image toon - bbro legal fnn - NASA fixing hubble to see with more empathy?

Israel and the Axis of Evil

Less than two years ago, on September 6, 2007, the IAF destroyed a North Korean-built plutonium production facility at Kibar, Syria. The destroyed installation was a virtual clone of North Korea's Yongbyon plutonium production facility. We now know that Iran paid for the facility. Teheran viewed the installation in Syria as an extension of its own nuclear program. North Korea's intimate ties with Iran and Syria show that its nuclear and missile programs are not a distant threat, limited in scope to faraway East Asia. It is a multilateral program shared on various levels with Iran and Syria.

Despite the continuing existance of a globally networked Axis of Evil, there was a develoopment last week that made it apparent that the Obama administration will not revise its policy of placing its Middle East emphasis on weakening Israel rather than on stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

US Lt. General Keith Dayton, who is responsible for training Palestinian military forces in Jordan stated outright that if Israel does not surrender Judea and Samaria within two years, the Palestinian forces he and his fellow American officers are now training at a cost of more than $300 million will begin killing Israelis.

Dayton's statement laid bare the disturbing fact even though the administration is fully aware of the costs of its approach to the Palestinian conflict with Israel, it is still unwilling to reconsider it. Defense Secretary Robert Gates just extended Dayton's tour of duty for an additional two years and gave him the added responsibility of serving as Obama's Middle East mediator George Mitchell's deputy.

Four days after Dayton's remarks were published, senior American and Israeli officials met in London. The reported purpose of the high-level meeting was to discuss how Israel will abide by the administration's demands. By holding such a meeting the day after North Korea tested its bomb and after Iran's announcement that it rejects the US's offer to negotiate about its nuclear program, the administration demonstrated that regardless of what Iran does, Washington's commitment to putting the screws on Israel is not subject to change.

All of this of course is music to the mullahs' ears. Between America's impotence against their North Korean allies and its unshakable commitment to keeping Israel on the hot seat, the Iranians know that they have no reason to worry about Uncle Sam.

[Long, detailed, Highly Recommended > ]

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Christian Man Raped, Murdered for Refusing to Convert to Islam

A young Christian man was raped and brutally murdered in Pakistan for refusing to convert to Islam, and police are doing nothing about it.

Pakistani police reportedly found the body of Tariq "Litto" Mashi Ghauri — a 28-year-old university student in Sargodha, Pakistan — lying dead in a canal outside a rural village in Punjab Province on May 15. He had been raped and stabbed at least five times...

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image toon - gwot nsec islm = 'Mean while, in Pakistan...'

The Incredible Disappearing Nobel Prize-Winner

I’ve clipped and accumulated about a hundred news articles, decreasing in size and moving further back in the pages week to week, about the first political hostages of the Obama administration, the two reporters who work for Al Gore’s TV network. They were captured, held hostage, fake-tried and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp in North Korea.

Given that two of the journalists in his employee have been snatched and held hostage, kangaroo court-convicted and are now beginning their term of enslavement, torture, and use as negotiating pawns by North Korea, shouldn’t we and the entire world be seeing at least as much of The Great Gore as when he was running around promoting his movie or preening about his award?

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image toon - 1st othr immig intl = NKorea has secure borders re Al's reporters

FREE-TRADE OPPORTUNITY

South Korea has a $1-trillion-a-year economy, and it is already our eighth-largest trading partner. But it historically has had many barriers to imports that have prevented it from becoming an even bigger market for U.S. goods and services [i.e., Unions]:

• Last year, U.S. exporters shipped nearly $40 billion in manufactured and agricultural products to Korea, and in 2007, they sold nearly $13 billion in services there.
• Once the FTA takes effect, 95 percent of two-way trade in consumer and electronic goods will become duty-free within three years; nearly two-thirds of U.S. agricultural products will be duty-free immediately.
• The FTA provides strong legal protection that U.S. exporters and investors need to do business; it is such a good agreement that the European Union is close to concluding a similar FTA with Korea.
• The FTA will boost U.S. annual exports to South Korea by $10 billion to $12 billion a year; it will tie the United States more tightly into the broader East Asian market and stimulate the U.S. economy at no fiscal cost.

U.S. 'domestic politics' remain the only reason we have not moved forward with this deal. [i.e., Unions]

Some interest groups oppose any trade agreement.[i.e., Unions] While we need to find ways to address legitimate concerns expressed by those who feel left behind [i.e., Unions], it makes no sense to stop measures to expand trade relations.

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image toon - immig trade = Teamsters watching border for MExican trucks

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Demands Answers on Voter Intimidation Case Dismissal

As was commented upon here at CONTENTIONS, and widely reported and remarked upon elsewhere, the Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in connection with a case of voter intimidation on Election Day on November 4, 2008. Members of the NBPP were caught on film blocking access to the polls and physically and verbally intimidating voters, even going so far as to wield a nightstick in front of voters and poll watchers.

