And Obama thinks he can negotiate with this?

The ruling faction of the Palestinian Authority has formally blamed Israel for the "assassination" of Yasser Arafat, one of the founders of the Fatah party. At the party's conference in Bethlehem yesterday, delegates unanimously passed a resolution blaming Israel for Arafat's death and setting up a committee to investigate the death. The committee will be led by Arafat's nephew, Nasser el-Kidweh.

Israelis seized on the resolution saying it suggested Palestinians were not serious about negotiating with Israel for a two-state solution.

Arafat died in Paris in 2004 after having lapsed into a coma. The reason for the death was never made public, with the hospital refusing to release Arafat's medical records -- which has led to speculation ever since about the cause of death. Possible causes have since been reported as flu, gallstones, a blood disorder, a stomach virus and AIDS.

Some delegates at this week's conference claimed Israel was responsible for Arafat's death because it had prevented him leaving his West Bank compound to receive medical treatment, while others claimed Israel had actually poisoned him.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported in 2005 that an analysis of the confidential medical report on Arafat's death revealed three main possibilities -- poisoning, AIDS or an infection. In 2007, The New York Times reported that it had obtained the first independent review of Arafat's medical records from the hospital, which showed that despite extensive testing his doctors could not determine the underlying disease that killed him. "But the records dispel one significant and widespread rumour that Arafat died of AIDS," the newspaper reported. "The course of his illness and pattern of his symptoms make AIDS highly unlikely, according to independent experts who have reviewed the records at the request of the Times. "They also suggest that poisoning was highly unlikely, although senior Palestinian officials continue to allege that Arafat, who died on November 11 at age 75 after an illness lasting a month, was indeed poisoned."

Meanwhile, one of the most powerful Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, bluntly told the Palestinian leadership this week that it would never achieve its ambition of an independent Palestine unless it resolved the bitter differences between the rival Fatah and Hamas factions. In an open letter to the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Saudi King Abdullah said: "Even if the whole world agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with all the needed support and backing, it will not be established as long as the Palestinian house is divided."

And referring to Israel as "the criminal enemy", King Abdullah wrote: "I'll be honest, brothers. The criminal enemy could not over long years of continued aggression have inflicted as much damage to the Palestinian cause as did the Palestinians themselves in a matter of a few months."

The division between Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, was highlighted by the fact that Hamas would not allow Fatah delegates who live in Gaza to travel to Bethlehem to attend the conference. Both sides have supporters of the other side in prison, and acts of violence between the two sides have occurred in the past year. The BBC earlier this year broadcast pictures of Hamas supporters in Gaza smashing the kneecaps of Fatah supporters.

Fatah is under pressure from both within its own ranks and from Hamas. A new, younger guard in Fatah is opposed to Mr Abbas and his team, claiming they are not the right group to help form a Palestinian state. Fatah this week tried to appeal to Palestinians who want a more hardline response to Israel by reaffirming its option for "armed resistance" against Israel.

This puts the US in an awkward position -- to be backing a political group which continues to have as part of its formal charter armed resistance. Mr Abbas was the first world leader US President Barack Obama telephoned upon taking office, and Washington is investing a great deal of hope in him as the man who can anchor the Palestinian side of negotiations with Israel for a two-state solution.

SOURCE

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Obama's economist

Just as Josef Goebbels trumpeted the value of the “Big Lie” for Adolph Hitler, David Axelrod has perfected the art of entrancing people in a “virtual” reality instead of the one we actually inhabit. And there is a method at work here. As made obvious from his healthcare and other policy plans, Obama’s target demo – those whom he seeks to enrapture – are the young as, once entranced, they will likely remain loyal and apply themselves to his cause. The old, however, are not only expendable as Obama’s healthcare “reform” makes clear. They are also targeted to pay for the delivery of the young, the illegals, and the minorities to the public dependency troughs all to solidify Obama’s hold on American power.

Axelrod is keenly aware that virtual reality – like that presented in video games – is, perhaps, the biggest draw for the young today. Given the increasingly intense anxieties that plague most of the young these days, Axelrod and Obama have perfected their craft of offering alternative realities for escape. Much as in the film The Matrix, where the true condition of the world was too threatening to be revealed, many today opt to take their own blue pill in order to submerge into a virtual delusion. Axelrod and Obama are only too happy to supply the coins to operate the virtual video games necessary to gaslight us all. Here are just a few of the many AX-Rods used to keep the many spellbound:

The Scare Tactic Scare Tactic – Many Axelrod minions pepper the media with the charge that those who oppose Obama are using scare tactics. As the country divides into Obamaites and Nobamaites, whenever the Nobamaites suggest there is something serious to fear, (i.e. Islamic terrorism, the uncontrolled influx of illegal aliens, the potential annihilation of our economy from too great a deficit, debt balance and currency printing, Iranian nuclear weapons, the socialization of our capitalistic system, and so forth), the Obamaites charge that anyone disagreeing with Obama is simply utilizing fear to motivate viewers to oppose Obama. Similarly, any challenge to Obama’s policies (such as cap and trade, stimulus bills) on the grounds that these actions will make the current situation severely worse is met with a similar dose of scare tactic charges. And pointing out how Obama’s healthcare reform will destroy the health care to which we have become so accustomed (eventually leading to rationing of care, doctors, medicines etc.) is cast as a devious attempt to improperly scare the vulnerable elderly in particular....

The You Are Us Projection – Projection has been a powerful part of Obamolitics since his emergence upon the national scene. The most recent example of this AX-Rod is seen in Axelrod’s attack upon those who are making noises at Congressional town halls. Obama’s entire career was built on being a community agitator and Axelrod, himself, made his career (and is still as active as ever in his own business) as a community and media manipulator. He essentially created and mastered “Astroturfing,” yet sends out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to accuse Republicans of doing exactly that. Media government “tools” add to the charge that the town halls are filled not by authentic angered constituents, but instead, by fake constructs reminiscent of Islamic crowds assembled in Arab and Iranian lands to play to Western media. Yet Obama constantly had ACORN pad Republican public events during the election and, not unlike the acts that brought fame to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, utilized his community organizers to shakedown politicians throughout his years.....

The No-Plan No-Plan – A frequent AX-Rod these days is that the Republicans have no plans. An objection is made to Obama’s “cap and trade” or “healthcare” policies and the minions and our own “useful idiots” media respond that Republicans have failed to offer anything better. While simply not true (as many counter plans in every category of Obama policies have been and continue to be offered), this AX-Rod has the added benefit of fortifying Obama’s message that sweeping government action is necessary. The notion that what he proposes can truly be a great leap backwards and in the wrong direction never makes its way into consciousness. As Obama has quickly forced through drastically dangerous actions running spending to red alert levels, taking over industries, printing money faster than we can all breathe, the response is essentially “well at least he’s doing something.” ...

The Silent Conversation – Much of Obama’s campaign rhetoric was based on the power of “conversation,” and, particularly, Obama’s conversational powers. Much of Obama’s target demo was raised with “time-outs;” whenever things became tough, they were encouraged to rest, gather themselves, and talk out rather than act out their frustrations. Many also had their parents and teachers talk among themselves as to how best to resolve their own troubles. These instincts have a place within family and sometimes even school systems where it is presumed that violence is to be avoided at all costs.

Axelrod marshaled these instincts by having Obama deploy related words to other contexts, particularly foreign policy. Whereas the “virtual” foreign world may be one in which evil dictators can be read to sleep by the Messianic Obama, the real world does not engage in time-outs and so forth. Yet, as above, the mere reference to “engagement,” “dialogue,” and “bringing people together” gets the young listener comfortable that the faintest perception of conflict can ultimately be smoothed away and restore a sense of control. The target demo subliminally presumes that the rules of the virtual social networks must surely apply to the real world.

