YID With LID

Global Cooling? Bering Sea Ice is Screwing Up Alaska Crab Fishing

2012-01-27T18:48:00.000-05:00

Where's Al Gore now that we need him. After all there is more bad news for the global warming hoaxers, the Arctic is not getting warmer as they promised, its getting colder. So cold that the ice in the Bering Sea has started to build up much earlier than normal. Making it harder to harvest their "cash crop" of snow crabs (or as they are called in Hebrew--Traif!).

Snow crab fishing is a key industry in Alaska an the ice is threatening to put a halt to the industry during the peak of the season.

Earlier-than-expected ice is moving south over prime crabbing grounds, forcing boats away from their catch and putting millions of dollars of equipment in jeopardy.

These kind of "mother nature effects" are part of the fishing business everywhere, said Karen Gillis, the executive director of the Bering Sea Fishermen's Association.

But this fishery, which was expected to net 80 million pounds this year, hasn't seen a natural event like this in 20 years, she said, and it could have a devastating economic impact on crabbers and their families.

"We're talking about household incomes that are being severely impacted, households that don't have a lot of other income sources," Gillis said.

But wait how can that happen? The world is getting hotter the ice caps are melting and we are all going to die...aren't we?

Very cold temperatures and strong winds are pushing the ice south at the rate of 10-15 miles a day, according to the National Weather Service. A rate of 2-3 miles a day is normal. The ice itself has a maximum thickness of two feet.

The conditions are rare, but not unprecedented, scientists say.
Ice in this area of the Bering Sea is normal, just not this early, said Legatt.
"It's definitely impacted the fishing grounds," said Legatt.

It has also reached the place where most snow crab is processed, Seattle-based seafood giant Trident's massive St. Paul plant.

"We have to deliver a certain amount of our crab to St. Paul and with the way the ice is, you just can't get to it," Poulson said.

This can't be real, its gotta be some kind of mirage. Maybe these ice caps never read the papers to learn that they are supposed to be melting. Allow me to recommend that former Vice President send Man-Bear-Pig to Alaska to help out.

Ron Paul's Former Associates Say He Knew About Bigotry in Newsletters

2012-01-27T13:09:00.002-05:00

There is plenty of proof that Ron Paul knew what was in his bigoted newsletters, his defense of their content in 1996, interviews where he explained their content, hand-written letters asking for money etc. But none of this satisfied his loyal cult-like followers so here are some more facts for the Ronulins to deny.

The latest evidence is from people who worked with Dr. Paul who are testifying through the Wash Post , to America that the Bigoted Libertarian, read each and every word of his newsletters before they went out.

“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman. Hathway described Paul as a “hands-on boss” who would come in to the company’s Houston office, about 50 miles from his home, about once a week. And he would call frequently. “He’d ask, ‘How are you doing? Do you need any more money in the account?’ ” she said. The company also had an office in Clute, Tex., near Paul’s home, which it shared with Paul’s foundation and his campaigns at various points, according to Hathway and Dondero Rittberg.

A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase sales by making the newsletters more provocative. They discussed adding controversial material, including racial statements, to help the business, the person said....“It was playing on a growing racial tension, economic tension, fear of government,’’ said the person, who supports Paul’s economic policies but is not backing him for president. “I’m not saying Ron believed this stuff. It was good copy. Ron Paul is a shrewd businessman.’’...The articles included racial, anti-Semitic and anti-gay content. They claimed, for example, that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys’’; they ridiculed black activists by suggesting that New York be named “Zooville” or “Lazyopolis”; and they said the 1992 Los Angeles riots ended “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.’’ The June 1990 edition of the Ron Paul Political Report included the statement: “Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”

In 1984, just before losing a Senate bid and leaving Congress, Paul formed Ron Paul & Associates. He soon began publishing the Ron Paul Investment Letter, initially offering mostly economic and monetary information. Texas tax records listed Paul as president of the business, his wife as secretary, his daughter, Lori Paul Pyeatt, as treasurer, and a longtime Paul associate, Lew Rockwell, as vice president....Ed Crane, the longtime president of the libertarian Cato Institute, said he met Paul for lunch during this period, and the two men discussed direct-mail solicitations, which Paul was sending out to interest people in his newsletters. They agreed that “people who have extreme views” are more likely than others to respond...Crane said Paul reported getting his best response when he used a mailing list from the now-defunct newspaper Spotlight, which was widely considered anti-Semitic and racist.

