatic crunch, considering that the US and Israel are treating the April talks as the last chance for diplomacy to reverse Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon. A postponement would therefore delay any military option that Israel or possibly America would choose to exercise.
The Iranians want the site moved to Moscow, Vienna or Geneva, a change opposed by Washington because it would consume several more months before the talks got started. Tehran is also signaling through Moscow that it is not prepared for the diplomatic dialogue to take place under military threat or economic sanctions.
While Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu refrained from mentioning military options in presenting his government’s three-year record Tuesday, April 3 – ignoring the three large-scale military movements afoot by the US, Russia, Turkey, Syria, Greece - and Israel itself, Moscow is talking about an imminent military conflagration as a result of the continuing US and Israeli military buildup in the Persian Gulf.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday, April 3: “The Middle East standoff could boil over into military action at any moment.” Referring to the massing of military and naval forces in the Persian Gulf, he said: The pot can explode if the diplomatic valve is not opened.”
He made no mention of the scheduled April 13-14 nuclear talks. One of the most influential figures in today’s Tehran Mohsen Rezaie was more explicit: “Given the fact that our friends in Turkey have failed to fulfill some of our agreements, the talks… had better be held in another friendly country.”
He did not specify which agreements Ankara had failed to meet, but his rejection of Istanbul as the venue for the talks was unqualified.
Strong criticism of the Erdogan government also came from a senior member of Iran’s parliamentary foreign policy and national security commission Esmaeel Kosari. He said during a visit to Azerbaijan:”Turkey serves as the United States and Israel’s messenger and mediator. The Turkish government will be hated by its citizens if it continues this role.”
In Iran’s political culture, neither of these men would have spoken without a green light from the office of the all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Kosari’s mission in Baku was to investigate recent reports that Azerbaijan had given Israeli permission for its bases to be used by the Israeli Air Force in an attack on Iran.
Early Wednesday, April 4, Iraqi officials suddenly offered Baghdad as the venue for the forthcoming world power talks with Iran.
The US and Israel are certain to reject this offer because it would give Tehran the important edge of a key diplomatic event taking place on pro-Iranian soil.
6a)Israel, Get Ready For More Obama Leaks
By John Bolton
Why the administration is putting America's national interests at risk
The Obama administration appears to be conducting an organized campaign of public pressure to stop Israel from attacking Iran's well-developed nuclear-weapons program. So intense is this effort, and so determined is President Obama to succeed, that administration officials are now leaking highly sensitive information about Israel's intentions and capabilities into the news media.
The president's unwillingness to take preemptive military action against Tehran's nuclear efforts has long been evident, notwithstanding his ritual incantation that "all options are on the table." Equally evident is his fixation to ensure that Israel does not act unilaterally against Iran, a principal reason why Washington's relations with Jerusalem are at their lowest ebb since Israel's 1948 founding.
Indeed, the only conclusion to be drawn from Mr. Obama's actions and rhetoric is that he fears an Israeli military strike more than he fears Iran achieving nuclear-weapons capability.
Current and former Obama advisers have repeatedly contended that a satisfactory negotiated outcome is possible, one where Iran will continue to develop a "peaceful" nuclear capability under international monitoring. How they can cling to this belief after years of Iran deceiving the International Atomic Energy Agency, going so far as to demolish buildings and excavate and remove thousands of cubic yards of rock and soil to try to conceal traces of radiation, is hard to fathom. Nonetheless, Team Obama still believes that Iran's military-theocratic regime is capable of holding Pandora's box but never opening it.
Equally disconcerting, administration officials, past and present, argue that a nuclear-capable Iran can be contained and deterred. Although Obama himself insists that containment is not his policy, I believe that assertion is true only in a limited sense: It is not his policy today. It is his policy for tomorrow, his Plan B, after the current sanctions and diplomacy fail to stop Iran. This is perhaps even more delusional than dreaming about Iran benignly pursuing "atoms for peace."
Deterrence against the Soviet Union worked precariously and unnervingly at times, with some very narrow escapes from catastrophe, only because of a confluence of calculations between Washington and Moscow. There is no realistic prospect that Tehran's religious autocracy will develop the same calculus of caution.
Still worse, even if Iran could be contained and deterred, there will undoubtedly be wider proliferation in the Middle East once Iran achieves nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton herself has said that a weaponized Iran certainly means that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others will seek their own nuclear capabilities. Thus, in a relatively short period, five to 10 years, there could be half a dozen or more nuclear-weapons states in the region.
Accordingly, stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons in the first place must be America's top priority. The prolonged failures of diplomacy and sanctions have brought the United States to the point where, realistically, there are only two alternatives: Either Iran's mullahs get the bomb, or someone stops them militarily beforehand. This is the dilemma that leads Obama to pressure Israel against even thinking about the second alternative.
Three years of merciless private pressure against Israel having obviously failed to extract a commitment not to use force, the Obama administration looks to have determined two months ago to go public.
The first salvo was Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's assertion that Israel might well strike Iran between April and June of this year. Nothing like letting the target know when to expect the attack.
Next came leaks to an author at Foreign Policy magazine's Web site that Israel had secured basing rights from Azerbaijan, on Iran's northern border, for possible use during a campaign against Tehran's weapons program.
Launching strikes just a few hundred miles away from several likely targets — such as the Isfaham uranium conversion facility and the Natanz uranium enrichment plant — rather than having to attack from domestic airfields would give Israel both enormous tactical surprise and a critical leg up logistically.