The Justice Department’s lawyers gathered evidence, obtained the affidavit of former civil rights advocate Bartle Bull, and filed a complaint. When the defendants did not respond and the court invited the Justice Department to file a default judgment, the case was inexplicably withdrawn.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has now taken up the issue and sent a letter to Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, demanding an explanation. By a vote of 4-0 (with one member abstaining for reasons not yet clear), the Commission members voted to send the letter seeking to get to the bottom of this... [snip]

What is even more remarkable in this already eye-popping story is that an independent commission has been forced to take this matter up because the relevant oversight committees in Congress have failed to hold a single hearing concerning the matter..

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A witness to Walpin-gate

The White House excuse for firing an IG falls flat

The belated White House explanation for firing the AmeriCorps inspector general doesn't ring true.

The White House claims Inspector General Gerald Walpin was effectively away without leave from his Washington office and that he was so "disoriented" and "confused" at a May 20 meeting that it made officials "question his capacity to serve." An exclusive witness told The Washington Times both charges are baseless.

By all accounts, the May 20 meeting was contentious. It was then that Mr. Walpin chastised the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service for failing to exercise enough oversight over AmeriCorps grants.

In response the board was hostile and rude. The board repeatedly interrupted Mr. Walpin and peppered him with questions on multiple issues. He fully confirmed Mr. Walpin's account that the board excused Mr. Walpin for 15 minutes and that when Mr. Walpin returned to find his notepapers out of order, the board refused to give him time to get them straight... [snip]

The fact remains that an inspector general does not serve at the president's pleasure and can be removed only for a specified just cause.

No legitimate cause has been given for the firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

[An insight by what's meant by the phrase "Chicago politics" - Recommended > ]

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Walloping Walpin

On Tuesday, ranking member Darrell Issa sent a letter to White House Counsel Gregory Craig, demanding the release of all e-mail and other communications between the Department of Justice's Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California regarding the dismissal of IG Walpin.

The U.S. Attorney connection arose from a 2008 Walpin investigation into allegations of misused taxpayer funds via AmeriCorps to the St. HOPE Academy of Sacramento, Calif., founded by Obama supporter and former NBA player -- now mayor of Sacramento -- Kevin Johnson. Walpin determined that Johnson's program misused almost $1 million in AmeriCorps funding, referred the case to the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento.

But Obama then fired Walpin immediately saying only that he no longer enjoyed his 'full confidence', despite a law that he cosponsored requiring that Congress be given a 30-day notice of his intent and a detailed justification for the removal... [snip]

"We need to see everything that Walpin pulled together. We have people inside this administration trying to smear him. The proof will be in his work product. Everything he pulled together for the investigation in Sacramento against Mayor Johnson should be made available for review,"

Meanwhile, a White House source says the White House is trying to find out if dispersal of parts of the $6 billion budget for CNCS can be sped up under a Presidential request that the funds be considered part of the economic stimulus program. ..

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THE POLITICS OF ENVY

There is little reason to believe that reducing income inequality would improve the welfare of the poor. Instead, our focus should be on advocating measures that will advance the absolute well-being of the working poor, say Jeffrey M. Jones, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Daniel Heil, a graduate student at Pepperdine University.

How much income mobility exists in America? Research consistently affirms that there is substantial upward income mobility in the United States, with the lowest income earners typically showing the strongest results:

• From 1996-2005, the Treasury found that more than 55 percent of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile; more than half the people in the lowest fifth of earners moved to a higher quintile over this period.
• The study also reveals that income mobility has increased, not decreased, during the past 20 years.
• For example, 47.3 percent of those in the lowest income quintile in 1987 saw their incomes increase by at least 100 percent by 1996; that number jumped to 53.5 percent from 1996 to 2005.

Family poverty is largely a single-parent phenomenon -- for 2007 show that 24.5 percent of all single-parent families lived below the poverty line, compared to only 4.9 percent of married-couple families.

Finally, income mobility is due to persistence in work.

Sensible, time-tested steps that produce upward income mobility point to one conclusion: there are no shortcuts. The goals are to work, invest, partner, learn and to focus on personal responsibility.

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image toon - mny reps crpt msm = Oby's crowd can't believe MSM bought 150K jobs

THE IMMORALITY OF WAXMAN-MARKEY

If the pending Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill (HR 2454) becomes law, utility bills will soar. Farm and business energy costs will skyrocket -- and be passed on to consumers, or defrayed by layoffs. Everything Americans grow, make, buy and do will be far pricier. And bureaucrats will control our lives, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

Written largely by professional environmentalists, the complex 942-page bill would require an 83 percent reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 -- a level last seen in 1908.

Its costly provisions would dictate every aspect of our lives, for example:

• Compared to the no cap-and-trade regime, Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real gross domestic product (GDP) losses by 2035.
• The bill would also cause an additional 1.1 million job losses each year, raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation, provoke a 74 percent hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices [which raises the price of everything else] and add $1,500 to the average family's annual energy bill.

