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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Historical record belies once-fashionable, opportunistic Zionist and leftist strategy of conflating Christianity with Nazism

From:
Pope's Remarks Recall the Nazi War on Christ

(The New American) -- by Bruce Walker --

Pope Benedict XVI, who like other teenagers in Nazi Germany, was forced to join the Hitler Youth, recently recalled solemnly the evil of Nazism. Although it was once fashionable to try to present Christianity as some sort of precursor to Nazi anti-Semitism, and particular to attack the Catholic Church as an accomplice of the Nazis, honest history tells a very different story. Nazi persecution of all serious Christians was unrelenting and severe.

As Michael Power writes in his 1939 book, Religion in the Reich, in June of 1933 in Munich at a meeting of the Catholic Workers Union, the Sturmabteilung (SA — stormtroopers) attacked and: “Priests accompanying them were beaten with steel and rubber truncheons.”

Albert Parry notes in his 1941 book, Riddle of the Reich, that not a single pastoral letter had been permitted by the Nazi government to be read from the pulpit for the three preceding years, and that this ban included even the Pope’s encyclicals. By 1942, the book, The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich reported: “The war which National Socialism is waging against the Catholic Church is total war.”

Rom Landau, the year before, wrote: “There was inhuman persecution of the Jews, Catholics, and Lutherans.” Vermeil notes in his book: “Persecution of the Catholics redoubled soon after Hitler came to power.” Budenz, an American Communist who had been editor of the Daily Worker and then after converting to the Christian faith abandoned his secular "religion," reported in the 1940s that: “Hitler used German Trotskyites as guards and encouraged them to persecute Catholics of the resistance movement.” The so-called conflict between the National Socialists and the Marxist Socialists was, in fact, a clever lie.

The Catholic Church, for example, has often been attacked as doing too little to help the Jews during the Holocaust. Yet on July 19, 1933, the Catholic periodical, America, published a strong article condemning Nazi persecution of the Jews. Dark and Essex, in their 1930s book, The War on God, stated that almost as soon as the Concordant with German was signed: “The Church, too, courageously denounced the brutal and organized anti-Semitism.”...MORE...LINK
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Chris Moore comments:

Of course, Zionsts used the conflation of Nazism with Christianity to justify the creation and behaviorism of Judeofascist Israel, and leftists used it to wage war against the moral authority of traditional Christendom.

Ironically, the heirs to the Nazis today include Jewish Zionists, Judeo-Christian Zionists (which both subscribe to a fascist world view which supports lying a population into war, military-industrial complex war profiteering, and racist supremacism (that of "the Jews" of Israel) as well as statist-authoritarian "liberals" such as Obama's science czar who wants to use totalitarian world government to cull the human population down to one billion souls.

In a classic dialectical process, the two groups have synthesized to formulate Globalism-advocating, Israel-first pursuant Washington, which is waging a dysgenic racial-ethno-religious war against Muslims, and a quasi-dysgenic culture war against traditional Christians, advocates of Western civilization who don't worship Jewish Zionists or Mammon, and anti-Judeofascist Whites.

In the end, they'll have simply made too many enemies (Muslims, traditional Christians, authentic, anti-statist conservatives and liberals, anti-Globalists, patriots, non-fascist Whites) to ever win any sort of decisive victory, and are likely to take a hard-fall as casualties of their own "all or nothing" attempts to impose Zionist moral authority upon the world via neocon/neolib totalitarian Globalist government.

Do these deserve Christian mercy? The question is debatable, but at the least, their leadership MUST be held accountable for the many crimes against humanity already under its belt.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Greedy business and left-wingers joined Obama admin in opposition, but Supreme Court upholds AZ measure against hiring/exploiting illegal immigrants

From:
Supreme Court upholds Ariz. law punishing companies that hire illegal immigrants

(Washington Post) -- by Robert Barnes --

Arizona, the state at the forefront of efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, may revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ undocumented workers, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a 5 to 3 vote, the court rejected arguments that control over illegal immigration is solely a federal responsibility and endorsed narrowly drawn state efforts to regulate the employment of those in the country illegally. Eight other states — Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — have passed similar laws that would punish companies for hiring undocumented workers...

The law at issue in Thursday’s decision is the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which calls for revocation of a company’s business license if it has twice been found to knowingly or intentionally employ illegal workers.

The law requires companies to use a federal online program known as E-Verify — which challengers said was unreliable — to determine whether an employee is authorized to work.

The law was passed in 2007 and signed by Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), now President Obama’s secretary of homeland security.

It was opposed by an unusual coalition: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, civil rights groups, labor unions and the Obama administration. Business groups criticize the patchwork of state and local efforts regulating employers, while civil-liberties groups worry about discrimination and racial profiling.

The 1986 federal Immigration Reform and Control Act preempts “any state or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions” on employers who hire unauthorized immigrants. But Arizona took advantage of a parenthetical clause in the statute — “other than through licensing and similar laws” — to impose its own penalties.

A majority of the court agreed with the state’s reading of the federal law.

“It makes little sense to preserve state authority to impose sanctions through licensing, but not allow states to revoke licenses when appropriate as one of those sanctions,” Roberts wrote in the opinion...MORE...LINK

Thick, corrupt, neoconned generation of post-Reagan establishment "conservatives" easily manipulated into Israel-first betrayal of Americans

From:
Israel and the Right

(The American Conservative) -- by Jack Hunter --

The Democrats have taken up Dick Cheney's jingoistic, Big Government "national security" rhetoric

From:
Top Democrat Channels Cheney, Blasts Patriot Act Foes as Osama Pals
By
(Wired) -- by Spencer Ackerman --

It used to be that Sen. Harry Reid had a problem with smearing surveillance skeptics as terrorist allies. But now that some Republicans oppose the Patriot Act, Reid is calling the objectors Osama’s BFFs. Dick Cheney would be proud.

All the libertarian senator Rand Paul wanted was to add amendments to the government’s cherished surveillance law that would protect Americans’ privacy. For this, Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, charged that Paul’s efforts would “increase the risk of a retaliatory terrorist strike against the homeland and hamper our ability to deal a truly fatal blow to al-Qaida.”

It’s not just that Reid is demagoguing Rand Paul. It’s that Reid’s objections betray the depths of his hypocrisy on both surveillance and its politics, as revealed by the sophisticated consistency-generating algorithm known as Google.

Remember back when a Republican was in the White House and demanded broad surveillance authority? Here’s Reid back then. ”Whether out of convenience, incompetence, or outright disdain for the rule of law, the administration chose to ignore Congress and ignore the Constitution,” Reid said about Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. When Bush insisted Congress entrench that surveillance with legislation in 2008, Reid turned around and demanded Bush “stop fear-mongering and start being honest with the American people about national security.” Any claim about the detrimental impact about a lapse in widespread surveillance were “scare tactics” to Reid that ”irresponsibly distort reality.” (Then Reid rolled over for Bush.)

That’s nowhere near the end of Reid’s hypocrisy here. When the Senate debated renewing the Patriot Act in 2006, Reid, a supporter of the bill’s surveillance procedures, himself slowed up the bill’s passage to allow amendments to it — the better to allow “sensible checks on the arbitrary exercise of executive power.” Sounding a whole lot like Rand Paul, the 2006-vintage Reid registered his “objection to the procedural maneuver under which Senators have been blocked from offering any amendments to this bill” and reminded his colleagues, ”the hallmark of the Senate is free speech and open debate.”

Reid could hardly be more of an opportunist here. He favors broad surveillance authorities — just as long as those scary Republicans stop being mean to liberals. When Attorney General John Ashcroft warned civil libertarians that their “phantoms of lost liberty… only aid terrorists,” Reid told CNN on December 8, 2001 that “people should just cool their jets” — but not that Ashcroft was actually, you know, wrong. By contrast, the ultra-conservative pundit Bob Novak said Ashcroft made “one of the most disreputable statements I have heard from an attorney general.”...MORE...LINK

AIPAC's fanatically foreign-loyalist director sends down extreme, Israel-first dictates

From:
AIPAC’s Extremism

Howard Kohr says: don't be even-handed, be "honest"
(AntiWar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo --

Coverage of the recent AIPAC conference naturally gave the lion’s share of attention to President Obama’s speech, in which he did his best to placate the most powerful lobby in Washington. The speech, in itself, was a yawner, in that nothing really new was said: the news value was that the President felt compelled to make it. Far more interesting, in terms of content, however – and far less reported on – was AIPAC director Howard Kohr’s peroration, in which he gave the conference attendees what they came there for: red meat. Reddest of all – an argument against US evenhandedness in managing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Outlining the principles that ought to govern US-Israeli relations, Kohr said the first is "trust and confidence between the leaders of Israel and the United States." What’s interesting is how he defines this "trust." According to Kohr

"If Israel’s foes come to believe that there is diplomatic daylight between the United States and Israel, they will have every incentive to try to exploit those differences and shun peace with the Jewish state. That is why it is so important that America and Israel work out whatever differences arise between them privately, and when tensions do arise, that the leaders work together to close those gaps."

