Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Obama's Unreality Tour
Barack Obama vowed to turn to the U.N. Security Council for strong action following North Korea's weekend missile launch. He would have done better by turning to Dr. Phil.
So, as the good doctor likes to say: Get real. Get real about North Korea. Get real about the U.N. Get real, also, about NATO, arms control, Russia, the global financial system, and every other item headlining the president's unreality tour through the capitals of Europe... [snip]
No U.S. president should hazard America's security for political symbolism. Yet that's just what Mr. Obama proposed in his Prague speech, calling for an arms control treaty with Russia, the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and another treaty to end the production of weapons-grade nuclear material.
"As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon," said the president, "the United States has a moral responsibility to act."
Now there's a line to linger over. Implicitly, it suggests that the nuclear challenges we now face from North Korea and Iran all stem from America's original sin of using atomic bombs to bring World War II to the swiftest possible conclusion. Never mind the estimated one million American and Japanese lives saved as result, or the peace kept and the prosperity built for six decades thereafter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella...[snip]
Media sycophants may consider themselves duty bound, à la Chris Matthews, to work for Mr. Obama's success. Kim Jong Il and friends take a different view. In the real world, theirs are the views that count.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Those arrogant Americans
Ahhh, those arrogant Americans. First they rebel against King George III and all the crowned heads of Europe. Then they welcome tens of millions of poor and persecuted people from the Old World. Then they fail to bow down to Europe's greatest figures -- from Napoleon and Otto von Bismarck to the Kaiser, Hitler and Stalin.
Then they fight a civil war, losing half a million people to liberate black people in America. Then they diss the man the BBC considers to be the greatest philosopher ever, one Karl Marx, whose followers killed 100 million innocents in the 20th century. And then, to top it all off, they liberate both the Western half of Europe (in 1946) and the Eastern half (in 1989).
What arrogance these Americans have. Either that, or a very, very -- no, stunningly -- ignorant man was just elected president. I wonder if he has every really talked to a concentration camp survivor, or a Cuban refugee, or a boat person from Vietnam? Or a Soviet dissident. Or a survivor or Mao's purges.
Not to mention families with fallen American soldiers in the graveyards. Yes, he's going to Normandie, but will he apologize for our arrogance there, too? Does he really understand anything beyond the PC history of the world? Has he ever read an honest history book?
What kind of man has such an obsessive need to put down his own country? Especially given our real history?
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American 'arrogance' on display in Africa
While President Barack Obama (D) apologizes for our "arrogance" to Europe and Turkey - the very arrogance that saved the former from Nazism and Communism and the latter from even more chaos - maybe he will credit America and his predecessor for this bit of truly inspiring American can do work. The result is truly inspiring:
A U.S. program launched during the Bush administration has cut AIDS deaths by 10 percent in targeted African nations compared to their neighbors and saved more than a million lives, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Last July, the U.S. Congress voted to spend $48 billion to expand PEPFAR for five years to treat and prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere...
Will the Africans appreciate America? Probably not. But we'll continue to fund and to help because Americans can rise above such pettiness; Americans are arrogant because they take positive actions while the Europeans sink more and more into passivity and helplessness while blaming their failures on the U.S.
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Most Don't Believe That U.S. Has Shown Arrogance and Been Dismissive of Europe
[HT:RT]
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American voters agree that in dealing with its European allies over the years, the United States has shown arrogance, been dismissive, and even derisive. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 47% disagree with that assertion and 16% are not sure.
Most American voters—54%--say it would be better for the world if Europe became more like the United States...
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Donaldson on Obama at G-20: 'Just Changing the Tone a Great Plus'
[Meanwhile, in the MSM...]
Reacting with indignation to David Frum's assessment that President Barack Obama was a “failure” at the G-20 summit because European leaders “rebuffed” his quest to get them to follow his lead in enacting massive deficit spending, an aghast ABC News veteran Sam Donaldson sputtered that the change in “tone” from former President Bush was more important than substance:
"The last President we had that went to Europe, I mean no one wanted to see him. There was great hostility. This President's changed the tone. Just changing the tone was a great plus for the United States."[How? They still said 'no']
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Iran: US failing in Afghanistan
Tehran - Iran said on Monday the US was failing in Afghanistan and that a new approach was needed, four days after Washington said it would invite Tehran to an international conference to discuss its neighbour.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki did not say whether Iran would accept the US invitation to this month's planned meeting on Afghanistan...