When the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to approve Waxman-Markey, they also defeated amendments that would have suspended its punitive provisions if electricity prices go up 10 percent after inflation, unemployment reaches 15 percent or gasoline prices hit five dollars. [I.e., green no matter the cost to humans]

Thus, the bill radically "transforms" energy and economic systems, taxes and hobbles hydrocarbon use, mandates and subsidizes "green" energy and doles out innumerable preferences and penalties.

[I.e., THE mechanism by which Government can control and profit from all activity. ]

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Then >

"OPPOSE WAXMAN-MARKEY, HR 2454"


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...
.



House of Representatives switchboard:
202.225.3121 - 202.224-3121
.

THE PHANTOM UNINSURED

At a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wis., last week, President Obama spoke of the need to cover the "46 million people who don't have health insurance." At another point he simply referred to the "46 million uninsured." At neither point did he refer to them as "Americans," says Investor's Business Daily (IBD). That was wise, because not all them are, says the Census Bureau:

• According to "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States," a Census Bureau report published last August, of the 45.6 million persons in the United States that did not have health insurance at some point in 2007, 9.7 million, or about 21 percent, were not U.S. citizens.
• The Census Bureau does not ask if anyone is here legally or illegally, so we can't tell how many are actually illegal aliens; we do know that throughout the Southwest and elsewhere, emergency rooms have been overburdened by a continuous flood of illegal aliens.
• Also among the uninsured are 17 million Americans who live in households where the annual income exceeds $50,000; 7 million of those without coverage have incomes of $75,000 a year or more.

The notion that the uninsured are 'without' health care is bogus:

• They consumed an estimated $116 billion worth of health care in 2008, according to the advocacy group Families USA.
• Many of the uninsured are young and healthy (40 percent are between ages 18 and 34) and at this point in their lives, particularly in this economy, choose to put their dollars elsewhere.

Subtract noncitizens and those who can afford their own insurance but choose not to purchase it, and the number of uninsured falls dramatically.

"Many Americans are uninsured by choice," wrote Dr. David Gratzer in his book "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care."

Gratzer cited a study of the "non-poor uninsured" from the California HealthCare Foundation.

"Why the lack of insurance (among people who own homes and computers)?" Gratzer asks. "One clue is that 60 percent reported being in excellent health or very good health."

[And critically, states have mandated expansive coverage that most people refuse to pay for. We need to de-regulate the insurance industry (starting with making it an inter-state system vs. the closed markets which prevail today) so folks can buy insurance against truly catastrophic circumstance instead of politically correct (i.e., sex change) coverage at premium cost.

Involving the government will only move us in the wrong direction on all counts.]

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image toon - hcare = Side effects of Oby care = death

LESSONS OF THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

For five years the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigated whether "broadcasters are appropriately addressing the needs of their local communities." It concluded that the responsiveness of broadcasters has been less than ideal, and that FCC policies should change to foster more 'responsiveness' to local audiences.

In a new study, Cato Institute scholar John Samples argues, "Broadcast localism, like the Fairness Doctrine, is likely to do significant harm to freedom of speech. Policymakers who are aware of history will recall the lessons of the Fairness Doctrine and reject localism mandates for broadcasters."

For example:

• History suggests that the Fairness Doctrine served as a way for presidential administrations to systematically reduce or intimidate dissent of their policies.
• The doctrine also haphazardly restricted the speech of marginal individuals on the left and the right.
• The most frequently targeted speakers were conservative Christian ministers with a strong hostility to communism.

The current period seems similar to the Kennedy era:

• A new liberal president is pushing an ambitious agenda and fears the influence of conservative critics; now, as then, the president's political allies hope to manage speech with the help of the FCC.
• But newly empowered advisory boards could demand that license holders broadcast critics of the president's critics during the time set aside for local programming.
• Should a broadcaster refuse to follow that 'advice', the renewal of its license could easily come into question; after all, as members of the advisory board might testify, the license holder had refused to meet the needs of its local audience.
• The broadcaster might also choose to stay on the good side of its advisory board by deciding not to air "unfair" attacks on the president or his administration.

The history of the Fairness Doctrine suggests that the word "localism" will be defined in practice as the "raw political advantage" of those in charge of managing speech. Moreover, both the Fairness Doctrine and the localism proposal share a common weakness: they make broadcasters subservient to politics...

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Women turn history into a bizarre soap opera

Women historians have feminised history by focusing on the 'soap opera' of key figures' love lives rather than their achievements, David Starkey claims.

The TV historian said his female counterparts concentrated on 'big box-office' subjects such as the six wives of Henry VIII instead of major political events of the time.

Dr Starkey, 54, said: 'One of the great problems has been that Henry, in a sense, has been absorbed by his wives. Which is bizarre.

'But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box-office.'

In an interview with Radio Times, he said the programmes would focus on the monarch himself, adding:

'Wives appear simply to explain or complicate the story of Henry. This is his development, his psychology and, above all, why he matters.'

Dr Starkey said the 'soap opera' of Henry's personal life should come second to the political consequences of his rule, such as the Reformation and the break with Roman Catholicism. And he added:

'If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify.'

[He obviously didn't get the memo: White men are to blame for {fill in 'problem' here}...]

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[HT:GC]