Translation: The President of United States must never ever criticize Israel in public, no matter what.

This "no criticism" injunction leads naturally to the second of Kohr’s principles governing US-Israeli relations:

"The second principle is for America to play its role as honest broker. And let us be clear: That should not be confused with even-handedness. Part of being an honest broker is being honest. One party in this process is our ally — with whom we share values and strategic interests.

"In a world which is demonstrably on the side of the Palestinians and Arabs — where Israel stands virtually alone — the United States has a special role to play. When the United States is even-handed, Israel is automatically at a disadvantage, tilting the diplomatic playing field overwhelmingly toward the Palestinians and Arabs."

Aside from the illogic of such an argument – isn’t a "broker" supposed to be objective, by definition? – one has to stand back and admire the sheer extremism of this stance. Justice is irrelevant, as is America’s national interest: we must take Israel’s side no matter what. That’s being "honest," which must never be confused with taking an "even-handed" approach.

The rationale for this lopsided worldview is that we live in "a world which is demonstrably on the side of the Palestinians and Arabs, where Israel stands virtually alone."

It’s true that Israel stands virtually alone, and yet one has to ask: why is that? Is the whole world awash in a wave of virulent anti-Semitism, or do the policies of the current Israeli government have something to do with it? Like all extremists, Kohr believes alone-ness imbues his cause (in this case, Israel) with some special virtue: besieged by an uncomprehending, inherently hostile, and downright evil world, the extremist perceives his isolation as a badge of honor.

Kohr can’t permit himself to ask the obvious question of why Israel faces a future of growing isolation, for fear the answer would make his head explode: the widespread recognition that the actions of the Israeli government are immoral and impermissible. In making his appeal for unconditional support of Israel, Kohr wisely avoids making any moral argument and instead invokes our formal relationship with Israel as an "ally," along with some vague talk about shared "values and strategic interests."

Yet there is nothing vague about the growing divergence of American and Israeli strategic interests, a process which started when the Berlin Wall fell and is still playing itself out. The US-Israeli "special relationship" took shape as a consequence of the worldwide face-off between the West and the Soviet bloc. During the cold war era, Israel was taken into the "Free World" camp after the Soviet Union’s initially friendly relationship with the Israelis turned sour and the Kremlin began to tilt toward the Arab states, such as Syria.

When the cold war ended, however, the entire framework of the "special relationship" crumbled, and there was nothing to replace it. Although the Israeli leadership has maintained the 9/11 terrorist attacks meant that Israel and the US must draw closer together – supposedly because we’re facing "the same enemy" – the strategic interests of the US dictate a quite different course. To give unconditional support to the Israelis means, in effect, ceding the entire Arab world to the likes of al-Qaeda, and making mortal enemies of a billion-plus Muslims...MORE...LINK

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Obama's sorcerer's apprentice ideology: Zionist-lite, huge chutzpah, liberal interventionism

From:
Barack Obama: Neoconservative crusader

(Non-intervention.com) -- by Michael Scheur --

While some in the media swoon over President Obama’s “plan” for the Middle East — note the Washington Post’s piece by David Ignatius — and the Israel-First fifth column prepares to teach the Democrats a lesson in 2012, the rest of us common folk can see how irrelevant we are to the foreign-policy plans of Mr. Obama and our bipartisan political elite.

In his May 19th, 2011, speech, Obama details our elite’s desire to reshape the Muslim world in its image, an image which has nothing to do with America and everything to do with a coterie of very well educated elitists issuing edicts that tell Americans and Muslims to accept behavioral instructions from their betters and then think, act, and vote accordingly. And Mr. Obama, again, demonstrated the bankruptcy of the U.S. educational system. A product of two of our most prestigious universities, Mr. Obama was arrogant, ignorant of the world, and blithely unaware that he is either.

Adopting the crazed and crusading words of Mr. Bush and the Neoconservatives, Obama began his Middle East speech by saying “we know our own future is bound to this region,” and proceeded to instruct the Islamic world that, because this is true, Muslims must become just like us — or else. From there on, Obama signals his and our political elite’s disdain for Americans and assumes a mantle of interventionism much more encompassing than anything ever worn by the lamentable Woodrow Wilson.

In his arrogance, Obama condemns “the relentless tyranny of governments that deny their citizens dignity” and argues that “[i]n too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of too few,” referring in each case to Arab dictators. He seems unaware that he also described a U.S. government that, under both parties, has for thirty years denied its own citizens dignity at every turn:

–Both parties have ruined the economy so we have to hold out the begging bowl to Chinese and Arab dictators. They also have created 9-percent unemployment; made the nation hostage to foreign oil producers; put 45-plus million Americans on food stamps; and left 20-percent of American kids without enough to eat.

–Both parties have made our military contemptible by refusing to allow U.S. forces to win wars our presidents unconstitutionally start.

–Both parties have refused to enforce existing immigration and border-control laws so that Mexico’s impoverished population, endemic corruption, and drug-related violence are flowing into our southwestern states. The Democrats also use this festering wound they and the Republicans created to prepare the ground to abridge the 2nd Amendment.

–And while all this goes on, both parties steal money from the pockets of U.S. citizens to give to Israel, spend on the defense of the Saudi tyranny, and fund an Egypt run by a military dictatorship.

Obama and his bipartisan colleagues do not seem to realize that tyranny can be defined not only as political and physical oppression by foreign regimes, but by the callousness, indifference, incompetence, and lawlessness of the United States government. Ought not Washington give top priority to the “dignity” of U.S. citizens, who are, after all, the ones who pay taxes and see their soldier-children die to help Bush and Obama chase the insane goal of giving dignity and U.S. wealth to foreigners?

In his ignorance of the world, the super-Wilsonian Obama then performed as an interventionist extraordinaire, detailing his diktats to the Muslim world and Israel:

–Obama out-Bushed Bush and the Neoconservatives by a country mile, calling for U.S.-dictated (and enforced?) regime change in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Iran, and Yemen.

–Obama unilaterally declared Islam out and secular democracy in. He then redeclared Mrs. Clinton’s cultural/feminist war on Muslim society and Islamic culture by announcing that Washington demands the implementation of “free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion, equally for men and women under the rule of law; and the right to choose your own leaders — whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus; Sanaa or Tehran.”

–Obama dismissed some of the age-old and lethal religious problems in Islamic civilization — Coptic Christians-vs.-Muslims, Shia-vs.-Sunni — as meaningless rivalries akin to those between Kiwanis and Rotarians. Obama never recognized that he, Mrs. Clinton, Senator Graham, and Senator McCain ensured the slaughter of more Egyptian Copts by promoting “democracy” in Egypt, and that he and Bush increased the hatred of Sunnis for Shias by making Iraq a Shia state, a move that increases the chance of regional sectarian warfare. He finishes with a goal that could not be enforced by all the military might at America’s disposal: “Coptic Christians must have the right to worship freely in Cairo, just as the Shia must never have their mosques destroyed in Bahrain.” Obama also seems to forget that he, Bush, and Petraeus got a semblance of stability in Baghdad because they allowed the Shias’ sectarian cleansing of most of the city’s Sunni population.

–Obama intervened more deeply into a Muslim-Israeli religious war that is irrelevant to U.S. national interests and security. He ordered Israel to obey his new policy on a return to the 1967 borders, thereby undermining its right to defend itself as its leaders see fit. No country has a “right to exist,” but all have an absolute right to defend themselves. Obama, in dictating to Israel, takes the fallacious right-to-exist doctrine and adds to it the caveat “as long as Barack and Hillary approve.” [1] On this issue, Obama once again proves he, his party, and the Republicans cannot get a handle on the Founders’ simple definition of non-intervention, which is; do not get involved in foreign disputes and wars in which you have no interest...MORE..LINK
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Chris Moore comments:

This same scenario played itself out with Stalin and revolutionary Jewry, wherein they all started out on the same Bolshevik team and clawed their way to the top together (just as Obama and Jewry partnered in his ascension), but eventually their interests came into conflict (crypto Jewish supremacism vs. authoritarian secularism) and so they parted ways.

Thus has it always been with Judeofascism, which ultimately puts its own agenda and needs first and foremost, and flies into a rage when its "underlings" refuse to go along 100% with its narcissistic megalomania (in this case, Israel-first Zionism). If Obama were smart, he would have re-examined the Judeofascist agenda that put America in the Middle East in the first place, but because he was brought up a student of left-liberal Jewish master's, and propelled along and financed by them, that's akin to asking him to re-examine his own indoctrination and everything he thinks he knows about right and wrong, and about the best vision for a functional, positive world.

So instead, he's backed off on his Zionism a bit, but continues to cling to the dysfunctional, Judeofascist world view about how things should be run impressed upon him by his statist-liberal-authoritarian Jewish tutors, financiers, and overlords.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Corrupt Congress stock market profiteering off of insider information?