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Europeans Offer Few New Troops for Afghanistan
STRASBOURG, France — European leaders offered few extra troops on Saturday for President Obama’s intensified effort in Afghanistan, with most of the soldiers only on temporary security assignment, underlining deep divisions within the alliance over the war. For a NATO summit meeting intended to be without drama, marking the 60th anniversary of the alliance, the event has been fractious both inside the hall and outside.
[They offered 'advisers' numbering in the dozens.]
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Pentagon: U.S. looks to China for support on Afghanistan
BEIJING - The United States is looking to stronger Chinese cooperation on Afghanistan, piracy, and other international troubles, a Pentagon official said on Saturday after talks that he said also addressed strains over Taiwan.
Sedney said Washington would welcome Chinese help there and in neighboring Pakistan...
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Indictment looms in illegal transfer of nuke technology to Iran
[HT:BD]
It seems that a Chinese national has been caught red handed setting up dummy corporations in order to effect the transfer of technology to Iran that can be used to build a nuke:
The Manhattan district attorney's office has smashed a sinister plot to smuggle nuclear weapons materials to Iran through unwitting New York banks, the Daily News has learned.
Officials plan to unseal a 118-count indictment Tuesday accusing a Chinese national of setting up a handful of fake companies to hide that he was selling millions of dollars in potential nuclear materials to Tehran.
"This case will cut off a major source of supply to Iran and it shows how they are going ahead full steam to get a nuclear bomb. Long-range missiles they pretty much have already," a law enforcement source close to the case said.
"We think it is one of the largest suppliers of weapons of mass destruction to Iran."
The indictment will outline the financial conspiracy behind 58 different transactions, including shipments of various banned materials from China to Iran between 2006 and late 2008.
The plot came to light several months ago during an investigation of an Iranian money laundering caper in Great Britain. Good catch by both the Brits and our FBI but you have to wonder how many transfers have slipped through without our knowledge?
That's the kind of thing that keeps our spooks up at night, even if only the New York Daily News feels it a vital enough story to publish.
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Kremlin to supply PA with new weapons
.Moscow has promised to supply the Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank with new weapons, including two helicopters. The Russians have also agreed to supply the PA with more than 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 300 armored vehicles, 100 pistols and large quantities of ammunition.
The official said that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who met with Abbas on Monday, promised to consider the possibility of convening the peace conference in Moscow later this year.
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A Country under Siege
Imagine living in the State of New Jersey and being surrounded in all directions by enemies desiring your destruction.
Imagine that the 22 states closest to the borders of your state despise you and all of New Jersey's inhabitants with such intensity that only your total annihilation will satisfy their blood curdling desires.
Welcome to the State of Israel. A country smaller than the State of New Jersey, bordered by enemies from every view, over every hill top and abutting many of its cities.
One Israeli said to me, "I am educated. I have been taught to hate the Arabs but if they come up to me and say to me, ‘I want peace,' I would say to them, ‘Here is a piece of my land. Let us be neighbors.'"
Unfortunately, the Arabs do not approach Israelis and say, "I want peace." They say, "We do not recognize your right to exist. We will not rest until your country has been destroyed and you are gone from our land."
And so instead of walking the streets of Israel's cities touring art museums and shopping, we visited the Golan Heights riddled with shell casings, mine fields and Syrian bunkers. We walked past Mike's Place, the beachfront restaurant in Tel Aviv, at which a suicide bomber blew himself and three Israelis up and wounding countless other innocent victims.
We traveled to Sderot, the town bordering Gaza that has been the recipient of thousands of Qassam missiles shot by Hamas. And we looked over the mountains to the border of Lebanon and the site at which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped several years ago and later returned in coffins.
The list is endless...
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MSM Nothwithstanding, New Israeli Government Aims For Palestinian Statehood
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"New Israeli Foreign Minister Bluntly Dismisses U.S. Peace Effort," screamed the headline over Kershner's article, which labeled Lieberman variously as "hawkish nationalist," "ultranationalist" and, for good meaasure, "racist." Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, in contrast, was presented as a statesman bewailing that "Israel closed the door in the face of the international community."
Of course, Israel did no such thing.
