Middle East and Other Musings

'President Bait and Switch's' Snake Oil Audacity and Failure To Reason!

2012-02-02T19:11:00.000-08:00

Victor Davis Hanson - seeing through Obama if you can find him. (See 1 below.)
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Taxes are for the rich and everyone else. (See 2 below.)
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Some plain talk about Obama's vulnerabilities but probably no one cares as long as it is swept under the rug by the media and press princes. Keep the focus on Romney's lack of conservative appeal. (See 3 below.)
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More than meets the eye because of underestimating. (See 4 below.)

How Newt became his own canary in the gold mine. However, the gold still remains there to be discovered. (See 4a below.)
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Discount Israel's ability and assessment you could be on the wrong side of right. (See 5 below.)
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If 'President Naive' only knew. (See 6 below.)

But he seems not to care. (See 6a below.)
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Dan Henninger is a most perceptive op ed writer and the piece I have posted below hits the very chord I have been harping on ever since 'President Bait and Switch' came upon the national scene. He is a master at winning and appealing to hearts because his lack of accomplishments make him vulnerable were he to appeal to the head.

He is successful with his audacity pitch because he has the chutzpah to simply bait and switch. The massive number of dolts out there are taken in by the words and don't know enough to think and pose questions. They simply sop it up as the mass fools they are.

Clinton was a master at it and, in fact, all successful presidents are masters at getting you to focus on what they say even though their doing so ignores reality. It is the equivalent of a magicians slight of hand.

I guess it comes from watching syrupy television, taking easy courses, not be challenged to reason. What we are witnessing is the success of the dumbing down of our society.

He pitches "An Economy That Will Last" and no one seems to ask why did you vote against a job creating pipeline? It is all about connecting and making the listener feel good and making them forget 'their pain' which Clinton felt so deeply while he was in the Oval Office feeling none of his own.

How very sad.

Meanwhile, Republicans, as evidenced by Karl Rove's op ed article, are busy analyzing facts, numbers etc. and totally missing how to frame a response to 'President Snake Oil!.' (See 7 and 7a below.)

Woe is us!
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Dick
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1)The un-Obama
By Victor Davis Hanson

Barack Obama's favorability in the polls falls when he is himself -- overexposed, hard left in his press conferences, and boastful about legislative achievements like Obamacare and a stimulus of more than $1 trillion.

Then a strange thing happened. Obama largely went quiet. Often he was out of sight, vacationing in Hawaii or golfing. It was almost as if he learned that the less he was seen or heard, the more Americans liked the idea of Obama as president rather the reality of his constant "Make no mistake about it" and "Let me be perfectly clear" sermonizing.

Obama has now edged ahead of his potential Republican Party rivals in the polls. He waited for the noisy Republicans to grab national attention in the debates and primaries before moving hard left to firm up his base. So while the nation was amused, repelled and bored by the constant back-and-forth over Mitt Romney's moneymaking and Newt Gingrich's marriages and off-the-cuff philosophizing, President Obama matter-of-factly canceled the vital Keystone pipeline project.

He even more quietly prepared to ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling to over $16 trillion to accommodate his fourth consecutive reckless trillion-dollar-plus annual deficit -- while planning to slash the defense budget in the next decade. Did anyone notice that he made controversial "recess" appointments -- which as a senator he had opposed -- when most thought Congress was not really in recess?

Obama now rarely talks about his supposed signature achievements, whether the huge deficit "priming" or the unpopular Obamacare. Republicans have only controlled the House of Representatives for the past year, yet Obama now blasts them for stopping what he in theory wanted to do as president. In contrast, he hardly praises the Democrats who controlled both houses of Congress for twice that time and enacted all that he wished. How strange to keep silent about successes only to broadcast failed what-ifs.

President Obama now campaigns on events that happened despite, not because of, him. His Cabinet has cut federal oil leases by 40 percent, subsidized money-losing and now bankrupt green companies, and in the past openly wished that gas and electricity prices would skyrocket to make alternative energy cost-competitive. But recently he bragged that we are pumping more oil than ever. Natural gas is suddenly no longer an earth-warming pollutant but welcomed in vast abundance.

Left unmentioned was the cause of this unexpected energy bounty: The economic stagnation between 2009 and 2012 has curbed energy demand, while private entrepreneurs have used new fracking and horizontal drilling technology on largely private lands to revolutionize the production of fossil fuels. Again, Obama seems to take credit for things that occurred over his opposition -- as if to say, "You will like what they didn't let me do." In the fine tradition of American politics, the successes of others are Obama's; Obama's failures are the failures of others.

Both as a candidate and early in his term, Obama blasted all the Bush-Cheney antiterrorism protocols as either unnecessary or illegal. Iraq was a "dumb" war, and he declared the surge a failure.

But as president, Obama expanded these intelligence measures, and used a beefed-up military to kill Osama bin Laden and go after al-Qaeda captains. He followed the Bush-Petraeus timetable of withdrawal in Iraq and praised our successful nation-building there.

One could almost infer that Obama is now happy that he did not fulfill his earlier promises to close Guantanamo, end renditions and tribunals, prune back the Patriot Act, and get out of Iraq by March 2009. George W. Bush is still to be blamed for the present stagnating economy, as he is never to be praised for crafting the security measures vital for our current successes.

This year, Obama will run not so much on what he really did in 2009 and 2010, but more on what he wanted to do, but was stopped from doing, in 2011 and 2012. The president will tell his base that he really wished to go green in a big way while telling Middle America that lots of oilmen went ahead on their own to find new gas and oil. For his liberal supporters, Obama really did want to end the antiterrorism protocols, and for the rest of America he really did find those same protocols necessary to kill Islamic terrorists.

The message is clear: If voters do not see or hear the new un-Obama too often, if his left-wing legislative agenda is sidetracked, and if the private sector can ignore him, then voters may still sort of like the idea of him back as president.
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2)Democrats Love Taxes -- They Just Don't Want to Pay Them
By Larry Elder

Forgive Republican candidate Mitt Romney for his alleged failure to adequately explain why he paid "only" 14 percent of his income in taxes.

The honest answer -- "Well, because my accountants couldn't figure out how to get them any lower" -- does not work in this or very many other election years. Romney seemed flat-footed because, like most business people, he seeks to minimize costs and expenses.

This includes taxes.

A normal wealthy-and-proud-of-it guy would have said: "Let me get this straight, pal. I'm not supposed to take every legal advantage provided me by the tax laws to reduce my taxes?" For what it's worth, about 15 percent of Romney's last two years of income went to charity -- substantially higher than the percentage given by the Obamas or Joe Biden's $380 (not a typo) of his quarter-million dollar income in 2006.

"Tax savings" allows people more money to save, spend, invest, bequeath and donate. On some level, even Democrats understand this.

Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is one of them. In 2001, Massachusetts lowered it state income tax rate. But the legislature showed mercy for the Bay State's guilt-ridden, tax-hike-supporting liberals. The tax form allowed the filer to check a special box -- and pay the old, higher rate. Out of more than 3 million tax filers in 2004, a tiny fraction of 1 percent -- 930 taxpayers -- volunteered to pay the higher rate. Among those who declined the opportunity was Mr. Frank. Frank explained, "I don't trust the legislative leadership and Gov. (Mitt) Romney to make the right decisions." Instead, Frank said, "I'll donate the money myself." What?! Charity might better spend money than can government, which, by its nature, operates less efficiently and more expensively than can private welfare?

Democrat Sen. Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio (served 1974, 1976-1995) was another tax-supporting Democrat not too keen on paying more in taxes than he needed to. But after retirement, the wealthy Metzenbaum moved to Florida, which, unlike Ohio, is a state with no estate or personal income taxes. This saved him millions.

Democrat John Edwards' wife Elizabeth, during the 2004 campaign, said rich politicians like her husband reveal "character" when they vote against financial "interest" by supporting higher taxes. This is the same John Edwards who, as a trial lawyer winning big jury awards, established a separate sub-corporation to accept the money, paying him through dividends rather than income. Perfectly legal. But this allowed Edwards to avoid some $600K in Medicare payroll taxes.

Democrats like Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., rail against the Bush tax cuts that rich people -- like himself -- "didn't need" and "didn't ask for." Rhode Island requires no sales tax on yachts registered in that state -- provided the boat is primarily housed in Rhode Island. Massachusetts is not so understanding. That state requires a sales tax and annual excise taxes. Folks say that Kerry and his 75-foot yacht spend way more time in Massachusetts than in Rhode Island. But accountants say that the wealthy yachtsman can avoid nearly $500K in state taxes by registering his boat in Rhode Island -- which he did. All was going well, until a New York paper got hold of the story and Kerry "voluntarily" agreed to pay the Mass. tax -- while continuing to insist that he does not really owe it.

Democrats like the late Ted Kennedy support the estate tax. And why not? The Kennedy family transfers wealth from generation to generation through trusts that avoid the very estate taxes that Kennedy consistently voted to impose on the wealth of others.

Shouldn't tax-hike-supporting rich people like Warren Buffett want to pay more rather than less taxes? Yet one of Buffett's companies is contesting tax claims against it.

Pro-tax-hike Democrats like MSNB-Hee-Haw's the Rev. Al Sharpton deserve a special wing all to themselves in the Chutzpah Hall of Fame. Sharpton assails the Bush-era tax cuts and wants "the rich" to pay more. Sharpton lists income from his nonprofit at just under a quarter million dollars. Add this to his estimated salary at the cable network, and the "civil rights leader" likely pulls in a tidy $500K. Not bad for a guy that not long ago was a gold-medallion-wearing Harlem rabble-rouser in velour sweatpants who got famous by playing the race card in a phony rape case.

Sharpton, according to the New York Post, owes federal taxes and state taxes totaling $3.5 million. How much income would Sharpton have had to earn to amass $3.5 million in state and local taxes? A lot. How much nerve does it take for a guy making a half mil to go on television and pound the podium for higher taxes on the rich -- when his own effective tax rate is 0 percent?

Ask Sharpton.
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3) COUNTDOWN TO VICTORY: 279 DAYS TO THE 2012 ELECTIONS
By Gary L. Bauer

Romney Wins Florida

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney clearly scored an impressive win in Florida last night. He needed to. He had a clear advantage in advertising dollars, outspending Newt Gingrich 5-to-1. But he also had another advantage. The exit polls showed that Florida voters were looking for one thing: They want Obama out; they were looking for a winner.

According to CNN's exit polling, 45% of voters said the most important quality in a candidate was the ability to defeat Barack Obama, and 58% of those voters backed Romney. Fifty-three percent of voters also said Romney was the candidate most likely to be able to defeat Obama.

But I want to offer the same caution I have made in previous messages about electability. The GOP has a history of nominating individuals who were supposedly the most electable but who came up short each time. The conventional wisdom about electability has often been wrong.

In hindsight, everyone loved and supported Ronald Reagan. But there has been a lot of revisionist history in the past 30 years. In 1980 conservatives nominated Ronald Reagan over the full-throated opposition of the GOP establishment. His victory was greeted gleefully by Democrats and the liberal media. Of all the possible nominees, Reagan was the one they were certain they could defeat. The electability argument was dead wrong. It was Jimmy Carter who got trounced on Election Day.

I can appreciate why the Romney camp is celebrating today. But here is what would worry me in the days and weeks ahead: 41% of Republican primary voters felt that Mitt Romney's positions on the issues were "not conservative enough."

While winning the statewide vote, Romney won only 38% of the vote in the Panhandle and in north Florida -- the state's most conservative areas. Combined, Gingrich and Santorum took 54% of the vote there. These voters are more representative of the conservative base of the GOP throughout the South and Midwest.

In the general election, Governor Romney will not be able to outspend Barack Obama 5-to-1. He will need a massive turnout from conservative voters if he is going to have any chance of winning. George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 because of tremendous turnout by conservative, evangelical voters in rural Ohio, who turned out to support the marriage amendment on the ballot that same year.

The Obama strategy will be to discourage conservatives from voting or to peel some of them off with appeals to class warfare. The Romney campaign needs to be thinking now about how it will get the conservative base energized in November.

Lastly, for all those who still cling to the misguided notion that Ron Paul is the only true conservative in the race, once again Paul did nearly twice as well among those who identified as moderate or liberal as those who identified as somewhat or very conservative.

What's Next?

Mitt Romney certainly has a new burst of momentum and is the clear GOP front-runner. But this race is far from over. For all the hype about the early contests in January, only four states voted and there are more delegates at stake this month (187) than last month (115). Seven states will vote in February and there could be some surprises ahead.

For example, as my good friend Bill Kristol writes this morning, perhaps more voters will take a second look at former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. The Florida contest was portrayed as largely a two-man race, a clash between Newt and Mitt. Coming off his victory in South Carolina, Newt was unable to "make the sale" with enough voters, despite significant spending on his part.

In contrast, Senator Santorum ran no negative ads, spent very little money and still managed to attract 13% of the vote last night. Moreover, while he suffers from perceptions about electability, he continues to enjoy high personal favorability ratings. A surprise showing might provide greater exposure and additional resources that could reshape the contest yet again. Stay tuned!

Warnings About Iran

Yesterday Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before Congress about the national security threats confronting America. There was some good news about a diminished threat from Al Qaeda in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, but Clapper had disturbing warnings about Iran.

While the world is focused on Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, Clapper warned members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that there is growing concern that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States. Clapper said last year's Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., "shows that some Iranian officials -- probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

This is a very dangerous time for America and the world. As Iran continues its feverish pursuit of nuclear weapons, it may also attempt to strike our homeland. The timing of Obama's planned defense cuts increases the danger that Iran will miscalculate its own strength based on our perceived weakness.

CBO Bashes Obama

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a stunning report this week that should have the Obama campaign reaching for the Maalox. It paints a bleak fiscal future of more deficits, higher taxes and more unemployment. Here are excerpts of an analysis of the CBO report from today's Wall Street Journal:

"CBO reports that annual spending over the Obama era has climbed to a projected $3.6 trillion this fiscal year from $2.98 trillion in fiscal 2008, or more than 20%. The government spending burden has averaged 24% of GDP, up from an average of about 20%. This doesn't include the $2 trillion tab for ObamaCare. All of this has increased the federal debt by about $5 trillion in a mere four years. …In other words, the four years of Obama's Presidency will mark the four highest years in spending and deficits as a share of the economy since Harry Truman sat in the Oval Office.

"…On President Obama's watch, CBO says public debt will climb this year to 72.5% of the economy from 40.3% in 2008. This isn't as high as Italy or Greece, but it's rising fast toward the 90% level that begins to debilitate an economy.

"…Even the Keynesians who run CBO concede that the 2013 tax hike -- on capital gains, dividends, estates and small business -- would knock economic growth down to 1% next year and raise unemployment to 9.1% (from 8.5%). That means about 750,000 more jobless Americans. …To sum it all up, CBO's facts plainly show that Mr. Obama has the worst fiscal record of any President in modern times. No one else is even close."
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4)Underestimating Mitt and Newt
By Jack Cashill

For the first time in my life, and I have been following Republican primaries closely since before I was old enough to vote, I have found myself vacillating among candidates.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, this is not from a lack of viable candidates, but from an excess. In November, I will gladly support whoever prevails. That includes Ron Paul, who, to the media's shock, already polls in a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama.

The man responsible for sharpening this year's field is Newt Gingrich. Were he not running, the other candidates would likely have contented themselves with wrapping pre-packaged platitudes around debate questions, much as candidates of both parties have done in every election post-Reagan. To get a sense of the unusual quality of this year's Republican field, watch a debate among the Democratic "dream" candidates of 2008 -- a bonfire of banalities if there ever was one.
Gingrich actually answers the questions. When asked by CNN's Jon King if he would like to address the allegations made by his ex-wife, Gingrich uttered four words that likely won him the South Carolina primary: "No. But I will." His sharpness exposed the relative dullness of early drop-outs like Pawlenty, Bachmann, Huntsman, and Perry. It also forced the survivors to hone their own speaking and debating skills. As Mitt Romney accurately argued in his Florida acceptance speech, "[a] competitive primary does not divide us. It prepares us."

Gingrich's strategic error, one that has caused some voters to distrust him, is his repeated willingness to attack Romney from the left. Gingrich survived his misguided assault on Bain Capital, but in the Jacksonville CNN debate, Romney used Gingrich's own tactics to call him out on the question of illegal immigration.

Gingrich had been running Spanish-language ads in Florida describing Romney as "anti-immigrant." When moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Gingrich whether Romney was, in fact, the most anti-immigrant candidate, Gingrich answered, "I think out of the four of us, yes."
Romney was ready. "The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive," he said. Romney clarified the difference between being anti-immigration and anti-illegal immigration, a clarification many of us have had to make. He added, "I think you should recognize that having differences in opinion does not justify labeling people with highly charged epithets."

For many voters, in Florida and elsewhere, this was something of a turning point. Yes, Romney did indeed first surface as a "Massachusetts moderate." Yes, the Republican establishment, whatever that is, does support him. But for all of that, he has been running a more consistently conservative campaign than Gingrich, and he finally showed he had the onions to fight back. He will need them if he survives the primaries.

Romney is no RINO -- Republican In Name Only. He was not one even in his wobbly Massachusetts days. Sitting as I do on the border between Missouri and Kansas, I have become a skilled RINO-hunter. Here is the first rule of RINO-watching: they flourish only in Republican-dominated jurisdictions.

In Jackson County, Missouri, where I live, there are no RINOs. Here, as in Massachusetts, there is no reason to declare yourself a Republican unless you actually are one. Were I to run for office, I would have to run statewide to have any chance of winning anything. Democrats have all the local power.

Across the state line in Republican-dominated Johnson County, Kansas, RINOs are as common as cross-dressers on Castro Street. One of them, Mark Parkinson by name, chaired the Kansas Republican Party as late as 2004 before deciding that "I have not left the party, but the party has left me" or some such tripe that only the media could believe. He promptly ran for lieutenant governor as a Democrat in 2006. He won, and when Gov. Kathleen Sebelius headed off to D.C. in 2007, Parkinson ended his political career as the Democratic governor of Kansas.

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman long ago mastered RINO-speak. I think he ran for president largely so he could give the exit speech he did, one that resulted in headlines like "Huntsman Quits 'Toxic' Race." No great fan of democracy in action, Huntsman claimed that the race had "degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people." That translates to "No one liked me."

It is not just Romney who has been accused of being a RINO. My Facebook wall is filled with accusations of RINO-hood against Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, and everyone to the left of the Facebook accuser, whose conservatism has been kept pure in the glimmer of his computer screen.
Both Gingrich and Romney gave excellent, thoroughly conservative, anti-Obama speeches in the wake of the Florida primary. Skeptics should watch them. To compare either candidate to Dole or to McCain is to prove that one's bias has gotten the best of his good sense and/or historical judgment.

Rush Limbaugh is right in that a strong conservative message will win the election. He is wrong in his implication that Gingrich is necessarily the better man to deliver it. As much as I admire Newt, one exit poll statistic out of Florida will shape the rest of the primaries, and the general election as well. It is this: Romney led Gingrich among female voters nearly two to one, 51 to 28. Minds can still be changed, but human nature is a little tougher.

4a)Newt Struck Gold, Promptly Abandoned Mine
By C. Edmund Wright

In South Carolina, Newt Gingrich correctly attributed his success to the fact that he had simply "articulated the deepest felt values of the American people." Then the former speaker promptly went to Florida and abandoned that in favor of the most deeply felt values of Beltway consultants -- a childish food fight with Mitt Romney.
Bad idea.

Thus, with gravy stains on his tie and mashed potatoes in his hair, Newt Gingrich will limp away from Florida with less chance of becoming the nominee, let alone president. He may not finish even as runner-up (or even Miss Congeniality), a position he had seemingly wrapped up by always being the one insisting that "any of the eight (or seven or six or five or four) of us" is far preferable to Barack Obama, etc.