From:
House members in the know score ‘abnormal’ stock profits, study says

(Washington Times) -- by Valerie Richardson --

It’s no secret that members of Congress qualify as political insiders, but a new report strongly suggests that they also may be insiders when it comes to trading stocks.

An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.

“We find strong evidence that members of the House have some type of non-public information which they use for personal gain,” according to four academics who authored the study, “Abnormal Returns From the Common Stock Investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

To the frustration of open-government advocates, lawmakers and their staff members largely have immunity from laws barring trading on insider knowledge that have sent many a private corporate chieftain to prison.

The watchdog group OpenSecrets.org said on its blog Wednesday that the findings suggest “that U.S. House members are using their powerful roles for more than just political gain.”

The professors reviewed more than 16,000 common stock transactions carried out by about 300 House members as revealed in the members’ financial-disclosure forms from 1985 to 2001.

In a 2004 study, the same professors found that U.S. senators also enjoy a “substantial information advantage” over the average investor — and even corporate bigwigs — when it comes to picking stocks. The latest study shows that members of the Senate outperform their House colleagues by an average of 30 points per month.

Despite the GOP’s reputation as the party of the rich, House Republicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample.

“Given the almost folkloric belief that Wall Street invariably favors Republicans, the superior performance of trades made by Democratic representatives may seem surprising,” the study authors said...MORE...LINK

As if Big Brother and its oligarchs didn't already control Big Media, Obama hires his own agent to propagandize, police online criticism

From:
Obama Hires Negative News Squasher

(The New American) -- by Raven Clabough --

As if the White House did not already have the mainstream media in its back pocket, the Obama administration decided to create a position that ultimately counters any news story regarding the Obama administration that has anything less than a positive spin, adding yet another government job to the payroll.

The Huffington Post explains the position further: “The Obama administration has created and staffed a new position tucked inside their communications shop for helping coordinate rapid response to unfavorable stories and fostering and improving relations with the progressive online community.”

The position has apparently been designated for Jesse Lee, according to the Huffington Post. An internal memo from Communications Director David Pfeiffer states:
This week, Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response. For the last two years, Jesse has worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House’s liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response.
...The creation of the media position is reminiscent of President Obama’s progressive predecessors like Woodrow Wilson, who hired journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays to sway popular opinion and control the media. It was Lippman and Bernays who ran the war propaganda campaign that swayed American public opinion to be in favor of entering World War I.

In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays wrote:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
Meanwhile, the notion that President Obama requires a new position to control the message in the media seems to wholly ignore the effective ways in which all opposition to this administration has been treated, most notably, Fox News. Fox News has been targeted by MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN, as well as by Joe Klein of Time magazine, and a number of other media sources that attempt to paint Fox News as an illegitimate news source.

For example, Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff, in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, said of Fox News, “It’s not a news organization.”

George Soros-funded Media Matters has openly admitted to engaging in a “war on Fox.” Media Matters founder David Brock stated that he has launched a “strategy of containment” against Fox, a $10 million plan that utilized “guerilla warfare and sabotage” against the news station.

Leftist George Soros has utilized his wealth to control the media and target conservative voices. Soros’ Open Society Institute donated $1.8 billion to National Public Radio, interestingly during the same week that Juan Williams was fired from NPR for his appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. NPR used the funds to hire 100 new journalists.

Soros’ Open Society Institute funds Free Press, which started a campaign to “end hate speech,” i.e., conservative speech on talk radio. It also funds the Huffington Post.

Additionally, George Soros donated $1 million to TeaPartyTracker.org, a website created by the NAACP to help combat alleged Tea Party racism.

The Obama administration and those on the Left have already targeted the presence of oppositional voices to the current administration. For example, civil rights activist Al Sharpton has called for the removal of conservatives like Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves. Similarly, the Federal Communications Commision has proposed a number of measures that clearly indicate an effort to silence opposition...MORE...LINK

Congress is now Zionist occupied territory; the Arabs know it, the U.S. Military knows it, the world knows it -- which is why it can't last

From:
America’s Coming Nakba (Catastrophe)

(Veterans Today) -- by Professor William A. Cook --

“From the moment we took on a role that included the permanent military domination of the world, we were on our own—feared, hated, corrupt and corrupting, maintaining ‘order’ through state terrorism and bribery, and given to megalomanic rhetoric and sophistries that virtually invited the rest of the world to unite against us. We had mounted the Napoleonic tiger. The question was, would we—and could we—ever dismount?” (Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire 284)

Johnson’s prescient observation, made six years ago, erupted in full view of the world community this past week as Netanyahu and Obama attempted to control the tiger unleashed by the creation of the state of Israel in the midst of the Arab world–by deceit, theft, terrorism, and military might–faced now with the Arab spring rising from the ashes of fallen dictators. Coercion, bribery and military might created an illusion of peaceful stability as long as agreements providing billions of dollars for security police, military training by the U.S. and technical and ordnance support secured the dictator in power.

But with America forced to do the bidding of its adopted child by the “corpocracy” that governs this empire and its unending need for wars to sustain its economic growth, America finds itself woefully weak as its forces futilely attempt to contain terrorism throughout the mid-east. Now America finds itself bereft of power, bereft of resources, and bereft of friends, manipulated by Israeli Zionists like Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu who disdain America’s weakness holding its Congress prisoner by coercion, bribery and deceit the very strategies that Israel has used against the people of the mid-east to create the illusion of peace.

Ironically, as Obama lectured AIPAC and Netanyahu on Monday, he drew a demographic map that forces both Israel and the world communities to take notice of what the Likud Party really stands for even as it declares that “Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel.” The Palestinian population in historic Palestine will equal the Jewish population before 2014 (Palestine Bureau of Statistics). That fact “on the ground” makes the land west of the Jordan River a Palestinian majority; the irony rests in a little noticed Likud Platform statement, “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” Not only is this declaration a total rejection of a Palestinian state by the Israeli government (comparable indeed to that of Hamas in its denial of the Israeli state), it does so even when confronted by the inevitable reality that Jews will be a minority in Palestine. Denial of a Palestinian state will result in Israel becoming a minority controlled apartheid, non-democratic state like South Africa decades ago...

While Obama did not demand what the Israeli government must do, he did note that the times are a changin’. No longer will it be possible, Obama implied, to cull out of an elite few those who could be bribed into a pseudo-peace agreement with Israel like those that existed in Egypt and Jordan, or force into play sweet oil deals with Gaddafi look- a-likes, or invade illegally a nation that has done nothing against the U.S., as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, affecting thereby a complacent leader that will do our corporate will. No, the times have changed; the new Arab is aware of America’s depleted resources, understands its economic crisis and towering debt, realizes the vice being turned by the Palestinian population growth on the Jews, realizes that justice demands equity for themselves and the Palestinians, and has the knowledge to force its awareness on the international community through the United Nations General Assembly.

Obama knows all too well how little power he possesses as President of the United States. He knows that the Representatives of the people are owned by corporate power and the Israeli lobbies. That means he can affect no legislation, foreign or domestic, if he confronts the Zionists that control this government, nor could he expect to gain reelection. He is a shackled man, subservient to his overseers. But he also knows that America is threatened by this subservience, that its soldiers are being used by a foreign power, and that hatred of Americans festers in the souls occupied by Israeli troops.

Mark Perry describes an unprecedented bombshell briefing with Admiral Mullen in which the views of senior Arab leaders that the US administration is ineffectual and incapable of standing up to Israel are conveyed, as well as those of General Petraeus who sees the so-called ‘special relationship’ with Israel as putting American lives and interests at risk.

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” (see Mark Perry, “Putting American Lives At Risk”)...MORE...LINK

The rule of law dead in America as Congress simply ignores its Constitutional duties on war powers

From:
Illegal war? Congress doesn't care

(Washington Examiner) -- by Gene Healy --

Remember when President Obama assured us his Libyan adventure would be over in "days, not weeks"? To employ a Clinton-era euphemism, "That statement is no longer operative." (Translation: I lied.)
On Friday the 60-day clock ran out, leaving Obama in clear violation of the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 to "fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution ... [and] insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities."

Instead of withdrawing U.S. forces, the president sent a letter to congressional leaders insisting -- bizarrely -- that drone attacks and "suppression and destruction of air defenses" don't qualify as "hostilities" under the resolution.

"The U.S. role is one of support," an Obama adviser told ABC News, "and the kinetic pieces of that are intermittent."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates couldn't even keep a straight face while trying to sell the "kinetic military action" line to Katie Couric on "60 Minutes" recently, when she asked him, "Are we at war with Libya?"

Six Republican senators, led by Kentucky's Rand Paul, sent the president a letter Friday, challenging him to comply with the War Powers Resolution. But they won't get much help from their colleagues. There's no Senate action scheduled on the WPR, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., says it's because "we're deferring to NATO." Who elected them?