One day after Israel's new government was sworn in, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared that Israel remains fully committed to Palestinian statehood. Specifically, he confirmed that Israel will abide by the terms of the 2003 "road map" (full text) promulgated by George W. Bush, which explicitly calls for "Israel and a sovereign, independent, democratic and viable Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
By firmly endorsing the road map, it is in total synch with "the international community" since the road map is also the handiwork of the European Union, Russia and the United Nations in concert with Washington.
Why such glaring misreporting?
[A: Because Israel's new Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had the audacity to suggest that future progress on the road map would be contingent on productive Arab conduct - and that's simply beyond the pail to those on the Left...
Recommend as a glaring example of advocacy {and deceptive} 'journalism']
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He Forgot about the Poisoned Wells
The New York Times publishes an op-ed by George Bisharat, the U.S. academic whose professional mission is the indictment of Israel for war crimes, no matter how implausible. His piece starts with a lie that the Times itself had an important hand in promoting:
"Chilling testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law."
Except that there never was any “chilling testimony” — there were rumors circulated by an anti-IDF activist, which were breathlessly republished by Haaretz and its American counterpart, the Times...
[Detailed and instructive of how 'news' is now made - Recommended > ]
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We are all anti-Semites now
And now it is time for Newsweek and the Knowledge Elites to make the next cultural realignment official:
"We are all anti-Semites now."
With the Obama administration's new stance on terrorism (it's Israel's fault) and its embrace of Jimmy Carter-style anti-Semitism (we are joining the notorious UN Human Rights Council, which spends most of its time denouncing Israel, Zionism and -- let's face it -- the Jews), and the universities and media piling on, it is obvious that the KE's have reached another consensus: the Jews -- as symbolized by the culture and politics of Israel and, in fact, by some obviously ‘Neocon' last names -- are simply out of step with the world as we wish it to be.
Therefore, they must follow free markets, individualism, and Judeo-Christian values into oblivion...
[Hyperbole? Read...> ]
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Hopeful Signs For A Colombia Free-Trade Pact
Colombia asserted itself on the international stage last week, with the 50th annual governors' meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank in Medellin. Some 6,000 bankers and businesspeople came.
All spruced up for the meeting, Medellin did its best to reclaim its identity as a great industrial center in the Americas, erasing the terrible image it once had as center of the global drug trade. Looking at the graceful, Hong Kong-like skyline amid flowers and greenery, it's hard to believe Medellin ever had such a past.
Corporate titans from Brazil, Spain, Japan, China and Germany were present along with the bankers, having invested $8.5 billion in Colombia in 2008.
It isn't surprising, because Colombia is rapidly moving to diversify its trading partners, signing deals with China, Japan, Korea, the European Union, Canada and Central America, following Chile's model of signing free-trade deals with all comers.
The U.S., with its Colombia free-trade agreement still on ice in Congress, was the only country that looked isolated and out of tune with the world without its pact...
[That would be our staunchest ally in South America. Humiliating.]
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"PASS THE COLUMBIA FREE TRADE ACT NOW"
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
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Knock-knock. It’s the gag police.
Did you hear the one about the queer, the Muzzie and the pre-op tranny?
No? Well, you’re unlikely to any time soon. The British government, fresh from recent proscriptions on religious and racial “hatred,” is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalize homophobic jokes.
Her Majesty’s Constabulary: the joke police—in every sense.
Even if you think it’s a good idea for the state to regulate speech, the only troops available to do it are blundering coppers and hack bureaucrats. Last year, as readers may recall, I had the curious experience of having the “tone” of my jokes examined in a Vancouver courthouse by the geniuses of the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal.
Hitherto, such forensic dissection has been limited to the more obscure literary critics. But not anymore. Following their week-long deconstruction of Steyn’s “tone,” the BCHRT announced that for its next show trial it would be turning to the “tone” of Guy Earle, a stand-up comic whose late-night put-downs of some lesbian hecklers were allegedly homophobic.
Maybe it would be easier just to ban all jokes, except for official government-licensed rib-ticklers. [snip]
To hell with it, and to hell with “sensitivity training.” The only way a multicultural society can live in freedom is with what the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle calls “insensitivity training”: we all need to develop thicker skin and rub along—without government monitoring. “CSI Catskills” is a totalitarian concept, and only a bunch of fairies would fall for it.
And just to clarify: I’m not saying you’re a fairy if you have sex with other men.
I am saying you’re a fairy if you think the state should police our jokes.
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Hate Speech? Nope. Just Common Sense
I have detected a disturbing trend in the tenor of the debate now coming from the left.