That notion actually is one of our "most deeply felt values." Voters are craving two things this cycle. First is a vision for defeating Barack Obama, and second is a vision for rolling back the red tide after this is done. Anything and everything else is theatre of the absurd. What Newt was tapping into with his "any of the eight" proclamations was the deeply felt value that priority one is defeating Obama -- because Obama's deeply felt values scare the hell out of us.

Also scary are the deeply felt values of San Francisco radicals and Marxists and Saul Alinsky and, while we're at it, the mainstream media. This is generally what the Tea Party and the midterms were all about. America as founded is being ripped out from under us in broad daylight, and this rip-off is being propelled and celebrated by our education, entertainment, and media elites. Far deeper than the "economic versus social" meme debated by shallow and isolated strategists and pundits, something much more foundational is going wrong, and so few are willing to confront this fact.

Frankly, the amorphous and hard-to-pin-down Tea Party movement -- fluid by its nature -- was able to capture this better than any single person. Ironically, without a single person to lead and therefore benefit from the success of the Tea Party movement in 2010, that same movement elevated to the GOP's highest rank a man totally incapable of understanding the movement: John Boehner.
Enter Newt. At first Gingrich's candidacy seemed a sideshow -- a figment of Sean Hannity's relentless badgering. This was not helped by a disastrous launch that included the unfortunately memorable phrase "right-wing social engineering." To be fair, Newt was taken somewhat out of context -- but politics is perception.

So Newt stumbled around with no money and no staff and only a few percentage points in all the polls. Something was building, however. All through the ups and downs of others, Newt was winning friends in every debate. Message boards and talk shows were full of "you know -- I don't support Newt -- but I really like what he says in these debates"-type comments.
Newt was moving up in hearts and minds, if not yet in the polls.

Consider: in relatively short order, Rick Perry's grand entry fizzled. Michele Bachmann -- so obviously resentful of Perry's dramatic entry -- self-immolated with a campaign that got less successful as time went on. Somewhere in this timetable Sarah Palin finally announced that she was not running. Ditto for Chris Christie. Several times. Through it all, however, Mitt Romney could not break out of his 25% range, and Santorum's "look at me" act wore thin. Many remained undecided.

These events led to the surge of the only other candidate who was focusing on liberal problems and conservative solutions: Herman Cain. A review of the debates will show indeed that only Cain and Newt were aiming at the enemy. Everyone else was in a circular firing squad. The likeable Cain surged rapidly. Largely unnoticed was Newt's slower simultaneous upward trend. Apparently hidden from the dark and shallow minds of the consultant class was the notion that the "deeply felt values" base-voter knew that the problem was Obama, not anybody in our field.

The reality is that while Cain was surging, Newt was moving into kind of a runner-up status in the minds of voters -- including some who had written Newt off over NY-23 or Pelosi on the couch or over the Ryan right-wing social engineering blunder. Newt was being simply brilliant in the debates -- not only at articulating values, but also at giving voice to the righteous anger of the conservative base. He was doing so with history and wit and perspective. He also did so with a healthy dose of in-your-face testicular fortitude unknown to the modern politician.

Thus, when Cain collapsed, Newt was finally able to convert his hell yeah! Finally someone is saying this fans into actual supporters. Many forget that this initially happened prior to Iowa and New Hampshire but was blunted under the weight of a withering attack of paid ads and brutal assaults from the establishment pundits.

What Romney and Ron Paul did in Iowa was simply shameful. Especially Romney, who, after campaigning for six years, still cannot give a single compelling reason to vote for him.
Newt was justifiably furious and unwisely fought back from the left with attacks on Bain Capital. That failed, and so did his campaign in the first two states. Then lighting struck again -- and the key word is again. Many pundits act like S.C. was a four-day fluke. It was not. It was a continuation of what had been slowly building the entire season that initially exploded in November.

In what are still largely misunderstood moments, Newt again tapped into the most deeply felt values and righteous anger of the Republican base. Yes, it felt good to see Juan Williams and John King put in their place, but that was not the main point. No, the main points were the real issues of race and unions and schools and Iran and bureaucrats and so on -- and, moreover, that someone was finally willing and able to look liberals squarely in the eye and tell them they are so damned wrong on all of those issues.

And they are. And we are right. Newt understands this, and he captured these timeless ideas with the magic of the moment. That's how he routed the field in South Carolina. He then followed that up with one great day of campaigning in Florida, thrilling very large crowds with more of the same. He had struck gold. He was on his way to a grip on the nomination process.

But then, for some inexplicable reason, he wiped that campaign gold off his hands and abandoned the gold mine. He quickly returned to the tar pit of the food fight with Mitt. And it has been all downhill from there. Frankly, it was stunning to observe.

Memo to anyone who is interested: the gold is still there, for any candidate -- including Newt -- who cares to mine it. We are still right, and liberals are still wrong. And we are still damned mad about it. If your consultants don't get it, fire them.

C. Edmund Wright is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and is currently a copy-writer and consultant for Winning Our Future, a PAC supporting Newt Gingrich and other conservative causes.
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5)'All Iranian facilities are vulnerable'
Vice Premier Ya'alon states that all of Iran's nuclear facilities are 'within striking distance'; adds November blast at Tehran weapons facility eliminated missile production line

Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon said Thursday that the blast at the Iranian missile facility near Tehran last November hit a system meant to manufacture missiles that could threaten the United States.

Ya'alon, speaking at the 2012 Herzliya Conference, added that it was possible to carry out military strikes against any of Iran's facilities.

"Any facility defended by a human being can be penetrated. Any facility in Iran can be hit, and I speak from experience as the IDF chief of staff," he remarked.

Just last week US officials confessed they lacked the ability to destroy fortified nuclear facilities in Iran.

However Ya'alon claimed Thursday that "the West has the ability to attack, but as long as Iran isn't convinced about their determination to carry it out – they will continue their manipulations. The Iranians believe this determination is non-existent, as far as a military action and sanctions."

The vice premier noted that are a number of ways to put a stop to Iran's nuclear armament, including economic sanctions which he believes might present the Iranian regime with the dilemma either bomb or survival.

"We must convince China, Russia and Turkey, which are helping the Iranians bypass the sanctions," Ya'alon asserted.

At least 17 Revolutionary Guards were killed in November 2011 in a blast at a nuclear facility near Tehran. Among those killed at the Revolutionary Guards base arsenal in Bidganeh, near the city of Karaj, 25 miles (40 km) outside the capital, was Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, an officer with a rank equivalent to that of a brigadier general.

"Iran has enough nuclear material for four bombs," Director of Military Intelligence Major General Aviv Kochavi warned Thursday. Kochavi made a rare appearance at the 2012 Herzliya Conference, where he reviewed regional changes, the effects of the Arab Spring and the Iranian threat.

"Iran is vigorously pursing military nuclear capabilities and today the intelligence community agrees with Israel on that. Iran has over four tons of enriched materials and nearly 100kg of 20% enriched uranium – that's enough for four bombs," he said.
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6)Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
By Reza Kahlili

How to make the mullahs cry 'Uncle' . . . Sam

President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, said he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and that all options to prevent that are on the table.

More importantly, Obama said the Islamic regime, which fuels terrorism worldwide and oppresses its own people at home, could still rejoin the international community "if it changes course and meets its obligations." That is not going to happen — despite glimmers of hope after a trip of UN nuclear inspectors to Iran this week.

As a former CIA spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, I wrote a cautionary, open letter to President Obama when he took office three years ago. I said I was worried that he failed to see the realities of the regime's fanaticism.

In offering to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, Mr. Obama must have believed that the aggressive policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush, were to blame for the lack of progress. But I reminded the new president of the long history of attempted rapprochement by every US administration, each attempt ending in failure.

I explained that the very ideology of Iran's Islamic leaders was the sole reason for no progress in a negotiated settlement. They simply would not close an honest deal with infidels.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration was involved in deep negotiations with Iran over arms sales and normalization of US-Iranian ties. National Security Council staffer Oliver North could barely contain himself over the prospect of peace with Iran.

Hashemi Rafsanjani, then speaker of Parliament, promised American authorities resumption of diplomatic relations once the founder of the Islamic regime, Ayatollah Khomeini, was dead. In exchange, he asked for arms and America's help in diminishing Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military machine.
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Ever since entering politics, the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been a vengeful politician who rarely trusts anyone. Sources reveal that after the Nov. 12 explosions at the Guard's base west of Tehran, many Guard members, including commanders and even officers at the supreme leader's office, have been arrested and are under investigation.

I was in the Revolutionary Guard then, but as a CIA spy. My Guard commander mocked the Americans for believing Speaker Rafsanjani's promises. The Iran-Contra Affair, in which US arms sales to Iran funded "freedom fighter" Contras in Nicaragua, ended embarrassingly for President Reagan's administration.

President George H.W. Bush continued negotiations to improve US-Iranian relations. I was working for the CIA in Europe then when my American handler told me to consider the more moderate Rafsanjani, by then president, as the new king of Iran. This despite information I had passed on about Iran's involvement in the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland — and despite the fact that Rafsanjani and other regime leaders were involved in worldwide terrorism and assassination. The elder Bush's efforts at negotiation failed.

Then President Clinton attempted to persuade Iran to stop supporting terrorism and to normalize ties with the US. But he also failed to achieve results with Mohammad Khatami, the next Iranian president. President Khatami promised cooperation while secretly purchasing parts for Iran's nuclear project.

Despite his harsh rhetoric, President George W. Bush, too, approached Iran. In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice negotiated with Ali Larijani, then Iran's top nuclear envoy. By the autumn, the Bush administration believed an agreement was set, expecting Mr. Larijani to appear at the UN to announce Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment as America announced the removal of sanctions.
Secretary Rice showed up for the big event; Larijani never did.

When Obama took office in 2009, he missed the biggest opportunity to support democracy, bring stability to the region, and secure world peace when he wrote Ayatollah Ali Khamenei requesting negotiations. Then, fraudulent elections transpired in Iran, sparking the uprising of millions of Iranians demanding freedom and democracy.

The leaders of Iran masterfully, as always, provided a sliver of hope to Obama's request, enough for the West to remain largely silent over the protests in Iran.The Iranian nuclear envoy even expressed confidence about an offer put on the table by the West in October 2009 as a step toward solving the nuclear issue. The Obama administration was ready to announce victory, though several months passed.

Then, after the demonstrations in Iran were suppressed, with tens of thousands arrested, many raped, tortured, and executed, Iran announced the deal was unacceptable. Meanwhile, Tehran said it enriched uranium to the 20 percent level, a significant advance. Iran's treachery was obvious: Their negotiating masked further enrichment on the way to nuclearization.
Now we are in a quandary that could have been avoided had the US more demonstratively assisted Iran's protesters.

The Islamists have enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs — despite four rounds of UN sanctions. And they continue to enrich at two nuclear facilities while barbarically suppressing freedom-loving Iranians and threatening world peace.

Iranian authorities recently revealed that Obama sent yet another letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, expressing his concerns over Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, and his desire for cooperation and negotiation based on mutual interests.

Obama greatly errs in his continued drive toward negotiation. Sanctions are now having a biting effect on Iran, but they cannot alone deter Iran's race to get the bomb.
America must openly support the democratic aspirations of the people of Iran — facilitating a direct channel of communication with them and finding a way to bring Iran's leaders to court for crimes against humanity.

Only then can we can hope for real change in Iran, for peace and stability.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Comment by clicking here.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award winning book, "A Time to Betray". He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the US Department of Defense's Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).
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6a)CIA book review

For the historical record...

As President George W. Bush's top speechwriter, Marc Thiessen was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).

Now, his riveting new book, "Courting Disaster", How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been published.

Here is an excerpt from "Courting Disaster":

Just before dawn on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi . A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM."

Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."

Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location.

Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.

Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."

It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.

His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative-for reasons that will be described later in this book.

He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets.
He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in
intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists, KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.

In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean

Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.

In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot.

On the night of Aug.9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other:

* United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco departing at 2:15 p.m.;

* Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto departing at 3:00 p.m.;

* Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal departing at 3:15 p.m.;

* United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago departing at 3:40 p.m.;

* United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington departing at 4:20 p.m.;

* American Airlines Flight 131 to New York departing at 4:35 p.m;

* American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago departing at 4:50 p.m.

They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.

Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much.

Few Americans are aware of the fact al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.

And still fewer realize the terrorists' true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Editor's Note: For other foiled terrorist plots, see page 9 of "Courting Disaster."

In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.

Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: "I know this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us."

Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work."

Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country."

Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon."

And John Brennan, Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced-interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied : "Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes."

On Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.

The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially
nonconcurring". The president went ahead anyway, overruling the objections of the agency.

A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists.
This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors -including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta -- objected.
George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"

In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then ignored their advice.
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7)Obama's Maddening, Winning Speech
He will marginalize his opponents as the bloodless Numbers People.
By DANIEL HENNINGER

Barack Obama's poorly received State of the Union speech deserves a second look. Conventional wisdom pronounced the SOTU a relatively weak Obama effort. It was. Diffuse, filled with the usual enemies, it pulled together various back-filed policy ideas into a proposal he called, with a straight face, "An Economy Built to Last."

Bemused election-year observers remarked that both ObamaCare and the nation's entitlement bomb passed unmentioned. In his reply, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels noted that we are not going to be able to outrun the simple math on entitlement spending. That's true. We can't. But Mr. Obama just may for the next 10 months.

How? By exploiting political vulnerabilities in the Republicans' case against his presidency. Republicans think it's all about the bad economy. It is. But Barack Obama is going to do something his opposition wouldn't think possible. He's going to take ownership of the American economy. Not the real one, but the one he's just made up, "the economy built to last." It won't last long, but long enough.

In the days after his Washington lecture, Mr. Obama took a shorter version of his SOTU speech on the road—to Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, Nevada and Arizona, states he needs in November. On the White House website, you can see him give this campaign tuneup speech at the new, $5 billion Intel chip-fabrication plant in Chandler, Ariz. It's worth watching and pondering. You'd think the best and the brightest would be beyond Mr. Obama's crude populist pitch. You of course would be wrong.

About 6,000 Intel employees—young, well-educated technology sophisticates—applauded and cheered Mr. Obama from start to finish. Even when he ripped into those awful American companies with factories overseas, such as their own employer. "An America where we build stuff and make stuff and sell stuff all over the world." (Applause.)

A speech that flopped among Washington's policy sophisticates is soaring out in the country. Republicans had better figure out why.

Reading through the White House's text of "An Economy Built to Last," any half-awake citizen will notice the words that fail to appear: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, entitlements and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The deficit is in the document's last paragraph, three sentences long.

Gilda Radner's Emily Litella famously said "Never mind," and you would too if you had to run on this economy. Thus, the Obama solution: Run against the economy. This effectively means Mr. Obama is running against himself, but . . . never mind.

He will marginalize his opponents as the bloodless Numbers People.

Mr. Obama may not know much about the private economy, but he knows a lot about the uses of human anxiety. Proposing to replace his own bad economy with a virtual substitute "built to last" allows Mr. Obama to place himself outside the White House and on the street making common cause with the genuine economic anxieties of the American people. It also lets this president put in motion what he thinks he knows best—empathy. In "The Audacity of Hope" he put empathy "at the heart of my moral code." Practice makes perfect.

It is beyond audacious. How can a president simultaneously hammer real job creation with the Keystone XL pipeline decision, then go into the country and claim kinship with the anxieties of the jobless? No problem. Just do it.

It could work. If we know nothing else about Barack Obama it is that he can play "hope" like a Stradivarius. The version of "An Economy Built to Last" that he performed at Intel is his concerto for re-election.

The Obama-Axelrod-Plouffe team knows that the Republicans instinctively will respond by quoting, endlessly, the poor economic data of the Obama years. They plan to turn this reality on its head as well. In a down economy, Barack Obama is going to position his GOP critics as economic determinists. The bloodless Numbers People. The tea party, by its own admission, obsesses over "the deficit"—numbers. Mr. Obama's likely opponent has self-defined as a competent manager, a numbers guy. That false Obama demagoguery about rules-free GOP Darwinians is just one piece of this unflattering portrait.

In Arizona he said, "An economy built to last also means we've got to renew American values: fair play, shared responsibility." Wild applause. For those who think they have facts on their side, it will be maddening and enraging to watch other Obama audiences across the country cheer and applaud "An Economy Built to Last." Get used to it.

The GOP is appealing, as its candidates so often do, to the American brain. Barack Obama is happy to be left by himself, going for their hearts. If he wins, the Republican will wail at the unfairness, irrationality and illogic of what beat them.

Rick Santorum, in his Tuesday night also-ran speech to what looked like a roomful of about 35 people at a Nevada Days Inn, spoke of couples "sitting around a kitchen table" to figure out what comes next. Whatever his campaign's shortcomings, Mr. Santorum is the one man running who understands the Obama strategy to marginalize Republicans. At some point after the inevitable end of the nomination campaign, Mitt Romney should ask Rick Santorum to sit down with him to discuss the inner melodies of life in America these days. Barack Obama is the maestro of this music, and without it, you can't win a presidency.

7a)Romney, Gingrich and the Power of Ideas

The front-runner is tilted too heavily toward biography and not nearly enough toward policy.

By KARL ROVE

Newt Gingrich had a bad night Tuesday: After framing the Florida primary as the "tea party versus the cocktail party," he lost among tea party supporters, according to the exit polls that cable and broadcast networks sponsor as a consortium.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney had a great evening, rising from a nine-point deficit in the Rasmussen poll just nine days ago to a 14-point victory, sweeping virtually every demographic and picking up all 50 Florida delegates.

This was an important inflection point, but the contest won't end until one candidate starts consistently winning. That may be coming for Mr. Romney, but he must step up his game.

Mr. Romney's campaign has an estimated $20 million to spend while that of Mr. Gingrich has roughly $1 million. The Romney super PAC purportedly has more than $12 million while the Gingrich super PAC by my estimate might have around $4 million in its coffers. This disparity could prove decisive, and the Romney campaign will be tempted to simply rely on firepower and organization to bull through the calendar.

It might work: February has only two primaries (Michigan and Arizona, both on the 28th) and one debate (on the 22nd). Mr. Romney can duplicate his Florida strategy, where his campaign and super PAC outspent the Gingrich forces on ads by a ratio of 5 to 1 during the last three weeks.

But dangers lurk. While traditional news organizations have been balanced or slightly favorable in their coverage of Mr. Romney, the GOP blogosphere has been decidedly negative on him all January, pointing to continuing unease among conservatives.

Enlarge Image

Associated Press

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney after the Florida primary on Tuesday.

Then there are this month's caucuses: Nevada (Feb. 4), Maine (held over seven days, Feb. 4-11), and Minnesota and Colorado (both Feb. 7). Mr. Romney swept all four states in 2008. Expectations are that he'll do so again—but low-turnout caucuses are highly volatile. Ron Paul's concession speech on Tuesday, delivered before turbocharged supporters in Henderson, Nev., did not sound like a man dismayed at getting just 7% of the votes in Florida. He's been spending time in Maine and could upset Mr. Romney there, and Mr. Santorum is focusing on the Colorado caucuses.

Also, Missouri has a "beauty contest" primary Feb. 7. Mr. Gingrich didn't file there, arguing that no delegates were at stake. True, but bragging rights are. Rick Santorum will audition in Missouri for the role of Mr. Romney's principal opponent.

After the February lull comes Super Tuesday, with 10 contests on March 6, all with delegates awarded proportionally. Mr. Romney is likely to win primaries in Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio, North Dakota and Vermont (with a combined 198 delegates) and perhaps Tennessee and Idaho (with 80 total). Mr. Gingrich failed to make the Virginia ballot or field a full Tennessee slate but is likely to win the primaries in Georgia and Oklahoma (with 114 delegates combined) and perhaps Alaska (with 27).