One can assume with some confidence that Iran was not focused on the risk of Israeli bases in Azerbaijan, so hearing about it from US administration sources is a gift almost beyond measure. And one can also confidently assume that if that leak is not enough to make Israel bend its knee, more public revelations directed by the White House are only a matter of time.
Even now, Obama advisers could be revealing additional information to other governments behind closed doors. Perhaps we could ask Dmitri Medvedev.
Not only is this not the way to treat a close ally facing an existential challenge, it is directly contrary to America's national interests. Israel is not the threat, Mr. President: Iran is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7)
Jewish World Review
Al Qaeda rocked by apparent cyberattack. But who did it?
By Mark Clayton
For a group in flux, it's a big blow. The nature of the damage, however, raises questions about who's responsible
Five jihadi websites that make up the core online forums promoting Al Qaeda were knocked out 12 days ago and remain mostly offline in what appears to be a major cyberattack against the group.
The simplicity of the mode of attack and its timing is leading some experts to suggest that the US is "not at the top of the list" of potential perpetrators — it could have made such an attack years ago. Instead, experts say, another country might be testing out its cyberwar capabilities against an enemy with few friends.
What is more certain is that the outage could cause multiple problems for Al Qaeda, particularly at a time when it is still reeling from the death of Osama bin Laden. Not only do the outages hamper Al Qaeda's ability to get out its message, but the scramble to establish new jihadi websites could give intelligence agencies data to locate more terrorists.
The attack "has had a huge impact on Al Qaeda in the short term because they haven't had one official release since March 23," says Aaron Zelin, a Brandeis University researcher in its Western Jihadism Project, which monitors jihadi websites. "Al Qaeda affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, and North Africa haven't had any releases since then. I don't remember a time when it's been 11 days between releases."
There's long been intense debate over what, if anything, to do about jihadi websites. They inspire Al Qaeda acolytes by showing gruesome videos purporting to show Western forces brutalizing innocent Muslims, as well as by promulgating propaganda justifying terrorist acts.
But knocking out websites has been likened to the carnival game of "Whack-a-mole" — new websites pop up to replace the one that's shot down. This time, however, timing could be key. While jihadi sites will doubtless return, a short-term disruption could be more of a body blow given the recent death of Mr. bin Laden.
"In the long term it doesn't matter because someone will step into this void with their message," says William McCants, a jihadi research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research and development center serving the Navy. "But in the short term, it causes a lot of confusion with them. It's a good tactic if you wish to sow even more distrust than is already out there."
The outages will cause Al Qaeda's followers on the web a host of problems as they try to move their activities to other sites. First, they can't be sure the new sites are secure. Second, they fear enemies will produce false propaganda under the Al Qaeda logo at those sites, says Dr. McCants, founder of Jihadica, a leading research site on jihadism.
The outages could also help governments glean intelligence. As jihadis are funneled into one or two sites, they will be easier for government cyberspies to monitor. Simply shifting to a new website — opening an account and putting in a password — offers numerous opportunities for government intelligence agencies to monitor the flurry of online transactions.
"There may be a good tactical reason to do it — a lot of reasons," McCants says.
On the downside, the jihadi forums serve as a valuable window on the grass roots of global terrorism. Taking down the sites means closing that window, at least temporarily.
"Monitoring these sites is a valuable, low cost way to get insights we wouldn't otherwise have," says James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies inWashington. "The chat rooms and websites are good indicators to get pointers to into things that might be coming up."
The question of why to attack now is intertwined with the question of who did it, experts say.
"Different nations intelligence agencies want to do different things," Mr. Zelin says. "It's not like all intelligence agencies think the same way. Some might think Al Qaeda is really vulnerable right now, so if you cut the cord — cut their communications — you undercut the movement, hurt the cheerleaders, and the group's ability to recruit fighters."
The type of attack has not been firmly identified, but evidence suggests a major distributed denial of service (DDoS). DDoS attacks are exceedingly basic stuff for many governments. A DDoS attack involves having a network of many computers send a torrent of spurious requests for data to the website. The site's servers can't handle the load and the site is blocked.
Other attacks have been more sophisticated. Britain's MI-6, for example, infiltrated an Al Qaeda website and replaced the recipe for a pipe bomb with the recipe for making cupcakes, according to reports. Dubbed "Operation Cupcake" by some, the sleight of hand involved substituting computer code into "Inspire," Al Qaeda's online magazine.
In this case, it appears a DDoS attack inundated the websites' of five servers physically located in four nations: Malaysia, Denmark, Germany, and Panama, according to a preliminary analysis by John Bumgarner, chief technology officer at the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit security think tank that advises government and industry.
He offers further evidence that the outages were the result of a DDoS attack: Other websites with IP addresses near the targeted jihadi sites were hit as well — apparent collateral damage of the same attack.
"It's consistent with a typical DDoS attack," says Mr. Bumgarner, a former military hacker. "There is usually some collateral damage to the digital neighbors of the primary website attacked."
All five websites were reported to be hit by technical problems beginning around March 23, say researchers who monitor the sites. A couple of sites briefly popped back up only to be shut down again. Just one — Ansar al-Mujahidin — has resurfaced so far, coming back online April 1.
As to who could have done it, it's speculation at this point.
"A lot of governments don't like Al Qaeda and there are a number of new entrants into cyberweapons field that, if they wanted to test their capabilities, this would be a fun target to practice on," Mr. Lewis says. "Certainly we [the US] could do it, so we're a candidate. But we're not the top of the list."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment