Obama campaigned on the lie that his would be the most open and transparent of administrations.
Even those who supported him must now see he had no intention of being open. If they still believe his b--- s---, then how do they explain the continuing IRS cover up orchestrated by his "Injustice Department?'
Dictators stifle opponents,
Monarchs deny free speech.
Tyrants cut the legs out from under their detractors.
How can Obama supporters explain the lies about Benghazi? Can they defend failing to protect American citizens at risk?
Driving a stake through The Tea Party's heart is Obama's goal in order to help Democrats win/steal (what difference does it make?) elections. To accomplish his nefarious goal Obama is using the IRS and Holder, who, in turn is defiling the FBI!
Are Obamaites simply willing to take cover behind Hillary's inelegant response - what difference does it make now? (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Now we are witnessing more lies regarding Iran , the two state solution. The list of lies and cover-ups from this Administration seems endless.
It is a good thing Obama went into politics because he would have made a lousy doctor. He does not even know where the back is he says he is protecting. (See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
Tobin on the endless war. (See 2c below.)
Obama takes another vacation and this one from The Middle East. (See 2d below.)
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The future of driver less cars is here if you believe the debut of car makers like Audi, Mercedes, Ford, and BMW, who displayed their latest models and technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The future of driver less cars is here if you believe the debut of car makers like Audi, Mercedes, Ford, and BMW, who displayed their latest models and technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
This will give more car drivers time to continue their inane texting. However, some might even use their free time to read a book.
What impact will this have on drive by shootings? Will those who embrace this new social trend have more time to take accurate aim? Welcome to the new world. Change is in the air!
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Beat them with their own words! (See 3 below.)
More crap from the Obamaites, Liberals and Progressives. (See 3a below.)
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More crap from the Obamaites, Liberals and Progressives. (See 3a below.)
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Dick
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1)IRS Targeting and 2014
Democrats are working hard to make sure conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.
ByKim Strassel
President Obama and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before the 2012 election. They've been at even greater pains this week to ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.
That's the big, dirty secret of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading. One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities to keep the muzzle in place.
And now back to our previously scheduled outrage over the Chris Christie administration's abuse of traffic cones on the George Washington Bridge.
President Barack Obama speaks in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014, in Washington. Associated Press
The fight was sparked by a new rule that the Treasury Department and the IRS introduced during the hush of Thanksgiving recess, ostensibly to "improve" the law governing nonprofits. What the rule in fact does is recategorize as "political" all manner of educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.
It's IRS targeting all over again, only this time by administration design and with the raw political goal—as House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) notes—of putting "tea party groups out of business."
Congressional sources tell me that House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R., Ky.) had two priorities in the omnibus negotiations. One was getting in protection for groups that morally oppose ObamaCare's contraception-coverage requirement. The other was language that would put a hold on the IRS rule.
The White House and Senate Democrats had their own wish list, including an increase in funding for the International Monetary Fund, the president's prekindergarten program and more ObamaCare dollars.
Yet my sources say that throughout the negotiations Democrats went all in on keeping the IRS rule, even though it meant losing their own priorities. In the final hours before the omnibus was introduced Monday night, the administration made a last push for IMF money. Asked to negotiate that demand in the context of new IRS language, it refused.
That's a lot to sacrifice for a rule that the administration has barely noted in public, and that then-acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel claimed last fall when it was introduced is simply about providing "clarity" to nonprofits. It only makes sense in a purely political context. The president's approval ratings are in the toilet, the economy is in idle, theObamaCare debate rages on, and the White House has a Senate majority to preserve. With one little IRS rule it can shut up hundreds of groups that pose a direct threat by restricting their ability to speak freely in an election season about spending or ObamaCare or jobs. And it gets away with it by positioning this new targeting as a fix for the first round.
This week's Democratic rally-round further highlights the intensely political nature of their IRS rule. It was quietly dropped in the runup to the holiday season, to minimize the likelihood of an organized protest during its comment period. That 90-day comment period meantime ends on Feb. 27, positioning the administration to shut down conservative groups early in this election cycle.
Mr. Camp's committee has meanwhile noted that Treasury appears to have reverse-engineered the carefully tailored rule—combing through the list of previously targeted tea party groups, compiling a list of their main activities and then restricting those functions.
And an IRS rule that purports to—as Mr. Werfel explained—"improve our work in the tax-exempt area" completely ignores the biggest of political players in the tax-exempt area: unions. The guidance is directed only at 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups—the tax category that has of late been flooded by conservative groups. Mr. Obama's union foot soldiers—which file under 501(c)(5)—can continue playing in politics.
Treasury is also going to great lengths to keep secret the process behind its rule. Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents targeted tea party groups, in early December filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Treasury and the IRS, demanding documents or correspondence with the White House or outside groups in the formulation of this rule. By law, the government has 30 days to respond. Treasury sent a letter to Ms. Mitchell this week saying it wouldn't have her documents until April—after the rule's comment period closes. It added that if she didn't like it, she can "file suit." The IRS has yet to respond.
Mr. Camp has now authored stand-alone legislation to rein in the IRS, though the chance of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) allowing a Senate vote is approximately equal to that of the press corps paying attention to this IRS rule.
So that puts a spotlight on newly sworn-in IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who vowed during his confirmation hearing to restore public trust in the agency, and now must decide whether to aid in a new and blatantly political abuse of IRS powers. The White House is using the agency to win an election this fall. They gave the proof this week
1a) Lessons of Benghazi
The bipartisan report on Benghazi released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee should finally convince conspiracy theorists of the obvious: There is no there there.
Administration officials did not orchestrate any kind of attempt, politically motivated or otherwise, to deceive the American people. In their public statements, including the infamous talking points, they relied on what intelligence analysts told them.
In other words, if Susan Rice was wrong when she went on the Sunday talk shows and said the attacks were the violent outgrowth of a spontaneous anti-American demonstration rather than a long-planned terrorist assault, it was only because the intelligence community was wrong.
That said, the initial assessment given by Rice -- then serving as ambassador to the United Nations, now as President Obama's national security adviser -- may turn out to have been correct. We don't yet know. Says the report: "The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to review the amount and nature of any preplanning that went into the attacks."
Other preposterous claims about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, in which U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, are also debunked in the Senate report. Most spurious is the claim that the administration failed to launch a rescue attempt that might have saved lives.
"The committee has reviewed the allegations that U.S. personnel ... prevented the mounting of any military relief effort during the attacks, but the committee has not found any of these allegations to be substantiated," the report states.
Armchair warriors have argued that an aerial assault might have driven off the attackers, but Pentagon officials told the committee there were simply no U.S. fighter jets in position to reach Benghazi in time. All available military and CIA assets in Benghazi were mobilized, and they likely prevented additional deaths.
I am under no illusion that these findings will quiet the hard-core Benghazi conspiracy crowd. Nor will it stop some cynical Republicans from using the tragedy as a political weapon against Obama -- or against Hillary Clinton, who was then secretary of state, if she makes another run for president.
But perhaps others, including thoughtful critics of the administration, can focus on what really happened. There are important lessons to learn.
First, and most elementary, is that it wasn't anyone in the Obama administration who shares fault for the attacks in Benghazi. It was a bunch of radical Islamic militants, terrorists, extremists -- call them whatever you want. The killers who perpetrated the atrocity deserve the blame.
Second, it is not possible to plan for every contingency and thus prevent every attack. The United States has diplomatic and military facilities around the globe. Officials should do everything in their power to keep all of these installations safe, all of the time. The historical record -- including the bombings of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole in Yemen -- suggests that the goal of perfect security will not be achieved.
Third, it is always obvious in hindsight that officials could have done more to anticipate or prevent an attack. This is certainly true of Benghazi, and the administration should be held accountable for making sure the appropriate lessons are learned and implemented.
According to the report, it had been clear for months that the security situation in Benghazi was deteriorating. A bomb had been detonated at the main gate of the U.S. mission, causing some damage. Assailants had fired rocket-propelled grenades at the British ambassador's convoy. U.N. and Red Cross personnel had come under attack.
Stevens informed the State Department of the worsening conditions. In July, he asked for an additional 13 security personnel to protect his staff in Tripoli and Benghazi; the report says there is no indication that officials in Washington ever responded to this cable. A month later, however, Stevens twice turned down an offer by the Defense Department to extend the presence of a 16-member military team that had already been providing extra security.
According to the report, the State Department appeared not to realize the seriousness of the situation -- or even to know what branch of the bureaucracy was supposed to respond. This is the true scandal of Benghazi: A lesson from a prior attack was long ignored.
The Senate report says there should be an undersecretary of state, with real clout, whose responsibility is ensuring that vulnerable posts such as Benghazi have adequate security. This was also recommended by a review panel following the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Which happened in 1998.
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By Caroline B. Glick
Congress is greatest threat to peace?
To hear it from the White House, and from Israel's leftist media, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon is a major liability. As half the planet now knows, Ya'alon is harshly critical of US Secretary of State John Kerry's persistent efforts to force Israel to surrender its land and ability to defend itself to the PLO.
In a private conversation that Ya'alon did not expect to be made public, he criticized Kerry's so-called security plan that offers Israel advanced technology in exchange for PLO control over its eastern border. Ya'alon also rejected the notion that the PLO is interested in making peace. And he stated the inconvenient fact that PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas is only in power because Israel has security control over Judea and Samaria.
Ya'alon also said, again in a private conversation, that Kerry's razor-sharp focus on Israel and the PLO owes to an "incomprehensible obsession," and that by neurotically pushing for a deal that has no chance of being concluded or achieving peace, Kerry is exhibiting "messianic" character traits.
Ya'alon's private statements about Kerry were no harsher than public statements that the Saudis have made regarding the Obama administration's regional policies. Last November, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal. According to Goldberg, the Saudi royal attacked US President Barack Obama "with a directness that would make Benjamin Netanyahu blush."
Among other things, Alaweed said, "There's no confidence in the Obama administration doing the right thing with Iran. We're really concerned --- Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Middle Eastern countries about this."
Alaweed questioned Obama's motives in negotiating with Iran, saying the president is "wounded," and appeasing Iran in order to win back the support of Democratic lawmakers who oppose Obamacare. In his words, "Thirty-nine members of his own party in the House have already moved away from him on Obamacare. That's scary for him."
It is hard to think of harsher criticism than Alaweed's. And yet, the administration had nothing to say about it. Neither he, nor his fellow Saudi prince Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud, the Saudi intelligence chief who said last month that he is scaling back intelligence cooperation with the US, was personally attacked by the administration.
No umbrage was taken at their statements.
And again, their public statements were no less harsh than what Ya'alon said in a private conversation about Kerry.
Neither the Israeli people, nor the US's traditional Sunni Arab allies support Obama's policies in the region. They believe Obama's policies are dangerous for them, and antithetical to US interests.
Indeed, Ya'alon's assessments of the administration are not only in line with regional opinion, the vast majority of Israelis share his views.
According to a poll published last week by Makor Rishon, 80 percent of Israelis think that Kerry's peace plan has no chance of bringing peace. Seventy-three percent oppose his security plan for the Jordan Valley. And 53% object to the entire premise of his talks - that Israel should surrender almost all of Judea and Samaria to the PLO.
Moreover, the average man on the Israeli street sees the destruction wreaked by the Obama administration's policy throughout the Middle East, and he cannot figure out what Kerry wants with us.
Syria is a humanitarian and geopolitical nightmare with global implications.
Rather than do everything possible to strengthen moderate forces in Syria, like the Kurds, and cultivate, train and arm regime opponents who can fight both the Assad regime and al-Qaida rebels, Kerry has devoted himself to demanding that Israel release more Palestinian terrorist murderers from prison.
Rather than protect Lebanon from the predations of Iran and Syria to ensure its independence, Kerry is holding marathon meetings with Netanyahu to try to coerce him into helping the PLO build another Jew-free terrorist state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Rather than try to blunt the growing power of Hezbollah - Iran's terrorist army - in Syria, the US's policy is inviting Iran, the party most responsible for the war, to join the phony peacemakers club at Geneva.
As for the rest of the region, from Tunisia to Bahrain, from Egypt and Libya to Iraq, and Yemen, Kerry and the Obama administration as a whole are content to watch on the sidelines as al-Qaida reemerges as a significant force, and as Iran undermines stability in country after country.
Then of course, there is Iran itself, and its nuclear weapons program.
After the six-party nuclear deal with Iran was concluded on Monday, Iran's leaders declared victory over the US. They boasted that the most dangerous components of their nuclear weapons program are unaffected by the deal they just concluded with the Americans. They laid a wreath on the grave of Hezbollah arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who masterminded the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 243 US servicemen. And they forced Lebanon's Sunnis to accept a Hezbollah-dominated government.
For its part, the Obama administration continues to insist that the greatest threat to peace is the US Congress, because its members wish to pass an additional sanctions bill against Iran that would only come into force in a year if the Iranians do not abide by the agreement.
The only parties whose lot is improved by the Obama administration's Middle East policies are Iran, the PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood. But none of them will praise those policies, because they all hold the US in contempt.
This is why the Palestinian leadership continues to incite against Israel and reject the Jewish state even as the US is acting as their surrogate in talks with Israel.
This is why the Iranians mock the US, even though the White House just cleared the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and develop its economy and has allowed it to take over Iraq and Lebanon, and defend its puppet regime in Syria.
This is why the Muslim Brotherhood condemns the US even as the Obama administration upended the US alliance with Egypt in order to support the Muslim Brotherhood.
2a)Iran Sanctions Showdown
Obama plays rough with Democrats who want to stiffen his diplomacy.
After Tehran agreed to implement November's interim nuclear deal, President Hasan Rouhani on Tuesday turned to Twitter TWTR +3.40% : "Our relationship w/ the world is based on Iranian nation's interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation's will."
Back in Washington, President Obama hailed "this important step forward" and had some tough words of his own—for the U.S. Congress. He repeated his threat to veto a new Iran sanctions bill at last count co-sponsored by 59 Senators, all but accusing them of pushing America into another Middle Eastern war. We hope Senate Democrats keep Mr. Rouhani's tweet in mind and don't blink.
***
The interim agreement keeps open Iran's path to a bomb. In exchange for immediate sanctions relief, Tehran promises to dilute its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium, stop installing new centrifuges, and halt most work on a heavy-water reactor that could lead to a plutonium bomb.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
As for the fine print of this First Step Agreement, you'll have to take the Administration's word for it. Officials say the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will monitor its implementation, usually keeps this confidential. But on Monday Iran's chief negotiator talked about the existence of a secret informal 30-page addendum that, among other matters, covers Iran's right to nuclear enrichment.
The Case-Zablocki Act of 1972 compels Mr. Obama to release any international agreements within 60 days. He can invoke a national-security exemption and show only certain Members of Congress, which is what he seems to be doing. But the secrecy won't build confidence in the deal.
In background briefings, even Administration officials acknowledge the deal's limitations. Iran can't install new centrifuges, but it can continue R&D work on centrifuges. No country needs advanced centrifuges except to build a bomb. Some unspecified work will also continue on the Arak heavy-water plant, which ought to be dismantled. And Iran can still enrich uranium to lower levels in breach of U.N. resolutions.
The IAEA will be allowed to inspect the Natanz and Fordow enrichment plants daily and Arak once a month. But the agreement doesn't provide for inspections of the Parchin military complex that may be perfecting triggers and delivery vehicles for a bomb. Reuters reported Monday that the interim accord "falls short of what [the IAEA] says it needs to investigate suspicions that Tehran may have worked on designing an atomic bomb," and "is also a far cry from the wide-ranging inspection powers [it] had in Iraq in the 1990s."
And Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi said this week that, "We can return again to 20% enrichment in less than one day and we can convert the [nuclear] material again. . . . I can say definitively that the structure of our nuclear program will be exactly preserved. Nothing will be put aside, dismantled or halted. Everything will continue, enrichment will continue."
Meanwhile, the sanctions regime has already started to crack. The Administration says Iran will get $7 billion in gradual relief over six months, including $4.2 billion in Iranian funds frozen overseas and the rest by easing sanctions on Iran's gold and precious metals trade, petrochemical exports and manufacturing goods. Others put the economic relief much higher. A French commercial delegation will visit Iran next month, looking for business opportunities to exploit as the sanctions break down.
***
All of which underscores the case for the Senate to vote on the "Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013." The bipartisan bill tees up stronger sanctions on Iran's oil and financial industries, but only if Tehran walks away from negotiations. The Administration should welcome this as leverage.
More important, the bill lists the terms that a final deal must include. This includes compliance with existing U.N. resolutions that require on-demand inspections and that bar enrichment and the missiles to deliver a nuclear weapon.
Opponents say this is a poison pill, but that's true only if the Administration is willing to accept an inadequate deal. One reason so many Democrats are supporting the bill despite White House opposition is that they want to stiffen Mr. Obama's spine. They're privately afraid that he'll accept a deal that lets Iran remain on the cusp of a nuclear breakout even if it doesn't test a weapon. The sanctions will collapse with Iran being a de facto nuclear power, the way Japan is today.
That suspicion is only reinforced by the rhetoric the White House is using to push Democrats off the sanctions bill. Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, put out a statement last week that the bill's supporters "want the United States to take military action." And this week California Democrat Dianne Feinstein took to the Senate floor and also claimed that the bill "is a march toward war."
So Americans are supposed to believe that the only choice is between war and whatever Mr. Obama negotiates. But the far more likely path to war is a bad deal that induces Israel to strike and drives the Saudis and Turks to get their own bomb. Mr. Obama's opposition to the Senate sanctions bill shows how much it is needed.
2b) Iran’s Nuclear Enablers
By Rachel Ehrenfeld
The speed at which the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are advancing Iran’s nuclear ambitions is mind-boggling. Even before the ink dried on the P5+1′s six-month Geneva accord with Iran — aptly described as ”just an appetizer” by former chief UN nuclear inspector Herman Nackaerts – we hear that talks on the final agreementwill start shortly after the interim agreement begins on January 20.
This is especially alarming since the Geneva agreement did not demand that Iran stops all of its uranium enrichment programs and nuclear weapons research, in return for the West’s lifting some sanctions. Iran has never allowed U.N. inspection of all its nuclear sites and repeatedly stated it will not allow this now.
The current agreement doesn’t request, for example, inspection of Parchin military base, which has not been inspected since 2005, “despite calls by Yukiyo Amano, head of IAEA.”
Moreover, satellite imagery from August, 2013, showing “ongoing construction and testing … [and] major alterations at the site which the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) says were meant to hide possible tests of conventional triggers for a nuclear explosion.” These images followed satellite images from August 2012 “showing cleanup activities [and] … suspicious activities at a building suspected of housing nuclear blast experiments.”
Back in December, we learned that the IAEA was by no means ready to inspect Iranian sites. This appeared to be a problem that would take some considerable time to remedy. But the Obama administration has not dealt either with this potentially deal-breaking fact or with other conditions Iran refuses to implement. It’s been busy congratulating itself on its diplomatic efforts while pressuring Congress to prevent the passage of new additional sanctions that would take effect if Iran fails to comply with any of the accord’s requirements during the next six months.
Meanwhile Rouhani et al., have announced that the Arak reactor would surely be built in due course (along with myriad new reactors around the country), and that the country would be upgrading the efficiency of its centrifuges no matter what. The Majlis (parliament) has a bill under consideration to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity whenever the negotiations don’t go Teheran’s way. That, as we have witnessed in the past, allows Iran to blackmail the U.S. and other Western nations to more concessions that harm their own national interests.
Rightly anticipating the end of all sanctions, the Iranians have been meeting steadily with potential European investors over the past two months. The climate of this is fully expressed in a recent Der Spiegel article on just how busy the head of the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran has been. It’s not entitled “Chance of a Century” for nothing. Other Europeans agree. They, as did the Iranians, understood last November that the U.S. and UN sanctions regimes ended with the Geneva accord. The U.S. has tried to pretend that it is still seriously enforcing them, but our feckless allies clearly got the assurances that this is just window dressing to help Obama keep Congress in line.
The Western media mostly downplays the above, most likely because the Obama administration and other Western leaders have so little (if anything at all) to say about them. Story after story, however, regards whether the West is treating Iran with proper respect and well enough for the Geneva Agreement to work out. This began almost immediately after the agreement was inked. Opinion pieces were dominated by accusations against Congress for daring to prepare new sanctions if the agreement failed to work out after six months. On December 7, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warned, “If Congress adopts sanctions … The entire deal is dead. We do not like to negotiate under duress.” Pundits wondered if the Obama administration would be able to talk Congress out of such irresponsible actions while such “sensitive” negotiations were ongoing. Some media outlets even compared the U.S. Congress to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as irresponsible “conservative” opponents to the deal.
Iran is clearly in the driver’s seat not only regarding the lifting of sanctions, but seems to be effectively calling the policy shots for the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1. It’s no accident at all, then, that it was Tehran that first announced the January 20 commencement date for the agreement.
Accommodating Iran to the fullest extent possible is now the mantra of Western governments. If you are not convinced of this, take a look at the January 8 issue of the New York Times for the article “U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast Strife.” Although ostensibly on the simple fact that both the U.S. and Iran are supporting the Maliki government’s struggle against al Qaeda in Iraq’s Anbar Province, the Obama-worshipping NYT carefully explains-just as Khamenei and Rouhani would-that the real danger in the Middle East is Sunni jihadis and their supporters (and, by implication, not poor innocent Iran itself). Is the Times trying out a new explanation for the administration on why Iran should be accommodated? Stay tuned.
None of this would have happened has Obama insisted to end to uranium enrichment as a condition to lift any of the sanctions. The question remains whether this was simply a witless act of appeasement that is an integral part of the president’s “multipolar world” and “we should negotiate with our enemies and discipline our friends” fantasies, or a deliberate betrayal of longstanding U.S. policies and our Middle East allies, especially Israel, which Iran says would be the first target of their nuclear weapons. It certainly serves to advance Obama’s quest of U.S. withdrawal from the world.
To date, the U.S. has given Iran the rope with which to hang the West and its allies. Finalizing any sanction relief agreement with Iran in February, without even an apparent demand to curb the regime’s nuclear weaponization programs, would amount to the U.S. springing the gallows trap on itself and its purported allies.
By Jonathan S. Tobin - Commentary Magazine
Iranian workers standing in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant (AFP photo)
Last week, the Israeli government sought to focus the world’s attention on one of the chief obstacles to peace in the Middle East: Palestinian incitement aimed at fomenting hatred of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. The report detailed the way the Palestinian Authority uses its official media, school textbooks, as well as the influence of many of its leaders to reinforce the notion that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state irrespective of its borders. The hate that is routinely broadcast on Palestinian television, published in its newspapers, or taught in schools seeks to demonize Jews and inculcate the notion that they are evil and have no rights to any part of the country. In doing so, the PA—which is supposed to be Israel’s partner for peace—doesn’t merely exacerbate an already tense situation but also sows the seeds of future conflict by teaching new generations to hate their Jewish neighbors.