With his substantial war chest, Mr. Romney can easily saturate airwaves, stuff mailboxes, and jam phone lines to win most contests and more delegates. But Mr. Romney should be looking ahead and realize that what worked against an underfunded Mr. Gingrich won't work against the well-funded Barack Obama.

The Romney campaign is tilted too heavily toward biography and not nearly enough toward ideas. It should make its mantra a line from President Ronald Reagan's final address to the nation: "I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things."

Mr. Romney showed he knows how to take an opponent down; now he needs to show the ability to build himself and the rationale for his candidacy up. He should become bolder in his prescriptions, presenting a confident agenda for economic growth and renewed prosperity through reforms of tax, regulatory and energy policies.

There's no reason he can't, or shouldn't do so. While Mr. Gingrich called Congressman Paul Ryan's entitlement reforms "right-wing social engineering," Mr. Romney complimented them last November. He can refresh that speech and give it again. He can also build on his best moments in recent debates, when he unapologetically and passionately defended free enterprise. Far better to best Mr. Gingrich in the weeks ahead by taking the fight to President Obama, challenging the incumbent's unpleasant attempt to appeal to envy and resentment.

If he does these things, Mr. Romney will improve his chances of consolidating Republicans and winning the nomination battle earlier and in better shape for the fall. If not, the GOP contest will go on, the bitterness will linger, and the road ahead could be treacherous.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.
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Just Some Sweet Humor For A Change Then Back To The Future!

2012-02-02T05:08:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with politics, the economy or the Middle East but could not pass them up because they are priceless. They were sent to me by my wife who is getting excited because we have two new grandchildren on the way in March and May making a total of seven.(See 1 1a below.)
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Intel Chief's warning. (See 2 below.)
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Letter from Rep. Allen West to a constituent. Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader who wants to see him run as a VP . I would be enthusiastic about that as well. (See 3 below.)
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And this is why Israel will survive! (See 4 below.)
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Character does count but Romney, unlike his potential opponent, has a difficult time showing his. (See 5 below.)

The media and Romney's money sent by a friend and fellow memo reader. (See 5a below.)
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This from a dear friend, lawyer and fellow memo reader.

What it says to me is the Supreme Court should outlaw "Obamascare" on the basis that it is incomprehensible and if so then it prevents our right to pursuit of happiness because it engenders heartburn. (See 6 below.)
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Me
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1)

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she'd done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Grandma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!" I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye....
2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62. My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice,
"Who was THAT?"

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like. "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods."
The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo and I said, "No, how are we alike?'' "You're both old," he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I can't read."

7. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these colors yourself!"

8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure." "Look in your underwear, Grandpa," he advised "Mine says I'm 4 to 6."

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting." she said. "How do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'."

11. Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. "Sure," said the young boy confidently. 'It means carrying a child."

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties.
"They use him to keep crowds back," said one child.
"No," said another. "He's just for good luck."
A third child brought the argument to a close."They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. "Oh," he said, "she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport."

14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me good things, but I don't get to see him enough to get as smart as him!

15. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over, you hear gas leaks and they blame their dog.

1a) 31 THINGS YOU’LL NEVER HEAR SOUTHERN BOYS SAY:

31. When I retire, I'm movin' north.

30. Oh I just couldn't, she's only sixteen.

29. I'll take Shakespeare for 1000, Alex.

28. Duct tape won't fix that.

27. Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken

26. We don't keep firearms in this house.

25. You can't feed that to the dog.

24. No kids in the back of the pickup, it's just not safe.

23. Wrestling is fake.

22. We're vegetarians.

21. Do you think my gut is too big?

20. I'll have grapefruit and grapes instead of biscuits and gravy..

19. Honey, we don't need another dog.

18. Who gives a damn who won the Civil War?

17. Give me the small bag of pork rinds.

16. Too many deer heads detract from the decor.

15. I just couldn't find a thing at Wal-Mart today.

14. Trim the fat off that steak.

13. Cappuccino tastes better than espresso.

12. The tires on that truck are too big.

11. I've got it all on the C: DRIVE.

10. Unsweetened tea tastes better.

9. My fiancé, Bobbie Jo, is registered at Tiffany's.

8. I've got two cases of Zima for the Super Bowl.

7. Checkmate

6. She's too young to be wearing a bikini.

5. Hey, here's an episode of "Hee Haw" that we haven't seen.

4. I don't have a favorite college team.

3. You Guys.

2. Those shorts ought to be a little longer, Betty Mae.
AND THE NUMBER ONE THING THAT YOU WILL NEVER HEAR A SOUTHERN BOY SAY (EVER):

1. Nope, no more beer for me. I'm driving a whole busload of us down to re-elect OBAMA.
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2)US INTEL CHIEF: IRAN READY TO STRIKE AMERICA IN TERROR ATTACKS

By Buck Sexton

In prepared testimony given to the U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper stated than an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States shows a shift in Tehran’s strategy towards a willingness to plot and conduct attacks within the U.S.

Director Clapper said, according to the Washington Post, that Iran’s disrupted alleged assassination plot:

“shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”

Clapper added that “We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas.”

The spy chief’s concerns come amidst increased saber rattling from Iran with regard to the Strait of Hormuz, and tightening U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing the Iranian nuclear program.

Clapper’s testimony regarding the threat from Iran was delivered as part of the U.S. intelligence community’s annual overview of the primary national security challenges facing the United States. His testimony also singled out cyber-related threats, and the weakened but persistent threat Al Qaeda and its affiliates pose to the U.S.

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3)Dear Joyce,

Greetings to our constituents, fellow Floridians, and all Americans. As I sit here writing this, I am recovering from the soreness of running the ING Miami Half-Marathon Sunday. I finished respectfully around 2 hrs, 7 mins and really hit a wall at 10 miles- photo here. It was great to be out with some 25,000 runners trekking across Biscayne Bay, South Beach and Miami. With my hectic Congressional schedule, it is definitely difficult to get in the long distance training runs like I once was able. I just have to face the truth, getting older and I just do not have the speed I once did!

This past week was certainly highlighted by the President’s State of the Union Address. I can actually sum it up with one simple quote: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money”- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.

As I sat in the chamber of the House of Representatives taking notes on the speech, it came to my attention that President Obama seeks to bribe the American people with more largesse from the public treasury. He obviously will not recognize that these types of fiscal policies will be the detriment of our beloved Republic. Never was there a mention in the State of the Union of our growing federal debt which for the first time since World War II is greater than our GDP. It is a debt which the President must confess responsibility for increasing under his watch. Americans can more easily accept mistakes and failure, if someone steps up and accepts responsibility. We believe in redemption as a Judeo-Christian Nation. However, the rhetoric of divisiveness and envy is an indicator of a lack of accepting responsibility of failure. There wasn't any talk during his State of the Union of how we can reduce the three straight years of record setting trillion dollar plus deficits. As a basis of comparison, President George W. Bush’s largest annual deficit came in 2008 (Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were the leadership in the United States Congress) and it was $500 billion.

The President's State of the Union also did not address the almost trillion dollar stimulus which was supposed to keep unemployment under eight percent and according to Obama Administration estimates, would currently be at 6.5 percent. We heard nothing about the healthcare law which is falling apart, and how the costs of our small business insurance premiums have risen.

Lastly, I noticed the President avoided the topic of Dodd-Frank in his State of the Union, probably because one would have to admit it is killing our small financial institutions and precluding them from lending to our small business entrepreneurs. We must return to the Glass-Steagall Act to restore financial institution responsibility.

As I entered the chamber of the House of Representative that night, I had such expectation and hope, that maybe, just maybe, the President' sense of being an American would override his personal far left liberal ideology. Somewhere down inside I had hope that we would hear a President that understood that American exceptionalism does not come from Washington D.C., but rather it is a unique trait born into every American, and assimilated into all those who come to our shores.

I hoped that President Obama would come to accept and empower the ideal of an indomitable American will and spirit which makes us the greatest nation the world has ever known. President Ronald Reagan recognized and embodied that American spirit and that is why a comparative analysis shows he had an average 6.4 percent GDP growth at this time in his Presidency. President Obama has a 2.4 percent GDP growth.

The Republican led House of Representatives has passed 30 pieces of job creating policy legislation. See more here. Twenty-seven of them sit on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s desk. Most of these pieces of legislation directly address the challenges President Obama articulated in his State of the Union. The fact that

the following day President Obama took off to several critical western states for his reelection campaign says it all.

President Obama called this speech, “An Economy Built to Last.” I also want an economy built to last; however, not based on the foundation that President Obama says he is building on.

In closing, the Republican Florida Primary will finally be upon us tomorrow and it is my wish that our candidates would view the movie “Gladiator.” In the scene when they first stood in the Coliseum, the character Maximus stated: “Whatever comes out of that gate, if we all fight together we shall survive.” Our Republican candidates must “together” make the moral argument to the American people of the detrimental effect of President Obama’s failed policies. We need to let the people make the decision as to who is best to be our Gladiator to enter the arena. Always remember, the contrast of vision is simple. Ask yourself, Is America a country of equality of opportunity (Economic Freedom) or equality of achievement (Economic Dependency)?

Steadfast and Loyal,

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4)Blind Terror Victim: I Am an IDF Soldier Like Everyone Else

Oren Almog says he serves in the IDF “like everyone else.” There are a few differences: Terror cost him his eyesight – and five relatives.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Oren Almog

Israel news photo: IDF/HOT

Oren Almog says he serves in the IDF “like everyone else.” There are a few differences: Terror cost him his eyesight – and five relatives.

A suicide bombing attack at Haifa’s Maxim restaurant in 2003 killed 16 people in addition to Oren’s father, brother and other family members. He went blind while being treated for his wounds.

He obviously is exempt from the draft but insisted on enlisting in the armed forced and being like most other Israelis – and now he is a soldier n the IDF. He is a volunteer soldier in an intelligence unit, the name of which cannot be disclosed.

Last week pledged his loyalty to the IDF while walking up to the ceremonial stage unassisted by either a walking cane or a seeing-eye dog. The audience applauded – and cried.

"As someone who was hit pretty hard by terrorism I am proud to serve an organization that aims to protect the security of Israel, to prevent terrorism, and to protect its residents,” he said later.

“I want my father and grandfather to be proud of me,” he said. “I was raised by them to serve; if I had not enlisted I would feel a very big missed opportunity. I am proud that I’ve decided to undertake this trying task, and contribute back to the state.

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5)SOME HOW HE HAS TO GET THIS SIDE OF HIM OUT.

On Romney's character....

Sometimes, this facet of Romney’s personality isn’t so subtle. In July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner at Bain Capital, had disappeared. She had attended a rave party in New York City and gotten high on ecstasy. Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was. Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to help find Gay’s daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott and hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the NYPD, and went through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York, and asked them to help find his friend’s missing daughter. Romney’s accountants at Price Waterhouse Cooper put up posters on street poles, while cashiers at a pharmacy owned by Bain put fliers in the bag of every shopper. Romney and the other Bain employees scoured every part of New York and talked with everyone they could – prostitutes, drug addicts – anyone.

That day, their hunt made the evening news, which featured photos of the girl and the Bain employees searching for her. As a result, a teenage boy phoned in, asked if there was a reward, and then hung up abruptly. The NYPD traced the call to a home in New Jersey, where they found the girl in the basement, shivering and experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a massive ecstasy dose. Doctors later said the girl might not have survived another day. Romney’s former partner credits Mitt Romney with saving his daughter’s life, saying, “It was the most amazing thing, and I’ll never forget this to the day I die.”
So, here’s my epiphany: Mitt Romney simply can’t help himself. He sees a problem, and his mind immediately sets to work solving it, sometimes consciously, and sometimes not-so-consciously. He doesn’t do it for self-aggrandizement, or for personal gain. He does it because that’s just how he’s wired.

Many people are unaware of the fact that when Romney was asked by his old employer, Bill Bain, to come back to Bain & Company as CEO to rescue the firm from bankruptcy, Romney left Bain Capital to work at Bain & Company for an annual salary of one dollar. When Romney went to the rescue of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, he accepted no salary for three years, and wouldn’t use an expense account. He also accepted no salary as Governor of Massachusetts.

Character counts!! (and yes...that's worth reading again!)

5a)It just occurred to me... With all the noise the media is making about Romney's wealth, I don't

recall such bluster and hang-wringing over the Kennedy fortune. Or, for that matter, John Kerry.

Or the fact that John Kerry gave virtually nothing to charity while Romney gave something on the

order of $4 million.

Oh. Wait. I just remembered. Romney is Republican. Kerry and the Kennedys are Democrats. Also, Romney worked for his money. Kennedy inherited his. And Kerry married it.

Never mind. Nothing here folks. Must move along.

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6)The Daily Writing Sample: Why Judges Dread Medicare Cases

“Picture a law written by James Joyce and edited by E.E. Cummings,” begins arecent opinion by Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Such is the Medicare statute, which has been described as ‘among the most completely impenetrable texts within human experience.’”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit described it that way in a 1994 opinion. The full passage is worth revisiting:

There can be no doubt but that the statutes and provisions in question, involving the financing of Medicare and Medicaid, are among the most completely impenetrable texts within human experience. Indeed, one approaches them at the level of specificity herein demanded with dread, for not only are they dense reading of the most tortuous kind, but Congress also revisits the area frequently, generously cutting and pruning in the process and making any solid grasp of the matters addressed merely a passing phase.

One sentence later, Lamberth offers more evidence of the judiciary’s disdain for the Medicare statute. Describing the statutory scheme as ”labyrinthine,” Lamberth cites a 2011 opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

In it, Judge Thomas Griffith wrote that the convolution of the Medicare law reminded him of a passage by Learned Hand, the famed Second Circuit judge, lamenting the complexity of the tax code:

I know that these [provisions] are the result of fabulous industry and ingenuity . . . yet at times I cannot help recalling a saying of William James about certain passages of Hegel: that they were no doubt written with a passion of rationality; but that one cannot help wondering whether to the reader they have any significance save that the words are strung together with syntactical correctness. Much of the law is now as difficult to fathom, and more and more of it is likely to be so; for there is little doubt that we are entering a period of increasingly detailed regulation, and it will be the duty of judges to thread the path . . . through these fantastic labyrinths.

Lamberth, by the way, clarifies in a footnote that his reference to Joyce in the first paragraph refers not to the author’s early work such as Dubliners or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but to his later work — specifically, Finnegan’s Wake.

He doesn’t say how Medicare compares to Ulysses.

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Family Member of Jeb Responds!

2012-01-31T12:33:00.000-08:00

Gingrich and his former ethics case commentary. (See 1 below.)
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Roubini on what an Iranian conflict might cause. (See 2 below.)
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More states join Ga., including Illinois, in challenging Obama's presidential eligibility. (See 3 below.)
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Let's hear from Melanie Phillips again. (See 4 below.)

From the U.K. Telegraph (See 4a below.)

Click on and listen to this if you wish to see how we are being destroyed from within. I wrote years ago about attending a class conducted by Dr. Ellen Cannon who warned the audience this was coming.

First, those who want to impose Islamist theology begin with candidates for boards of public education in order to get their ideology taught in our education system starting at the grade school level. Then they finance Islamic Departments in college and the virus spreads. Finally, they begin broadcasting their message using our own freedoms of speech to bore into our society. I am not an alarmist. This is how you change hearts and minds, this is how you change a culture, this is how you turn youth into little dangerous mechanical ideologues. This is how the occupy movement gets manipulated and this is how our president bores in by denying terrorism exists, be eliminating words, cleansing as it were, that describe it and finally by appointments that shred our constitution like the actions of Attorney General Holder.

Wake up America!

Please take the time to listen. She is absolutely correct and this is shocking! Place your mouse over click here, then click and listen.

Click here: TaboolaArticle: The Tenneesean

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Crunch time? (See 5 below.)

Perhaps Iran will act through a surrogate - Syria? (See 5a below.)
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Glick continues to hammer away at Obama and his defense of Hamas etc. (See 6 below.)
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I wrote to a close member of Jeb Bush's family that he should consider becoming a V.P. in order to bring Florida into the Republican ranks, help solidify the Spanish vote for the Republicans and because he would have appeal to the middle ground - read independents. Finally, Jeb's willingness to be on the ticket, premature as it might be according to his own desires, would put the party in debt to him - knowing there is no loyalty in politics of course.

The person graciously responded they do not give such advice would would pass my letter on to Jeb, as I am sure they will. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1) What really happened in the Gingrich ethics case?
By Byron York Chief Political Correspondent

The Romney campaign has been hitting Newt Gingrich hard over the 1990s ethics case that resulted in the former Speaker being reprimanded and paying a $300,000 penalty. Before the Iowa caucuses, Romney and his supporting super PAC did serious damage to Gingrich with an ad attacking Gingrich's ethics past. Since then, Romney has made other ads and web videos focusing on the ethics matter, and at the Republican debate in Tampa Monday night, Romney said Gingrich "had to resign in disgrace."

In private conversations, Romney aides often mention the ethics case as part of their larger argument that Gingrich would be unelectable in a race against President Obama.

Given all the attention to the ethics matter, it's worth asking what actually happened back in 1995, 1996, and 1997. The Gingrich case was extraordinarily complex, intensely partisan, and driven in no small way by a personal vendetta on the part of one of Gingrich's former political opponents. It received saturation coverage in the press; a database search of major media outlets revealed more than 10,000 references to Gingrich's ethics problems during the six months leading to his reprimand. It ended with a special counsel hired by the House Ethics Committee holding Gingrich to an astonishingly strict standard of behavior, after which Gingrich in essence pled guilty to two minor offenses. Afterwards, the case was referred to the Internal Revenue Service, which conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter. And then, after it was all over and Gingrich was out of office, the IRS concluded that Gingrich did nothing wrong. After all the struggle, Gingrich was exonerated.

I wrote about the matter at the time, first in a 1995 article about Gingrich's accusers and then in a 1999 piece on the Internal Revenue Service report that cleared Gingrich. (Both pieces were for The American Spectator; I'm drawing on them extensively, but unfortunately neither is available online.)

At the center of the controversy was a course Gingrich taught from 1993 to 1995 at two small Georgia colleges. The wide-ranging class, called "Renewing American Civilization," was conceived by Gingrich and financed by a tax-exempt organization called the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Gingrich maintained that the course was a legitimate educational enterprise; his critics contended that it had little to do with learning and was in fact a political exercise in which Gingrich abused a tax-exempt foundation to spread his own partisan message.

The Gingrich case was driven in significant part by a man named Ben Jones. An actor and recovered alcoholic who became famous for playing the dim-witted Cooter in the popular 1980s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, Jones ran for Congress as a Democrat from Georgia in 1988. He won and served two terms. He lost his bid for re-election after re-districting in 1992, and tried again with a run against Gingrich in 1994. Jones lost decisively, and after that, it is fair to say he became obsessed with bringing Gingrich down.

Two days before Election Day 1994, with defeat in sight, Jones hand-delivered a complaint to the House ethics committee (the complaint was printed on "Ben Jones for Congress" stationery). Jones asked the committee to investigate the college course, alleging that Gingrich "fabricated a 'college course' intended, in fact, to meet certain political, not educational, objectives." Three weeks later, Jones sent the committee 450 pages of supporting documents obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act.

That was the beginning of the investigation. Stunned by their loss of control of the House -- a loss engineered by Gingrich -- House Democrats began pushing a variety of ethics complaints against the new Speaker. Jones' complaint was just what they were looking for.

There's no doubt the complaint was rooted in the intense personal animus Jones felt toward Gingrich. In 1995, I sat down with Jones for a talk about Gingrich, and without provocation, Jones simply went off on the Speaker. "He's just full of s--t," Jones told me. "He is. I mean, the guy's never done a damn thing, he's never worked a day in his life, he's never hit a lick at a snake. He's just a bulls--t artist. I mean, think about it. What has this guy ever done in his life?…Gingrich has never worked. He's never had any life experience. He's very gifted in his way at a sort of rhetorical terrorism, and he's gifted in his way at being a career politician, someone who understands how that system works and how to get ahead in it, which is everything that he has derided for all these years. So I think he's a hypocrite, and I think he's a wuss, and I don't mind saying that to him or whoever. To his mother -- I don't care."