Of course he knew about what was written in the newsletters, this is just more evidence that the Congressman from Texas is a liar!. Even worse these reports say he doesn't hate African Americans, Homosexuals and/or Jews, but only spewed the hatred to make a buck....now that is vulture capitalism.

Newbusted: Experts Predict $5.00/Gallon Gas For Next Summer

2012-01-27T12:35:00.001-05:00

Now here is a scary prediction, according to Newsbusted Anchor Jodi Miller, experts are now predicting that gasoline prices will reach record levels in 2012, perhaps over $5.00/per gallon. That is going to royally screw up family vacations for this coming summer...well except for the family that lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But I am sure before they leave they will suggest that we eat some cake.

Other stories covered in today's Newsbusted the twice-weekly faux-news program from Newsbusters.org include why liberals won't be able to tax the profits of some green energy companies, China's new subsidiary, why IBM's new product is banned from MSNBC, and much, much more.

Please don't forget to watch today's version of Newsbusted as the consequences of missing this episode may be horrible. A reader forgot to press play last Tuesday and Newt Gingrich posted herTax Return on the internet and now she is being audited by the IRS

Oh and if you cant see the video below click here.

Israel is NOT About To Attack Iran, Neither is the US (Suprise the NY Times is Wrong)

2012-01-27T08:19:00.000-05:00

By Barry Rubin

The radio superhero, The Shadow, had the power to “cloud men’s minds.” But nothing clouds men’s minds like anything that has to do with Jews or Israel. This year’s variation on that theme is the idea that Israel is about to attack Iran. Such a claim repeatedly appears in the media. Some have criticized Israel for attacking Iran and turning the Middle East into a cauldron of turmoil (not as if the region needs any help in that department) despite the fact that it hasn’t happened.

On the surface, of course, there is apparent evidence for such a thesis. Israel has talked about attacking Iran and one can make a case for such an operation. Yet any serious consideration of this scenario—based on actual research and real analysis rather than what the uninformed assemble in their own heads or Israeli leaders sending a message to create a situation where an attack isn't necessary—is this: It isn’t going to happen.

Indeed, the main leak from the Israeli government, by an ex-intelligence official who hates Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been that the Israeli government already decided not to attack Iran. He says that he worries this might change in the future but there’s no hint that this has happened or will happen. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has publicly denied plans for an imminent attack as have other senior government official.

Of course, one might joke that the fact that Israeli leaders talk about attacking Iran is the biggest proof that they aren’t about to do it. But Israel, like other countries, should be subject to rational analysis. Articles being written by others are being spun as saying Israel is going to attack when that's not what they are saying. I stand by my analysis and before December 31 we will see who was right. I'm not at all worried about stating very clearly that Israel is not going to go to war with Iran.

So why are Israelis talking about a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Because that’s a good way –indeed, the only way Israel has--to pressure Western countries to work harder on the issue, to increase sanction and diplomatic efforts. If one believes that somehow pushing Tehran into slowing down or stopping its nuclear weapons’ drive is the only alternative to war, that greatly concentrates policymakers’ minds. Personally, I don't participate--consciously or as an instrument--in disinformation campaigns, even if they are for a good cause.

Regarding Ronen Bergman's article in the New York Times, I think the answer is simple: Israeli leaders are not announcing that they are about to attack Iran. They are sending a message that the United States and Europe should act more decisively so that Israel does not feel the need to attack Iran in future. That is a debate that can be held but it does not deal with a different issue: Is Israel about to attack Iran. The answer is "no."

Imagine a media report after an Israeli attack: A dozen Israeli warplanes hit Iranian nuclear installations today. Three places were damaged to some extent but Iran has a large number of such facilities. Iran and Israel are now in a full state of war. Oil prices zoomed up. The Obama Administration and EU condemned the attack. Iran said it would redouble its drive for nuclear weapons and use them in its defense. Tehran is expected to put the priority on facilities outside of Israel's range.