Unfortunately, the reaction from the United States and much of the international media to this information was apathetic if not one of complete indifference. While some try to draw a false moral equivalence between official Palestinian government hate speech and honors for terrorist murderers on the one hand and stray comments by a tiny minority of Israelis who express hate for Arabs on the other, American officials and media pundits determined to place the blame for the lack of peace on the Jewish state simply ignore the subject. As was the case in the 1990s when both the United States and the Israeli government turned a blind eye to the incitement carried out by the newly empowered PA in the wake of the Oslo Accords, most peace processers treat talk about Palestinian incitement as a distraction from the real issues. Anything that diverts attention from attempts to pressure Israel into making concessions to the Palestinians is seen as off the point, if not a destructive effort to derail peace.
But the issue of incitement isn’t limited to hate speech on Palestinian TV or in textbooks. As today’s New York Times reports, the PA’s rivals in Gaza have managed to put their even more extreme program of hate into action. The Hamas government there used the winter break for its schools to enroll more than 13,000 youngsters at terrorist training mini-camps throughout the Gaza Strip. The recruitment of school-age children in this manner is child abuse on a massive scale as well as a potential war crime. But just as important, it is a sign that the issue of incitement isn’t so much a theoretical problem as a literal guarantee of endless war.
The Futwaa program is funded by the Hamas Education Ministry and focuses on teaching boys and young teenagers the finer points about the use of weapons, street fighting (in which civilians are used as human shields), and ferreting out Palestinians who might give information to Israel. This massive effort not only prepares children for future service in the so-called military wing of Hamas, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which supervises the Futwaa camps, but also enables them to intensify the hate education about Israel and Jews that is already integral to public education in Gaza. As the Times notes, Hamas officials are pleased with the results and are thinking about expanding their program:
Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister of Gaza, told Futwaa participants at a graduation ceremony on Tuesday in Gaza City that theirs was “the generation that will achieve the liberation and independence” of Palestine. Suggesting that the program would soon be provided for girls as well, Mr. Haniya predicted that Israel would face “a Palestinian generation that weakness knows no way into their hearts.”
One participant, Osama Shehada, 15, said he wanted to study physical engineering to learn how to make bombs and explosives to target Israel.
Lest there be any confusion about what this indoctrination consists of, by “liberation and independence” of Palestine, Hamas isn’t referring to a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem that is supposed to be the solution to the conflict. When they say “liberation” that means “liberating” all of Israel, including those areas inside the June 1967 lines, from its Jewish population–which is to say exterminating the Jews. That the Times article refers to Hamas using bases evacuated by Israel in 2005 in an effort to separate the two peoples and therefore achieve peace for these camps is a cruel but telling irony.
Instead of ignoring Israeli efforts to focus on incitement, Secretary of State John Kerry should be paying close attention to the issue. While a solution that would create two states for two peoples regardless of the borders would be something an overwhelming majority of Israelis would happily accept, Palestinian educators, both in the West Bank governed by PA “moderates” and in Hamas-run Gaza, have ensured that most Palestinians would reject any such deal. Until a sea change in Palestinian culture occurs that would allow their leaders to make peace, all efforts to craft a compromise to resolve the conflict are doomed to fail.
2d)Analyst: US Abandoning Middle East, Leaving Iran in Charge
By David Lev Iranian workers standing in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant (AFP photo)
Iran is set to become the “alpha dog” – the dominant power – in the Middle East, according to Fox News commentator Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland, the network's National Security Analyst.
As the United States relaxes sanctions against Iran in the wake of the agreement Tehran signed with Western powers, in which it promised to somewhat limit its nuclear development program, Iran's economy has gotten a major boost – without a commitment by the country to stop its production of enriched uranium.
As a result, said McFarland, Iran gets to “dance at both weddings” – improving its economy with the removal of sanctions, and continuing its nuclear development program. This, in turn, enhances the image of Iran's hardline Islamist leaders among its people, and guarantees that they will be emboldened to demand more special treatment in the future, she said.
“The deal with the Persian nation makes it clear we are leaving the region, and leaving Iran in charge,” McFarland wrote. “Iran is now poised to become the Alpha Dog of the Middle East – the dominant economic, military and political power in the region that controls the world’s exported oil. Thanks to the agreement struck by President Obama’s hand-picked Secretary of State John Kerry, it is doing so with America’s blessing.”
With the extra money coming in from oil sales that will be resumed, she said, Iran’s coffers will soon be plump enough to resume funding for terrorist groups throughout the region.” In addition, “Iran’s nuclear program will continue and its neighbors will treat Iran as a de facto nuclear weapons state,” she wrote.
The Iran deal is just one of many foreign policy blunders by the White House, McFarland wrote, citing examples such as the opposition of President Obama to President Bush’s Iraq war surge, which she said has led to a near-takeover of Iraq by militant Islamists.
“Here’s my prediction,” she added ominously. “The agreement with Iran will be hailed as a breakthrough. But then, so was Neville Chamberlain’s deal with Adolf Hitler in Munich….at least for a little while.