Anything that is remotely critical of our president or the Democrats in Congress is now being characterized as "hate speech." Now that the liberals have taken over Washington, it seems that criticizing massive bailouts and so-called stimulus packages to the tune of trillions of dollars we don't have is suddenly repugnant if not downright unpatriotic.
Liberals look at our current economic situation and scream and cry that our government should do something. Anything! That's an emotional response to a problem that requires logic and common sense to solve. It's easy to throw money at a problem in a fit of misguided compassion, but throwing money around is exactly how we got here.
So those of us who criticize the policies of this administration are systematically targeted for destruction. What's so disturbing about this trend is the damage it does to our fundamental right to freedom of speech, to freedom of the press, to the free exchange of ideas. It is not I who hate; rather, it is those who disagree with me who hate me for holding an opinion contrary to their own.
These supposedly open-minded 'progressives' seem to be all about diversity except when it comes to diversity of thought...
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ESTIMATED U.S. TAXPAYER COST FOR BAILOUT JUMPS
U.S. congressional budget analysts have raised their estimate of the net cost to taxpayers for the government's financial rescue program to $356 billion, an increase of $167 billion from earlier estimates. For example:
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had originally projected the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would cost taxpayers $189 billion.
- The additional cost, which applies to TARP spending for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, was included in the CBO's March projection of a $1.8 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009, which ends September 30.
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THE GEITHNER-SUMMERS PLAN IS WORSE THAN YOU THINK
The Geithner-And-Summers Plan (GASP) to buy toxic assets from the banks is rightly scorned as an unnecessary give-away by virtually every independent economist who has looked at it. Its only friends are the Wall Street firms it is designed to bail out, say Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University, and Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of economics at Columbia University.
One defect is the systematic overbidding entailed by the proposal. Others have since made similar calculations, including Joseph Stiglitz and Peyton Young. The situation is even worse that it looks, however, since the GASP can be gamed by the banks that own the toxic assets to boost the purchase prices for their bad assets even higher than has been suggested to date.
Suppose that Citibank holds $1billion face value of toxic assets that will pay $1billion with 20 percent probability and $200 million with 80 percent; the market value is $360 million:
- The GASP calls on investors to establish a Public-Private Investment Fund (PPIF) to bid for the toxic assets.
- For each $1 that a private investor brings in equity to the PPIF, the Treasury [that's 'us'] will put in another $1, and then the FDIC will leverage the $2 in equity with $12 of non-recourse loans (6-to-1 leverage).
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BANKRUPTCY IS VITAL TO CAPITALISM
Bankruptcy is an orderly way to give an overburdened debtor a fresh start and to decide which creditors get paid back and which don't. As Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz teaches: bankruptcy is a way to cope with those times when markets fail to allocate capital wisely and monitor its use. Currently, America is relearning that old lesson, says the Wall Street Journal's David Wessel.
In good times, bankruptcy is a way to encourage risk-taking. After all, an economy in which everyone fears trying something that might fail is a stagnant one.
Bankruptcy is not a death sentence. Yet, headline-making bankruptcies of several brand-name companies at a moment of severe economic crisis can so undermine confidence in the economy that avoiding them makes sense. But bankruptcy is the only way to prevent mistakes and debts of the past from hobbling an economy's future...
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More Voters See Taxes As Very Important Issue
While the economy remains the top issue nationwide, taxes are moving up on the priority list. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 64% of voters see taxation as very important; it’s highest level in nearly two years.
Another 26% now see taxes as a somewhat important issue, while only 8% say taxes are not very or not at all important in terms of how they will vote.
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Tea Party Crowds Protest Federal Spending And Intervention action
Tanya Bachand has always been interested in politics, though she viewed it as largely a spectator sport. "I never felt compelled to get off my couch ... and do something," said the 34-year-old attorney from Wallingford.
But as she grew increasingly alarmed by the billions of dollars the federal government was spending on bailout and stimulus packages, Bachand was driven to act: She recently joined a burgeoning grass-roots political uprising known as the Tea Party movement.
"These packages are being pushed through with no deliberation," said Branford resident Pam Fowler, who is 49 and works as a technology facilitator at a local elementary school. "The pork, the earmarks. … It just feels out of control"
Ultimately, Bachand said, the Tea Parties aren't about party politics. "We want to have a real conversation about the direction of the country," she said. "I'm troubled by the bailouts. ... I'm personally opposed to any government intervention in private business."