Much more HERE

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Obama’s Science Czar

Mr. Holdren has long advocated launching a “massive campaign…to de-develop the United States” for environmental reasons. Long a believer in lessening the impact of human beings on the Earth, his three-decade career has focused on doing this in two ways.

First, by limiting the number of people on the earth through recommendation of a litany of eugenicist measures so extreme that they strike most reasonable people as more a part of science fiction than science: “forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children.” And his recommendations sound even more like the stuff of science fiction when one considers that he supported establishment of a global police force to enforce these measures worldwide.

More recently, Holdren has directed his efforts toward attacking affluence and technology. In the 1970s, he and his mentor and co-author Paul Ehrlich actually developed a “formula” which allegedly accounts for human Impact (or Influence) on the Earth: I=PAT. Even the mathematically challenged can easily understand it. It says that human Impact on the Earth is equal to the overall Population times its Affluence times its Technology.

Here, it should be noted, Impact is always to be understood as negative. A population with a higher degree of affluence and technology will have a proportionately higher negative Impact on the global environment than an equivalent population not so technologically advanced or affluent.

Thus, technology and affluence become negatives to mitigate, not positives to seek. And Holdren suggests doing just this through de-development by which he means, “lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets….”

Critics challenge Holdren and Ehrlich’s formula by pointing out that population, by itself, is a neutral element---larger population does not necessarily mean larger negative environmental impact---while, “affluence and technology, far from harming nature, actually promote its flourishing. It is in the rich, developed countries that the air becomes clearer, the streams clearer, the forests more expansive.” But, Holdren will hear none of it.

More HERE

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Democrats' Fear Is Showing on Health Care

by Jonah Goldberg

The Democratic Party is panicking, lashing out like a cornered animal, all because its effort to take over the health care industry is coming apart like so much wet toilet paper.

Nancy Pelosi, who will get her own bound volume in the annals of asininity, has outdone herself. When asked by a reporter whether the protests at various town hall meetings represented legitimate grassroots opposition or were manufactured "Astroturf" stunts, she replied, "I think they're Astroturf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care."

Now this is a pas de trois of dishonesty, slander and idiocy. Not only is Pelosi lying when she says protestors are bringing swastikas to these town halls, not only is she suggesting that American citizens are Nazis for having the effrontery to get in the way of ObamaCare, but she's also saying that the alleged swastikas are obvious proof that these protests are manufactured by slick P.R. gurus.

How does that work? What public relations genius says: "OK, we need these protests to seem like an authentic backlash of real Americans. Make sure everyone has enough Nazi paraphernalia!"

Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Boxer insists the protests have to be fake because the protestors are too "well-dressed." Likewise, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says this is all "manufactured anger" because the protestors -- he calls them the "Brooks Brothers Brigade" -- are too tastefully appointed to be authentic protestors. Apparently only filthy hippies can petition government.

More HERE

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ELSEWHERE

Obama in bed with lobbyists after all: "The New York Times had an amazing front page story yesterday... The headline of the story was: "White House Affirms Deal on Drug Cost". I want you to read the lead paragraph very slowly: "Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion". Whoa! Check Please! How can the words "industry lobbyists" and "White House" be in the same sentence? We have been told - to the point of needing Compazine (an anti-nausea drug) - that this administration was, is, and will always be a lobbyist-free zone. Yet, here it is; in the newspaper of record. The White House had reached a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry to put a ceiling on the amount of money the government could save by negotiating for lower drug prices. In the words of the NY Times, the White House "had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the [health care] overhaul" but "had never spelled out the details of the agreement."

Insurance Co. Profits: Good, But Not Breaking Records: "When President Obama said at his July 22 news conference that health insurance companies were making record profits "right now," we thought he might have insider access to corporate earnings data. After all, most of the top publicly traded companies were on the verge of filing their reports, but only one had done so at the time Obama spoke. A day earlier, UnitedHealth Group had reported its earnings for the second quarter of 2009, which beat analysts’ expectations with profit of $859 million. Still, other quarters have been more profitable for the insurer, such as the first quarter of 2008, when profit rang in at $994 million. We wondered if there was any other evidence to support Obama’s statement now that other earnings reports are in. The answer is: not much. Humana Inc. logged a quarterly profit of almost $282 million. But in the third quarter of 2007, it rang up $302 million in profits. Aetna came in at $347 million in profit for the quarter, which lagged behind its $480 million of a year earlier."

Criticizing the President is not Racist: "You know a side is on the run rhetorically when it deals the race card. The race card is divisive, disingenuous and outright dangerous, but its great virtue is that it can slow down the other side’s momentum, and even stop it altogether. So, in a way, those of us who believe President Obama’s health care plans are misguided and hazardous to our national well being can take some comfort in the fact that the President’s supporters are so desperate that they are now crying “racism” in order to stop opposition. Paul Krugman today in the New York Times writes that the motivation of those turning out to town halls across the nation is “racial anxiety.” And yesterday, in the Washington Post, Philip Kennicott wrote that a poster depicting Mr. Obama as the Joker in Batman movies, with the word “socialism” running underneath, “is ultimately a racially charged image.” No, it isn’t. It was a necessary step for a black person to be elected president, one in which all Americans can exult. But we have a black President now, and it is our responsibility to criticize him when we must. There is nothing racist about saying that we should not hand one-sixth of our economy to government control."

Faulty speed sensors found on more Airbuses: "The discovery of faulty airspeed sensors on some Northwest Airlines jets suggests the equipment problems are more widespread than previously believed and could provide clues to the cause of the Air France crash that killed 228 people in June. Federal aviation officials say that on at least a dozen recent flights malfunctioning equipment made it impossible for the pilots to know how fast they were flying. The discovery gives new urgency to airlines already scrambling to replace air sensors and figure out how the errors went undetected despite safety systems. The equipment failures, all involving Northwest Airlines Airbus A330s, were brief and were noticed only after safety officials began investigating the Air France crash — on a Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight — and two other recent in-flight malfunctions. Like the fatal Air France flight, the newly discovered Northwest incidents and the two other malfunctions under investigation all involved planes with sensors made by the European electronics giant Thales Corp. The Air France crash called into question the reliability of the sensors and touched off a rush to replace them. Many companies, however, simply replaced them with another Thales model. As it became clear the problem was more widespread, Airbus and European regulators told companies to replace at least two of the three sensors on each plane with models made by North Carolina-based Goodrich Corp."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The Obama date

A report from an Air Force officer

First, let me say that I've moved three presidents up to now and I've seen incredible waste. But, the "new" guy really takes the cake. I don't have an issue with the President promising his wife dinner and a show or that he even takes his wife out. But, when I saw the news say that the date cost $24,000, here's what you DON'T know.

Three days before "dinner" a C-17 flew Marines and the helicopter maintenance equipment to JFK Airport . The day before "dinner" I flew the USSS and the motorcade to JFK Airport. Our crew of 5 spent two days and nights at the Hilton in Times Square. My hotel bill: $621.66 plus $64 a day in per diem. The USSS guys were at a different Hilton in NYC, so figure that cost another $14,000 (or so) plus per diem. The Marines had to have cost as much and were there four days, so figure another $55,000 plus per diem (for 44 Marines).

We were supposed to fly the motorcade back and go home, but the Air Force was so short C-17's that we were re-tasked to take the motorcade back, return to JFK and take the helicopter back to Quantico. When we got back to JFK, while the pilot was turning the plane around to park, he noticed a rotor blade sticking out of the hangar where the helicopter was parked and informed me that either it wasn't ready to transport or it was flying home.

After shutting down I walked over to the hangar and to my surprise I find FIVE helicopters, not ONE. We're obviously not transporting five big helicopters. I went and talked to the Marines guarding the "fleet" and found that they were flying all five helicopters home and we were only transporting the Marines and the maintenance equipment.

After talking to the Marine(s) in charge, I was told that the White House requested FIVE helicopters. The Marines told me that they spent all morning trying to figure out how much it cost them to come and said they figured it cost them $140,000 to stay there (I don't know where they came up with that)and the trip's total had to be about $1,000,000.

We heard that the President didn't use Air Force One (the 747) so I asked if he came in on one of the 757's. I was told that he came in on THREE Air Force Lear jets.

So, date night consisted of: 2 C-17's flying three missions, 3 Lear jets, 5 Helicopters, Presidential Motorcade, 44 Marines, more than 20 USSS personnel on our plane. Who knows what it cost the NYPD and NY Port Authority (at the airport) in overtime.

These are the same people that chastised the automobile CEO's for using their aircraft. It further proves that the media only use the facts that make the President look good and hide any facts that will detract from his persona. Is this the 'change' we expected?

Received via email

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Nothing has been learnt

Obama wants more of what has already failed

The Obama administration is considering an overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would strip the mortgage finance giants of hundreds of billions of dollars in troubled loans and create a new structure to support the home-loan market, government officials said.

The bad debts the firms own would be placed in new government-backed financial institutions -- so-called bad banks -- that would take responsibility for collecting as much of the outstanding balance as possible. What would be left would be two healthy financial companies with a clean slate.

The moves would represent one of the most dramatic reorderings of the badly shattered housing finance system since District-based Fannie Mae was created by Congress to support mortgage lending during the Great Depression. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, based in McLean, have government charters to buy home loans from banks, which they then repackage and sell to investors. The banks can then use the proceeds to offer more loans to home buyers.

The leviathans became emblematic of the financial crisis when they were effectively nationalized in September amid a market meltdown that revealed much of their holdings to be troubled. The government has since pledged more than $1.5 trillion, including $85 billion in direct aid, to keep the mortgage market working through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

More HERE

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WHY THE LEFT IS ATTACKING HEALTH SCHEME OPPONENTS

The DNC, liberal blogs, MSNBC and the Obama administration are attacking anyone that challenges them on their government-run health care scheme. Obama is asking his supporters to “flag” comments that don’t comply with his dogma on health care reform. Liberal blog “Think Progress”, which seems to be a misnomer, published an outright lie about FreedomWorks that was picked up by other leftist blogs and even mainstream media sources like Politico and broadcast news stations.

What explains the lockstep, attack-mode liberal campaign against FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots? Well, we have them on the ropes. We are using Saul Alinsky against them and out organizing them. They can’t stand the fact that real Americans are showing up at townhall meetings and demanding that elected officials listen to them for once. When you move the country toward socialism at such a rate, and bail out failed companies, raise taxes, explode the deficits and demonize millions of Americans, what do you expect their response to be?

I am not a fan of shouting anyone down or using the tactics that ACORN and the thuggish unions use. But I am a fan of local activists who are organizing their neighbors and friends to get them to meetings so that they can speak up, speak out and put their elected officials on the spot. Its funny that the community organizer in chief is now afraid of the very thing that got him elected: individuals that convince their friends and family to get involved in the political process. David Axelrod, Rahm Emmanuel and Barack Obama are afraid of what they are seeing in the town hall meetings, and inside district offices across the country. They have awakened a sleeping giant made up of hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been pushed too far by the federal government.

The activism out there is real, organic, passionate, inspiring and as American as it gets. While FreedomWorks has played a role in organizing its members to participate in the protests, we have not faked anything, nor tried to control the movement. We offer the protest movement on the right some guidance, some leadership and some lateral coordination, but the heart and soul of the movement is the grassroots. It’s made up of folks like Diana Reimer in Philadelphia, Mark Meckler in Sacramento, Billie Tucker in Jacksonville, Debbie Dooley in Atlanta and Kellen Giuda in New York City. These are the people that are leading this movement from the ground up, and taking on the political elites like no one else has before. The left can criticize, mock, brush off or hate these people all they want, but they will not stop organizing. They will not stop protesting, calling their congressmen, showing up at townhall meetings and coming to DC on their own dime to meet with their legislators. These folks are new to politics, and they are sick and tired of both parties. These are the people that will kill cap and trade, fight government-run healthcare tooth and nail and hold politicians accountable in the 2010 election.

We are under attack by the left because they fear us. We are on offense. We have pushed back and now we are the radicals and they are the establishment. We are taking on big government and big business, both of which are supporting Obamacare. I have watched this movement develop from the beginning, and I can say that it has the potential to be a historic movement that rivals many others in American history. If we stay focused, keep organizing, keep recruiting and keep up the pressure, we can and will defend liberty and prevent this country from walking blindly down the road to serfdom.

SOURCE. Another comment on this on TONGUE-TIED today. See also here and here and here for the sheer impossibility of what Obama is proposing.

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ELSEWHERE

House provides $200 million for government VIP jets: “The House is ordering up three Gulfstream jets to fly Pentagon and other top government officials — including members of Congress — around the globe in conditions far cushier than coach class. The almost $200 million appropriation to buy three C-37 jets, the military version of the Gulfstream 550, is buried in a $636 billion Pentagon budget passed by the House last week. It’s not as fancy as the version sold to private customers, but still is a very nice ride.”

Poll: Obama drops to 50 percent: “President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to 50 percent, according to a poll released Thursday, a new low for the president as he tries to shepherd healthcare reform legislation through Congress in the next few months. A new Quinnipiac University poll shows 50 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing compared to 42 percent who don’t. That’s the lowest number since Obama took office, and down from a 57 percent approval rating at the beginning of July. A FOX News poll released July 23 showed his job performance at 54 percent. The new Quinnipiac numbers suggest the public is losing confidence in the president’s ability to guide domestic policy issues, yet retaining confidence in his ability to guide foreign policy.”

Obama backtracks on pledge to whistleblowers: "Despite its pledge to better protect federal employees who expose wrongdoing, the Obama administration privately sought to weaken protections for national security whistleblowers under legislation making its way through Congress, according to correspondence obtained by The Washington Times. E-mails that documented the White House's intervention show the White House counsel's office provided its own drafts of the proposed legislation in late June and mid-July. While strengthening protections for some whistleblowers, the drafts weakened protections for FBI employees and reduced access to jury trials for those national security workers who sue for protection from retaliation after blowing the whistle."

Somalia is Obama’s new “Afghanistan”: "The Horn of Africa is a hotbed of pirates, Islamic radicals, warlords, refugees, and, lately, foreign armies trying to influence this killing field. The epicenter is Somalia, a Muslim land largely in chaos since 1991 and — this is the big worry — a possible nesting ground for Al Qaeda or its allies. President Obama has taken on this trouble spot directly, as he has Afghanistan. He’s beefing up US military aid and training for Somalia’s besieged government, which can barely hold onto the capital, Mogadishu. And on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held a high-profile meeting with the country’s elected president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.”

Obama and the economy: "Now, I’m not saying that Reagan was laissez-faire or that the economic recovery didn’t owe something to a newly fashioned form of military Keynesianism. Rather, my focus here is on the spin: the press hated him, and exaggerated the failings of the economic structure in order to destroy policies it hated. The contrast with the Obama administration can’t be more stark. No one in these ranks said that malinvestments have to be washed out of the system and bankruptcies and unemployment must be tolerated for a time in order to get back on a growth. Nay, nay, they pulled out the old bag of tricks and claim that they only needed to loot the public of hundreds of billions and spend it on building up government, and then, wow, like magic, the entire economy would come back to life. But it hasn’t.”

There Is a Military Option on Iran: "In a policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of Iran, “We cannot be afraid or unwilling to engage.” But the Iranian government has yet to accept President Obama’s outstretched hand. Even if Tehran suddenly acceded to talks, U.S. policy makers must prepare for the eventuality that diplomacy fails. While there has been much discussion of economic sanctions, we cannot neglect the military’s role in a Plan B. The military can play an important role in solving this complex problem without firing a single shot. Publicly signaling serious preparation for a military strike might obviate the need for one if deployments force Tehran to recognize the costs of its nuclear defiance. Mr. Obama might consider, for example, the deployment of additional carrier battle groups and minesweepers to the waters off Iran, and the conduct of military exercises with allies. If such pressure fails to impress Iranian leadership, the U.S. Navy could move to blockade Iranian ports. A blockade—which is an act of war—would effectively cut off Iran’s gasoline imports, which constitute about one-third of its consumption. Especially in the aftermath of post-election protests, the Iranian leadership must worry about the economic dislocations and political impact of such action. Should these measures not compel Tehran to reverse course on its nuclear program, and only after all other diplomatic avenues and economic pressures have been exhausted, the U.S. military is capable of launching a devastating attack on Iranian nuclear and military facilities."

I have put a fair bit up on my Paralipomena blog recently, for those who take an interest in my assorted postings there.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Health Reform and Obama's Tax Pledge

Excerpt from Karl Rove

Public support for his plans shrank when Americans saw the trillion-dollar-plus price tag, recoiled from the intrusive expansion of government into patient-doctor decisions, and came to understand the plan was financed in part by huge cuts in Medicare and large tax increases.

So, after running into heavy opposition among Congressional Democrats and growing public hostility to his plan, Mr. Obama has now recast the debate as an attack on insurance companies, with the president serving as savager-in-chief. This would be more credible if he hadn’t surrounded himself with insurance CEOs and lobbyists when he kicked off his effort in March.

The corrosive effect of basing policy decisions on polls also could be seen in White House handling of the refusals on Sunday of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers to rule out middle-class tax increases. They got disciplined Monday by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who said they’d “allowed themselves to get into a little bit of hypothetical back and forth.”

This dispute pits the economic team against the campaign team. The economic team awakens each day worried about reconciling two irreconcilable realities: The administration’s budget calls for huge, sustained new government spending, which threatens giant budget deficits. Being liberals, the economic team is inclined to raise taxes, not cut spending.

The campaign team is intent upon protecting a pledge driven by its 2008 campaign polls: Mr. Obama promised never to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year to avoid being labeled a tax-and-spend liberal.

Even so, Mr. Obama has already broken his no-new-taxes pledge. On Feb. 4, Mr. Obama signed a $33 billion cigarette tax increase, which fell disproportionately on lower- and middle-income individuals. And the “cap and trade” energy bill, approved by the House on June 26, is a tax on anyone who owns a light switch, uses a car key, or has bought anything manufactured, shipped or sold in the U.S.

The House version of Mr. Obama’s health-care—excuse me, “health-insurance”—reform already has four taxes that will largely be paid by people making less than $250,000 a year. There’s $8.2 billion in taxes for using health savings accounts and other tax-free medical savings vehicles to purchase over-the-counter drugs. There’s an 8% tax on employers who don’t offer insurance: The Congressional Budget Office says workers in those businesses would pay the $163 billion cost via lost wages.

There’s a 2.5% “Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health Care Coverage” in the House bill that applies to people who either don’t have insurance or whose policies the government deems inadequate. Finally, there’s a $2 billion “Comparative Effectiveness Research Tax” on all private and “public option” insurance policies.

If some version of ObamaCare is passed, the president will break his tax pledge several more times while adding trillions to the deficit, dismantling the best elements of our health-care system and slashing Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

There are no polling data or focus groups on earth that can help Mr. Obama out of this jam. He has set in motion events he appears unable to control and commitments he cannot keep. Great communicators succeed when the ideas they are communicating are sound. Tax-and-spend liberalism doesn’t work, no matter how pretty its package.

More here

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"Clunker" folly

Here's an idea: Let's give $50,000 to anyone looking to upgrade to a brand-spanking-new, environmentally friendly home. All we ask in return is that you burn your previous residence into a heap of smoldering cinder. That's the concept behind the bizarre "cash for clunkers" program so many people are deeming a success. It's so successful, in fact, that Congress will increase funding for it by 200 percent.

Then again, in Washington, a place where elected officials are astonished -- astonished! -- when a program doling out free cash is popular, success often translates into higher costs and fewer results.

Now, some of you radicals may have an ideological dilemma with a government handing out thousands of dollars to citizens making an average of $57,000 a year so they can upgrade their perfectly serviceable vehicles. Turns out, though, that by nearly any criterion, including the ones offered up by President Barack Obama, this populist experiment is an unmitigated fiasco.

To begin with, building a new car consumes energy. It is estimated that 6.7 tons of carbon are emitted in the process. So a driver who participates in the "cash for clunkers" program would need to make up for that wickedness. There are about 250 million registered vehicles in the United States. Only a micro-slither of those cars will be traded in -- and a slither of that number could be deemed "clunkers" outside the Beltway.

A survey of car dealerships found a relatively small differential in fuel efficiency between cars traded in and those replacing them. A Reuters analysis concluded -- even with the extended program in place -- "cash for clunkers" would trim U.S. oil consumption by only a quarter of 1 percent.

As an economic stimulus, the plan is equally impotent. As James Pethokoukis, a columnist at Reuters, succinctly explained, "The program gets much of its juice via stealing car sales from the near future rather than generating additional demand."

More HERE

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Obama hires another crook

Today, the Free Enterprise Project calls on President Obama to dismiss General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt from the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board because of the findings revealed in a settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and GE. The SEC said, "GE bent the accounting rules beyond the breaking point" and "GE misapplied the accounting rules to cast its financial results in a better light." The SEC complaint cited four separate accounting violations one of which "allowed GE to avoid missing analysts' final consensus EPS expectations." Importantly, all the accounting irregularities occurred while Jeff Immelt served as CEO.

"It's outrageous for President Obama to keep Immelt as an advisor when the SEC charged that GE engaged in a series of efforts to manipulate earnings to mislead investors. The pattern of corruption raised by the SEC is deeply concerning and during a time of economic crisis, the last thing America needs is a Bernie Madoff type CEO giving advice to the president," said Tom Borelli PhD, Director of the Free Enterprise Project.

GE agreed to pay $ 50 million to settle the fraudulent accounting charges without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.

"The deliberate manipulation of financial data to mislead shareholders about earnings, if true, is fraud and Immelt must be held accountable. Not only should Obama dismiss Immelt from his advisory capacity but GE's board of directors should immediately seek his resignation from the company," added Borelli.

"Given the nature of the SEC charges, Obama should question the motivation and truthfulness of everything Immelt says including the company's support of cap-and-trade legislation. Immelt's support of cap-and-trade has nothing to do with a concern for the planet but everything to do with setting government mandates to purchase renewable energy products such as GE wind turbines."

"If Immelt misled shareholders about earnings he could easily mislead the president on everything from climate change to health care."