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3)Paul Krugman, Vanquished
By Jon N. Hall
It is always satisfying when one sees an insufferable jerk get his just comeuppance. And when the jerk is a bully who thinks he's always right and all others, save his acolytes, are not only "always wrong" but "knaves and fools" as well, then it is especially sweet to see the jerk shown, on point after point, to have been consistently wrong.
The reason people dislike Krugman is not because he's a left-winger, nor because he's consistently wrong about matters economic. Rather, they dislike him because he has no manners; the guy's a jerk. If Krugman delivered his opinions like a gentlemen, readers would consider them, perhaps lament that he is again wrong, and then move on. But Krugman is a piece of work; his nastiness might remind one of MSNBC's Ed Schultz or Martin Bashir. One of the more compelling parts of Ferguson's article is when he turns to the loss of civility in public discourse. Krugman is poison to that discourse.
If people on the left are unhappy about their lot in life, being rewarded with the inverse of their deficit magically becomes a "right." They believe that it is their right to an equal outcome for unequal output, because that would be more "fair" to them. Sadly, the perpetuation of this equality myth is a direct product of Intellect Inequality. Or perhaps it is Integrity Inequality. To some degree, it is likely both. To the extent any person thinks that the Obama Administration, which thus far has only punished achievement, can magically equalize outcomes, he or she is a nitwit, believing in lies and impossibilities, a carrier of Intellect Inequality.
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3)Paul Krugman, Vanquished
By Jon N. Hall
It is always satisfying when one sees an insufferable jerk get his just comeuppance. And when the jerk is a bully who thinks he's always right and all others, save his acolytes, are not only "always wrong" but "knaves and fools" as well, then it is especially sweet to see the jerk shown, on point after point, to have been consistently wrong.
In "Krugtron the Invincible," economics historian Niall Ferguson uses Paul Krugman's own words to filet the Keynesian economist. Ferguson's three-part, 7,421-word article is a pleasure to read, and not only for those interested in economics.
But on economics, perhaps the most devastating of Ferguson's takedowns is in Part 1 where he details Krugman's serial predictions about the imminent collapse of the euro currency. Ferguson provides quotes from no fewer than eleven articles, from April 2010 through July 2012, to demonstrate how wrong the economist was. Ever the gentlemen, Ferguson concedes:
Now, I happen to be rather a euro-skeptic myself. I opposed the creation of the euro and predicted at the outset that the experiment of monetary union without fiscal integration would ultimately degenerate. But today, as you may have noticed, the euro is still intact.
In Part 2, Ferguson asks why Krugman had been "so bold" in predicting the collapse of the euro. The reason is because Krugman "had so completely failed to predict the U.S. financial crisis." If one can't predict, one can't be taken too seriously as a scientist. So Krugman had to get out front on the euro crisis. Hence: the need to be bold.
In Parts 1 and 2 Ferguson makes an air-tight case that Professor Krugman has been quite deficient in his analyses and predictions of late: "One might have expected a little more humility from an economist who so clearly failed to understand the nature of the biggest financial crisis of his lifetime until after it had happened."
Those who have no use for Krugman the economist will find the first two parts delicious in their itemizing of his bad predictions. But in Part 3, Ferguson goes beyond economics, making a wider appeal. In it, our Scottish historian looks at the nature of history and the place of the "public intellectual" in modern society. And he states why he is responding to Krugman's vendetta against him:
You may ask: Why have I taken the trouble to do this? I have three motives. The first is to illuminate the way the world really works, as opposed to the way Krugman and his beloved New Keynesian macroeconomic models say it works. The second is to assert the importance of humility and civility in public as well as academic discourse. And the third, frankly, is to teach him the meaning of the old Scottish regimental motto: nemo me impune lacessit ("No one attacks me with impunity").
With this meticulous article, Ferguson conducts a master class on how to respond to one's critics and intellectual enemies; I highly recommend it. There are hyperlinks out the wazoo, and as for Krugtron the Invincible, there's no place to hide.
The word "fraud" does not appear in "Krugtron the Invincible"; Ferguson is much too decorous and gentlemanly for that. But if Krugman were to be called a fraud, it should not be because he's so frequently wrong; it should be because he positions himself as the authority. Delivering his pronouncements ex cathedra, Krugman seems to have some insatiable need to be infallible. Because he must have no doubt about himself, he must have nothing but doubt about others, and even impugn their motives.
Economics, if it is a science, is certainly not a complete one. Economists are continually being surprised by how the economy behaves. (Behave, economy; that's not how you're supposed to act.) Nonetheless, we must make sense of the economy. And to do that, we use economics, deficient though it is at prediction.
In this time of economic uncertainty, when Congress has run four back-to-back trillion-dollar deficits while the Fed created other trillions out of nothing, economists need to possess at least a smidgeon of self-doubt, a modicum of modesty.