With Congress AWOL, it's not clear what recourse is left to those who oppose unconstitutional wars. Perhaps what remains of the "peace" movement can update the old John Lennon anthem: "All we are saying is give static military activity a chance ..."

Meanwhile, as the Senate dithered, the House moved toward granting the president sweeping new war powers.

The defense spending bill that recently cleared the House Armed Services Committee contains a new, post-bin Laden Authorization for Use of Military Force. This authorization is even broader than its post-Sept. 11 predecessor, whose language was stretched by the Bush administration to justify warrantless surveillance and holding U.S. citizens without charges. Even so, the proposed replacement got only a few minutes of post-midnight debate.

The first authorization at least contained a link to the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. The new authorization empowers the president to go to war with any nation he determines is aiding al Qaeda, the Taliban, or "associated forces." How far can that language be stretched? Maybe far enough for Congress to finally get this war powers hassle off its plate permanently...MORE...LINK

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Father of Reaganomics says West no longer democracy, but rather an oligarchy being plundered by insider elites and international bankers

From:
Global financial crisis-On the Edge with Max Keiser-05-20-2011-(Part1)

(YouTube.com) -- by PressTVGlobalNews --

Society under siege from army of psychopaths at highest (and lowest) levels; forget reform, but there are strategies to identify, expose, isolate

From:
Defense Against the Psychopath (Full length Version)

(YouTube.com) -- by shaolinmountainbike --

Dysgenic, statist-liberal-capitalist mechanisms imposed by international elite used to eradicate native, organic "life worlds" per Globalist agenda

From:
Critique of liberalism and neo-liberalism in the Arab revolutions in Jadaliyya

(The Angry Arab) -- by "Mia" --

"Perhaps, in order to understand the phenomenon to which I am trying to draw attention, it is best not to approach it with overdetermined words such as “neoliberalism” or “liberalism” or “capitalism” in mind. No matter what the larger framework is called, it is undeniable that international human rights corporations such as Human Rights Watch are important agentive political bodies in Egypt and in Lebanon, for example. Similarly, other “international bodies” such as the UNDP (see the Arab Human Development Reports for examples of these "common sense" recommendations), the IMF and the WorldBank are actors in the reconfiguration of life worlds across the region. This reconfiguration does not come only through market adjustment, but also through World Bank and UNDP “recommendations” as to “optimal” fertility rates, systems of education that are needed, and the types of family structure (nuclear, urban, double income) thatshould be promoted in the name of development. These organizations and their local allies intervene in a connected economic/social sphere, and they play a role in the conditioning of subjects vis-à-vis global market processes. To put it bluntly, organizations such as the IMF and Human Rights Watch are uncomfortable allies in a global and ideological project to shape practices of life, economy, and of citizenship. In addition, the proliferation of the local-global NGO capital networks and their attendant languages and institutions translate questions of justice into questions of rights, a translation which ties a citizen ever more intimately to the state. Thus, the question of economic justice becomes one of economic rights, the question of gender justice becomes one of women's and/or gay rights, and questions of violence are transformed into calls for bodily rights. In this framework, states are posited as potential human rights abusers, yet only the state can ensure the redress of these rights. Hence, the paradox of human rights reports; after spending pages outlining how, for example, the state of Iran is abusing the human rights of its citizens, towards the end of the report “recommendations” are made to said author of those abuses. In these reports, invariably the state is asked to transform (or reform) itself from a human rights abuser into a human rights defender. The move from justice to rights, as authors such as Zizek and Fraser have argued, is a feature of late capitalism that depoliticizes inequality and posits the state as the arbiter of said inequality. Thus, the state is “good” or “bad” depending on how well it regulates the lives of their citizens or, as anthropologists have suggested, depending on how well they perform “good governance.” Such depoliticization should be understood as a political process that aims to separate the messiness of shared life into compartments such as “culture,” “government,” “economy,” “personal life,” and, my personal favorite, “civil society.” Once segregated into neat, independent packages, we, as liberal/neoliberal subjects, are told that our “political” involvement begins, and ends, as participants in “free”, “fair” and “transparent” elections."...LINK
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Chris Moore comments:

This is really interesting, particularly the last sentence about how statist-liberalism and international state capitalism (neoliberalism/neoconservatism) seek to compartmentalize life into "independent packages" that they can control. The article above was written vis-a-vis the post-Christian West's Big Government Capitalist project to re-engineer the Islamic Middle East, but it applies to what has been done to the West itself since WWII, wherein the atheist-materialist forces of Communism have combined with the atheist-materialist and pseudo-religious forces of Capitalism to fanatically compartmentalize Western society, suppress Christianity, and re-define "Separation of Church and State" from its original meaning that the State couldn't encroach upon religious freedom to mean that religion couldn't encroach upon society in general.

So who benefits from all of this? Primarily money and power-worshipping fanatics, be they Christian-hating Jews, (charlatan-Christian) Judeo-Christian Zionist Capitalists, statist-liberals, left-liberals or Communists -- all of whom, under the guise of "progress," or "tolerance" or "pluralism" or "secularism" essentially use a powerful gangster State or public-private gangster system to take what they want from the People, and write the "rule of law" in such a way that their theft is defined as legal. They additionally set up dysgenic systems like that outlined above designed to wring their rivals for all they're worth before discarding the carcasses, this often even under the guise of "environmentalism" and "sustainability."

For example, see the following:
Obama's insane science czar wants to use totalitarian world government to cull human population down to one billion

The irony is that simple, organic, religious "life worlds" always were the most wholesome and sustainable way of life, and it is the ambitious, fanatically materialistic sociopaths like those listed above who are increasingly making life on this planet unsustainable due to their vain, base systems of mass consumerism, mass waste, Big Government and facile material and power grandiosity

What motivates these psychopaths? Well, in addition to self-worship, money-worship and power-worship, these people are essentially mentally deranged misanthropes who, because of their own empty soullessness, resent and despise those who posses self-sustaining creative and religious life force that doesn't require materialistic grandiosity or endless self-aggrandizement to survive.

In short, because these sociopaths are insatiably greedy and hollow, they want the world to either be insatiably greedy and hollow as well...or dead.


These psychopaths, who amount to epic, prolific serial killers, then have the chutzpah to play the victim and wonder out loud why sane people despise them and want to see them hang.

They need not wonder any longer.

According to Constitution, America's military action over Libya is now illegal, but corrupt Congress and President don't care

From:
US bombs in Libya officially illegal after 60 days of war

(YouTube.com) -- by Russia Today --

Analyst: Israel and its agents, partisans, and bought-off politicians in U.S. destroying America's standing around the world

From:
'Obama furious with Israel, but lobby too strong to oppose'

(YouTube.com) -- by Russia Today --

Monday, May 23, 2011

Netanyahu publicly humiliates Obama on American soil, before a U.S. audience, on behalf of an Israel-first agenda, because Jewish power means he can

From:
“Bibi” Votes Republican

(The American Conservative) -- by Patrick J. Buchanan --

Not since Nikita Khrushchev berated Dwight Eisenhower over Gary Powers’ U-2 spy flight over Russia only weeks earlier has an American president been subjected to a dressing down like the one Barack Obama received from Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.

With this crucial difference. Khrushchev ranted behind closed doors, and when Ike refused to apologize, blew up the Paris summit hosted by President de Gaulle.

Obama, however, was lectured like some schoolboy in the Oval Office in front of the national press and a worldwide TV audience.

And two days later, he trooped over to the Israeli lobby AIPAC to walk back what he had said that had so infuriated Netanyahu.

“Bibi” then purred that he was “pleased” with the clarification.

Diplomatic oil is now being poured over the troubled waters, but this humiliation will not be forgotten.
What did Obama do to draw this public rebuke? In his Thursday speech on the Arab Spring and Middle East peace, Obama declared:

“We believe the borders of Israel should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. … Israel must be able to defend itself — by itself — against any threat.”

Ignoring Obama’s call for “mutually agreed swaps” of land to guarantee secure and defensible borders for Israel, Netanyahu, warning the president against a peace “based on illusions,” acted as though Obama had called for an Israel withdrawal to the armistice line of 1967.

This was absurd. All Obama was saying was what three Israeli prime ministers — Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert — have all recognized.

To get Palestinian and international recognition for a united Jerusalem and Israel’s annexation of the settlements around the city, Israel will have to trade land for land.

Obama was not saying the 1967 borders were to be the end of negotiations but the starting point. Indeed, where else would one begin land negotiations if not from the last recognized map?

Undeniably, Netanyahu won the smack-down. The president was humiliated in the Oval Office, and in his trip to AIPAC’s woodshed he spoke of the future peace negotiations ending just as Israelis desire and demand.

Nor is this the first time Obama has been rolled by the Israeli prime minister. Obama came into office demanding an end to all new or expanded settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and subsequently backed down from each and every demand.

Fed up, his Mideast peace negotiator George Mitchell has quit.

Politically, too, the president has been hurt. To the world, and not just the Arabs, he appears weak.

In Israel, Netanyahu is seen as having stood up for Israel’s vital interests and forced an American president to back down. His right-wing coalition is cheering him on.

Indeed, the issue is not whether Obama has been hurt, but why Bibi, raised in the U.S.A., who knows American politics better than any previous Israeli prime minister, did it. Why wound Obama like that?

Why would the leader of a nation of 7 million that is dependent on U.S. arms, foreign aid and diplomatic support choose to humiliate a president who could be sitting in that office until 2017?

The one explanation that makes sense is that Netanyahu sees Obama as more sympathetic to the Palestinians and less so to Israel than any president since Jimmy Carter, and he, Netanyahu, would like to see Obama replaced by someone more like the born-again pro-Israel Christian George W. Bush...

And while the Jewish vote may be only one-seventh of the black vote, it has proven decisive in the crucial state of Florida. Moreover, Jewish contributions, by some estimates, may make up half of all the contributions to the Democratic Party.

If, after hearing an Israeli prime minister berate Obama for ignorance or indifference to the cold realities the Jewish state faces, Jewish folks decide Obama is bad for Israel and close their checkbooks, the impact in a tight election could be critical.

On the other hand, for African-Americans to see the first black president treated like some truant third-grader by a prime minister of Israel whose nation is deeply dependent on this country has to grate...MORE...LINK
-------------------------

Chris Moore comments:

Buchanan asks “Why would the leader of a nation of 7 million that is dependent on U.S. arms, foreign aid and diplomatic support choose to humiliate a president who could be sitting in that office until 2017?”

And then answers his own question: “Jewish contributions, by some estimates, may make up half of all the contributions to the Democratic Party.”

In addition, Jews comprise nearly 25% of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate, (13 seats) and nearly 14% of the Democrats in the House (26 seats)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewcong112.html
…even though Jews make up well under 2% of the country. (So much for proportionate representation, particularly for other minorities in the Democratic Party.)

So, why would Netanyahu burn Obama? The short answer is because Jewish-American power in the U.S. enables the Jewish state to do what it wants in, and to, this country -- including treating its presidents like hired help.

***

Where was the Democratic Party outrage at what Netanyahu said and did? Where were the non-Jewish Democratic politicians who in such a situation are supposed to rally behind their president? I suggest they obsequiously deferred to their Israel-first Jewish collegues and to the Israel lobby due to their own corrupt and cowardly character.

It's clear that the Israel lobby has Washington triangulated, by the Judeo-Christian Zionist element on the Right, by the Jewish Zionist element (which is actually itself a wing of the Israel lobby) on the Left, and by spreading its money (much of which originates with the U.S. taxpayer and gets laundered through Israel as "foreign aid") all the way around.

Obama sides with tyrannical Bahrain Sunni minority and its Jim Crow regime over freedom-demanding 70% Shiite majority

From:
'US complicit in Bahrain govt. crimes'

Press TV has interviewed Dr. Saeed al-Shehabi, from the Bahrain Freedom Movement, to ask for his insight into the latest developments regarding Bahrain.
(Press TV) --

The following is the transcript of the interview, which was also supported by two other guests, Nabeel Rajab, and Rodney Shakespeare.

Press TV: I'd like to turn to you Dr. Shehabi about this situation. Of course, you yourself are one of the people that are wanted in your country in Bahrain and have been tried in absentia. Tell me about this situation, how are they able to get away with setting up a so-called court system? And, as Mr. Rajab has said, there are basically no representation from lawyers, no rights basically, no access to legal counseling, plus being tortured. And yet, there is silence, for the most part, from the international community. How are they able to get away with what we call, in my country, the United States, a kangaroo court?

Saeed al-Shehabi: As we heard from Nabeel Rajab, these people are continuing to do what they have been doing not for weeks but for decades. Why are they allowed to get away with it? There is a very very simple and straightforward answer: [because of the] the United States' support, Britain's support. These two countries have not wavered in their support for this [Bahraini] regime; they have never said a word of real condemnation, apart from expressing concerns as a way to respond to increasing criticism coming from the public media and from NGO's in the West.

Apart from that, it is very clear that the White House is giving its full political, security and moral support to the [Bahraini] regime. So the Bahraini regime feels that it is free to do whatever it likes. It sentences people to death. I mean these two people who have been sentenced to death now have been severely tortured. I mean you cannot have the execution and the judgment on the same person. You can't be the judge and the executioner at the same time. But they are, they are the judges and the executioners. And they adopt torture as the main weapon to get confessions in order to convince the world that these people were violent. There was no violence, these two people simply did not kill the policemen. As simple as that. We challenge this regime. We challenge the United States. We challenge the British government who say that...

Of course, they apparently agree that two policemen were killed by them. We challenge anybody to prove in an open court of law that these people did kill two policemen. They did not kill anybody.

Only last week, we heard how the famous and renowned human rights activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja said that if he didn't apologize to the King openly, the regime forces would rape him. To what level do you expect people to sink before they are categorized as evil?

Press TV: Last month, Bahrain's foreign minister was in Doha at a conference dealing with Libya's future. And it was said that the King of Bahrain “supports the efforts to solve the Libyan problem with his political, security and humanitarian dimensions and backs all international efforts that lead to ensuring the humanitarian needs of the Libyan people.”

Is that to you a strange comment coming from the Bahraini regime? And why would the Bahraini government make that comment about the Libyan government and yet be doing totally the opposite at home?

Saeed al-Shehabi: Only two days ago, the Independent newspaper in London published a front-page story saying that [British Prime Minister David] Cameron embraces tyranny. I don't think you can ever have a stronger headline than that. OK? However, this foreign minister would come and suggest that the world should deal with the situation in Libya with compassion, and fulfill humanitarian needs. Of course these are good words, but they shouldn't have come from a person whose government has sacked more than 3,000 people, not for committing any mistake or being unprofessional in their work, but simply because they might have taken a role in [anti-government] demonstrations, [or because] maybe they have participated in a protest. A regime that has prevented the doctors and the nurses from undertaking and administering their own profession to the needy and to those who were injured... Why should these people be sacked? Why should they be tried? I don't discount personally that even, among those doctors and nurses, some of them may be accused falsely of hilarious accusations. And they could even be sentenced to death.

We know that this regime is hypocritical and inhumane, and [that it would] do in this country what it would ask the world not to allow to happen in other countries.

Press TV: US President Barack Obama said that he hears the shouts of human dignity being heard across the Middle East. What does that mean, do you think, when it comes to Bahrain?

Saeed al-Shehabi: He has a time delay of at least two months in hearing anything. The mosques started to be destroyed more than two months ago, and only now, does he say something and mention that the mosques shouldn't be destroyed. And the minute he said it, the [Bahraini] regime rushed to say that they will rebuild some of the mosques. ... Mr. Obama didn't mention the torture. He didn't say that at least four people were killed under torture. He would not really uncover the truth and the true face of the [Bahraini] regime. And this is why the Bahraini people consider the US as complicit in what is going on in Bahrain. Because they [the Americans] are aware of what is going on -- the British embassy is there, the US embassy is there in Manama. They saw how the trucks went and destroyed the mosques, how various villages were attacked, and were ransacked. Only two days ago, the Nuwaidrat village was attacked severely, and I am sure tonight various other places would be attacked in the same way.

The Americans are aware of what is going on, but they only choose the moment and the subject about which they want to speak out.

Press TV: What should be done as far as the people campaign...? What is the answer at this point in time from your perspective?

Saeed al-Shehabi: I think more pressure on the regime, more collective action [is needed]... I think breaking the siege on Bahrain as there were some attempts recently, ... sending ships to Bahrain carrying essential aid for the people. Because the people are dying of dire consequences of the [Bahraini] regime's actions.

And one final point, I think it is time that Bahraini people should sue the torturers because without suing the torturers and killers, more people would be executed in the name of law, and in addition to those who were killed under torture.
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Related: The Jim Crow State of Bahrain
Sunni-Shiite tensions rise as discrimination grows

Manama (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Ethnic and religious discrimination is growing in Bahrain, this according the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based international advocacy and crisis resolution NGO.

ICG warns that the Shiite community—as much as 70 per cent of the population—is increasingly politically and socially marginalised with the effect that sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites are rising.

Similarly, the gap between the government and the opposition is widening at a time of rising unemployment and poverty.

In 2001, Bahrain's ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, had announced a sweeping reform plan for the island nation of 700,000 people. However, reform so far has failed in two important respects according to the ICG.

First, the touted new political contract between rulers and ruled has not changed the social structure. Secondly, reforms have not tackled sectarian discrimination and tensions. Indeed, the latter have been exacerbated, as the majority Shiite community feels increasingly politically marginalised and socially disadvantaged.

For instance, the ICG report shows how electoral districts are drawn to guarantee a Sunni majority in parliament even though they are a minority in the country. By the same token, Sunnis from other Arab countries have been naturalised and admitted into the army and the police (about 60,000).