SOURCE

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Captain Unaware

Barack Obama, through his spokesman, claimed that he was unaware of the tax day tea parties. Granted, the MSM has done a good job in suppressing any sort of coverage ahead of time (and the little coverage they did provide was derisive at best) but how out of touch is the Community Organizer in Chief, really This much:

* He was unaware that he was attending a church (for 20 years) with a racist pastor who hates America.
* He was unaware that he was family friends with, and started his political career in the living room of, a domestic terrorist.
* He was unaware that he had invested in two speculative companies backed by some of his top donors right after taking office in 2005.
* He was unaware that his own aunt was living in the US illegally.
* He was unaware that his own brother lives on pennies a day in a hut in Kenya.
* He was unaware of the AIG bonuses that he and his administration approved and signed into a bill.
* He was unaware that the man he nominated to be his Secretary of Commerce was under investigation in a bribery scandal.
* He was unaware that the man he nominated to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services was a tax cheat.
* He was unaware that the man he nominated to be his Secretary of the Treasury was a tax cheat.
* He was unaware that the man he nominated to be the U.S. Trade Representative was a tax cheat.
* He was unaware that the woman he nominated to be his Chief Performance Officer was a tax cheat.
* He was unaware that the man he nominated to be #2 at the Environmental Protection Agency was under investigation for mismanaging $25 million in EPA grants.
* He was unaware that his own private plane (Air Force One) flew over New York "very low" just to take pictures along with the Statue of Liberty, which cost the tax payers $328,000.

There are people in comas that are more aware of world affairs than this guy. Who knows what else Chairman Zero is "unaware" of, that his enablers in the media have been making sure we really are unaware of?

SOURCE (See the original for links)

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ELSEWHERE

“Cash for Clunkers:” Success redefined? “‘Cash for Clunkers’ is being called a great success. Politicians are scrambling to fund an expansion of this program. Let’s do a little math and see if we can agree. The reports have been rolling in and we have heard repeatedly that showrooms were filled with people looking for new cars because of the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program. The Senate is working hard to fund this program for a whole month. They desperately need to tie themselves to a successful, popular program. My non-scientific drive by of the dealerships near my home last weekend left me a bit suspicious. I saw no unusual activity. They did not even look busy. I saw few customers walking around the lots. So, let’s look at the numbers.”

Obama Threatens Freedom of the Press: "On July 22, 2009, President Obama held one of the most boring news conferences in the history of televised presidential events. For nearly 50 minutes, he blathered on about private and public health care plans, red pills and blue pills, costs and benefits. In the last five minutes of the conference, he made his controversial comments about Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge, Mass., police department -- but by that time, everyone watching was either drifting into sleep or totally comatose. So why did ABC, NBC, and CBS broadcast this atrocious, narcolepsy-inducing ode to arrogance in the midst of prime time? It turns out that President Obama and his hatchet man, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, are not averse to using their bully tactics on political allies as well as political enemies. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post reports that when networks began fussing over broadcasting yet another Obama snoozefest, Emanuel called not the programming chiefs, but the heads of parent companies in an effort to pressure networks to greenlight his boss’s show."

Fraudulent claims on taxpayer dollars finally noticed by Medicare : “Fueled by massive fraud, home healthcare providers in Miami-Dade County are raking in more Medicare money than their colleagues in the rest of the country combined — thanks to bogus billings for patients with diabetes, authorities say. Now, Medicare is taking tough steps to stop agencies from filing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in false claims.”

Obama returns to Indiana with $39 million electric cars grant: “President Obama told a grateful audience of recently-re-employed RV builders that the government will give a $39 million grant to build electric batteries and car components here. It’s part of $2.4 billion in grants for electric batteries and other innovative technologies that Obama and his cabinet are announcing in stops around the country today.” [More of that amazing taxpayer generosity]

Obama sends stimulus aid to foreign firms: "Nearly half of the $2.4 billion in federal grant money awarded Wednesday to stimulate the U.S. economy and boost the production of hybrid and electric vehicles went to six companies with ties to places as far away as Russia, China, South Korea and France. President Obama announced the grants during a visit to Indiana and said the funds would create domestic jobs and instigate more "green" manufacturing in the United States. But because so few American companies have the necessary technology, much of the money will initially go toward manufacturing electric vehicle batteries overseas." [What an ill-informed clown the man is!]



"Cold cash" Jefferson convicted: “Former [Louisiana] Democratic Congressman William Jefferson [above] was found guilty of 11 of 16 corruption charges today by a federal jury. The jury of eight women and four men returned a guilty verdict following five days of deliberation. In the 16-count indictment, Jefferson was charged with soliciting bribes and other crimes for a series of schemes in which he helped American businesses broker deals in West African [sic] in exchange for payments or financial considerations to companies controlled by members of his family, including his brother Mose, his wife, Andrea, their five daughters and a son-in-law.”

You must bow to the King in Florida: "A Deerfield Beach city employee’s two-day suspension without pay has been lifted after Mayor Peggy Noland contacted the Acting Director of Parks and Recreation. Cassandra Moye, a five year maintenance worker with the city’s parks department, was suspended for reportedly not saying hello to the mayor when she passed her while working on the beach Monday. Moye admitted that when she passed her supervisor, acting parks director George Edmunds, and Mayor Nolan engaged in a conversation on the sidewalk, she didn’t address them. The 44-year-old, who earns $12.33 an hour keeping the beach area clean including the public restrooms, said less than an hour later she was called to Edmund’s office and reprimanded for her actions. Moye said Edmunds then presented her with an official memo of suspension and said she could face termination.”

The unintended consequences of rent control: “Suppose that you want to destroy a city. Should you bomb it, or would it be sufficient just to impose rent control? It’s a bracing question at first, but some economists have argued that the two are roughly equivalent. When the price of rent is held below the market-clearing level, shortages emerge and the housing stock rapidly deteriorates. Those who advocate price controls often do so on the basis of their views on distributive justice.”

Don’t bank on it, Prime Minister Brown: “The huge bailouts and government guarantees might have acted as a life-support machine to keep some of the UK’s biggest banks technically alive, but they have not been revived. This week’s figures from the state-owned banks confirmed that if something is shooting up in the finance section, it’s not green. … These results from the state-owned banks were widely described as disastrous. An even bigger disaster, however, is the obsession with banking as the be-all and end-all of the UK economy. If it was rash of Brown to claim that he had rescued the banking system, it is ridiculous now to claim that the banks can somehow magically revive British and Western capitalism.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Google censorship again

This time they have blocked the popular humour blog Wicked Thoughts. All is not lost, however, as the Mirror site is still updating regularly. I have no idea what the blocking is all about or if it will be permanent so do publicize the link to the mirror site.

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The Leaderless Revolution

I think the article below is a bit optimistic but there may be something in it. The block vote they get from blacks and Hispanics means that the Donks don't have to persuade many others to remain in power

A revolution is taking place in America. It's as intangible as the whispering wind. Yet as ineluctable as mounting gale. To the politicians, it's still but a passing breeze rustling the hair at the nape of the neck. To the grassroots masses, it's rushing torrent destined to sweep the elite from the Halls of Power.

America is at the very incipience of a Leaderless Revolution. One could see it at the hometown Tea Parties disclaimed by politicians as ragtag assemblies and disdained by Barack Obama who speciously claimed not to have even known they even occurred. One can sense it in the polls, as one after another shows plunging support for this president and his policies.

And one can hear it loud and clear in the angry outpourings at "Town Hall" meetings where sputtering politicians are driven from the podiums and forced to seek shelter behind a phalanx of guards.

In New Hampshire, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter tried to defend the snails’ pace of socialized medicine with the absurd claim, “Many of my constituents would love to stand in line.” Maryland’s Sen. Ben Cardin, when pressed by his constituents on why they should be forced to turn over their health care to government bureaucrats, yammered that Americans simply can’t be trusted. (And he has now made his town meetings “by invitation only.”)

In Syracuse, NY, Rep. Dan Maffei had to call in the police to restore order at his health care town hall after angry protestors shouted him down. And Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY1), experiencing his own problems with outraged attendees decided just to cancel town hall meetings altogether.