At that point, Jones leaned over to speak directly into my recorder. Raising his voice, he declared: "HE'S THE BIGGEST A--HOLE IN AMERICA!"

Jones and his partner in the Gingrich crusade, Democratic Rep. David Bonior -- they had been basketball buddies in the House gym -- pushed the case ceaselessly. Under public pressure, the Ethics Committee -- made up of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats -- took up the case and hired an outside counsel, Washington lawyer James Cole, to conduct the investigation.

Cole developed a theory of the case in which Gingrich, looking for a way to spread his political views, came up with the idea of creating a college course and then devised a way to use a tax-exempt foundation to pay the bills. "The idea to develop the message and disseminate it for partisan political use came first," Cole told the Ethics Committee. "The use of the [the Progress and Freedom Foundation] came second as a source of funding." Thus, Cole concluded, the course was "motivated, at least in part, by political goals." Cole argued that even a hint of a political motive, was enough to taint the tax-exempt project, "regardless of the number or importance of truly exempt purposes that are present."

Cole did not argue that the case was not educational. It plainly was. But Cole suggested that the standard for determining wrongdoing was whether any unclean intent lurked in the heart of the creator of the course, even if it was unquestionably educational.

Meanwhile, Democrats kept pushing to raise the stakes against Gingrich. "Anyone who has engaged in seven years of tax fraud to further his own personal and political benefits is not deserving of the speakership," Bonior said just before Christmas 1996. "Mr. Gingrich has engaged in a pattern of tax fraud, lies, and cover-ups in paving his road to the second highest office in the land…I would expect the Justice Department, the FBI, a grand jury, and other appropriate entities to investigate."

With the charges against Gingrich megaphoned in the press, Gingrich and Republicans were under intense pressure to end the ordeal. In January, 1997, Gingrich agreed to make a limited confession of wrongdoing in which he pleaded guilty to the previously unknown offense of failing to seek sufficiently detailed advice from a tax lawyer before proceeding with the course. (Gingrich had in fact sought advice from two such lawyers in relation to the course.) Gingrich also admitted that he had provided "inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable" information to Ethics Committee investigators. That "inaccurate" information was Gingrich's contention that the course was not political -- a claim Cole and the committee did not accept, but the IRS later would.
In return for those admissions, the House reprimanded Gingrich and levied an unprecedented $300,000 fine. The size of the penalty was not so much about the misdeed itself but the fact that the Speaker was involved in it.

Why did Gingrich admit wrongdoing? "The atmosphere at the time was so rancorous, partisan, and personal that everyone, including Newt, was desperately seeking a way to end the whole thing," Gingrich attorney Jan Baran told me in 1999. "He was admitting to whatever he could to get the case over with."

It was a huge victory for Democrats. They had deeply wounded the Speaker. But they hadn't brought him down. So, as Bonior suggested, they sought to push law enforcement to begin a criminal investigation of Gingrich.

Nothing happened with the Justice Department and the FBI, but the IRS began an investigation that would stretch over three years. Unlike many in Congress -- and journalists, too -- IRS investigators obtained tapes and transcripts of each session during the two years the course was taught at Kennesaw State College in Georgia, as well as videotapes of the third year of the course, taught at nearby Reinhardt College. IRS officials examined every word Gingrich spoke in every class; before investigating the financing and administration of the course, they first sought to determine whether it was in fact educational and whether it served to the political benefit of Gingrich, his political organization, GOPAC, or the Republican Party as a whole. They then carefully examined the role of the Progress and Freedom Foundation and how it related to Gingrich's political network.

In the end, in 1999, the IRS released a densely written, highly detailed 74-page report. The course was, in fact, educational, the IRS said. "The overwhelming number of positions advocated in the course were very broad in nature and often more applicable to individual behavior or behavioral changes in society as a whole than to any 'political' action," investigators wrote. "For example, the lecture on quality was much more directly applicable to individual behavior than political action and would be difficult to attempt to categorize in political terms. Another example is the lecture on personal strength where again the focus was on individual behavior. In fact, this lecture placed some focus on the personal strength of individual Democrats who likely would not agree with Mr. Gingrich on his political views expressed in forums outside his Renewing American Civilization course teaching. Even in the lectures that had a partial focus on broadly defined changes in political activity, such as less government and government regulation, there was also a strong emphasis on changes in personal behavior and non-political changes in society as a whole."

The IRS also checked out the evaluations written by students who completed the course. The overwhelming majority of students, according to the report, believed that Gingrich knew his material, was an interesting speaker, and was open to alternate points of view. None seemed to perceive a particular political message. "Most students," the IRS noted, "said that they would apply the course material to improve their own lives in such areas as family, friendships, career, and citizenship."

The IRS concluded the course simply was not political. "The central problem in arguing that the Progress and Freedom Foundation provided more than incidental private benefit to Mr. Gingrich, GOPAC, and other Republican entities," the IRS wrote, "was that the content of the 'Renewing American Civilization' course was educational...and not biased toward any of those who were supposed to be benefited."

The bottom line: Gingrich acted properly and violated no laws. There was no tax fraud scheme. Of course, by that time, Gingrich was out of office, widely presumed to be guilty of something, and his career in politics was (seemingly) over.

Back in January 1997, the day after Cole presented his damning report to the Ethics Committee, the Washington Post's front-page banner headline was "Gingrich Actions 'Intentional' or 'Reckless'; Counsel Concludes That Speaker's Course Funding Was 'Clear Violation' of Tax Laws." That same day, the New York Times ran eleven stories on the Gingrich matter, four of them on the front page (one inside story was headlined, "Report Describes How Gingrich Used Taxpayers' Money for Partisan Politics"). On television, Dan Rather began the CBS Evening News by telling viewers that "only now is the evidence of Newt Gingrich's ethics violations and tax problems being disclosed in detail."

The story was much different when Gingrich was exonerated. The Washington Post ran a brief story on page five. The Times ran an equally brief story on page 23. And the evening newscasts of CBS, NBC, and ABC -- which together had devoted hours of coverage to the question of Gingrich's ethics -- did not report the story at all. Not a word.Gingrich himself, not wanting to dredge up the whole ugly tale, said little about his exoneration. "I consider this a full and complete vindication," he wrote in a brief statement. "I urge my colleagues to go back and read their statements and watch how they said them, with no facts, based on nothing more than a desire to politically destroy a colleague."Now, Gingrich is saying much the same thing in the face of Romney's accusations. And despite the prominence of the matter in the GOP race, few outsiders seem inclined to dive back into the ethics matter to determine whether Gingrich deserves the criticism or not. But if Gingrich is to have any hope of climbing out from under the allegations, he'll have to find some way of letting people know what really happened.
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2)Roubini: Iran Conflict Could Spark Global Recession, Send Oil to $150
By Julie Crawshaw

Economist Nouriel Roubini says that a conflict with Iran over its nuclear program that involves Israel, the United States, or both could drive oil prices to $150 per barrel and lead to a global recession, MSNBC reports.

Unemployment, economic insecurity and growing inequality between rich and poor are already problems in most of the world, Roubini observes, and a major change in policy priorities is needed.

"All these things lead to political and social instability," Roubini says.

"So we have to reduce inequality. We have to give growth to jobs, skills, education, and increase human capital so workers can compete," says Roubini, who teaches at New York University's Stern School of Business and is the chairman of Roubini Global Economics, an economic consultancy firm.

"We have to shift our investment from things that are less productive like the financial sector and housing and real estate to things that are more productive like our people, our human capital, our structure, our technology, our innovation," says Roubini, who anticipated the collapse of the United States housing market and the worldwide recession which started in 2008.

Roubini expects that slow growth in advanced economies will likely lead to "a U-shaped recovery rather than a typical V," a recovery that may continue for another three to five years because of high debt.

"Once you have too much debt in the public and private sector, the painful process could last up to a decade, where economic growth remains weak and anemic and sub-par until we have cleaned up the balance sheet and invested in the things that make us more productive for the future," Roubini says.

Other experts have a similar dire view.

Billionaire financier George Soros says that as the U.S. economy worsens, protests such as those carried out by the Occupy Wall Street movement will turn ugly, breaking down into waves of violent unrest across the nation.

"It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States," Soros tells Newsweek.

Unrest in the United States will serve as one of many symptoms of a worsening global economy, which makes wealth preservation a priority over getting rich.

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3)Four new States join Georgia in challenging Obama's eligibility for the Ballot and one of them is ...
By K.Curtis

Illinois...and Official Challenges have been filed in Alabama, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. Finally the word JUSTICE is ringing true to the American people.

Numerous Organizations are popping up to support the Laws under the Constitution and put a stop to the theft of the highest office of the United States of America. Freedom Nations is one who advocates a petition to support the Eligibility Requirements be mandatory in every state https://secure.freedomdonations.com/proofpositive/demand_proo...

But the biggest news is that one of the states seeking justice and proof of eligibility, beyond Nancy Pelosi's certification is ILLINOIS. A State that knows too well Obama's lack of accomplishments since he served as an Illinois Senator but the majority of his service was cloaked with Present votes. A vote to record one's presence in the senate, but abstinence of any real stance.

Hilary Clinton called the record correctly when she said, "In the Illinois State Senate, Senator Obama voted 130 times 'present,'"

Clinton said. "That's not 'yes.' That's not 'no.' That's 'maybe.'"

This week, Retired ASAR LTC William F. Reade filed an official ballot challenge with election officials, contending that Barack Obama is ineligible to appear on the Massachusetts ballot. Reade’s challenge is well researched and filled with numerous legal citations to back his case.

But perhaps most interesting are the similarities between LTC Reade’s and

Barack Obama’s citizenship status. Like Obama, Reade was born in the United
States. But, also like Obama whose father was a Kenyan citizen and therefore a
British subject, Reade’s father was also a British subject. As such, Reade
correctly points out that he himself is not a “natural born citizen” as defined
by the Supreme Court and therefore, like Barack Obama, Reade is also ineligible
for the office of President.

Commentary: So the Liberals and Progressives can call the race card, stomp their feet and scream foul all they want the facts are facts. Obama has not been proven eligible under US law and unless he does so his HOPE is fading. He and his highly paid legal eagles failure to appear in court and failure to produce an unquestionable paper document proving his citizenship are still yet to be found. 3 years is a long time to hide Obama, we're coming.
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4) Subject: Why ailing Britain appeases its Islamist enemies
By Melanie Phillips

Was there ever a more perverse and self-destructive society than the contemporary West? In its attitude to the Middle East and the Islamic world, it appears to suffer from the political equivalent of auto-immune disease: turning on its allies while embracing its enemies.

One year ago, the US and Britain helped street protesters to overthrow president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Hailing the revolutionary tumult of the "Arab Spring" as the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West went on to help armed Libyan rebels remove president Muammar Gaddafi by military force.

This regional strategy was promoted even though it was obvious from the start that the people who were best organised to take advantage of any elections in the Arab world were Islamists of one stripe or another - religious extremists all, united by their hostility to the West.

And so it has proved. The Islamists are coming to power in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia, and in turn are being increasingly empowered elsewhere. In Libya, sickening atrocities, including the torture and killing of Gaddafi himself by a lynch mob, have been carried out by those brought to power with the assistance of British and US bombing raids.

Yet Western politicians are even now hymning the brave new dawn of democracy throughout the Muslim world. British Foreign Secretary William Hague conceded earlier this month that the regional violence and votes for Islamism were a "setback", but he insisted: "Greater freedom and democracy in the Middle East is an idea whose time has come."

And the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organisation now in the ascendancy, which uses violence and political manipulation to advance its aim of world domination for Islam, is suddenly being hailed by Western leaders as the acme of moderation.

Yet in helping to get rid of Mubarak and Gaddafi, Britain and the US have managed the signal feat of ousting oppressive regimes that were at least helpful to the West, and replacing them with oppressive regimes that are acutely hostile to the West.

One immediate result is that the Sinai desert, neutralised as a trouble spot ever since Israel made peace with Egypt in 1979, has now become an acute threat to Israel's southern border. Hamas is now building arms-manufacturing facilities in Sinai, including those for building rockets, and other Islamic extremists are piling in.

Arms are being smuggled from Egypt into Gaza without interruption. Oh, and Libyan weapons, including Russian-made anti-plane rockets, are now making their way into the Gaza Strip. Well done, Britain and America!

And then there's Iran. Ever since the Islamic revolution in 1979, when the ayatollahs declared war on the West, Iran has been involved in many acts of terrorism against the US and Western interests. Tehran regularly threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and is now racing to develop nuclear weapons to realise its infernal goals.

Yet despite all this, the West has refused to fight back or even to acknowledge the Iranian war against the West, with President Barack Obama advertising US weakness by extending his hand in friendship to the regime.

Obama's catastrophic strategy has given Iran the one thing it needed above all else: time to bring its nuclear weapons program to fruition.

Only now, with the hands on the doomsday clock pointing to midnight, have Britain, the US and Europe finally imposed tough sanctions against Iran. But what use are these when they will almost certainly be busted by Russia and China?

Sanctions are supposed to force Iran to 'come to its senses' and stop its nuclear energy program from producing weapons. But the Tehran regime is dominated by fanatics who believe the Shia messiah, the Mahdi, will return to earth either as result of or to bring about the apocalyptic end of days.

That is why the argument that "They wouldn't dare launch a nuclear attack because they know half of Iran would be obliterated as a result" is fatuous. They would be happy if this were to occur.

But despite all this, Western leaders still behave as if the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is the dominant issue in the Arab world, and that the expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land is the dominant issue in the Arab-Israel conflict.

Barely a week goes by without Western politicians or the media blaming "Israeli intransigence" in general, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular, for blocking the Israel-Palestinian peace process.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says time is running out for the two-state solution to the conflict because of "facts on the ground" - code for the Israeli settlements.

His deputy, Nick Clegg, went further, claiming the "illegal" settlement-building amounted to "an act of deliberate vandalism" that jeopardised a peaceful two-state solution.

Yet this was to ignore the fact it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate without preconditions. It ignores the fact that Israel has twice offered the Palestinians a state on most of the West Bank, to which the Palestinians have merely responded by terrorist campaigns.

And it ignores the absolutely fundamental fact that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has said the Palestinians will never accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

So why does the West fail to see what is under its nose? There are several reasons, including prejudice, ideology, strategic short-sightedness and simple funk.

But the deeper reason is surely the Western belief that the world is basically governed by rationality. So all conflicts arise from grievances, and all parties can be persuaded to settle a quarrel in their own interests.

Refracting everything in the world through the prism of its unshakeable faith in universal reason, the West is incapable of recognising or understanding religious fanaticism, and insists instead on treating the fanatic as a rational actor.

The ghastly irony is that in making a fetish of reason, the West is behaving irrationally by refusing to acknowledge the mortal threat posed to its own existence by the Islamic world.

In other words, this could be the point in history at which the West simply disappears up its own arrogant backside.

4a)Telegraph.co.uk
By Janet Daley

Barack Obama is trying to make the US a more socialist state
The ideas the President outlined in the State of the Union are based on the very model that is causing the EU to implode.

What was it everybody used to say about the United States? Look at what’s happening over there and you will see our future. Whatever Americans are doing now, we will be catching up with them in another 10 years or so. In popular culture or political rhetoric, America led the fashion and we tagged along behind.

Well, so much for that. Barack Obama is now putting the United States squarely a decade behind Britain. Listening to the President’s State of the Union message last week was like a surreal visit to our own recent past: there were, almost word for word, all those interminable Gordon Brown Budgets that preached “fairness” while listing endless new ways in which central government would intervene in every form of economic activity.

Later, in a television interview, Mr. Obama described his programme of using higher taxes on the wealthy to bankroll new government spending as “a recipe for a fair, sound approach to deficit reduction and rebuilding this country”. To which we who come from the future can only shout, “No‑o-o, go back! Don’t come down this road!”

As we try desperately to extricate ourselves from the consequences of that philosophy, which sounds so eminently reasonable (“giving everybody a fair share”, the President called it), we could tell America a thing or two – if it would only listen. Human beings are so much more complicated than this childlike conception of fairness assumes. When government takes away an ever larger proportion of the wealth which entrepreneurial activity creates and attempts to distribute it “fairly” (that is to say, evenly) throughout society in the form of welfare programmes and public spending projects, the effects are much, much more complex and perverse than a simple financial equation would suggest.

It is probably obvious that the people from whom the wealth is taken will become less willing to incur the risks that entrepreneurial investment involves – and so will produce less wealth, and thus less tax revenue. But more surprising, perhaps, are the damaging changes that take place in the beneficiaries of this “fairness” and the permanent effect this has on the balance of power between government and the people.

There is, it turns out, a huge difference between being provided with a livelihood and feeling that you have earned it. The assumption that all the wealth that individuals create belongs, by moral right, to the state, to spend on benefits or phoney job creation schemes (sorry, public infrastructure projects), is proving phenomenally difficult to expunge in Britain, so ineradicably has it embedded itself in the public consciousness.

In the US, it has had only odd historical moments of favour (Roosevelt’s New Deal, Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”), which have been beaten back consistently by the dynamism of a country that sees its existential purpose as being to foster and promote individual achievement and self-belief. It is bizarre that Obama should be regarded (or should regard himself) as a kind-of European who is trying to bring a sophisticated kind-of socialism to American economic life, complete with government-run health care and “fair” (high) taxes on the wealthy. If his European credentials were up to date, he would know that this was precisely the social model that is causing the EU to implode, and whose hopeless contradictions the best economic minds on the Continent are attempting, unsuccessfully, to resolve.

A vendetta against the “wealthy” is one of Obama’s favourite themes, and it strikes a peculiarly familiar note. Back here, Nick Clegg is arguing (rightly) that a tax cut for the lower paid should be accelerated on both moral and economic grounds – because people are struggling, and because allowing them to keep and spend more of their earnings would stimulate growth. But he wants to balance this with a wealth tax or some such penalty on “the rich”. Both Obama and Clegg, by an extraordinary coincidence, used the same semantic trick to try to prove the injustice of their present tax systems. In his State of the Union address, the President slipped subliminally from the fact that his likely presidential opponent Mitt Romney paid tax at a lower rate (because his income came from profits and dividends which were taxed as capital gains) than his secretary (who would have paid income tax), to the claim that Mr. Romney paid less tax than his secretary.

Mr. Clegg made exactly the same charge against a putative hedge fund manager who “paid less tax” than his cleaner, neatly obscuring the fact that it was the rate of tax that was lower, not the amount which was paid. Needless to say, both Mr. Romney and the imagined hedge-fund manager pay vastly more tax than their respective secretaries and cleaners. (The top 1 per cent of earners pay nearly a third of all federal taxes in the US.)

So what does this kind of verbal trick tell us about the honesty – or the desperation – of this argument? At the very least, it is crass populism designed to provoke a particularly counterproductive form of class resentment. What is needed here and in the US are tax cuts for the many, not the few, to adapt Mr. Brown, and less demonising of the sorts of people who are able to invest and create the real wealth that will be our only chance for economic salvation.

Obama is clearly living the Left-liberal dream, which still survives in small pockets of American life. He wants to import the democratic socialism that Europe embraced after the war, which was, for European cultural reasons, imbued with aristocratic paternalism and Marxist notions of bourgeois guilt. But neither of these things are part of the American historical experience. The Left-wing intellectuals, including Obama himself, who adopt this language are talking dangerously uninformed rubbish: if democratic socialism was ever a solution to Europe’s problems (and the present crisis is making that seem less and less likely), it is certainly not an answer to any question that Americans are likely to ask.