Why should Israel attack Iran now? Because one day Iran will have nuclear weapons that might be used to attack Israel.

Does Iran have such deliverable weapons now? No.

If Israel attacks Iran now does that mean Iran would never get nuclear weapons? No, it would merely postpone that outcome for at most a year or two more than it would take otherwise. And then it would ensure an all-out endless bloody war thereafter.

If Israel attacks Iranian nuclear installations would that ensure future peace between the two countries? Would it make it less likely that the Tehran regime uses such weapons to strike at Israel in future? No. On the contrary, it would have the exact opposite effect. Again, it would ensure direct warfare between the two countries and make Iran’s use of nuclear weapons against Israel 100 percent probable.

Why is this different from Israeli attacks on Iraqi and Syrian nuclear facilities? Because in those case a single strike by a small number of planes would be sufficient to destroy a single building. And the two regimes, precisely because of the strategic situation, would and could not respond. And if you believe Iran's regime to be so totally irraitional then factor that point into how it would respond to a direct attack like that.

If Israel attacks Iran would it have backing from anyone else in the world? No, in fact the United States strongly opposes such an operation. Iranian retaliation against oil shipping and terrorist attacks would lead (not overly brave and already appeasement-oriented) Western governments to blame Israel, not Iran. Launching such an attack would ensure a level of international isolation for Israel far higher than what exists today. The idea that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq makes an Israeli attack more attractive is absurd. U.S. forces and interests are in the Gulf and an Israeli attack would--according to the Obama Administration--endanger U.S. interests there.

Would such an attack by Israel be likely to succeed even in doing maximum damage to Iranian facilities? No, a great deal could go wrong, especially against multiple hardened targets at the planes’ maximum range. Planes could get lost or crash or have to turn back. Planes arriving over the targets could miss, or accidentally drop their bombs on civilians, or simply not do much damage. Many targets would remain unscathed.

Additional waves of attack would be needed in a situation where Iran would be better prepared to shoot down the planes. And the second wave would face huge Western opposition. But it would be too late either way since Israel would now be in a full war with Iran.

Imagine a media report after an Israeli attack: A dozen Israeli warplanes hit Iranian nuclear installations today. Three places were damaged to some extent but Iran has a large number of such facilities. Iran and Israel are now in a full state of war. Oil prices zoomed up. The Obama Administration and EU condemned the attack. Iran said it would redouble its drive for nuclear weapons and use them in its defense. Tehran is expected to put the priority on facilities outside of Israel's range.

So given all of these factors why should Israel possibly attack Iran? It is an absurd idea.

The counter-argument is this: Iran’s regime is irrational and wants to destroy Israel even if the resulting counterattack would kill millions of Iranians and wreck the country. Yet while that analysis should not be totally ruled out, it is far from a certainty. Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons to make itself invulnerable to the costs of its non-nuclear subversion and support for terrorist and revolutionary forces. And a lot of what the Iranian leadership says is demagoguery to build support for itself at home, and to convince the masses to ignore its incompetence and mismanagement.

Moreover, while you may have met Iranians whose grasp of reality is--let me put this politely--somewhat creative and even though the Iran regime evinces an extremist anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic ideology, the actual history of Iran (or more narrowly of the Iranian regime) does not show it to be an irrational actor. In other words, tries to implement highly radical, nasty, and terrorist-supporting actions in a careful and cautious manner. Islamist Iran did not invade any of its neighbors and it has not taken big foreign policy risks. In saying this, I'm not being naive or ignoring what Iran's leaders say or want but what they actually do.

Why does Iran want nuclear weapons? So it can go on sponsoring terrorism, spreading radical ideology, killing Americans through covert actions, and building a sphere of influence without anyone doing anything about it. In other words, the real threat is Iran's conventional foreign policy safeguarded by nuclear weapons. Are there precedents for this? Sure. More recently, Pakistan and North Korea, going back further in time, the Stalinist USSR.

Yet given the points made above, even the Iran-as-irrational analysis--and even assuming it to be correct the probability of being right about Iran ever trying to launch a nuclear attack is far lower than 100 percent--does not justify an Israeli attack at this time.