Ellen Sauerbrey – the courageous lady who many feel won the governorship of Maryland in 1994, only to have it snatched away by a post-election recount – recently wrote: “I have never seen people so upset and scared. The rebellion today is a true grassroots uprising of citizens that don’t believe either party in Washington represents them, hears them or cares what they think. More and more I hear, ‘A plague on both their houses. Throw all the bums out’.”

What the politicians need to learn is that insulting their constituents’ intelligence, denouncing them as slackers, having them arrested, or trying to act as if they simply don’t exist is not going to solve the problem of a grassroots rebellion on the ascent. Nor will trying to single out some contrived opponent to belittle and besmirch, as Barack Obama did Rush Limbaugh.

The real problem the politicians face is that there is no opposition leader. In fact, there are no leaders at all. The hallmark of the grassroots uprising now befuddling and deflating the Washington political elite (and their mainstream media factotums) is that they are flying in the face of a Leaderless Revolution soundlessly inundating the very air they breathe.

It is amorphous. It is dauntless. It is unyielding. And it needs no person or party to state its case or fight its cause.

Carried in a purse, a brief case, or a backpack; wielded in the palm of the purveyor’s hand; as easy as aps; and summed up in 140 characters or less; this is the Leaderless Revolution that Bill Gates predicted was coming at the “Speed of Thought” on the wireless wings of the wind.

Unfortunately for the Washington establishment, in America today – just as in Iran, Honduras, and Moldavia -- the thought has now become an action. The words have become deeds. They have begun to sow the wind. And the tone-deaf political elitists are about to reap the whirlwind.

SOURCE

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How Obama will tax the middle class

By making everything they buy more expensive

Few of President Obama’s 2008 campaign pledges were more definitive than his vow that anyone making less than $250,000 a year “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” if he was elected. And he was right, very strictly speaking: It’s going to be many, many, many billions of dimes.

Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” White House economist Larry Summers wouldn’t repeat Mr. Obama’s pre-election promise. “It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,” Mr. Summers said—except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama’s vow and said, “We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”

These aren’t even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it.

The liberal establishment is even further along in finally admitting that Mr. Obama wasn’t, er, telling the truth. A piece in the New York Times over the weekend declared in a headline that “the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything, Analysts Say.” And it quoted Leonard Burman, a veteran of the Clinton Treasury who now runs the Brookings Tax Policy Center, as saying that “This idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5%, that’s a basically unstable way of governing.” They’re right, but where were they during the campaign?

In an editorial on February 26, “The 2% Illusion,” we wrote that the feds could take 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning more than $500,000 and still have raised only $1.3 trillion even in the boom year of 2006. The rich are fewer and less rich now, while the Obama budget is nearly $4 trillion.

Democrats already plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts, but that won’t raise enough money. So they’re proposing an income tax surcharge on “the wealthy,” but that won’t raise enough either. Democrats have no choice but to soak the middle class because only they have enough money to finance the liberal dream of yoking the middle class to cradle-to-grave government entitlements.

Democrats have already taxed the middle class by raising cigarette taxes to pay for the children’s health-care expansion. They’re also teeing up average earners with their cap-and-tax energy bill. Mr. Obama had hoped that cap-and-tax would raise some $646 billion over a decade, but Democrats in the House had to give most of that away in bribes to business to pass their bill. To finance ObamaCare, they’re also proposing another 10-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax on firms and individuals that don’t purchase health insurance. But this won’t raise enough money either.

So waiting in the wings is the biggest middle-class tax increase of them all: a European-style value added tax, or VAT. This tax would apply to every level of production or service, and it is beloved by politicians in Europe because it raises so much money so easily without voters noticing. Ezekiel Emanuel, a White House aide and brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has advocated a 10% VAT to finance national health care. Look for a VAT to be one of the prominent options when Mr. Obama’s tax reform commission issues its report later this year.

The undeniable reality is that you can’t run a European-style welfare-entitlement state without European-style levels of taxation on the middle class (and eventually without low European-style growth and high jobless rates). It’s looking more and more like Mr. Obama’s no-middle-class-tax pledge was one of the greatest confidence tricks in American political history.

SOURCE

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Clunker Cash and Me

Let’s face it: After 17 years and 232,522 miles of faithful service, my Jeep’s best days were long past. Time for some new wheels — but money’s a bit tight these days, for me as for so many others.

But, as good fortune would have it, not for the federal government: They’re willing to pay me $4,500 — $4,500! — to turn that clunker in for a new car satisfying the combined demands of political correctitude and the auto-dealer lobby. Alas, the rules specify that the big, powerful, safe truck that I want does not qualify.

And so I asked the question on the minds of millions of my fellow concerned citizens: How can I get my snout into this trough? Easy: I buy a small car qualifying for the $4,500, and keep it for a few months until the cash-for-clunkers boondoggle has run its course. At that point, the supply of used cars will have shrunk and their prices driven up; I will sell the almost-new small car for what I paid for it ($12,629 last Saturday) or more, at worst having driven it for free, and then buy the truck I covet.

I am deeply ashamed of myself, having worked the system while the poor get shafted by higher prices for the used cars they demand and by higher prices for the used parts needed to repair them. (Under the rules, the clunker engines have to be destroyed, the real-life Beltway version of the old joke about the fate of dairy farming under socialism: The government takes the milk and shoots the cows.) This is hardly the first time — nor will it be the last — that modern environmentalism has harmed those less fortunate.

As for me, I remain ashamed, but not sufficiently so to have forgone the $4,500. And, to be blunt, I am hardly the only sinner in this congregation. When the federal government starts writing checks so as to implement half-baked ideas in pursuit of yet another cause for do-gooderism, gaming the system is the system, an eternal truth relevant to the ongoing debates over health care, taxes, and much else.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

The recession isn’t over: “There is simply no money to rekindle the orgy of consumer spending that kept the US economy afloat for so long.People can’t even borrow if they want to. Banks are not lending, because they know that the happy talk is nonsense, and they don’t want to loan money to people and businesses that are liable to go belly up as the recession continues. That’s why card companies like American Express and many Visa and MasterCard issuers, instead of just charging a late charge when card-holders miss a monthly payment deadline as in the past, are now just jacking up the interest rate they charge — in American Express’s case to 28% or over 2% a month! That’s not the action of a bank that is expecting to get repaid by a valued customer — it’s the extortionate action of a usurer that wants to extract as much money as possible from a borrower that it expects to have go bust. Banks are canceling personal and business credit lines right and left too, making a joke of the Obama administration’s claim that it bailed out the banks so that they would ’start lending again.’” [And the above is from a Leftist site]

Lack-of-progress report: “Thus, once again, below the president’s honeyed, highfalutin ways of speaking, there is revealed a pretension that is becoming insufferable, a sense of moral and class superiority in office, which he has not yet earned. Moreover, when he is on his own, without speechwriters, Obama is surprisingly unimpressive. He is rambling, fairly boring, error-prone, evasive, and not well-informed. In addition, President Obama seems to be unable to admit error, to apologize, or to voice what all can see to be true.”

More British bungling: "Life-saving vehicles built to withstand Taliban roadside bombs have been stranded in Dubai for the past month because the RAF does not have enough planes to fly them into Afghanistan, it can be disclosed. The problem is set to grow with 50 of the 157 ordered Ridgbacks scheduled to arrive in Dubai by November. During the bloodiest month for British soldiers in Helmand province, where 22 died and an estimated 100 were wounded, nine £300,000 Ridgback vehicles were left on the tarmac at Al Minhad airbase outside Dubai, The Daily Telegraph has learned. The Ridgbacks, which offer protection against mines, are a four-wheeled version of the robust six-wheeled Mastiff that has saved numerous lives in Afghanistan. They were ordered principally to replace the vulnerable Snatch Land Rover, in which 37 soldiers have been killed. During the time that the Ridgbacks have been held up in Dubai a number of soldiers have been killed in less-protected vehicles such as the Jackal, Viking and Spartan. The stranded vehicles were left in the Middle East as the RAF committed its C17 Globemaster aircraft to removing British equipment from Iraq. RAF commanders are also furious over a “ridiculous” ruling that the armour and protection fitted to the vehicles was “UK Eyes Only”, which means they are not allowed to go on allied aircraft shuttling out of the airbase."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Mideast Peace Now!