The United States is a country that was invented to allow people to be free of domination or persecution by the state. Its constitution and political institutions are specifically designed to prevent the federal government from oppressing the rights, or undermining the sense of responsibility, of the individual citizen. If it ceases to stand by that principle, then it will suffer a catastrophic loss of purpose and identity – as well as making a quite remarkably stupid and unnecessary mistake.
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5)Israel to Iran: It's Crunch Time
By James Lewis

It is indeed a cold day in Hell when the New York Times blunders into telling the truth about Iran. Well, it just happened. This is serious business, because it means that the NYT is now expecting something real to happen soon.

President Obama has been tip-toeing away from the Iranian nuclear end-run for three years, until the window of opportunity to preempt catastrophe has almost slammed shut. The Saudis may be buying their own nukes. Iran is threatening to block almost half of Europe's oil by shutting the Strait of Hormuz, and it can do so -- but only at a terrible price. But once the mullahs have nukes, nobody will dare to stop them.

Europe, the Arabs, Israel, and yes, the United States are all therefore facing the end of the road. If we fail to act now we will become Tehran's running lackeys very soon. Obama's three years of dithering has made this moment unavoidable.

Just as the NYT-Wapo axis only reports real poll results near election time, the fact that they are now reporting the reality of the Iranian threat means they expect something big to happen soon.

As in -- an Israeli attack on Natanz, and on Tehran's missile bases like the Imam Ali missile base -- Imam Ali being Tehran's Armageddon messiah. Or an Israeli nuclear warning explosion under the Negev desert, to see if the mullahs might sober up before it's too late. Or a major EMP attack on Tehran's oil refinery and electricity grid. Or a huge denial-of-service cyberattack on Tehran's military and government infrastructure. Or all of the above.

Here are excerpts from the most truthful analysis the NYT-WaPo Axis has ever published. It's called, "Will Israel Attack Iran?" and written by Ronen Bergman, a very skilled analyst for Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. Bergman quotes two people, PM Bibi Netanyahu, and his Labour Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak. They are from different parties, but both served as paratroops in combat. Both have made good and bad decisions. And both consider themselves responsible "in a very direct and concrete way for the existence of the State of Israel -- indeed, for the future of the Jewish people."

... Barak laid out three ... questions
1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran's nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can (Israel) withstand the inevitable counterattack?
2. Does Israel have ... support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?
3. Have all other possibilities ... been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort?"

And then the punch line:

For the first time ... some of Israel's most powerful leaders believe that the response to all of these questions is yes.

The "most powerful leaders" are obviously Netanyahu and Barak. Between them they represent a majority of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesseth.

Barack Obama has been playing chicken with Israel on a second Holocaust. That is grossly irresponsible, but it's no particular surprise for the worst foreign policy president in American history. Obama has been just as destructive to the Arabs by supporting the anarchy, warfare, and economic destruction of the perversely misnamed "Arab Spring." And by failing to keep the faith with our allies all over the world, Obama has weakened confidence in the United States from Asia to the Eastern Europe. But in national security, as in finance, confidence means everything.

Obama has essentially lost the Middle East, where nobody now trusts us. The Saudis are furious at Obama for failing to protect them against Iranian nukes, which are much closer to their shores than they are to Israel.

Jimmy Carter betrayed Iran to the Dark Age of Ayatollah Khomeini. Barack Obama has now betrayed the Arab world to the Dark Age of the Muslim Brotherhood. Those two Democrat presidents are directly responsible for criminal neglect and collusion with genocidal evil.

That is entirely consistent with the radical left in Europe, which colludes with genocidal regimes at the United Nations every day of the week. The Sudan was elected to the Human Rights Commission of the General Assembly with the active collaboration of Europe. As Michael Ledeen points out, the hard left collaborates with Islamic fascists all over the world.

That is all we need to know.

Israel declared its independence in 1948 as a last refuge for the Jewish people. It has fought time and again since that year for its very existence. The IDF does not perform miracles, but with its back to the wall it will break the Iranian path to nukes, come what may.

The United States is the only power in the world that can intervene safely in Iran, the way it did in Gulf War I and II and in Iraq. The Arabs, the Europeans, and even Israel are still hoping that we will step in with our overwhelming military power.

But Barack Obama has been using the Iranian threat to extort border concessions from Israel for the last three years, as he has publicly proclaimed. In re-election mode Obama is still playing to the phony pacifists of his left wing. Above all, Obama wants to vote "present" rather than act. After all, he might be held responsible for his actions if the American people ever find out.

What would you do in Israel's place?

Right

5a)Assad may start regional war if UN tells him to step down – Gulf sources

Syrian officers visit Russian aircraft carrier in Tartus port

In confidential conversations with his advisers, Syrian President Bashar Assad is reported by Persian Gulf sources Tuesday, Jan. 31 to have threatened to start up armed hostilities in the region if the UN Security Council Tuesday night endorses the Arab League proposal for him to step down and hand power to his deputy.

Heads of the Syrian armed forces and intelligence have been given their orders and some units are on the ready. Other Middle East sources reported Lebanese Hizballah has also shown signs of military preparations in the last few hours. And the Russian flotilla berthed at the Syrian port of Tartus, led by the Admiral Kutznetsov aircraft carrier, also appears to be on the alert for eruptions in the wake of the Security Council Syria session.

During the day, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov warned pushing the Arab League's UN resolution was "the path to civil war." Moscow sources report top-level discussions are still going back and forth in the Kremlin over a final decision on a veto.

The military flurry in advance of the critical Security Council session included US naval movements. Sunday, Jan. 29, the nuclear submarine USS Annapolis, escorted by the guided missile destroyer USS Momsen sailed through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea. This looked like a Washington warning for Tehran to keep its military fingers out of Syria if the confrontation there escalates.

It was not the first time Assad has threatened Syria's neighbors. On Aug. 9, 2011, four months into his savage crackdown against protesters, he warned Turkey that, six hours after the first shot was fired against Syria, he would "destroy Tel Aviv and set the entire Middle East on fire."
That was his answer to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu when he came to Damascus with a demand from his and other NATO governments that the Syrian ruler stop the slaughter. .
Davutoglu urged Assad to take a look at Libya and try to understand that if he carried on, he might be in for the same fate as Muammar Qaddafi – a strong hint at military intervention by NATO, including Turkey.

Earlier still on May 10, one of Assad's close kinsmen, the international tycoon Rami Makhlouf, warned: "If there is no stability in Syria, there will be none in Israel. No one can be sure what will happens after that. God help us if anything befalls this regime."

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6)Hamas and the Washington establishment

By Caroline B. Glick

For the US to secure its interests in the Middle East, it requires leaders who are willing to reassess what passes for common wisdom on both sides of the aisle

"Conventional wisdom" dissected

To date, the Republican presidential primary race has been the only place to have generated any useful contributions to America's collective understanding of current events in the Middle East. Last month, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich became the first major political figure in more than a generation to pour cold water over the Palestinian myth of indigenous peoplehood by stating the truth, that the Palestinians are an "invented people."

As Gingrich explained, their invention came in response to Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement. Since they were created somewhere around 1920, the Palestinians' main purpose has not been the establishment of a Palestinian state but the obliteration of the Jewish state.

For his truth telling, Gingrich was attacked by fellow politicians and policy hands on both sides of the ideological divide. To his credit, Gingrich has not backed away from the truth he spoke. Rather he has repeated it in two subsequent Republican candidates' debates.

The second important contribution that Republican presidential candidates have made to the discourse on the Middle East was undertaken by Texas Gov. Rick Perry during a candidates' debate in South Carolina on January 17, shortly before he pulled out of the race. When asked about Turkey, Perry said that country "is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists." He went on to say that the US ought to be having a debate about whether Turkey should continue to serve as a member of NATO.

Like Gingrich, Perry was pilloried by all right thinking people in the US foreign policy elite. And like Gingrich, Perry was right. The hoopla his statement generated showed just how destructive so much of America's received wisdom about the Middle East has become. Moreover, it demonstrated the extent to which the US has adopted Middle East policies that are inimical to its national interests.

After Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January 2006, Turkey was the first country to invite Hamas's terror master Khaled Mashal to Ankara. Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan's move provoked criticism from the Bush administration. But Erdogan just shrugged it off. And he was right to do so. By 2006, then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had come to view Erdogan as the US's indispensable ally in the Muslim world. As she saw it, he was proof that Islamist parties could be democratic and moderate.

The fact that Erdogan embraced Hamas could not get in the way of Rice's optimistic assessment. So, too, the fact that Erdogan embarked on a systematic campaign to stifle press freedom, curb judicial independence and imprison his political critics in the media and the military could not move Rice from her view that Erdogan personified her belief that moderate jihadists exist and ought to be embraced by the US.

Rice's starry-eyed view of Erdogan set the stage of US President Barack Obama's even stronger embrace of the increasingly tyrannical Turkish Islamist. Since Obama took office, not only has Ankara stepped up its support of Hamas, and ended even the pretense of a continued strategic alliance with Israel that it maintained during the Bush years. Turkey began serving as Iran's chief diplomatic protector while vastly expanding its own strategic and economic ties with Tehran.

In the face of Turkey's openly anti-American behavior and actions, Obama clings to Erdogan even more strongly than Rice did. Obama reportedly views Erdogan as his most trusted foreign adviser. According to the media, Obama speaks with Erdogan more often than he speaks to any other foreign leader. In a recent interview with Time magazine, Obama listed Erdogan as one of the key foreign leaders with whom he has formed a friendship based on trust.

Over the past few weeks, Turkey has emerged as Hamas's largest financier. During an official visit in Turkey, Hamas's terror master in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh received a hero's welcome. Erdogan pledged to finance the jihadist movement to the tune of $300 million per year.

COMMENTATORS CLAIM that Turkey's sponsorship of Hamas was necessitated by Iran's abandonment of the terror group. Iran, it is claimed, cut Hamas off in August due to the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood's refusal to actively assist Iran's other Arab client — Syrian President Bashar Assad — in massacring his domestic opponents.

These analyses are problematic for two reasons. First, it is far from clear that Iran cut Hamas off. Iran's rulers have invited Haniyeh to Tehran for an official visit. This alone indicates that the mullahs remain committed to maintaining their relationship with the jihadist movement that controls the Gaza Strip.

And why would they want to cut off that relationship? By serving as Hamas's chief sponsor since 2006, Iran has won enormous credibility in the Arab world. This credibility has bought Tehran influence with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and beyond. Particularly now, with the Brotherhood taking over Egypt and much of the Arab world, Iran would only stand to lose by cutting off Hamas.

The second problem with these assessments is that it makes little sense to believe that Turkey has replaced Iran as Hamas's main state sponsor since Iran and Turkey are not necessarily competing over Hamas. Given the interests shared by Tehran and Ankara, it is far more reasonable to assume that they are coordinating their moves regarding Hamas.

Iran became Hamas's chief financier and weapons supplier the same year that Erdogan emerged as Hamas's most important political supporter. And in the six years since then, Iran and Turkey have become strategic allies. Even with regards to Syria, the fact that Assad remains in power today is due in no small measure to the fact that Erdogan has used his influence over Obama to ensure that the US has remained on the sidelines and so effectively supported Assad's survival.

In light of Erdogan's enormous influence over leaders in both US parties, it is little wonder that Perry's factual statement about the nature of the Turkish government and the need for the US to reassess its strategic alliance with Turkey provoked such an across the board outcry. Erdogan's close relationship with Obama — like his previously close relationship with Rice — renders it well nigh impossible for US government officials and inside-the Beltway "experts" to make the kind of commonsense assessments of Turkey's counterproductive regional role that an outsider like Perry was able to make from his perch in Austin, Texas.

CONTRARY TO what several leading commentators have argued since the onset of the Syrian popular rebellion against Assad, Hamas has not been seriously damaged by the events. True, its leaders are looking for a new place to station their headquarters. But there is no law that requires terrorist organizations to have one central office. The families of Hamas's leadership have decamped to Jordan. Hamas leaders have close relations with the Qataris — who remain major funders — as well as with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Sudanese regime.

In addition to these state supporters, through its relations with Turkey and Fatah, Hamas has Washington as well. To understand how Washington acts as Hamas's protector, it is necessary to consider the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Since its inception in 1993, the peace process has been predicated on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. To the extent that Israel makes concessions, the peace process is seen as advancing. To the extent that Israel fails to make concessions, the peace process is seen as collapsing. True, at certain times, the Bush administration blamed the Palestinians for the failure of the peace process, but the blame owed to the fact that Palestinian terrorism made Israel less amenable to concession making.

Palestinian terrorism was not in and of itself blamed for the demise of the peace process. Rather it was perceived as the means through which Israel avoided making more concessions. And at certain times, the US supported Israel's avoidance of concession making.

Since Israeli concessions to the Palestinians are the only tangible component of the peace process, the US, as the chief sponsor of the peace process, requires the Palestinian Authority — run by Fatah — to be accepted as a credible repository for Israeli concessions regardless of its actual nature. Consequently, despite Fatah's two unity deals with Hamas, its sponsorship of terrorism, its incitement of terrorism, its refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, its adoption of negotiating positions that presuppose Israel's demise, and its conduct of political warfare against Israel, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration ever showed the slightest willingness to consider ending their support for the PA.

If Israel has no peace partner, then it can't make concessions. And if it can't make concessions, there is no peace process. And that is something that neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration was willing to countenance.

It is true that under Obama the US has become far more hostile towards Israel than it was under Bush. The most important distinction between the two is that whereas George W. Bush sought to broker a compromise deal between the two sides, Obama has adopted Fatah's negotiating positions against Israel. As a consequence of Obama's actions, the peace process has been derailed completely. Fatah has no reason to compromise since the US will blame Israel no matter what. And Israel has no reason to make concessions since the US will deem them insufficient.

Noting this distinction, Washington Post commentator Jennifer Rubin wrote this week that for the benefit of the peace process, it is important for a Republican administration to be elected to replace Obama in November. As she put it, "If history is any guide, progress is made in the 'peace process' when the Israeli prime minister operates from a position of strength and has the full support of the US president. We might get there, albeit not until 2013."

The problem with her analysis is that it is of a piece with the insiders' attacks on Gingrich and Romney alike. That is, it is based on the false assumptions of the peace process and the generally accepted wisdom embraced by the American foreign policy elite on both sides of the aisle that the PA is a reasonable repository for Israeli concessions.

Here it is worth noting that this week Fatah-controlled PA TV aired a sequence venerating the murderers of the Fogel family. Udi and Ruth Fogel and their children Yoav, Elad and Hadas were brutally murdered in their home last March.

Fatah's glorification of their murderers is yet further proof that the foundations of the peace process are false. Peace cannot be based on appeasing societies that uphold mass murderers as role models. It can only be based on empowering free societies to defeat societies that embrace murder, terror and in the case of Hamas, genocide.

And this brings us back to the Republican primaries and Gingrich's and Perry's statements. For the US to secure its interests in the Middle East, it requires leaders who are willing to reassess what passes for common wisdom on both sides of the aisle.

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7)Jeb's 2012 Role

BY FRED BARNES

Jeb Bush’s decision not to endorse Mitt Romney before Tuesday primary raises three possibilities about the former Florida governor’s role in the 2012 presidential election.

At the moment, he is playing no role at all. There had been considerable speculation he would publicly back Romney, as his father, former President George H.W. Bush, has. And Romney has made a strenuous effort to recruit Jeb Bush, whom Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times called “the biggest catch of all” in the presidential race.

But with Romney in a strong position to defeat his chief rival, Newt Gingrich, and win tomorrow’s Florida primary, Bush has steered clear of the contest. “If Dad got behind [Romney], that would help shut the door,” Jeb Bush Jr. told Zeleny. “But that’s just not his style.”

If Bush wants to run for president himself one day, he “could have concluded that it was not in his interest to get involved and agitate conservatives in his party by going against Mr. Gingrich,” Zeleny wrote. Maybe, but I doubt that is what’s on Bush’s mind.

The three possible roles–major roles—for Bush this year are more intriguing. He may not intend to play any of them, but his refusal to be active in the race now makes them possibilities nonetheless.

First, having not endorsed a candidate, Bush could emerge as an acceptable compromise nominee in the unlikely event there’s a deadlock between Romney and Gingrich at the GOP convention in August. In other words, a brokered convention might turn to him, thus unifying the party.

Second, he could play a unifying role as a vice presidential choice of either Romney or Gingrich. It’s significant he’s from Florida, a state that President Obama won in 2008 -- and Republicans must capture in 2012 to defeat Obama’s reelection. With Bush on the ticket, winning Florida would be all but assured.

Third, Bush could play a kingmaker role in the Republican presidential race. He would have the credibility to promote an agreement among leading Republicans about choosing the best nominee. Again, this would occur only if neither Romney nor Gingrich had won a majority of the delegates at the end of the primaries and caucuses
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Biblical Ethics, Capitalism and The Food Fight!

2012-01-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

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Media takes a page from the president and stonewalls news of the case in the Georgia courts relating to eligibility.

The president's actions could come back to haunt him because if he is unwilling to respond to a legitimate case then how can he argue against any stonewalling by an opponent. (See 1 below.)
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Is the noose tightening on Assad? (See 2 below.)
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Barry Rubin speaks the unvarnished and unspoken truth about the American threat to Israel. It relates to a foreign policy that ignores/allows Muslim influence to rise throughout the region.

If allowed to continue it will also become a threat to our own nation. (See 3 below.)
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To Newt's credit he began his campaign by professing to take the high road and did not direct his comments and criticisms at his fellow candidates. Over time, his poll results improved and he became a threat to Mitt Romney, the avowed front-runner. Mitt's 'Super PAC' targeted Newt bringing his poll results down and Newt asked Mitt to leash the attack dogs. Mitt responded he did not control them. Newt responded with his own scorched earth attacks and thus began the food fight which has served to besmear them both and heighten the prospects of the re-election of our current president.

The below op ed piece is worth reading. It ties the ethics of The Bible to Capitalism. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)Media Blackout in Obama Georgia Ballot Eligibility Case
By Cindy Simpson

Last week, I noted that Obama turned his back not just on Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer, but also on the laws of the State of Georgia. I closed my column, "Georgia Ballot Challenge: Obama Walks on By," with the observation: "And most of the media has followed along right behind him."

At the time, I had just witnessed an historic hearing that actually discussed the eligibility of the sitting president of the United States to run for a second term. The president had been subpoenaed to appear, and instead of his attorney respectfully following protocol to have that subpoena recalled, both Obama and his attorney, Michael Jablonski, simply failed to show up at all or offer any defense whatsoever.

Isn't there a headline in there somewhere?

The hearing proceeded as planned, even though the table for the defense was empty. Attorneys Van Irion and J. Mark Hatfield presented their cases first and offered compelling arguments -- not regarding Obama's birthplace, but rather that the non-U.S. citizenship of Obama's father precluded Obama's "natural born" eligibility under the Constitution and existing Supreme Court precedent. Attorney Orly Taitz, however, did present interesting evidence that questioned the validity of Obama's birth certificate and questions surrounding his Social Security number.

When the hearing ended, the media in attendance almost literally pounced on Taitz. Irion and Hatfield and their clients had left the premises earlier, while Taitz was still presenting her case; however, Irion asserted to me that not one member of the press stopped them on their way out. Doubtless the media did not want to discuss the law -- they'd rather write their usual stories on the birth certificate and interview the one they've dubbed the "birther queen."

Attorney Taitz handled herself well, even though the press taunted her with rudeness and leading questions she has doubtless experienced many times. After the reporters finished letting Taitz feel the full extent of their contempt for both her and the entire morning's event, they packed up to leave.

I walked up to one particular reporter from one of the prominent mainstream entities, noting that he seemed frustrated that he didn't get a clear answer from Taitz to one of his questions, and I informed him that I did know the exact answer, if he'd like to hear more about it. He said no, he didn't. I asked then, wasn't he a reporter, and why did he ask the question if he didn't want the answer? And as I was speaking, he turned and walked away from me.