But that's too much to ask of Pauly Boy. Read Ferguson's article
3a) Income Inequality: The Left's Next Big Con
By Jeffrey T. Brown
With the possible exception of global warming fraud, it would be difficult to identify another major political issue more dependent upon innumerable, uncontrollable variables than the difference in what two persons might earn or deserve. In the case of both ideological causes, anyone claiming to have measured the variables, predicted them or solved for them in concocting a solution is nothing but a con artist.
And what do con men do? They steal. Theft of rights or property is the primary instrument of left-imposed equality of any sort. The left sees this as necessary because we have equal rights, but not equal individual qualities. Nature has no capacity for equality of income, because it has no capacity for equality of results in unequal equations.
If you cannot fathom that this is true for hundreds of millions of people, then make your sample size much more manageable. Consider any family having two or more children. Let us presume that the family remained intact, that all of the children were raised by the same parents, and that all were subjected to the same or similar influences. Can you honestly say that you know any such sample set in which they all turned out just the same? The same personality? The same work ethic? The same ability to weather difficulty? The same determination? The same willingness of effort? All of them? Don't be ridiculous. By the time any of them passes through the same numeric age, let's say 40, each has made millions of decisions, influenced by tens of millions of circumstances that are purely singular and unique to the individual, his personal qualities, and the soundness of his judgment.
However, if the beneficiary of this scheme still clamors for its implementation with knowledge of the falsity of its premise, then the problem is Integrity Inequality. Such a person knows that the only way to be given as much for doing nothing as is earned by the 
person who borrowed and repaid tens of thousands for his education or business, and then worked to improve his own lot for decades, is to steal it.
person who borrowed and repaid tens of thousands for his education or business, and then worked to improve his own lot for decades, is to steal it.
Of course, such a person rests easy knowing that he need not risk getting shot during a burglary, since the government will be carrying out the theft under the guise of protecting a right it just fabricated out of whole cloth to buy votes in pursuit of its own limitless power. In fact, in the ultimate irony, it is actually the victim of the theft who risks punishment and possible imprisonment if, when the new right is declared, he refuses to go along with the newest hoax. When government personnel become mob enforcers for their favorites, it ceases being government, and simply becomes a crime syndicate. At that point, which has arrived, it's time for a new government.
If we are being less charitable than attributing this hoax to misguided liberal fantasy, then we could honestly ascribe this effort to the opportunistic exploitation by the left of the hopeless numbskulls who have sold their souls to liars who promise income equality. No one advocating for income equality can even say what that is, or how it can possibly be achieved, but no matter. The intellectually deficient will vote for liars who promise the impossible. Burying that impossibility will be the objective of the con. Thus, we will skip the equation, or any discussion of it, and go right to the end result. Which changes nothing. The only way to equalize a financial outcome is by stealing from life's winners to give to life's thieves and crybabies, referred to euphemistically as liberals, or progressives.
I thought the left loved evolution. Isn't evolution premised upon survival of the fittest, that those who did not strive, adapt and prevail were destined for extinction? Success takes strength, risk, and reward. Nature hands nothing to the eventual survivor. Survival, as measured by the length and success of one's life, is earned. Of course, I was wrong. Progressivism is the antithesis of true evolution. They only believe in evolution because it contradicts creationism. The left has rejected natural law, because natural law puts the burden of success or failure on each individual, rather than coercive, collective force. The intellectual and moral dwarves are winners on the left, but only as long as there are enough of them.
By the way, for those with no short term memory, aren't we just now grasping the consequences of indulging the creation of fake liberal rights via Obamacare? All theory, no substance. All feelings, no brains. All rainbows and unicorns, but no suffering. All theft, no punishment, except of the bloodied victim. Isn't that the product of every liberally concocted "right"? Theft from one to give to another? Somehow, common sense, wisdom and experience are so offensive to the left that they have been banished for generations. In their place, the ugliest aspects of human nature are the left's precious virtues. Greed, envy, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, hatred, anger, covetousness... in a word, entitlement. Every single liberal, progressive scheme is merely the larcenous decision by some that they deserve to take what others have earned.
This is the true core of the left. They are the living embodiment, indeed the celebration, of the timeless defects of human nature. In the end, as built upon mountains of lies, inconsistencies, contradictions, and hypocrisy, isn't liberal progressivism simply a cult of thieving losers looking to even the score with those who have surpassed them? It is for these that our magnificent country is being destroyed.
So here's a question: Is there enough courage, morality and conviction left in the Republican Party that they call the president's ridiculous bluff, expose this newest insult to our intelligence as the pure theft that it is, and try for once to actually advance the nation? Are they prepared to defend themselves and us from a criminal syndicate? Those who do are fighting for our survival. It's time to find out which ones are merely Conservatives-In-Name-Only. Remember come
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