Yet given the points made above, even the Iran as irrational analysis--and even assuming it to be correct the probability of being right about Iran ever trying to launch a nuclear attack is far lower than 100 percent--does not justify an Israeli attack at this time.

And, finally, Israel has other options. The alternative is this: As the Iranian regime works hard to get nuclear weapons and missiles capable of carrying them, Israel uses the time to build a multi-level defensive and offensive capability. These layers include:

U.S. early warning stations and anti-missile missile installations in the Gulf; Israeli missile-launching submarines; Israel long-range planes whose crews have rehearsed and planned for strikes at Iranian facilities; different types of anti-missile missiles capable of knocking down the small number of missiles Iran could fire simultaneously; covert operations, possibly including computer viruses and assassinations, to slow down Iran’s development of nuclear weapons; improved intelligence; help to the Iranian opposition (though the idea of "regime change" in the near future is a fantasy); and other measures.

If and when there was a clear Iranian threat to attack Israel, then Israel could launch a preemptive assault. And if no such threat ever materializes, Israel need never attack. Any future Iran-Israel war will happen if Iran’s regime makes it unavoidable, not in theory but in actual practice.

Note that attacking a limited number of missiles and launch facilities, that must be located closer to Israel within Iranian territory, is easy. Attacking multiple nuclear facilities buried deep in the ground anywhere in Iran is hard.

Ah, but what if Iran gives small nuclear devices to terrorists? Well ask yourself two simple questions:

1. Would an Israeli attack on Iran ensure that this didn't happen? Answer: Not at all.

2. Would an Israeli attack on Iran ensure that Iran would definitely give nuclear devices to terrorists and try to strike against Israel as quickly and as frequently as possible? Absolutely yes.

Does this Israeli strategy assume that Iran’s regime is “rational” and “peace-loving” and will be deterred by Israel’s ability to strike back? Absolutely not. Indeed, quite the opposite. No such assumption is required. Israel will simply be ready and alert based on the assumption that Iran might attack some day. But such a war, however possible, is not inevitable. And since Israel cannot prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons by attacking, there is no point in doing so.

Whether you hope for or fear an Israeli attack on Iran, it isn’t going to happen.

At the same time, a new theme in the America mass media--for example here and here--is that the United States is headed toward war with Iran either by electing a Republican president, the inevitable weight of events, or through having sanctions so effective that a cornered Iran will attack. The fact is that neither country wants to have an armed conflict and such a battle is easily avoidable. Ironically, those who claim Iran is going to attack are using the crazy Tehran regime concept that they reject when it comes to nuclear weapons. And the "watch out for the warmongering Republicans slogan" is part of the election campaign.

Warning against tough sanctions is a way of avoiding tough sanctions. The argument boils down to saying that sanctions better not hurt Iran or else the consequences will be disastrous. We will be hearing the same argument soon about Hamas, Hizballah, Egypt, and maybe even Libya or Turkey. The effort to use U.S. leverage will be said as triggering war or an anti-American explosion among Muslims. Thus, for example, whatever the Egyptian regime does toward Israel or its own people, we will be told that reducing U.S. aid is not an option.

Going to war with Iran is a mistake and the hysteria on this issue, including claims the regime is about to fall, that it can easily be brought down, or that an Iranian nuclear attack on others is inevitable, should be reined in. That's precisely why sanctions and other measures should be applied to the fullest extent possible.

And there isn't going to be any war unless Iran's regime tries to use them or make a big mistake. It could, as Egypt did in 1967 or Saddam Hussein did in the late 1990s, rattle "nuclear sabers" enough to convince Israel that an attack is imminent. Even if it did not intend to attack, Tehran could push too hard and trigger an Israeli attack. By the same token, some Iranian attack on Western forces or on oil traffic in the Gulf--more likely triggered by a local commander without regime permission--could produce a slide into war with the United States.