By Gene Schwimmer

Is it time for those who clamor for a Middle East peace to "declare victory and go home"? Two recent events in the region signal the answer. And that answer, resoundingly, unequivocally, is "yes."

In 2006, Hezb'allah crossed Israel's northern border and kidnapped two soldiers, triggering a massive Israeli retaliation that caused hundreds of deaths, billions of dollars of damage and came close to destroying Hezb'allah, who were literally saved by the bell when the "international community" combined with a hapless left-wing administration on the Israeli home front pressured the Israelis into halting their advance short of complete victory.

And yet, in the aftermath of that war -- a war that reduced parts of Lebanon to rubble; a war in which Hezb'allah failed to invade, let alone conquer, an inch of Israeli territory; a war in which, a Hezb'allah officer confessed to The Jerusalem Post that, had it continued only ten more days, "we all would have surrendered -- Hezb'allah, astonishingly, declared victory. Apparently, in the topsy-turvy milieu of whatever passes for logic in the Arab Middle East, one can do that (and among the Israel-hating Left, get away with it).

So the Israelis pulled out, a UN "peacekeeping force" came in and, as we who opposed ending the war without a clear victory predicted, Hezb'allah returned and not only replenished their rocket arsenal, but increased it fourfold.

But then, something important happened. Hezb'allah won 57 seats (out of 128) in Lebanon's recent parliamentary elections. And on July 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Lebanon (emphasis mine) "that Israel will hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attack launched from within the country's territory, including Hizbullah operations."

Israel-bashers who waited for the usual Hezb'allah bluster and threats were disappointed for none has been forthcoming. One might even go so far as to say that, after Netanyahu's warning, Nasrallah has become all hat and no camel, to the point that:

"[a] week after a group of 15 people carrying Lebanese and Hizbullah flags crossed into the Shaba Farms, the terror organization called on its followers... not to demonstrate in the area under Israeli control."

Also,

"top Hizbullah and Amal officials made a commitment to the UN envoy in Lebanon not to organize rallies along the border with Israel and to block any attempt to demonstrate there".

And at the same time, in the West Bank, according to Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "Seven months after Israel started a fierce three-week military campaign here to stop rockets from being fired on its southern communities, Hamas has suspended its use of rockets and shifted focus to winning support at home and abroad through cultural initiatives and public relations."

Of course, if Israel attacks Iran, all bets are off regarding Hezb'allah. But for now, all is quiet on the northern front. And the eastern front. And the southern front.

What does this sudden quietude along every inch of Israel's border with every one of her neighbors mean?

It means that now, today, amid all the "international community's" caterwauling about a supposed need for Israel to make substantial unilateral, self-endangering concessions "in the interest of Middle East peace, the chances of Israel being attacked by any of her neighbors right now is virtually nil. Which, in most people's definition, but especially in that of those who dwell in the Middle East and are familiar with the region's long and bloody history, means, there is peace.

Unnoticed, unheralded, not even reported, under their very upturned noses, the international community's professed goal of a peaceful Middle East, at least relative to Israel, has been achieved.

Peace, finally, has come to the Middle East, and it came not through Barack Obama's and the international community's (and Neville Chamberlain's) prescription of "negotiation" and appeasement, but through Ronald Reagan's -- and Franklin Roosevelt's; and Harry Truman's and, yes, Tony Blair's -- prescription of peace through strength and the resolve to stand forthright against one's enemies. (Even the only arguable exceptions, Israel's negotiated peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, came only after Israel's victory in the 1973 war.)

More HERE

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Acting Without the Facts — A Presidential Pattern Emerges

By Michael Reagan

Last week, President Obama was almost finished with his nationally broadcast press conference when he was asked to comment on the arrest, and subsequent release, of renowned Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by the now-famous Cambridge, Mass. police Sgt., Jim Crowley.

In his response to the question, the president started off with a legitimate point for discussion — his concern over the alleged practice of profiling across our nation. Had he stopped there, the matter would most likely have been put to rest and the president and national media could have re-focused on more pressing matters facing our nation such as the economy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or even the debate on health care. However, the president inexplicably decided to expand his response by saying the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” in their handling of the matter — while admitting that he did not yet have all of the facts at his disposal.

While this certainly turned out to be a significant political blunder, thankfully this particular occasion did not directly impact national policy or international standing. However, the unfortunate truth is that a pattern is emerging — one where President Obama decides to speak in advance of the facts on matters of much greater importance than a mistaken arrest.

First, when it came to the economy and the administration’s prediction that unemployment would stabilize at 8 percent or less, Vice President Biden himself admitted they were in error and that “there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited.”

Despite pumping billions of dollars of “stimulus” money into the economy, unemployment — currently at a 26-year high — continues to rise, and we are left to understand that this administration does not have a solid feel for where the economy is heading and, indeed, never did. Talk about boosting consumer confidence.

The litany continues. Just a few days after assuming office, President Obama again jumped the gun by signing three executive orders relating to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. One order in particular called for the facility’s closure within a year of his signature — by this coming January. Again, after taking full measure of the situation it now appears that this accelerated timeframe is premature and infeasible — causing embarrassment for the administration and casting doubts on our international credibility.

There were plenty of warning and cautions beforehand, but again it seems the president did not take the time to acquire all the facts before making a decision, and now we’re left with prisoners whom no one will accept, and an administration forced — yet again — to admit they’re unsure of how to proceed.

During his campaign, Barack Obama promised all troops would be out of Iraq within 16 months of his assuming office. Barely a month after entering office, the president had already adjusted that plan to end combat missions within 18 months and allow for a complement of 35,000 troops to stay even longer. Yet just this week Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki suggested that the troops may be needed even longer than currently planned.

Most recently, we see the same pattern emerging with his proposed health-care plan, where even Democratic Congressional leaders are trying to rein in President Obama and distance themselves from his timetable, not to mention the details of his plan, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office releases report after report regarding the deficit increase and economic danger the President’s plan poses. This, of course, sits on top of the CBO’s analysis that the program is also at least a decade away from any savings and would still leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured. It seems to me like that sort of information would have been helpful to have in advance, and thankfully voters are already seeing through the scheme.

It’s not that we, the American people, don’t appreciate the ability to adjust to the reality of circumstances. Indeed, upholding a foolhardy promise would be reckless insult on top of gross error. But is it too much to ask that next time our president get the full information before he rushes towards judgment?