Sunnis also dominated public sector employment, especially in the ministries of the Interior and Defence.

Shiites are instead increasingly coming under suspicion for their ties to co-religionists in Iran and Iraq.

They are also not allowed to live in the 'Riffa' neighbourhood, a residential area reserved for the royal family and Sunnis which is just a stone throw from Sitra, an area where one the poorest Shiite communities live.

In the last few months, public protests have increased with people taking to the streets to stage demonstrations. On March 25, the main Shiite party—Jama 'iyyat al-Wifaq al-Watani al-Islamiyya—defied a government ban and rallied thousands of people in Sitra demanding constitutional reforms.

Given the situation, the government has taken "increasingly aggressive moves", resorting more and more "to police tactics and authoritarian measures to maintain order." (PB)...LINK
-------------------------
Related:
Obama Vows ‘Pressure’ on [Shiite] Iran as AIPAC Cheers

Slams Iranian Nuclear Program, Calls Iran 'Hypocritical' on Protests
(AntiWar.com) -- by Jason Ditz --

Speaking today at a high profile America-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) conference, President Barack Obama faced what could have potentially been a hostile audience in the wake of condemnation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for calling on Israel to be open to giving up occupied territories.

So he did what politicians trying to satisfy the pro-Israel lobby have been doing from time immemorial – he condemned Iran. Midway through a comparatively short speech, he promised the US would continue to escalate “pressure” on Iran, and accused the nation of trying to make nuclear weapons.

“We remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” Obama declared, to thunderous applause. He then went on to accuse Iran of “hypocrisy” for criticizing the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. Obama declared earlier in the week that the US was committed to supporting the Bahrani regime and that the crackdowns showed they simply wanted a return to the “rule of law.”

Going to the Iran well is likely a cynical attempt to placate a potentially hostile lobby, and the thunderous applause suggest it did its job. The allegations against Iran, despite being identical to allegations made for years past, are not backed up by any hard evidence...LINK

Neolib-neocon Congress enables Obama's illegal and unconstitutional imperiousness; only Rand Paul demands accountability

From:
Sen. Paul rails against 'do-nothing' Senate

(CNN) -- by Alison Harding --

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul railed against his colleagues Friday, saying the Senate’s inaction sometimes makes him want to return his paycheck.

“We go week after week in the Senate and do nothing. I feel like sometimes I should return my check because I go up, they do no votes and no debate,” the freshman senator griped during an interview on “Anderson Cooper 360.”

“We go up week to week, and there's no debate in Congress, no debate in the Senate. We sit idly by,” he continued.

Paul’s frustration stems from his attempt to introduce a resolution challenging the constitutionality of the U.S. military operation in Libya. The motion was tabled 90-10.

“They don't want to have any debate. I'm asking right now to vote on Libya. I have a resolution saying we're in violation of the War Powers Act. It's hard for me to get the floor unless I somehow sneak on the floor when no one is looking to try to get a vote,” Paul said.

The 1973 War Powers Act says that if the president does not get congressional authorization 60 days after military action, the mission must stop within 30 days. Obama formally notified Congress about the mission in Libya with a letter on March 21, which made Friday the 60-day deadline...

“The War Powers Act says there's only three reasons a president can go to war: Declaration of war by Congress, authorization or force by Congress or imminent danger,” Paul said.

“He should have come to Congress, spoken to a joint session of Congress and said, I need the power to go to war, this is why, and explain to the people.”

Paul also said he was upset that Obama had time to get permission from the United Nations and the Arab League, but not Congress.

“Well, boy, if that's what we're living under, we really are completely ignoring our own Constitution. We never wanted one person, one person, the president, to be able to decide to take us to war. We always wanted the debate between a president and a Congress, so we didn't go to war willy-nilly, or we didn't go to war without careful consideration,” Paul said...MORE...LINK

Having offended powerful Zionist Fifth Column, Obama comes crawling back to Israel-firsters and Netanyahu, who pats him on the head

From:
Obama’s AIPAC Speech Placates Netanyahu

Satisfied by Obama's 'Clarification'

(AntiWar.com) -- by Jason Ditz --

Just days ago he was angrily condemning the US president for mentioning the 1967 borders, but in the wake of a high profile AIPAC speech by President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared himself “pleased” by the comments.

The comments were, by and large, a dramatic backpedal from the previous speech, declaring his undying support for Israel and promising that his mention of the 1967 borders didn’t really mean a literal end to the occupation of the lands Israel conquered in 1967.

Netanyahu wasn’t the only one condemning Obama in the wake of his previous comments, as a number of US politicians sought to establish themselves ahead of the 2012 elections by condemning Obama’s “betrayal” of Israel, which is to say his suggestion that maybe the occupation should be reversed at least partially through negotiation.

Netanyahu insisted that the comments today by Obama were “befitting” and that he was satisfied that the “clarification” was sincere. The peace talks, as always, are an afterthought and will remain frozen...LINK

Glib, armchair warrior GOP establishment rejects Ron Paul for exactly one reason: he takes war, interventionism and lives of U.S. soldiers seriously

From:
Ron Paul Is Different

(The New American) -- by Jack Kerwick, Ph.D. --

Stylistically speaking, Ron Paul is admittedly at a disadvantage vis-à-vis his GOP competitors in the presidential primaries.

Paul is remarkably feisty for his age, but the fact remains that he is 75 years old. John McCain lost to Barack Obama in 2008 for several reasons, among which was his physical appearance. For right or wrong, ours is a hyper-imagistic age, and there are few areas of life more image-centered than politics.

There are, though, several considerations that militate in favor of a Ron Paul candidacy.

First, in spite of his stylistic handicaps, Paul has succeeded in resonating with significant numbers of people from across the political spectrum. More interesting yet, unlike John McCain, say, who can boast of having routinely “reached across the aisle” only because he just as routinely conceded to leftist demands, Paul can claim to have inspired people to reach across the aisle to him. In other words, without compromising a single belief, Paul has attracted conservatives and libertarians, Republicans and Democrats, “independents” and “moderates.”

How many other Republicans own such a feat?

Second, Paul’s circumstances today are not those in which McCain found himself in ’08. The charisma that once enraptured audiences before Obama became President is not likely to work as well now that people know him better. Also, McCain’s was the face of the Republican Party at a time when its continual repudiation of exactly those values that it claimed to champion had made Americans grow weary with it. At present, it is primarily the Democrats who are the source of Americans’ angst.

Third, Ron Paul is the one candidate who is emphatically not vulnerable to the charge of “flip flopping.” In 2008, he distinguished himself as the sole candidate in both parties to address precisely those economic issues that are now front and center. Then, he was mocked and ridiculed, and by no one more fiercely than his fellow Republicans.

Fourth, today, with the birth of the Tea Party movement of which he was no small inspiration, not only will Paul’s ideas stand an even better chance of resonating with a larger audience than he reached three years ago, but in retrospect, because of what many may judge to have been his prescience, Paul himself could achieve a credibility that he never had in the past.

So, why is it that the GOP establishment, including especially so many in the punditry class who consider themselves “conservatives,” is arguably more resistant to the prospect of a presidential ticket with Ron Paul at the top (or bottom, for that matter)?

Make no mistake about it — the stylistic concerns expressed above, if they figure at all in the deliberations of the self-proclaimed guardians of Republican orthodoxy, are negligible. Resistance to Paul boils down to the brute fact that his very existence puts the lie to the fiction that the GOP is the party of “conservative values.” There are many ways in which Paul undercuts the conventional Republican wisdom. But nothing upsets and frightens the establishment more than his views on foreign policy, for in relentlessly arguing against the enterprise of waging war to spread "democracy" in the Middle East (and beyond?), Paul exposes this project for its resolutely anti-conservative character...MORE...LINK

Nearing throw down time: America-firsters (including the U.S. Military) vs. Israel-firster, Zionist heirs to Communist menace

From:
The Lobby Takes the Offensive

Israel’s amen corner ratchets up the rhetoric
(AntiWar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo --

When the President of the United States reiterated longstanding American policy in the Middle East – that the borders of Israel and a Palestinian state must be based on the 1967 borders, give or take a few land swaps here and there – was he really “not surprised,” as he claimed in his speech to AIPAC a few days later, by the ensuing uproar? That’s what he says, but the reality is harder to discern: after all, this was the premise behind George W. Bush’s – and, before him, Bill Clinton’s – public statements on the issue, and the President had every reason to believe this time would be no different.

Yet it was indeed different, because – as I pointed out here – Israel is different, all these years later. And so is the United States. President Obama was caught flat-footed because he and his advisors failed to consider the full import of these changes.