But here's what's most likely going to happen: Iran will get nuclear weapons. Iran is not going to stop its nuclear drive (though it could stop short of actually building bombs or warheads ready to go). Western policies are not so bold or adventurous as to go to war; Israel's interests and capabilities do not make attacking sensible. An attack would not solve but increase problems. And no matter how crazy you think Iran's regime is, the inescapable predicable threat is not high enough to force policymakers to risk getting hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people killed, when the chance of avoiding such an outcome is very high

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Holy COW!! Federal Workers and Retirees Owe Almost $3.5 BILLION To The IRS

2012-01-26T22:10:00.080-05:00

Here's a great idea that may help both the unemployment problem, the deficit and, as the President would make sure at least one group pays it's fair share of taxes. And I am sure it would be a bi-partisan policy. The idea is simple force the 279,381 delinquent tax payers who work for the federal govt., or are on a govt. pension pay the $3,420,168,684 in taxes they owe the IRS. For the ones who are working, give them a month to negotiate a payout plan with the IRS, if they don't first put a lien on everything they own...then fire them...it will free up the jobs for unemployed tax payers. As for the retirees--freeze their assets and dock their pensions.

This is disgusting! I first read this story on Andrew Malcolm's column at IBD , and felt compelled to download the spread sheet from the IRS and look at the pitiful numbers myself (the full report is embedded at the end of this post).

Fairness? Under the President's own roof in the executive branch there is over $620 Million of "not paying their fair share" not counting the people who have already worked out payment agreements with the IRS. The Military branches are the biggest offenders---these are the civilians, active duty military will be covered at the end of the post.

Maybe we can get Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to take a break from taking away our health care freedom and urge her staff to pay their taxes as they are the most delinquent department non military department with almost $41 million owed to the IRS.

Also interesting is the Department of Justice, in charge of enforcing the law, is involved in tax lawlessness. Maybe its not their fault, maybe the folks at the DOJ spent too much money helping out the ATF by buying guns for the Mexican Cartels and now they have no money to pay their taxes.

Executive Departments	Balance Owed
Executive Departments	Balance Owed
Department of Veterans Affairs	$ 151,082,033
Department of the Army	$ 105,478,429
Department of the Navy	$ 70,882,416
Department of the Air Force	$ 49,522,513
Department of Health and Human Services	$ 40,697,493
Department of Defense	$ 39,490,022
Department of Homeland Security	$ 36,984,922
Department of Commerce	$ 27,433,827
Department of Justice	$ 17,662,076
Department of Agriculture	$ 17,185,736
Department of Transportation	$ 16,139,290
Department of the Interior	$ 13,301,234
Department of the Treasury	$ 9,303,278
Department of Labor	$ 7,141,207
Department of Housing and Urban Development	$ 5,021,404
Department of Energy	$ 4,932,109
Department of Education	$ 4,286,496
Department of State	$ 3,958,293
Executive Office of the President	$ 833,970
Total Executive Branch	$ 621,336,748

Its not just the Executive Branch, take a look at Congress and their aides.

	Balance Owed
	Balance Owed
U.S. Senate	$ 2,134,501
U.S. House of Representatives	$ 8,535,974
Total Congress	$ 10,670,475

Take a look at the independent agencies, the postal service is losing money hand over foot but postal workers owe almost $270 million dollars in taxes (please don't shoot Mr. Postman Sir). There is something ironic about the Administrative Office of the Courts breaking the law, who do they think they are anyway, the Department of Justice? The government accountability office isn't. And the total of all the independent offices is over $400 million dollars.