The same thing happened with another reporter from another major network. He had asked Taitz why no one cared that there were past presidents who had fathers not born in the country. I explained to him that it was not the place of birth of the presidents' fathers that was the issue, but rather the status of their citizenship at the time of their sons' births. The reporter scoffed and told me that that was just my opinion, but when I attempted to inform him that it was also the opinion of the Supreme Court, he turned and walked away from me while I was in mid-sentence.

Does this behavior seem familiar?

Even though I saw reporters from every major network on the scene, the actual reporting of the event was scant -- primarily only in blogs or local news. Google "Georgia Ballot Challenge" and note the non-mainstream coverage of the event.

Rachel Maddow must not have gotten the memo, though, because she dedicated a full 8 minutes of her January 26 show to telling her viewers why they should "feel almost duty-bound as a patriot to ignore" the hearing and not to "dignify this nonsense or elevate it by paying it any attention." Not only were none of the legal points addressed in the hearings brought up by Maddow, but Maddow excused the extraordinary fact that Obama and his counsel, instead of respecting the law, had simply snubbed it, calling the case "ridiculous."

As Sunny of Sunny TV points out in this hilarious but uncomfortably true video, "Tyranny is as Tyranny Does"; "[l]et's just hope the next President is just as benevolent as Obama because they could really use that power for bad." At the end of the clip, as Sunny pretends she is Obama, issuing orders right and left, she points to her crown and says: "This makes me in charge." As Teri O'Brien noted in her interview discussing Obama's penchant for walking away from those with whom he disagrees, "[g]ods don't debate. They issue decrees."

Attorney Irion, in this follow-up letter from his Liberty Legal Foundation, pointed out: "Yesterday President Obama completely ignored a court subpoena, and the world shrugged."

Yes, Obama shrugged, and the media has shrugged along. Irion further noted:

Obama's behavior yesterday is even more disturbing than Nixon's. Nixon at least respected the judicial branch enough to have his attorneys show up in court and follow procedure[.] ... Nixon acknowledged the authority of the judicial branch even while he fought it. Obama, on the other hand, essentially said yesterday that the judicial branch has no power over him. He ordered his attorneys to stay away from the hearing. He didn't petition a higher court in a legitimate attempt to stay the hearing[.] ... Rather than respecting the legal process, Obama went around the courts and tried to put political pressure directly on the Georgia Secretary of State. When that failed, he simply ignored the judicial branch completely.

It is disconcerting to see that the president, whose primary duty is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, has turned his back on the rule of law of one of those states. Especially, as Sunny uncomfortably reminded us, since this is the same president who routinely sidesteps the law or places himself above it.

Even more troubling is the fact that the mainstream media not only seems to approve -- but they fail to report it at all.

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2)Assad masses loyal troops in Damascus after he was warned of a military coup

President Bashar Assad supported by his brother and cousin

According to exclusive reports President Bashar Assad pulled in the Syrian Republican Guard and the 4th armored divisions commanded by his brother Maher Assad from the northern rebel centers and over to Damascus. He ordered them into battle positions in the capital for the first time in the ten month uprising after receiving an intelligence tipoff that western powers had won over one of the armored division commanders posted in the capital and persuaded him to stage a coup d'etat to topple him.

The renegade general, whose identity is unknown, was reported to be planning to take advantage of the absence of the most trusted regime troops in trouble spots across the country to lead 300 tanks into the capital and seize power.

The conspirators were planning to make their move on the night of Monday Jan. 30 or early Tuesday Jan. 31, just before the UN Security Council was to convene in New York and air plans for him to step down. The putsch would have presented its members with the accomplished fact of Assad's overthrow by the military.

The information passed to Assad, apparently from an external source, did not name the division commander who accepted this role from Western hands. If it turns out to be true, the scheme would strongly recall the US-led NATO-Qatari-Jordanian operation for the Libyan rebels to seize power in Libya by taking Tripoli by storm in the third week of August 2011.

Forewarned, the Syrian ruler is making every effort to ward off the threatened coup.
Military sources report, aside from the Republican Guard and 4th division which Assad recalled to the capital, there are the 1st, 3rd and 9th armored divisions.

The fight rebel forces put up at the gates of Damascus Monday night was perceived by the Assad regime as part of the coup conspiracy. Western and military sources described the combat as a search, arrest and kill operation to wipe out the last vestiges of resistance around the capital, rather than battles.

Monday night, the White House issued a statement saying the UN Security Council must not let the Syrian President Assad continue the violence.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to address the Council meeting Tuesday. She has urged the forum to act before the violence in Syria spills over and destabilizes its neighbors.
Moscow has made it very clear in recent weeks that it will on no account let the Assad regime go the way of Qaddafi. Russia is adamant about vetoing the Security Council motion the US and European powers are gathering Tuesday in New Yorkto table in support of the Arab League transition plan for a national unity government to rise in Damascus within two months and implement Assad's handover of power to vice president Farouk a-Shara. A Russian bid to bring the opponents to the negotiating table failed after the main Syrian opposition party demanded that Assad step down first.

At least 27 people were killed Monday in the central city of Homs – which was heavily shelled again - the northern province of Idlib and southern province of Daraa, where the revolt against Assad began in mid-March. Another 41 deaths were reported Sunday.The Syrian regime stepped up the violence in the days before the Security Council session to quell resistance and demonstrate its grip on the country.

Ten months after the Syrian people launched an uprising against its ruler, Bashar Assad, if not yet safe in the saddle, has recovered the bulk of his army's support and his grip on most parts of the country

Protesters have mostly been pushed into tight corners in the flashpoint towns and villages, especially in the north, hemmed in by troops and security forces loyal to the president.
Monday, Jan. 30, Syrian forces were close to purging the suburbs and villages around Damascus of rebel fighters. The operation began Sunday with 2,000 troops backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers. Six soldiers were killed when their vehicle blew up on a roadside bomb near Sahnaya, east of the capital.

The rebel Free Syrian Army and opposition groups continue to report heavy fighting in the Damascus area, and especially the international airport where they claim to have prevented Assad's wife and children from fleeing the country. However, military watchers do not confirm either the fighting or the Assad family's attempted flight.

While both sides spin propaganda, the extreme hyperbole of opposition claims attests to their hard straits and the Syrian president's success in weathering their efforts and the huge sacrifices in blood paid by the people (estimated at 8,000 dead and tens of thousands injured) to oust him.
Having got rid of the Arab League monitoring mission, which gave up in despair of halting the savage bloodbath, Assad will shrug off the Arab-Western backed motion put before the UN Security Council Tuesday, Jan. 30, calling on him to step down and hand power to his vice president Farouk a-Shara. He will treat it as yet another failed effort by the combined Arab-Western effort to topple his regime.

The conflict is not over. More ups and downs may still be to come and there are signs of sectarian war evolving. But for now, Assad's survival is of crucial relevance in seven Middle East arenas:
1. The Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah bloc is strengthened, joined most recently by Iraq;

2. Iran chalks up a first-class strategic achievement for counteracting the US and the Saudi-led Gulf Arab emirates' presentation of the Islamic regime as seriously weighed down under by the crushing burden of crushing international sanctions imposed to halt its drive for a nuclear bomb.

3. Hizballah has won a chance to recover from the steep slide of its fortunes in Lebanon. The Pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite group stands to regain the self-assurance which ebbed during Assad's hard times against massive dissidence, re-consolidate its bonds with Tehran, Damascus and Baghdad and rebuild its political clout in Beirut.

4. It is hard to calculate the enormous extent of the damage Saudi Arabia and Turkey have suffered from their colossal failure in Syria. The Palestinians too have not emerged unscathed.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and their security agencies, which invested huge sums in the Syrian rebellion's removal of the Assad regime, were trounced by Syria's security and intelligence services and the resources Iran provided to keep Bashar Assad afloat.

The Arab League, which for the first time tried its hand at intervening in an Arab uprising by sending observers into Syrian trouble spots to cut down the violence, watched impotently as those observers ran for their lives. Assad for his part first accepted than ignored the League's peace plan.

Turkey, too, after indicating its military would step across the border to support the Syrian resistance and giving the FSA bases of operation, backed off for the sake of staying on good terms with Iran.

5. Russia and China have gained credibility in the Middle East and points against the United States by standing up for Assad and pledging their veto votes against any strong UN Security Council motions against him. Moscow's arms sales and naval support for the Assad regime and China's new military and economic accords with Persian Gulf emirates have had the effect of pushing the United States from center stage of the Arab Revolt, held in the Egyptian and Libyan revolutions, to the sidelines of Middle East action.

6. The Syrian ruler has confounded predictions by Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he can't last more than a few weeks. His survival and the cohesion of his armed forces have contributed to the tightening of the Iranian military noose around Israel.
The Syrian army was in sustained operation for almost a year without breaking and suffered only marginal defections. It is still in working shape with valuable experience under its belt in rapid deployment between battlefronts. Syria, Iran and Hizballah have streamlined the cooperation among their armies and their intelligence arms.

7. The Palestinian rivals, Fatah and Hamas, have again put the brakes on the on-again, off-again reconciliation after it was galvanized by Hamas' decision to create some distance between Iran and the embattled Syrian regime. Seeing Assad still in place, Hamas' Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh will visit Tehran this week and Meshaal may delay his departure from the Syrian capital.
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3)The Unvarnished Reality of Contemporary U.S.-Israel Relations

The following article was published in newspaper in Hebrew.

By Barry Rubin

Do not speak of it in public. Do not expect any Israeli official to admit it. But Israel is facing an issue unlike anything it has had to deal with during the past 50 years: It cannot depend on the United States.

True, the relationship in terms of weapons’ supply remains good. Old programs continue to provide advanced arms to Israel. Nor is the problem the one most people think of first: on Israel-Palestinian, “peace process” issues.

President Barack Obama’s Administration has seen that no real progress is possible on that front. It tends to blame Israel in public and Obama intensely dislikes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but those problems have little material effect. If that personal matter were the only issue involved Israel could muddle through as it has with other presidents.

The difficulty with Obama is that his entire strategy in the Middle East is contrary to Israeli interests, except for putting some sanction’ pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear weapons’ program. The greatest threat to Israel today is the rise of radical Islamist regimes. Here is how Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh puts it:

"The Palestinian cause is winning. With the Muslim Brotherhood part of the government [in Egypt], they [the Egyptians] will not besiege Gaza. They will not arrest Palestinians. They will not give cover to Israel to launch a war....Israel is disturbed by this. It knows the strategic environment is changing. Iran is an enemy. Relations are deteriorating with Turkey. With Egypt, they are really cold. Israel is in a security situation they have never been in before."

Even though Israel has faced worst strategic situations and the Islamists are badly divided, Haniyeh has put his finger on the central strategic factor today. Radical Islamists who want to open a new round of battle against Israel now rule or are likely to do so very soon in Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Turkey.

Here is where the problem with the United States comes in. Obama does not really view this trend as a threat. He spent the first half of his term engaging with Iran and its ally Syria. Obama and his administration regards the Islamists as people who are either already moderate or are likely to become so by governing.

This is, of course, the opposite of the Israeli assessment. In Syria, the U.S. government even helped organize and supports an external opposition leadership in which Islamists form the majority even though it is doubtful that this reflects their level of support within the country.

To put it bluntly, the U.S. government does not even recognize the existence of the number-one threat to Israel.

And to make matters worse, the government that Obama looks to for advice, guidance, and interpretation of the region is not Israel but the Islamist regime in Turkey. That government’s sharp turn to a highly emotional anti-Israel policy has not cost it anything at all in terms of its relations with the White House, something that would have been unthinkable under any previous president.

That is why Israel, as well as the Middle East generally, is going to be an important issue in this year’s presidential election. To preserve relations with the United States, Israeli leaders will neither do, nor say anything about that contest. Yet nothing could be more obvious than that Obama’s reelection would be extremely damaging for Israel’s security.

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4)What the Bible Teaches About Capitalism

As the Ten Commandments instruct, envy is corrosive to the individual and to those societies that embrace it.

By ARYEH SPERO

Who would have expected that in a Republican primary campaign the single biggest complaint among candidates would be that the front-runner has taken capitalism too far? As if his success and achievement were evidence of something unethical and immoral? President Obama and other redistributionists must be rejoicing that their assumptions about rugged capitalism and the 1% have been given such legitimacy.

More than any other nation, the United States was founded on broad themes of morality rooted in a specific religious perspective. We call this the Judeo-Christian ethos, and within it resides a ringing endorsement of capitalism as a moral endeavor.

Regarding mankind, no theme is more salient in the Bible than the morality of personal responsibility, for it is through this that man cultivates the inner development leading to his own growth, good citizenship and happiness. The entitlement/welfare state is a paradigm that undermines that noble goal.

The Bible's proclamation that "Six days shall ye work" is its recognition that on a day-to-day basis work is the engine that brings about man's inner state of personal responsibility. Work develops the qualities of accountability and urgency, including the need for comity with others as a means for the accomplishment of tasks. With work, he becomes imbued with the knowledge that he is to be productive and that his well-being is not an entitlement. And work keeps him away from the idleness that Proverbs warns leads inevitably to actions and attitudes injurious to himself and those around him.

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Getty Images

Yet capitalism is not content with people only being laborers and holders of jobs, indistinguishable members of the masses punching in and out of mammoth factories or functioning as service employees in government agencies. Nor is the Bible. Unlike socialism, mired as it is in the static reproduction of things already invented, capitalism is dynamic and energetic. It cheerfully fosters and encourages creativity, unspoken possibilities, and dreams of the individual. Because the Hebrew Bible sees us not simply as "workers" and members of the masses but, rather, as individuals, it heralds that characteristic which endows us with individuality: our creativity.

At the opening bell, Genesis announces: "Man is created in the image of God"—in other words, like Him, with individuality and creative intelligence. Unlike animals, the human being is not only a hunter and gatherer but a creative dreamer with the potential of unlocking all the hidden treasures implanted by God in our universe. The mechanism of capitalism, as manifest through investment and reasoned speculation, helps facilitate our partnership with God by bringing to the surface that which the Almighty embedded in nature for our eventual extraction and activation.

Capitalism makes possible entrepreneurship, which is the realization of an idea birthed in human creativity. Whereas statism demands that citizens think small and bow to a top-down conformity, capitalism, as has been practiced in the U.S., maximizes human potential. It provides a home for aspiration, referred to in the Bible as "the spirit of life."

The Bible speaks positively of payment and profit: "For why else should a man so labor but to receive reward?" Thus do laborers get paid wages for their hours of work and investors receive profit for their investment and risk.

The Bible is not a business-school manual. While it is comfortable with wealth creation and the need for speculation in economic markets, it has nothing to say about financial instruments and models such as private equity, hedge funds or other forms of monetary capitalization. What it does demand is honesty, fair weights and measures, respect for a borrower's collateral, timely payments of wages, resisting usury, and empathy for those injured by life's misfortunes and charity.

It also demands transparency and honesty regarding one's intentions. The command, "Thou shalt not place a stumbling block in front of the blind man" also means that you should not act deceitfully or obscure the truth from those whose choice depends upon the information you give them. There's nothing to indicate that Mitt Romney breached this biblical code of ethics, and his wealth and success should not be seen as automatic causes for suspicion.

No country has achieved such broad-based prosperity as has America, or invented as many useful things, or seen as many people achieve personal promise. This is not an accident. It is the direct result of centuries lived by the free-market ethos embodied in the Judeo-Christian outlook.

Furthermore, only a prosperous nation can protect itself from outside threats, for without prosperity the funds to support a robust military are unavailable. Having radically enlarged the welfare state and hoping to further expand it, President Obama is attempting to justify his cuts to our military by asserting that defense needs must give way to domestic programs.

Both history and the Bible show the way that leads. Countries that were once economic powerhouses atrophied and declined, like England after World War II, once they began adopting socialism. Even King Solomon's thriving kingdom crashed once his son decided to impose onerous taxes.

At the end of Genesis, we hear how after years of famine the people in Egypt gave all their property to the government in return for the promise of food. The architect of this plan was Joseph, son of Jacob, who had risen to become the pharaoh's top official, thus: "Joseph exchanged all the land of Egypt for pharaoh and the land became pharaoh's." The result was that Egyptians became indentured to the ruler and state, and Joseph's descendants ended up enslaved to the state.

Many on the religious left criticize capitalism because all do not end up monetarily equal—or, as Churchill quipped, "all equally miserable." But the Bible's prescription of equality means equality under the law, as in Deuteronomy's saying that "Judges and officers . . . shall judge the people with a just judgment: Do not . . . favor one over the other." Nowhere does the Bible refer to a utopian equality that is contrary to human nature and has never been achieved.

The motive of capitalism's detractors is a quest for their own power and an envy of those who have more money. But envy is a cardinal sin and something that ought not to be.

God begins the Ten Commandments with "I am the Lord your God" and concludes with "Thou shalt not envy your neighbor, not for his wife, nor his house, nor for any of his holdings." Envy is corrosive to the individual and to those societies that embrace it. Nations that throw over capitalism for socialism have made an immoral choice.

Rabbi Spero has led congregations in Ohio and New York and is president of Caucus for America.

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Victim Hood, Hypocrisy and A Poke In The Chest!

2012-01-30T06:33:00.000-08:00

With help from the world press, media and bleeding hearts the Palestinians have been able to win the propaganda war supporting their 'victim hood status.'

Amazing, that after 60 years and billions of aid they still remain victims. In truth, their victim hood, is a by product of their own misguided and corrupt leadership and their own willing follow ship.

The world loves victims and it gives the media and news folks something to write about and wring their pens over. (See 1 below.)
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Buchanan snarls a lot but on this matter I happen to agree it is time to be outspoken. Like (1 below) there is too much hypocrisy associated with claims of black victim hood.(See 2 below.)

Then please watch "THE VOTE PUMP" By Bill Whittle for some revealing information:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u24nH03NccI#! |
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Have no way of verifying but often correct. (See 3 below.)
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Maureen Dowd pokes a finger into President Solyndra's chest. (See 4 below.)
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Humor abounds and runs aground:

# How do they serve alcoholic drinks on Italian cruise ships? - On the rocks

# What vegetables do you get with dinner on Italian cruise ships? - Leeks

# What's the fastest way to get off an Italian cruise ship? - Follow the captain

# When the captain of the ill fated Costa Concordia was asked if he knew where he was going he replied "off course."

# So the captain of the Costa Concordia will soon be in the dock. That's more than can be said for his ship.
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Dick
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1)The Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood
By Michael Curtis

A debatable aspect of modern thought is the thesis that the full truth is unknowable and that the interpretation of historical events and present behavior is a "narrative" reflecting the interests of the group that creates it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the narrative created by the Palestinians and their supporters -- a narrative which is used as the basis of an ideological campaign aimed at condemning the State of Israel and undermining its moral fabric.

The building blocks of this narrative are the "original sin" of the creation of Israel, the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948; the belief in Israeli responsibility for violence and the various wars in the Middle East; the conviction that Israel deliberately created the Palestinian refugee situation by preventing their return to the homeland; and the supposed indignities and injustices done to Palestinians who have become victims of Israeli aggression and colonialism.

All of the elements in this false narrative have become instrumental in the campaign to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and even to call for its elimination. But it is the last point, the concept of Palestinian victimhood, which has fueled international support for the Palestinian cause. It accounts for the obsessive concentration on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by so many who view it as the world's most important and dangerous encounter, disregarding the millions killed or oppressed in other countries today.

The narrative of victimhood uses myths and symbols as well as a controversial interpretation of events and actions. Its language at times becomes wildly extreme. Palestinians are termed the "new Jews" suffering a "new Holocaust." Jews are the new Nazis. Excessive rhetoric and idiosyncratic judgments of this kind are rarely, if ever, applied to the truly despotic and authoritarian regimes in the world that commit crimes against humanity and violations of human rights that are not censured.