In Israel, a right-wing government has as its relatively “moderate” element Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud-led government is backed in a coalition government by a number of extreme right-wingers who make the hawkish Likudniks look reasonable. Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is a thuggish radical whose racist anti-Arab diatribes have even Israel’s hard-line partisans in the US desperate to keep him in the background. Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, is a neo-fascist outfit which advocates the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and the creation of a “Greater Israel.” According to them, there are no Palestinians – only Jordanians who have infiltrated Israel.

In America, the power of the Israel lobby is much greater than at any time in the past, and certainly since the 1967 war. We are faced, here in this country, with the extraordinary spectacle of a US President confronting a foreign leader with a list of reasonable requests – negotiation in good faith, the abandonment of encroaching “settlements,” an end to the arbitrary humiliations endured by a people under occupation – and the leaders of the opposition are taking the side of the foreign leader. This from a party that revels in its alleged super-“patriotism”! Romney, Huckabee, and the whole Fox network team went into overdrive, following the President’s Mideast speech, flaying him for “betraying” Israel. Fox News even ran a story warning that “Jewish donors” would not back the President’s reelection campaign on account of his supposedly “new” stance.

Yet, as I am not the first to point out, there was nothing new in what the President said about the 1967 borders. That didn’t matter to Obama’s critics, however: so quick were they to pick up the latest party line from Tel Aviv that they didn’t even bother to acknowledge this, but were only concerned with echoing every jot and tittle of the Israeli position. Not since the heyday of the old Communist Party USA, when the Daily Worker was adept at not only defending but anticipating the line handed down by the Kremlin, have we seen such a phenomenon: the kowtowing before a foreign leader by American politicians.

The idea that our leaders are intent on pursuing America’s vital national interests abroad – that the formulation of our foreign policy has to do with determining what those interests are and how best to achieve them – is a myth. As is the case with domestic policy, foreign policy is a political question: that is, it’s all about the internal pressures and interests competing for primacy in the policymaking process. Nothing underscores the dynamics of this decision-making procedure quite so starkly and dramatically as the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

The US military has been particularly insistent that the question of Palestine be resolved before we can achieve our goals in the Middle East, and secure the defense of American interests more generally. That our unconditional support for Israel has cost us dearly, in terms of our prestige and “pull” in the Arab world, is undeniable. That we are fighting terrorists who use this issue to demonize the US, and provoke attacks on our interests and our citizens throughout the world, is likewise readily apparent.

Yet rather than give up this failed policy, which has led to nothing but trouble, our leaders in both political parties – including the President – have taken every opportunity to pledge themselves to an “ironclad” – as Obama put it – commitment to the survival of Israel as a Jewish state implanted in an Arab sea. And that, furthermore, this commitment is not contingent on Israeli behavior: our support is unconditional and permanent, no matter if Avigdor Lieberman comes to power and deports every Palestinian to the far side of the Jordan river.

In his “make up” speech to AIPAC, Obama once again reiterated this commitment and boasted about all the money we’re shoveling over there so Bibi can build “settlements” and keep the Palestinians in subjection. US “aid” built the wall that separates the Israeli green belt from the great prison-house of the occupied territories, and which makes permanent a land grab on a vast scale. Without that aid, both military and economic, Israel would sink like a stone beneath the demographic waves.

In short, we have the Israelis in a complete state of military and economic dependency – and yet they are calling the tune, and not Washington. What’s up with that?

What’s up is the Israelis have a singularly powerful lobby in the US, which wields such political clout that no politician can afford to cross them. We are living in a country where the chief executive must constantly look over his shoulder and worry that Congress will support the position of a foreign leader over the President of the United States. As Pat Buchanan so memorably – and correctly – put it, Congress is “Israeli-occupied territory.” And we aren’t just talking about Republican members pandering to their “born again” Christian fundamentalist constituency, but also Democrats in thrall to a wealthy and well-organized urban constituency which puts Israel first, last, and always...MORE...LINK

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Insular Wall Street-Washington plutocrats plunder the country; American people completely blinkered

From:
Taibbi: 'U.S. politics - reality show sponsored by Wall Street'

(YouTube.com) -- by RT America --

Strauss-Kahn was in midst of last-ditch, IMF government-bankster bid to keep fiat money Ponzi scheme afloat when he finally snapped

From:
Strauss-Kahn, IMF Scam Fails, the Debt Crisis Crescendo

(Market Oracle) -- by Andrew McKillop --

...Strauss-Kahn had played a kingpin role is reassuring capital markets, debt-strapped governments and opinion formers by operating a global-size version of what started in the USA with the Paulson plan in the dying days of the G W Bush presidency, late 2008.

This was a losing quest, but Strauss-Kahn's failure was only known to insiders - and his enemies. The scope of the challenge resumes in a few figures.

After a declining trend in the 1990s, US national debt dramatically increased from US$ 5.7 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008, and then $14.3 trillion through April of 2011 when the debt reached 98 percent of 2010 GDP of the USA.

The approximately US$ 3.6 trillion added to US national debt since the end of 2008 is more than double the market value of all private sector manufacturing in 2009 ($1.56 trillion), more than three times the market value of spending on professional, scientific, and technical services in 2009 ($1.07 trillion), and nearly five times the amount spent on non-durable goods in 2009 ($722 billion). Only taking interest paid on Federal debt in the first six months of the present financial year (October 2010-April 2011), nearly $245 billion, this is equal to more than 40 percent of the total market value of all private sector construction spending in 2009 ($578 billion)...

Right through his tenure as IMF chief, Strauss-Kahn not only trawled the comfort ladies, but also worked hard to ramrod the ultimate in shock treatment for the global economy: the selective demonetization of the US dollar, the world's prime reserve currency. The basic plan is simple: cancel and dishonor debts in US dollars through reducing or completely stopping dollar convertibility, for example by limiting the use and the holding of the US dollar to US citizens, only. Another version is to create and launch a new reserve currency, linked with the dollar, at a very favourable double conversion rate for the dollar: debts in dollars will be depreciated; holdings in dollars by US citizens and US-favoured corporations will be appreciated, when the new money is introduced. The inflation which comes with this will help mask the depreciation of debt and appreciation of holdings. Within six months, a fait accompli will be created, with no way back.

From December 2009, Strauss-Kahn went public with his new money initiatives, under the imprimatur of the IMF, with the Green Energy Fund proposal to fight climate change in low income countries with a fund built from the IMF's own printable money - SDRs - starting at the equivalent of $ 100 billion. Other versions of this plan by Strauss-Kahn and his personal team were advanced, at growing scales and declining credibility, through March-April 2010, but were each time shot down by capital surplus countries led by China and including the Arab petro states, Russia, India, Brazil and Argentina.

Each time, the Straus-Kahn target was to exchange US dollars for new money, and dissolve US debt in new and printable fiat paper money. recycling wealth from the few capital surplus countries to the OECD debtor countries, headed by the US but including all EU27 states and Japan.

From mid-year 2010 the European PIIGS crisis only got worse, as US debt also worsened, forcing Strauss-Kahn to shelve public airing of his pipedreams and concentrate on saving both the euro and the dollar. The role of recycling and siphoning capital surpluses from smaller players with big holdings, starting with the Arab petro states and small island tax haven states, became more important than ever, as remarks by Strauss-Kahn and variable geometry allies and friends like George Soros, at the 2011 Davos Forum suggested to observers able to cut through the counter-noise. Likewise the role of SDR allocations and plans for radically increasing the production or issuance of SDRs most surely placed Strauss-Kahn in private conflict with very big players, starting with the US and China.

The latest plan was almost ready for launch, 14 May. Federal officials invited Strauss-Kahn to New York, arranged the hotel and travel, and set the agenda for a final review before going public on Strauss-Kahn's last plan to roll US debt into European debt, in which the Federal Reserve, and all its State banks, as well as European central banks would disappear. We know what happened, next...MORE...LINK

Obama admin officials admit president's "tough" '67 borders speech on Israel a charade; (how could it be otherwise in Israel-first Washington?)

From:
In meeting with Obama, Netanyahu rules out Israeli withdrawal to 1967 boundaries

(Washington Post) -- by Scott Wilson --

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu suggested Friday that President Obama holds an unrealistic view of how to achieve peace in the Middle East, saying that Israel would never pull back to the boundaries that the American president said a day earlier must be the basis for negotiations.

The unusual Oval Office exchange, following a nearly two-hour meeting, laid bare the fundamental differences between Obama and the hawkish leader of the chief U.S. ally in the Middle East. Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, injected partisan politics into the debate by vowing to formally condemn Obama’s position toward Israel in a resolution next week...

Netanyahu, in a lecturing tone, then ruled out an Israeli withdrawal to the nation’s boundaries on the eve of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which ended with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and other territories under Israel’s control.

Administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting, said that Obama, like Bush before him, knows Israel will almost certainly not return to the 1967 lines in a final peace agreement. But the officials said Obama chose to stress a different starting point for talks, even though the negotiated outcome might be the same, to introduce a new element into what has been a stalled process.