SOURCE

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BrookesNews Update

Obama's big spending fallacy could ruin the US economy: a history lesson : The historical evidence and sound economic reasoning do not support Obama's colossal spending programs — and Americans instinctively no this. Yet he and advisors are hell bent on implementing these programs even though the only result will be a great weakening of the economy, if not something far worse. Only an unreasoning and fanatical belief in the power of state can account for such behavior
Is the US economy close to recovery? : Most experts and commentators are of the view that the worst of the US recession may be over by year's end. However, the so-called recovery is a monetary illusion based on government-constructed economic indicators, nothing more than that
The recession and the right's shoddy economic thinking: It is being argued by luminaries like John Stone that this is 'not a conventional recession, but a much more unusual balance sheet one'. This is complete nonsense. The recession — and the financial crisis — is entirely due to grotesque monetary mismanagement by the central banks
Overvalued currencies and floating exchange rates : For some perverse reason our rightwing economists refuse to accept the indisputable fact that overvalued currencies do exist even though we have floating exchange rates. This refusal to fact facts has degenerated into a personal vendetta
An open letter to the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP on his support for a destructive carbon tax : The despite the evidence that man-made global warming is a myth and that carbon taxes will devastate the economy Malcolm Turnbull arrogantly insists on implementing a thoroughly destructive police
Obama's Kerenskyism, Honduras and the Chavist abyss: Hillary approved the acquittal of the bloody Castro dictatorship. The very secretary of state that, along with president Obama, is open for a dialog with the pro-terrorist Iranian government has opened her arms to the Cuban communists. The same woman who met with smiles with dictator-president Chávez; and who shut the door to the civil Honduran delegation that went to Washington simply to explain their version of the facts. So why are Obama and Clinton supporting Marxist thugs who want to destroy America?
Obama's science czar wants forced abortions and government control of the family: John Holdren is America's new 'science czar'. He is also a dangerous green fanatic who believes in forced sterilizations, forced abortions, that abolition of the right of people to determine the size of their families. He also believes in total state control of the economy. So why did Obama appoint this dangerous fanatic and have the media covered for him? Is because they agree with his fanatical views?
Congress should not rush through something as important as changing our healthcare system: The Obama administration's cost estimates of Obamacare are phony. The real cost will be at least double the estimate. Add the cost of the healthcare program to already-incurred other costs of the no stimulus Stimulus Bill and other spending for the budget deficit, TARP, et al, and you have a total expenditure and deficit which is unimaginable even in modern times
Calibrate this, Mr. President: Why didn't Obama address the fact that the only oppression happening these days is by his buddies Castro, Chavez and all the other third world dictators he seems to think are misunderstood men of good will

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ELSEWHERE

Iran’s Stalinist justice further exposes the nature of the regime: "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for a second term as Iran’s president tomorrow, following an election described by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as a “vote for the fight against arrogance and brave resistance to the international domination-seekers.” Maybe President Obama will note that his no-meddling stance hasn’t yielded much in the way of humane restraint or political accommodation. All the more reason, then, for Mr. Obama now to denounce the Stalin-style show trial of some 100 leading reformists accused of seeking to overthrow the regime. The detainees were hauled out of prison in their pajamas, brought to court without the aid of defense lawyers, and in some cases forced to deliver publicly televised confessions. “I believe the reformists had prepared for two or three years for this election, in order to limit the power of the Supreme Leader,” confessed former Iranian vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi. Mr. Abtahi’s wife told the Associated Press her husband had probably been drugged. Lest there be any doubt about the regime’s intentions, its mouthpiece newspaper Kayhan called for the execution of the leading defendants."

White House rejects tax-hike suggestions: "The White House on Monday knocked down the prospect of tax hikes on the middle class to help close the growing federal deficit, walking back comments made by two of President Obama's top economic advisers. "The president's clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "He is not raising taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year." Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers ignited the discussion of middle-class taxes during separate appearances on the Sunday talk shows, venues where administration representatives typically carry disciplined and well-planned messages to the public. By broaching the tax issue, the two men raised inevitable questions about the sanctity of one of Mr. Obama's most potent campaign promises: his vow to protect the middle class from any increase in their tax bill. Mr. Obama has defined the middle class as a family making less than $250,000 or an individual making less than $200,000"

Congressmen hit over healthcare bill: "Senator Arlen Specter and the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, were heckled and booed in Philadelphia on Sunday. In Austin on Saturday, a throng of protesters enveloped Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, at a supermarket where he was trying to meet constituents. They carried signs that said “No Socialized Health Care” and chanted “Just say no!” And in Morrisville, Pa., Representative Patrick J. Murphy, a Democrat, expected 25 people at a “Congressman on Your Corner” event on Saturday. Instead he was met by a boisterous crowd of about 150 and a barrage of questions on health care."

The health bill is an Edsel: "Congress is getting an earful about Barack Obama's health care "reform," but before August is out, nobody's ears will be big enough to hold it all. Not even the president's... An aide to one Democratic congressman likens his boss' vacation to a hopeless campaign to "sell the Edsel." The Edsel, as only old-timers recall, was a new car introduced by Ford five decades ago. The car arrived with lots of weirdly shaped sheet metal and expensive bells and whistles, only to become the enduring metaphor for humiliating failure. The Republicans hold advantages as the monthlong congressional recess begins. The Democrats' only pitch is that Obamacare will "save" money - nobody believes that. [See more on this at SOCIALIZED MEDICINE]

Republicans closing gap in polls: "Nine months after Republicans suffered their worst political defeat in decades, President Obama and the Democrats are slipping in the polls and the Republican Party is expected to make gubernatorial and congressional gains in the 2009-10 election cycle, according to pollsters and election analysts. Six months into his presidency, Mr. Obama's approval ratings have fallen from the 70s to the low 50s or less and the Democrats' once-muscular lead in the polls also has shrunk. Republicans are leading in this year's two governorship races, in Virginia and New Jersey, and analysts say they likely will capture several more governor's mansions next year."

Panel blasts Panther case dismissal: "The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is demanding that the Justice Department explain why it recently dismissed a civil complaint against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during last year's election, saying the department has offered only "weak justifications." Commission Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds, a former deputy associate attorney general under President George W. Bush, said he fears the legal precedent set by the department in its May decision to drop the case might encourage "other hate groups" to act similarly at polling locations in the future. Mr. Reynolds also charged that other groups might not have been treated so leniently. "If you swap out the New Black Panther Party in this case for neo-Nazi groups or the Ku Klux Klan, you likely would have had a different outcome," he told The Washington Times in a telephone interview Monday. "A single law, a single rule should be applied across the board. We are communicating with the department in hopes of gaining a better understanding of just what happened."

An optimum size of government?: "A new study by economists with the Institute for Market Economics (IME) in Sofia, Bulgaria, using the latest OECD data, finds that the government sectors in OECD (developed countries) are too large relative to their private sectors to maximize economic growth. Economists have long known that the government sector can be too small or too large to maximize economic growth, job creation, and the social welfare of its citizens. Governments that do not adequately protect the people and their property and the rule of law may be too small, while governments whose size and inefficiencies cause a misallocation of resources are too large. Over the last several decades, economists have tried to determine and quantify the optimum size of government (recognizing that not all governments and societies are the same). Most studies have shown the optimum size of government is between 12% and 30% of GDP. The new IME study, entitled The Optimum Size of Government, finds (using standard methodology) the government sector should be no larger than 25% (and perhaps considerably smaller) to maximize GDP growth. All major governments, including the U.S., Germany, U.K., France, and Italy greatly exceed that level. The average government sector for the OECD countries now exceeds 41% of GDP."

British helicopters 'not fit for use': "BRITISH military helicopters set to be deployed to Afghanistan were not properly equipped to fly combat missions, a newspaper said today, fuelling a row over adequate resources for troops. The helicopters were not fitted with special armour, leaving them vulnerable to attack by Taliban extremists while transporting troops, the Daily Telegraph newspaper said, citing unnamed Royal Air Force sources. The Ministry of Defence rejected the report, saying the six aircraft set to be deployed by the end of the year were "fit for operational use." "Our Merlin Mk3 helicopters have ballistic protection as standard, and are being fitted with a range of modifications to make them fit for operational use," a spokesman said. The newspaper said pilots wanted the helicopters fitted with Kevlar armour, which would cost about £100,000 ($200,944) for each aircraft, to protect them from bullets and rocket-propelled grenades. Claims of a shortage of helicopters have been at the centre of a political row over adequate equipment for the armed forces amid a surge in the British death toll in Afghanistan."

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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