The narrative denies Jewish historic national identity. The Palestinians have gone so far in efforts to bolster the argument against Jewish connection to the land as to destroy the archeological evidence of the ancient kingdom of Judea. Nor do they accept the Western Wall in Jerusalem as a Jewish historic site.

The formulation of the Palestinian narrative of victimhood is pernicious in a double-sense. It poisons the attitude to Israel and prevents any kind of accommodation or possible negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peaceful settlement of the long conflict. It also reinforces the Palestinians' rejection to take positive action to help resolve their problems and becomes an excuse for the failure to develop an infrastructure for their own society or to take advantage of opportunities to found a sovereign state of their own -- opportunities going back as far as the Peel Commission of 1937.

Equally important is the fact that Israel is the political canary warning of the presence of poisonous political traits that intimate impending danger to the world, particularly to the United States and Western democracies. When Western critics concur in the validity of the Palestinian narrative, they take on the stance of moral relativism. They become appeasers with a mindset that has as its outcome an inability or refusal to defend the West against contemporary threats and the clear and present danger to its culture and way of life. At its worst, this leads to the view that the West is in decline, that the "war on terror" is unwinnable or should not be fought, or that the West is to be eternally found guilty for its past colonial empires and activity.
The world has been through this before. Those who ardently accept the Palestinian narrative of victimhood are like the people who willingly believed the Nazi and Stalinist narratives, equally blind to the realities of those horrific totalitarian regimes. Some of those people were well-meaning, but they were of the kind that Lenin once called "political idiots."

To gain a sense of how events are manipulated to create the Palestinian narrative, it's useful to look at some particular examples. Rachel Corrie, who worked with the International Solidarity Movement, was accidently killed in Gaza in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer that she was deliberately trying to block. She quickly became a symbol of heroic defiance against Israel. The narrative has penetrated the literary, artistic, and theatrical worlds. In her eight-minute play, "Seven Jewish Children," produced in London in 2009, Caryl Churchill builds the plot around the alleged bad treatment by Israelis of Palestinian babies, evoking the historic blood libel charge against Jews.

The Palestinian narrative has benefited from a fanciful, romantic presentation of the superior virtue of Palestinians, regardless of their actual behavior. In this fairy tale, the Palestinians are seen as the embodiment of "the wretched of the earth," the phrase used by Franz Fanon to justify the Algerian struggle against France.

By proclaiming their lack of human rights and their victimhood, the Palestinians have been able to enlist political, economic, military, diplomatic, and propaganda support from individuals and groups who are sympathetic to those they see as subjugated. They have become the main symbol of the oppressed of the world, to the misfortune of Israel.

Using Jews as scapegoats supposedly responsible for most of the problems of the world is a trope of traditional anti-Semitism. By tortuous logic, Israel has become the scapegoat for racism, oppression, and colonialism in the contemporary world. Jewish nationalism is identified as imperialist and racist, while Palestinian nationalism is the nationalism of "the oppressed."
The Palestinians face real problems, as does Israel. It is time to state forthrightly that the Palestinian narrative as presently conceived, with its inherent anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, does not lead to equity for the Palestinians or to steps towards peace. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians can be achieved only when the Palestinians abandon their fallacious narrative and are willing to accept the existence and legitimacy of a Jewish state.

Michael Curtis is a distinguished professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University and the author of the forthcoming book Should Israel Exist?: A sovereign nation under attack by the international community.
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2)BUCHANAN TO OBAMA
By Patrick J. Buchanan

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America. Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60's on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona. And Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids? Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Taiwan Brawly, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. This needs to be passed around because, this is a message everyone needs to hear and I am tired of being silent!
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3)US anticipates May as tentative date for clash with Iran. Floating SEALs base for Gulf
boats

A hurried decision not to de-commission the USS Ponce helicopter marine carrier after duty in Libya - but to refit it for deployment by May in the Persian Gulf as a floating base for commando teams - was confirmed by the US Pentagon and Navy Sunday, Jan. 29. This transportable floating base will expand the commandos' range in coastal areas and support counter-measure against mines which Iran has threatened to plant in the Strait of Hormuz in reprisal for the US-EU oil embargo. The SEALs will also take on Iran's menacing fleet of military speedboats.

Tehran operates four different kinds of these craft in the Persian Gulf:

1. Small, fast vessels, each armed with a small missile for striking tankers and coastal oil targets around the Gulf region, such as export terminals. Earlier this month, Tehran claimed to have developed stealth cruise missiles capable of disabling aircraft carriers with a single shot.

2. Small, extra-fast boats armed with torpedoes. Iranian publications claim several such boats are capable of stealing up on US aircraft carriers and large warships from several directions without being detected and cause serious damage.

3. Floating bombs for kamikaze missions. These fast boats cannot be deflected after locking in on target, whether on sea or shore, and explode on contact.

Iran used these floating missiles piloted by suicide squads to attack oil tankers in the Gulf in November 1987. Since then, their naval tacticians have upgraded this fleet with the technology gained from the British Bladerunner 51, a model of which Iran purchased some years ago.
Since early January, the Pentagon has reported four cases of harassment by Iranian military boats sailing close to American warships in the Persian Gulf.

4. Boats carrying teams of Iranian marine frogmen trained for secret suicide underwater missions: One member of the boat's three-man crew dives close to the targeted ship and attaches a magnetic bomb to its hull.

Iran has scattered hundreds of speedboats of different types around uninhabited islands off the Iranian mainland, tucking them out of sight in well-hidden inlets and bays. The US commando teams based on the Ponce platform will have the task of ferreting out and destroying this fleet.
The US Defense Department aims to get the Ponce ready for its new mission as a floating commando base with all possible speed. To save time, the US military published one no-bid contract for the engineering work, waiving normal procurement rules on the grounds that any delay presented a "national security risk."

The contract carries pointers to the timeline expected in Washington for a military confrontation to erupt between the United States and Iran, as well as the form it may take, according to military sources.

The target date for deploying the commando platform in the Persian Gulf in four or five months indicates Washington is preparing for military clashes with Iran in the late spring or early summer.

The Iranian administration has expressed determination to respond instantly to any diplomatic or military move or action of an offensive nature against the Islamic Republic. And so confrontation may come earlier than anticipated.

Sunday, the Iranian parliament was due to vote on a motion to cut off oil supplies to Europe in response to the EU embargo declared last week. Tehran has made it clear it has no intention of standing idly until US and European oil sanctions go fully into effect on July 1 and knows that EU nations are not set up to forego 400,000 barrels of oil a day right now.

Saudi Arabia, which pledged to make up the shortfall arising from oil sanctions against Iran, will not have the missing quantities on stream before May – at about the same time as the Ponce and its complement of SEAL commandoes are due to take up position in the Persian Gulf. Tehran may decide not to wait and opt for letting its speedboats loose before then to try and pre-empt American and European plans.
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4)Tension on the Tarmac
By MAUREEN DOWD

WHAT is it with Barack Obama’s penchant for getting in tangles with blond politicians on airport tarmacs?

Usually, tarmacs are for joyous welcomes or teary goodbyes. But No Drama Obama saves his rare tempests for the runway.

In the last primary season, the tension in the relationship between Hillary Clinton, who had expected to glide to the nomination, and the upstart younger senator from Illinois came to a head one day in December 2007 as both were preparing to board their planes in Washington to go to an Iowa debate.

Hillary had sent word that she wanted to talk to Obama. Standing in front of her plane, she apologized to him for the comments of her co-chairman in New Hampshire, Billy Shaheen, who had warned that Republicans would pounce on Obama’s confessions of cocaine and marijuana use.

But given the opening, Obama dived in, telling Clinton that she should intervene to stop the pattern of insinuations and attacks by her supporters, including one by a volunteer in Iowa who had forwarded an e-mail claiming Obama was a Muslim.

That’s when Hillary got upset and began gesticulating, giving Obama a piece of her mind about what she saw as unfair attacks on his side. Obama gently put his hand on her arm “to chill her out,” as an aide later told me.

But Hillary did not like it, feeling she was being held in place and patronized, even “manhandled,” as her aide put it to a reporter.

On Wednesday, Obama had another bristly tarmac moment with Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, who met Air Force One when the president landed in Phoenix. The toxic dominatrix of illegal immigration, the woman who turned every Latino in her state into a suspect, was flustered and gesticulating at the president as he put his hand on her arm to chill her out. Brewer complained afterward that she had felt “unnerved” and “a little bit threatened” by Obama and that he had walked away while she was in midsentence.

Brewer told Monica Crowley, subbing for Sean Hannity on Fox News, that she had given the president a letter inviting him to join her at the border to discuss enforcement. She said he shot back that her account of a 2010 Oval Office meeting on the topic, published in her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border,” was distorted.

“He was patronizing,” Brewer wrote about the president in her book, adding: “He’s treating me like the cop he had over for a beer after he bad-mouthed the Cambridge police.” (The president’s recent performances are boosting sales of Brewer’s book and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”)

With typical Fox balance, Crowley told Governor Brewer that she admired her for “getting in the president’s grill,” adding, “You go, girl.”

The president can be thin-skinned, but the governor can be fat-headed. The Constitution is more threatened by Brewer’s racial profiling than the governor was by the president’s fact-checking. Brewer’s grasp of facts is tenuous, after all: she told The Arizona Republic in 2010 that her father died fighting the Nazis in Germany, when he died a decade after the end of the war, which he spent working at an ammunition factory in Nevada.

Both of Obama’s tarmac tiffs worked in his favor. After his encounter with Hillary, he told advisers that it was the first time he knew he could beat her because he saw fear in her eyes.

After his brouhaha with Brewer, dubbed “the dust-up in the desert,” he became a hero to the Hispanics he had gone West to court. They loved seeing their Cruella de Vil get dressed down.

Everything is breaking Barry’s way, as Mitt and Newt rip into each other in vicious ads and debates like alligators going after house pets.

Romney was tutored in Florida by Brett O’Donnell, a new debate coach. Too bad he can’t find a conviction coach.

O’Donnell manned up Mittens and taught him how to pummel Newt in “moments of strength,” as the Republican strategist Alex Castellanos calls them. The funny thing is that the reason Gingrich soared in South Carolina, before faltering here, was that Republicans are so afraid of debates with the president that they are obsessed with sending forth their toughest adversary for him.

They seem to have forgotten that, while Obama has had dazzling moments of strength in executing Osama and in swashbuckling derring-do against Somali pirates — if not in dealing with Congress — he was no Abe Lincoln in debates. He did not like debating, and Michelle urged him to be more visceral. He often faded onstage because he stubbornly refused to accept debates as alpha combat rather than beta seminars. He disdained anything he saw as superficial politics, from sound bites to macho put-downs.

If Obama continues to resist the gladiatorial subtext, while Romney embraces it, the debates could be more evenly matched than the Republicans dare to dream.
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"The Artist," an An Absolute Must See Movie!

2012-01-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

Just came from the silent movie "The Artist." An absolute must see. Fabulous acting.
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Italian Cruise ship captain, Francesco Schettino,
began his new job as a bus driver yesterday.....

Do the two above pictures have a correlation?
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One of my fraternity brothers receives some articulate e mails from his friend and I thought this was worth posting. (See 1 below.)
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This also from a friend and memo reader. Her Marine son just shipped out to Afghanistan. (See 2 below.)
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Gov Brewer's explanation of what happened on the tarmac. Go Brewer. (See 3 below.)
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President Polarization now officially recorded. (See 4 below.)

Meanhile, Investor's Business Daily editorializes Obama is smothering the recovery with his regulations etc. (See 4a below.)
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America's lumbering high profile fleet 's vulnerability. (See 5 below.)
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Not to be an alarmist but please read this. I don't even own a cell phone. Might be forced to get one. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1) OBAMA’S VISION FOR AMERICA
THE NEXT FOUR GREAT YEARS

FIRST, LET’S LOOK AT THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION:
· A FEDERAL DEFICIT WHICH IS FORCING A MASSIVE REDUCTION IN OUR DEFENSE CAPABILITIES…AT A TIME WHEN THERE ARE MORE HOT CONFLICTS AROUND THE WORLD THREATENING OUR SECURITY THAN AT ANY TIME IN OUR HISTORY
· FEDERAL SPENDING OF MONIES WE DON’T HAVE WHICH CONTINUES UNABATED IN ALL OF THE ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS
· A TAX CODE WHICH DEFIES DEFINITION, PREVENTS FEDERAL REVENUE PROJECTIONS AND LITERALLY OBSTRUCTS TAX COLLECTION
· AN UNYIELDING UNEMPLOYED BASE OF 15 MILLION AMERICANS
· A DECLARED ENEMY NATION – IRAN – WHICH IS SOON TO HAVE ATOMIC BOMBS…IN ABSOLUTE DEFIANCE OF WORLD OPINION AND U.S. POLICY
· A STRATEGIC REGION OF THE WORLD (MIDDLE EAST) WHICH IS ENGAGED IN BLOODY STRUGGLES FOR SELF-DETERMINATION (THE ARAB SPRING) AND WHICH SEEMS TO BE MIGRATING TO ISLAMIST DOMINATION AND A RESULTANT ABROGATION OF ALL UNDERSTANDINGS WITH AMERICA
· A RENEWAL OF TERROR AND MURDER IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
· AN ALLEGED ALLY (PAKISTAN) WHOSE SECURITY APPARATUS CONTINUALLY SUPPORTS TERRORIST ACTIVITIES AGAINST THE U.S.
· AN AMERICAN ECONOMY WHICH CONTINUES TO WALLOW IN A NON-GROWTH MODE
· AN ALMOST TOTAL LOSS OF DOMESTIC AMERICAN MANUFACTURING FACTORIES…THE BLUE COLLAR IS NOW THE FRAYED COLLAR…OUT OF WORK, OUT OF HOPE AND OUT OF SIGHT
· AN UNSTOPPABLE, RUN-AWAY FREIGHT TRAIN…MEDICAL CARE COSTS…WITH NO PLAN TO BRING IT UNDER CONTROL

SO HOW DOES PRESIDENT OBAMA PLAN TO DEAL WITH THIS MENU OF THREATS TO THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE? HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE…HERE IS HIS GREAT VISION OF THE NEXT FOUR YEARS:

· TAX CODE ADJUSTMENTS TO ENCOURAGE HIGH-TECH MANUFACTURING LIKE SOLYANDRA
· NEW WATCH-DOG AGENCIES TO CHASE CHINESE DVD PIRATES
· A PRESIDENTIAL MANDATE TO ALL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO “STAY IN SCHOOL OR ELSE”!
· FAIRNESS…NOT JOB CREATION TO BE THE DRIVER IN NEW TAX CODE REVISIONS…A MODIFICATION OF THE LENIN/MAO MANIFESTO FOR INCOME REDISTRIBUTION.
· HERE IS OBAMA’S RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION,”WOULD YOU SUPPORT INCREASING THE CAPITAL GAINS TAX IF IT RESULTED IN DECREASED GOVERNMENT REVENUES?” OBAMA SAID “YES…IN THE NAME OF FAIRNESS”.
· HIS SPEECH DID NOT MENTION OBAMA CARE, THE STIMULUS, IRAN, A PROGRAM FOR REAL ECONOMIC GROWTH, REDUCING THE DEFICIT…OTHER THAN TAXING THE RICH…WHO ARE NOT PAYING THEIR “FAIR SHARE”. NO MENTION OF THE FACT THAT IF THE GOVERNMENT CONFISCATED 100% OF INCOME OF THESE FAT CATS IT WOULDN’T AMOUNT TO A DECIMAL POINT IN OUR NATIONAL DEBT!
· IT’S ALL ABOUT FAIRNESS…NOT GROWTH AND NOT SECURITY
· IT’S NOT ABOUT A PRESERVATION OF THE AMERICAN FREE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM WHICH BUILT THIS NATION
· IT WAS ALL ABOUT GETTING VOTES BY CREATING A TARGET FOR AMERICAN FRUSTRATIONS

THAT IS OBAMA’S GREAT VISION FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS! IF THE REPUBLICANS CANNOT BETTER THAT VISION, THEY SHOULD ALL SEEK A CAREER CHANGE!

ABE BERNSTEIN
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2)Obama to the nation: Onward civilian soldiers
By George F. Will

War, said James Madison, is “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” Randolph Bourne, the radical essayist killed by the influenza unleashed by World War I, warned, “War is the health of the state.” Hence Barack Obama’s State of the Union hymn: Onward civilian soldiers, marching as to war.

Obama, an unfettered executive wielding a swollen state, began and ended his address by celebrating the armed forces. They are not “consumed with personal ambition,” they “work together” and “focus on the mission at hand” and do not “obsess over their differences.” Americans should emulate troops “marching into battle,” who “rise or fall as one unit.”

Well. The armed services’ ethos, although noble, is not a template for civilian society, unless the aspiration is to extinguish politics. People marching in serried ranks, fused into a solid mass by the heat of martial ardor, proceeding in lock step, shoulder to shoulder, obedient to orders from a commanding officer — this is a recurring dream of progressives eager to dispense with tiresome persuasion and untidy dissension in a free, tumultuous society.

Progressive presidents use martial language as a way of encouraging Americans to confuse civilian politics with military exertions, thereby circumventing an impediment to progressive aspirations — the Constitution and the patience it demands. As a young professor, Woodrow Wilson had lamented that America’s political parties “are like armies without officers.” The most theoretically inclined of progressive politicians, Wilson was the first president to criticize America’s founding. This he did thoroughly, rejecting the Madisonian system of checks and balances — the separation of powers, a crucial component of limited government — because it makes a government that cannot be wielded efficiently by a strong executive.

Franklin Roosevelt agreed. He complained about “the three-horse team of the American system”: “If one horse lies down in the traces or plunges off in another direction, the field will not be plowed.” And progressive plowing takes precedence over constitutional equipoise among the three branches of government. Hence FDR’s attempt to break the Supreme Court to his will by enlarging it.

In his first inaugural address, FDR demanded “broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” He said Americans must “move as a trained and loyal army” with “a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.” The next day, addressing the American Legion, Roosevelt said it was “a mistake to assume that the virtues of war differ essentially from the virtues of peace.” In such a time, dissent is disloyalty.

Yearnings for a command society were common and respectable then. Commonweal, a magazine for liberal Catholics, said that Roosevelt should have “the powers of a virtual dictatorship to reorganize the government.” Walter Lippmann, then America’s preeminent columnist, said: “A mild species of dictatorship will help us over the roughest spots in the road ahead.” The New York Daily News, then the nation’s largest-circulation newspaper, cheerfully editorialized: “A lot of us have been asking for a dictator. Now we have one. . . . It is Roosevelt. . . . Dictatorship in crises was ancient Rome’s best era.” The New York Herald Tribune titled an editorial “For Dictatorship if Necessary.”

Obama, aspiring to command civilian life, has said that in reforming health care, he would have preferred an “elegant, academically approved” plan without “legislative fingerprints on it” but “unfortunately” he had to conduct “negotiations with a lot of different people.” His campaign mantra “We can’t wait!” expresses progressivism’s impatience with our constitutional system of concurrent majorities. To enact and execute federal laws under Madison’s institutional architecture requires three, and sometimes more, such majorities. There must be majorities in the House and Senate, each body having distinctive constituencies and electoral rhythms. The law must be affirmed by the president, who has a distinctive electoral base and election schedule. Supermajorities in both houses of Congress are required to override presidential vetoes. And a Supreme Court majority is required to sustain laws against constitutional challenges.

“We can’t wait!” exclaims Obama, who makes recess appointments when the Senate is not in recess, multiplies “czars” to further nullify the Senate’s constitutional prerogative to advise and consent, and creates agencies (e.g., Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board and Dodd-Frank’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) untethered from legislative accountability.