“The positions are consistent,” one official said, referring to Obama’s and Bush’s policies toward negotiations. “We certainly know what the president’s position doesn’t mean — a return to the 1967 lines.”...MORE...LINK

The craven, hypocritical Newt Gingrich and his grandiose delusions of grandeur: more suited to a mental ward than high office

From:
A Candidate without a Constituency

(The American Conservative) -- by John Payne --

According to the conventional wisdom, Newt Gingrich’s campaign for president is DOA after the Ryan Plan foofaraw, but it’s still very early. He never really had a shot at winning at all, but with his kind of determination, he can successfully debase himself for almost another year before bowing out. And the media love a horse race, so many of the talking heads have been searching for a constituency to make Gingrich’s run sound like something other than the clownish debacle it is and will remain. Perhaps most fanciful was this musing by Peggy Noonan on Meet the Press following Gingrich’s appearance:
One of the things, however, I was thinking as I watched him was, you know, to young people , to 18- and 20-year-old voters, it just occurred to me, he’s new. To all of us, he’s been around for a long time. He left the speakership in 1998 , we all covered it. To somebody who’s 18 or 22, this is a new figure. They may find him quite compelling.
...Even if Gingrich could ride to the Republican nomination on the work of cadres of young conservatives, I suspect that as they learn more about him, they will find him even more repugnant than their elders do. From Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy in 1968 to Ron Paul forty years later, young voters–particularly those inclined to volunteer on campaigns–tend to respond to a candidate with a clear, moral message. They will find precious little clarity or morality in Gingrich, however.

As much as Gingrich will try to avoid his personal scandals, he has never given his rivals quarter in this regard and has no right to ask for it now. And, in some way, he almost seems proud of his hypocrisy. How else to explain his excuse that too much hard work and love of country led him to repeated infidelity? That a man so morally reprehensible can hold himself in such high regard only demonstrates to young voters that he is more suited to a mental ward than high office...MORE...LINK
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Lack of GOP movement support for authentically conservative Ron Paul illustrates fraudulent, defective character of modern Republican establishment

From:
Exploring the Republican Paradox
(The New American) -- by Jack Kerwick, Ph.D. --

The Republican conceives of his party as the party of conservatism, the Constitution, and “limited government.” For this reason, he loathes the so-called “RINO” (Republican In Name Only), the faux conservative who comes like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. At the same time, however, on those all too rare occasions when a genuine conservative, Constitutionalist comes along, the “conservative” Republican refuses to support that for which he claimed to ardently wish.

There are two current, mutually reinforcing illustrations of this paradox. The first is the response on the part of Republicans to Newt Gingrich’s latest remarks. The second is the response of those same Republicans to Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy. We shall look at them in this order.

Last weekend, while on Meet the Press, Gingrich not only refused to endorse Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare, he also explicitly and unequivocally rejected it. “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” the former Speaker of the House asserted. Whether “radical change” is imposed via “Obamacare” or courtesy of plans authored by a “conservative” like Ryan, Gingrich is equally opposed to both. “I’m opposed to Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative proposing radical change.”

As if this wasn’t enough to convince the GOP faithful that Gingrich is no conservative, he then turned around to advocate a “variation,” as he characterized it, of the controversial “individual mandate” that is among the most salient of the constitutionally dubious aspects of the much dreaded “Obamacare.”

The swiftness with which legions of the Republican Party faithful have declared Gingrich a faux conservative is a puzzling phenomenon, for many of the same “conservative” voters who are now slamming Gingrich have supported and continue to support Republicans — whether George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, etc .— whose political differences with Gingrich are, for all practical purposes, negligible. We have no reason for believing that a President Gingrich would govern any less — and any more — “conservatively” than a President Bush, President McCain, President Santorum, President Huckabee, President Romney, or President Palin.

Each will be just as enthusiastic as all of the others to grow the military ever more for the sake of furthering the crusade to export “Democracy” to the Middle East and beyond. And when it comes to domestic policy, none will express any enthusiasm in the least over the prospect of truly weakening the federal government by eliminating the leviathan of entitlements and bureaucracies of which it consists.

There is another reason why the Republican voter’s demand for truly “conservative” candidates can’t but engage the intellectually curious. This brings us to Ron Paul.

Paul is the one presidential candidate in the current Republican field who most certainly does promise to govern more conservatively—and dramatically so — than all of the rest, for he is the only person resolved to honor the Constitution and its original design for America. That is, he is the only person with the determination to bring about the restoration of the old Constitutional Republic that “conservatives” claim they desire.

Moreover, Paul has been billed “the Godfather” of the very Tea Party movement with which the Republican Party has labored tirelessly to align itself ever since it first emerged but two years ago.

While Paul may or may not be the sole or even primary progenitor of the Tea Party movement that some have depicted him as being, there are few who would be comfortable denying that he is indeed among the sources of inspiration from which it arose. And there is no one who can credibly deny that the ideas for which Paul argued a few years ago and for which he was roundly ridiculed by his Republican colleagues are for the most part the ideas that define the Tea Party and the whole political climate today.

Simply put, there is no one in the Republican primaries whose vision of the Constitution and the Republic whose terms it delineates approximates more closely than Paul’s that of the Founders.

In spite of this, it is a virtual certainty that he will not receive the GOP’s nomination.

So, what accounts for this paradox that is all too seldom unpacked?

The truth is that the “conservative” Republican suffers an identity-crisis — and Paul, perhaps even involuntarily, draws his attention to it.

Effortlessly, Paul at once exposes two dirty little secrets about his fellow partisans. The first is that they are virtually interchangeable with one another with respect to domestic and foreign policy issues. The second is that they are virtually interchangeable with Democrats when it comes to these same issues.

In short, Paul puts the lie to the Republican fiction that the Republican Party is America’s “conservative” party...MORE...LINK

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Israel’s Fifth Column feigns outrage at Obama's call for '67 borders even though everyone, including the president, knows its utterly without teeth

From:
Obama Offends the Lobby

(Occidental Observer) -- by Kevin MacDonald --

Obama’s speech urging that the 1967 borders be the starting point for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has been rejected by Netanyahu in the sort of in-your-face manner that can only mean that the Israeli Prime Minister is absolutely confident that Obama does not have the power to really force Israel to do anything. The LA Times article describes Netanyahu as “infuriated” and Haaretz headlines the talks as “Confrontation.”

But we’ve gone through this before. Tensions have been high between Obama and Netanyahu for over two years, but Israel hasn’t changed its behavior at all, indeed announcing 1500 more housing units in East Jerusalem timed to coincide with Netanyahu’s visit.

Israel’s Fifth Column is predictably outraged. David Horowitz had this to say in an email fundraising letter: “Yesterday morning’s presidential address may well go down in history as the beginning of the end of the State of Israel. Never before has an American President so brazenly embraced the “Palestinian” [notice the quotation marks] cause; never before has an American President so contemptuously pushed Israel into a corner.” His Frontpagemag has an article titled “Obama Throws Israel to the Dogs.”

Obama did this despite dire warnings that it would cut into Jewish funding for the Democrats in 2012. (“Jewish Donors Warn Obama on Israel,” Wall Street Journal, May19). Since Jews basically fund the Democratic Party (not to mention their influence in the media), this is a major threat indeed. It calls to mind George H. W. Bush’s “one little guy” speech after he threatened a veto unless a $10 billion in loan guarantees was linked to stopping housing construction on the West Bank. Many believe that Bush’s loss in 1992 stemmed from his attempt to rein in the settlements.

Still, the fact is that Israel will not change its behavior, if only because the internal politics of Israel would not allow it. Ceding large areas of the West Bank with major Jewish settlements to the Palestinians would be political suicide and likely result in a civil war in Israel.

And, as usual, Israel will have far more reliable support in Congress where congressmen know that AIPAC will be a very powerful opponent. Republicans have already indicated that they see this as a way of attacking Obama–yet another indication of the poverty of the two-party system...MORE...LINK

Friday, May 20, 2011

Leftie, "hopey-changey" Obama-bots played for gullible fools (or frauds) as president unmasks himself as a "born-again neo-con"

From:
We’re All Neocons Now

(AntiWar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo --

In an appearance on Greg Gutfeld’s “Red Eye” late night Fox News panoply of buffoons, neocon Godfather Bill Kristol exulted in President Barack Obama’s conversion to the “democracy”-promotion foreign policy championed by the Bush administration, reports the Daily Caller:

“Gutfeld asked Kristol how he felt about Obama coming to him for help (reportedly the president had met with him and others prior to his Monday night address). ‘He didn’t come to me for help, of course,’ Kristol said. ‘I’m not going to acknowledge that. He came to me to make sure I was supporting his sound policies. Of course, since his sound policies are more like the policies people like me have been advocating for quite a while, I’m happy to support them. He’s a born-again neo-con…. What’s the joke – they told me if I voted for McCain, we’d be going to war in a third Muslim country? I voted for McCain and we’re doing it.”

Hey, Obama-bots – how’s that hopey-changey thing going?...LINK