In her view, it comes down to a single question: "Do you believe in individual responsibility or do you believe that the government should take care of every little nook and cranny of our lives."
"I felt a responsibility, as a parent and as a citizen, to do something," said Bachand, who has a 9-year-old son. She is now organizing a similar demonstration in New Haven on April 15, one of a number of tax day protests planned around the nation...
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NY Times Finally Marks Anti-Spending Tea Party...With Merciless Mockery
Liberal double standards ahoy! The New York Times news pages have virtually ignored the grass-roots "tea party" protests held in various towns across the country opposing Obama's big-spending and supporting free markets. The paper has run not a single story on a protest, even when one happened in the paper's own backyard of Ridgefield, Conn.
By contrast, a much smaller "bus tour" protest organized by a left-wing group of the homes of AIG executives received prominent and sympathetic coverage in the paper's National section, a protest where the media (50) outnumbered the protestors (40).
On Tuesday, Times editorial writer Lawrence Downes took the plunge and covered a genuine "tea party" in Northport, N.Y., a hamlet on Long Island Sound, complete with costumes and wooden crates for the dumping.
The only question is: Why did he bother?
From the start of his signed editorial, "Don't Tread on Them," it's clear Downes considers the movement a patchwork of right-wing kooks...
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Attacking The Tea Party Movement
Those on the left have spent so much time over the past eight years bashing George Bush that they are having trouble shifting gears. Instead of enjoying their big win in 2008 and going positive, following their leader Obama’s “hope and change” message, they are still tearing down anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
The latest attack from the left is not aimed at the Republican party or Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh, but at Democrat, Republican and Independent Americans across the country who have dared to organize “tea parties” to oppose rising taxes, more government control over private enterprise and less individual liberty.
The Tea Party Movement has caught fire and spread from one end of the country to the other. According to the Tax Day Tea Party website, which is tracking tea parties taking place across the country on April 15, the events are focused on the following theme: Repeal the Pork, Cut Taxes and Spending.“There are more than 500 tea parties confirmed for that day, and it is expected that over the next week and a half, the number of tea parties will continue to grow. Crowds of 5,000 to 10,000 are expected in multiple cities.”
So far the reaction from the national media has been to downplay or ignore the tea party rallies. Reaction from many on the left most recently is to ridicule and openly attack tea party participants...
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[Including PLEASANTON:
Pleasanton
When: April 15, 12:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: 4301 Black Ave
Amador Valley Community Park
(directly across form the post office)
Map: Click Here
Contact: EMAIL
Facebook Group: “The” Pleasanton TEA Party!!
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Who are the fascists today?
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The United States has had its share of political violence. The Whiskey Rebellion and Civil War are large scale examples. The New York City Draft Riots and countless smaller Urban Riots pepper American history.
But I cannot remember (and I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong) any examples of tacit calls to violence coming from a group in firm control of the reins of government. The AIG bonus scandal seems to be moving towards this historical point of no return.
Congressmen and at least one Attorney General are demanding to know who received the bonuses. They are pledging to release those names in the face of threats against the recipients of the bonuses. Some names have already been leaked.
A quick survey of 20 comments to this story at USA Today (aka the Nation's McNewspaper) on March 21, 2009 revealed these comments.
BillT wrote:
This is a sign of things to come as the citizens get educated on how the rich are making them poor.
Gated communities are going to be the rule if they want to live in this country...they will be prisoners of their own greed.
Joe Fisherman wrote:
They are only sorry because attention has been drawn toward there GREED.
DontTread wrote:
Sure, people are hostile, their tired of getting screwed. I dont feel any sorrow for these wealthy bigots. These problems exist because of their own GREED.
Kent C de Trees wrote:
Wouldn't you AIG people rather be where Bernie is ?? Jail is going to be safer than freedom. Watch your back while getting that Starbucks or DD coffee from now on....................
DonHoHo wrote:
too bad......... let them live in fear.......... fear of getting punched in the face at the supermarket.
While many hardcore news junkies deride USA Today because of its shallow reporting, that same shallowness tends to attract the less informed / less politicized "man on the street". For that reason, these comments are much more troubling considering they are not coming from the Daily Kos or Huffington Post.
I won't bore you with the obvious, and perhaps hysterical, comparisons to certain -ist, -ite and -zi political movements from the last century. But, I will point out the irony that many of the people currently fanning the flames of this outrage claim conservatives are fascists.
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