Like other progressive presidents fond of military metaphors, he rejects the patience of politics required by the Constitution he has sworn to uphold.
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3)Gov. Brewer On Her Tarmac Encounter with President Obama
By Elise Cooper

On January 25^th of this year President Obama showed just how unpresidential he is with the confrontation of Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ). She had every intention to hand him a letter suggesting they meet to discuss Arizona and to welcome him to her state. American Thinker interviewed the Governor about the incident.

The Governor waited on the tarmac as the President approached. Shortly into the conversation, instead of warm wishes, the President brought up her quote about him in her book, Scorpions For Breakfast. She stated in the book,

"But after a few minutes the president's tone got serious -- and condescending. He proceeded to lecture me about everything he was doing to promote 'comprehensive immigration reform'...he didn't mention the violence on the border, the drug cartels, or the enormous costs being borne by the citizens of states like Arizona...It wasn't long before I realized I was hearing the president's stump speech...His mind seemed made up...He was patronizing...He thinks he can humor me and then get rid of me. I listened to about ten minutes of this. Finally, the president's lecture ended and it was my turn...But now I was ready to give him a piece of my mind..."

The Governor told American Thinker that she was disappointed that she could not tell the President what she had intended, that "Arizona rose in job growth from 47^th to the top ten, and balanced the budget. I wanted to explain how we did this by putting a moratorium on rules and regulations to turn the state around. I was hoping to tell him I was grateful he came to see us. Unfortunately, I did not get to talk with him about any of that. He turned immediately to my book and told me he didn't like the way he was portrayed in it. It unnerved me to say the least. It is my book and my opinion and I have not been challenged on any of the data," including by the President who had over two months to comment on it since its release date.

Because there are those in his administration who criticize without even reading the document, American Thinker wondered if the Governor asked the President, had he read her book? The answer she received from him was "I read excerpts." Governor Brewer continued, "The book is about border security. He has not come to the border with me and frankly he appeared more concerned with talking about what I said about him in the book and how he was offended. Its all about him, not our national security."

Of course some in the media as well as the President are trying to spin it that the Governor was the disrespectful one since she pointed her finger at him. She described herself as being "animated and I speak with my hands. I was not disrespectful, he was. He walked away from me in mid-sentence. I felt brushed aside."

She was obviously not disrespectful when in the hand-written letter of January 25^th, given to the President, she wrote "respectfully," and in her book she states, "I hadn't interrupted the president because I respect the office, and I was determined to show respect." She commented directly that, "I would always be respectful to the office of the President of the US."

She should not be concerned about the criticism since it appears that there is a pattern here. As reported in the Washington Post: President Obama snapped at Congressman Eric Holder (R-VA) during a debt-ceiling discussion and abruptly walked out; and Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) noted that he felt accosted by the President regarding a letter he had sent. He was quoted, "President Obama had personalized this and he was upset. There was not a word about the oil spill. He was concerned about looking bad because of the letter."

On Friday, January 27^th President Obama on Diane Sawyer's ABC interview, commented about the incident, "Its always good publicity for a Republican to get in an argument with me." Actually, Mr. President you have it wrong: it's you that likes to get into arguments with Republicans, not so much for the publicity but because you are petty, thin-skinned, and way too sensitive about criticism. Governor Brewer summarized it best, "The President's feelings were hurt because of what I said in my book. Instead, he should be thinking about the economy, about jobs, and about border security." Maybe instead of reading excerpts the President should take the time to read all of her book, Scorpions For Breakfast

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4)The Most Polarizing President Ever

By Peter Wehner

It’s official now. Barack Obama’s ratings are “historically polarized,” according to a new Gallup survey.

Jeffrey Jones of the Gallup organization writes, “The historically high gap between partisans’ job approval ratings of Barack Obama continued during Obama’s third year in office, with an average of 80 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans approving of the job he was doing… The 68-point gap between partisans’ approval ratings of Obama last year is nine points higher than that for any other president’s third year.” Obama, by the way, holds the record for the most polarized first and second years in office, too. Which means Obama has set a record for polarization every year he’s been in office.

So now is as good a time as any to remind people one of the core claims made by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign wasn’t simply that he would heal the planet; he would also heal the nation’s political breach. He would elevate the national debate. Reason would prevail over emotion. He would do away with what he called the “50 plus one” style of governing. Obama would “turn the page” on the “old politics” of division and anger. He would end a politics that “breeds division and conflict and cynicism.” He would help us to “rediscover our bonds to each other and … get out of this constant petty bickering that’s come to characterize our politics.” He would “cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past.”

“I will listen to you,” Obama said on a stage in Grant Park on the night of his election, “especially when we disagree.”

His election, he informed us, was a sign we had “chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” On the day of his inauguration he came to proclaim “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

“The time has come to set aside childish things,” he told us on the day of his inauguration. And to paraphrase the Book of Isaiah, a community organizer shall lead us.

Where Obama has led us, it turns out, is to as much polarization as we have ever seen. Our divisions are deeper than they were. Our common ground is less than we could have imagined. Conflict and discord prevail over unity of purpose. Petty bickering characterizes our politics. Obama has wrapped himself in worn-out ideas and the politics of the past. And we have not even fully engaged in the 2012 presidential campaign, which will make our present disunity look like the land of milk and honey.

Whatever the cause of our divisions – and they are many and complicated – it was Barack Obama who said he would bind up the wounds. This promise was at the centerpiece of his campaign, the heart of his appeal, the meaning behind “hope and change.” And now it lies in ashes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------4a)The $1.2 Tril Gap: Obama's Subpar Recovery Continues

Economy: The latest economic data make it clear that President Obama's policies aren't helping the country get stronger. Rather, they're smothering what should have been a solid recovery.

Real GDP climbed a less-than-expected 2.8% in final quarter of 2011, and just 1.7% for the entire year, down from 3% in 2010. The trend of subpar growth under Obama continues.

To get a better sense of how bad Obama's recovery is, consider this: Under Obama, real GDP has climbed a total of just 6% in the two-and-a-half years since the recession ended in June 2009.

By comparison, real GDP had grown 16% by this point in the Reagan recovery, after the very deep and painful 1981-82 recession.

Had Obama's recovery been as powerful as Reagan's, the economic pie would be $1.2 trillion bigger today.

And had job growth under Obama kept pace with job growth during the Reagan recovery, there would be 10 million — yes 10 million — more people with jobs today.

So what explains the difference between these two recoveries? Obama and his legion of liberal defenders claim the last recession was so deep that we're just now getting back on our feet.

Plus, they claim that a financial crisis invariably causes a slow recovery.

But even that didn't stop a rip-roaring comeback.Neither excuse holds water. First, the 1981-82 recession was almost as long (16 months vs. 18 months), and as deep (unemployment was actually higher, peaking at 10.8% in that earlier recession).

Second, a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta report found: "U.S. history provides no support for linking low employment and high unemployment in the current recovery with the financial crisis of 2007-2008."

Plus, nobody at the time expected the Reagan recovery to be as fast and as powerful as it was.

So what's different? The presidents' policies.

Reagan enacted sweeping and permanent tax cuts, aggressively eliminated or reduced regulations, reined in domestic spending, and championed the private sector.

Obama's approach has been the opposite — a huge increase in regulations; meager, targeted and temporary tax cuts; a massive increase in size and scope of the federal government; and a barrage of invective against businessmen and the wealthy. Obama has bashed Reagan's approach, saying that cutting taxes and regulations "has never worked" to spur growth.

Obama might think the U.S. is "getting stronger," as he put it in his State of the Union speech, and maybe it is, a little. But if he keeps choking it with his misguided policies, it will never be as strong as it could be, or should be.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5) From Christian Science Monitor:

How Iran Could Beat Up On America's Superior Military.

America's defense budget is roughly 90 times bigger than Iran's. But Iran has a well-honed strategy of asymmetric warfare.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey--Tehran has stepped up its bellicose warnings of conflict in the Persian Gulf as potentially crippling new European Union and American sanctions have been approved on Iran's oil exports and central bank.

The US defied the warning of a top Iranian general this week and sent the USS Abraham Lincoln – flanked by British and French warships – through the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf. A senior Iranian lawmaker scoffed that the US "did not dare" to send its ship alone, because of the danger posed by the Islamic Republic. If Iran were to close the strategic waterway, as it has threatened to do, the American aircraft carriers "will become the war booty of Iran," he declared.

Such bluster is not all talk. The US may outspend the Islamic Republic nearly 90-to-1 on defense. But Iran, heir to ancient Persia's naval innovation, has a well-honed asymmetric strategy designed to reverse that advantage.

A 2002 US military exercise simulating such a conflict proved devastating to American warships.

Indeed, Iran can cause immense harm, analysts say, without ever directly facing off against far superior conventional US forces. Even a few incidents – like mines laid in the Gulf, or Iran's small-boat swarming tactics against oil tankers or a US Navy ship – could raise fears of insecurity to unacceptably high levels.

It could also have far-reaching economic consequences, including a spike in oil prices, since roughly a third of all seaborne oil shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz – making it the single most important choke point for oil tankers in the world.

"[Iran's] final aim is not to physically close [the strait] for too long, but to drive up shipping insurance and other costs to astronomical heights – which is just as good, in terms of economic damage, as the physical closing of the strait," says a former senior European diplomat who recently finished a six-year tour in Tehran.

"If you are not sure whether you will get hit, or if you get hit not by conventional force but some wild boat that might float around in the sea – or a mine or two – that will create far more insecurity than a battle line where the strait is closed," he says.

And Iranian harassing tactics are just the start, he adds. Other layers include artillery and rockets stationed at the Strait of Hormuz, Kilo submarines, and mini-submarines from which divers can be sent out to damage ships.

Many options short of full-blown war

Iran's conventional military forces are often aging and of limited capability. Iran spent just $7 billion on defense compared to America's $619 billion defense budget in 2008, the latest year for which Iran's data was available, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's database.

Iran's strategy of asymmetric warfare recognizes that, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has little chance of winning any face-to-face military contest with powerful enemies like the United States.

Instead, Iran aims to "exploit enemy vulnerabilities through the used of 'swarming' tactics by well-armed small boats and fast-attack craft, to mount surprise attacks at unexpected times and places" which will "ultimately destroy technologically superior enemy forces," writes Iranian military expert Fariborz Haghshenass in a 2008 study based on published doctrines of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In any future fight, Iran would likely "avoid escalating the conflict in a way that would play to US strengths in waging mid- to high-intensity warfare – by employing discreet tactics such as covert mine-laying, limited submarine options, and occasional mobile shore-based attacks," writes Mr. Haghshenass, in the study for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In fact, Iran has many options short of a direct challenge in the Persian Gulf.

"Iran could seek to create perpetual, low-grade instability in the strait, mostly through asymmetric means, with the objective of making it an aquatic 'no-man's land,' " says Reza Sanati, in an analysis published by the Tehran Bureau/PBS Frontline website. "For Iran, the choice is not 'to close' or 'not to close,' but rather to clog. A major global choke point, once considered safe, would no longer be so."

The US "would be drawn into providing the manpower and bearing the exorbitant cost for removing the impediments," adds Mr. Sanati, while the risk of inadvertently sparking a war would "vastly multiply."

Devastating result for US in war game

Iran's asymmetric focus is no secret. It has sought to enhance deterrence by claiming repeated triumphs during large military exercises, and by fielding new hardware, from super-fast torpedoes and to kamikaze drones.

During the "Great Prophet V" exercise in April 2010, for example, the IRGC Navy trumpeted the launch of a new "ultra-fast" watercraft that it claimed was less detectable by radar. Across the shimmering Gulf waters, Iran fielded 300 boats in a swarming attack, with commandos landing on one of the target warships.

"The Strait of Hormuz belongs to the region and foreigners must not intervene in it," military spokesman Ali Reza Tangsiri said at the time.

That warning echoed the words of a ranking Iranian cleric in 2008 that the "first shot" fired against Iran would turn the Israeli capital Tel Aviv and the US fleet in the Persian Gulf into "the targets that would be set on fire in Iran's crushing response."

More than a decade earlier, in 1997, then-IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei said "Iran will never start any war," but if the US attacked first "we will turn the region into a slaughterhouse for them. There is no greater place than the Persian Gulf to destroy America's might."

Could Iran do it?

It would seem so, in light of a $250 million classified US war game called Millennium Challenge 2002. The gaming scenario hypothetically pitted the Blue Team (representing US warships) against a Red Team that launched a coordinated assault using swarming boats and missiles – the kind of tactics Iran might employ.

In the game, 16 American ships, including an aircraft carrier and most of its strike group, were sunk before the exercise was suspended and the parameters controversially changed to ensure a US victory.

The Red Team commander, Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, told the New York Times in 2008, "The sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack.” He said he had been inspired by Marine Corps studies of the natural world, where everything from ant colonies to wolf packs took on larger prey.

"It is not a matter of size or of individual capability, but whether you have the numbers to come from multiple directions in a short period of time," said Van Riper.

(My Note: Lots of high level unhappiness over Van Riper's strategy which embarrassed the U. S. blue team. The story locally was that they claimed he "didn't play fairly." One report said he was ordered to change his enemy scenario, he refused, and left the war game. Don't know if that is true or not. He was in retirement and had been invited to be the Red Team Commander at the time.)

Since then, American naval strategists have worked to overcome the vulnerabilities of conventional warships to swarm tactics. One solution has been a US Navy project to build a “littoral combat ship” (LCS), designed to operate at high speeds and close-to-shore, with shallow draft and capable of launching helicopters, assault boats and submarines. Only two have been built, the project plagued by delays and cost overruns.

The LCS fits Iran's coastal waters and its methods, and is designed "to counter growing potential 'asymmetric' threat of coastal mines, quiet diesel submarines, and the potential to carry explosives and terrorists on small, fast, armed boats," according to the website www.naval-technology.com.

Iranian units given great independence

Iran also appears to have learned from the 2002 US exercise, just as it learned from a 1988 incident during the Tanker War in the Persian Gulf, when US forces sunk or damaged three Iranian warships in a single day, to retaliate for an American ship hitting a mine.

Part of Iran's strategy includes decentralized decisionmaking.

"The entire [IRGC] structure – if you look at how air defense is organized, the land forces, the combination of the Basij [militia] and the [IRGC] – this is all geared toward what they call the Mosaic Strategy, where you have individual military units who have a great deal of independence to decide what they can do without referring back to the center," says the former European diplomat.

Haghshenass explains one way this could play out in the Gulf.

"In the naval arena, speedboats will be taken out of camouflaged coastal or inland hide sites and bunkers, hauled on trailers to coastal release points, and given mission-type orders that will not require them to remain in contact with their chain of command," he writes.

But Iran's retaliation would not likely be limited to the strait.

"This is only one aspect of their deterrent strategy. Threats about Iraq and Afghanistan... there is Hezbollah and Hamas they could activate," says the diplomat, referring to the militant groups active on Israel's borders. "There is a whole array of deterrent strategies they have put into place, and the Strait of Hormuz is just one aspect. [T]hey have made it very clear the last few years that they have this whole portfolio, and will use it all in case of a military attack."

Labyrinth of ports and 'spiritual' superiority

Historically, the fleets of ancient Persia sailed far afield, and in the Mediterranean used "spy ships, disguised as foreign merchantmen and small warships for clandestine operations," notes Haghshenass's analysis. Ancient Persians, during the reign of Xerxes, "invented the concept of naval infantry."

The geography of Iran's southern coastline hasn't changed, and with 10 large ports and 60 small ones – and an endless labyrinth of fishing villages, inlets, and coves – it is ideal for staging the kind of hit-and-run and stealth operations envisioned by the Iranian strategy.

With a daily transit rate of 3,000 boats and ships in the strait, US forces could have trouble differentiating friend from foe, providing Iran with an upper hand.

And Iranian commanders believe they have another advantage, if the rhetoric about the Strait of Hormuz ever turns into a real conflict.

"The IRGC places religious belief at the core of the Iranian concept of asymmetric warfare," writes Haghshenass. "In Iran's concept of asymmetric warfare, the ideological or 'spiritual' superiority of the community of believers is considered as important as any other factor."

That means, he adds, that Iran's Revolutionary Guard believes that "its chain of command extends through Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to God, thereby investing military orders with transcendent moral authority..."
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6) About Eggs Mixed with Water.......
This could save your life

Important Message!!!!
Please take a few minutes & read.
It could save your life!!!!!!!!!
Didn't know if you knew about eggs mixed with water....... so that is why I'm sending this on.
Be Safe!

A MESSAGE FROM THE OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
STATE OF MICHIGAN :

SITUATION..

While driving on a rural end of the roadway on Thursday morning, I saw an infant car seat on the side of the road with a blanket draped over it.
For whatever reason, I did not stop, even though I had all kinds of thoughts running through my head. But when I got to my destination, I called the Canton PD and they were going to check it out. But, this is what the Police advised even before they went out there to check....

"There are several things to be aware of ... gangs and thieves are now plotting different ways to get a person (mostly women) to stop their vehicle and get out of the car.

"There is a gang initiation reported by the local Police Department where gangs are placi ng a car seat by the road...with a fake baby in it....waiting for a woman, of course, to stop and check on the abandoned baby.

"Note that the location of this car seat is usually beside a wooded or grassy (field) area and the person -- woman -- will be dragged into the woods, beaten and raped, and usually left for dead. If it's a man, they're usually beaten and robbed and maybe left for dead, too.

DO NOT STOP FOR ANY REASON!!! DIAL 9-1-1 AND REPORT WHAT YOU SAW, BUT DON 'T EVEN SLOW DOWN.

Oh yea, about the EGGS:
"IF YOU ARE DRIVING AT NIGHT AND EGGS ARE THROWN AT YOUR WINDSHIELD, DO NOT STOP TO CHECK YOUR CAR, DO NOT OPERATE THE WIPERS AND DO NOT SPRAY ANY WATERBECAUSE EGGS MIXED WITH WATER BECOME MILKY, AND BLOCK YOUR VISION UP TO 92.5%, AND YOU ARE THEN FORCED TO STOP BESIDE THE ROAD AND BECOME A VICTIM OF THESE CRIMINALS.

THIS IS A NEW TECHNIQUE USED BY GANGS, SO PLEASE INFORM YOUR FRIENDS AN D RELATIVES.

THESE ARE DESPERATE TIMES AND THESE ARE UNSAVORY INDIVIDUALS WHO WILL TAKE DESPERATE MEASURES TO GET WHAT THEY WANT."

WARNING # 3:
Some knew about the red light on cars, but not Dialing 112.
It was about 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon, and Lauren was driving to visit a friend. An UNMARKED police car pulled up behind her and put his lights on. Lauren's parents have always told her to never pull over for an unmarked car on the side of the road, but rather to wait until they get to a gas station, etc.

Lauren had actually listened to her parents advice, and promptly called, 112 on her cell phone to tell the police dispatcher that she would not pull over right away. She proceeded to tell the dispatcher that there was an unmarked police car with a flashing red light on his rooftop behind her. The dispatcher checked to see if there were police cars where she was and there weren't, and he told her to keep driving, remain calm and that he had back up already on the way.

Ten minutes later 4 cop cars surrounded her and the unmarked car behind her. One policeman went to her side and the others surrounded the car behind. They pulled the guy from the car and tackled him to the ground. The man was a convicted rapist and wanted for other crimes.
I never knew about the 112 Cell Phone feature. I tried it on my AT&T phone & it said, "Dialing Emergency Number."

Especially for a woman alone in a car, you should not pull over for an unmarked car. Apparently police have to respect your right to keep going on to a safe place.

*Speaking to a service representative at Bell Mobility confirmed that112 was a direct link to State trooper info. So, now it's your turn to let your friends know about "Dialing, 112"

You may want to send this to every Man, Woman & Youngster you know; it may well save a life.

This applies to ALL 50 states.
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