Independent Agencies and Other Offices	Balance Owed

U.S. Postal Service	$ 269,641,265
Social Security Administration	$ 20,144,559
Environmental Protection Agency	$ 19,473,477
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts	$ 13,066,643
Tennessee Valley Authority	$ 4,622,722
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	$ 4,405,790
General Services Administration	$ 4,286,658
Small Business Administration	$ 3,930,497
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation	$ 3,155,313
Smithsonian Institution	$ 2,434,589
Government Printing Office	$ 2,122,322
Office of Personnel Management	$ 1,917,149
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission	$ 1,579,559
Federal Reserve System - Board of Governors	$ 1,265,152
U.S. Agency for International Development	$ 1,177,829
Securities and Exchange Commission	$ 1,146,843
Federal Communications Commission	$ 1,084,544
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission	$ 801,163
Government Accountability Office	$ 788,873
Broadcasting Board of Governors	$ 728,848
Presidio Trust	$ 725,633
Financial Crisis Inquiry Board	$ 634,138
National Labor Relations Board	$ 524,931
National Science Foundation	$ 512,535
Railroad Retirement Board	$ 425,644
Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency	$ 413,427
National Archives and Records Administration	$ 328,768
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation	$ 291,473
Federal Trade Commission	$ 262,677
Federal Housing Finance Agency	$ 249,316
Commodity Futures Trading Commission	$ 243,644
Int'l Boundary and Water Comm: U.S. and Mexico	$ 216,749
Export-Import Bank of the United States	$ 168,907
Merit Systems Protection Board	$ 140,716
Federal Election Commission	$ 97,354
National Endowment for the Humanities	$ 96,152
Peace Corps	$ 95,767
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum	$ 93,341
Consumer Product Safety Commission	$ 89,441
Armed Forces Retirement Home	$ 85,476
National Transportation Safety Board	$ 78,580
Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board	$ 66,707
National Credit Union Administration	$ 66,144
U.S. Tax Court	$ 62,508
Corporation for National and Community Service	$ 59,911
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service	$ 38,849
U.S. International Trade Commission	$ 37,534
United States Access Board (Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board)	$ 36,100
Federal Maritime Commission	$ 32,126
National Endowment for the Arts	$ 31,411
Millennium Challenge Corporation	$ 28,484
U.S. Office of Government Ethics	$ 22,160
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation	$ 18,218
Institute of Museum and Library Services	$ 17,201
Farm Credit Administration	$ 10,917
Overseas Private Investment Corporation	$ 7,535
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission	$ 6,181
Federal Labor Relations Authority	$ 1,439
Selective Service System	$ 777
Inter-American Foundation	$ 9
Other	$ 37,960,267
Total Independent Agencies	$ 402,052,942

The IRS reports that Active Military personnel owes about $340 million and those collecting a public pension owe over two billion.

Military	Balance Owed
Active Duty Military	$ 111,027,905
Military Reserves/Guards	$ 228,836,638
Total Military	$ 339,864,543

Retirees	Balance Owed
Civilian	$ 469,896,027
Military	$ 1,576,023,976
Total Retired	$ 2,045,920,003

All together people who work for the federal government and those who receive their pensions from the tax payers are not paying their fare share of taxes, and when you add the money Warren Buffett's company owes the IRS, we are talking about over four and a half billion dollars owed to the tax-payers.

Once again we are learning of a big gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in this country. The "haves" are the members of the federal bureaucracy and the rest of us are the "have nots."

Call me crazy (and many people do) but it seems to me before the president even considers raising taxes on people in the private sector he should clean up the federal government and make sure everyone pays their fair share of taxes.

Irs-federal Workers Tax Scofflaws

Interview With Mark Levin About “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America.”

2012-01-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

My friend John Hawkins the superstar blogger had a chance to sit down with the Great One, about his new book “Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America" (I purchased the book on Saturday and so far its great!).

Here are some excerpts from the interview.

It really is bizarre that we live in a society in which we have enough wisdom to choose our rulers, but we don’t have enough wisdom to choose our light bulbs.

We are deviating in many respects from the Constitution. As a result, we have individuals making decisions that are imposed on us because they think they know better than us. Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech is a perfect example of this mentality. He goes on and on and on about who should have money, who shouldn’t have money, which businesses we should support, which businesses we shouldn’t support, how he’s going to rearrange the deck chairs on the deck and on and on and on.

You think to yourself, “Gee, I look at the Constitution and the president doesn’t have the power to do all these things. He shouldn’t have the power to do all these things and yet he does these things. And if he could do more, he would do more of those things.”

If the Republican Party is not careful, the Republican Party is going to die because it is so far behind what conservatives see and what conservatives know to be happening and if it doesn’t have answers, or if it has leaders who aren’t willing to take steps that are absolutely crucial in order to reestablish our Constitutional system and to protect individual sovereignty, it’s really quite pointless.

Last question and it’s the 64,000 dollar question, Mark. Utopianism has never worked anywhere, throughout history. Moreover, there’s no promising success story on the horizon. When you look at Western Europe, where the countries are further down the road to what people like Obama would consider a utopian paradise, you see anemic economies, demographic death spirals, pitiful militaries, and increasingly untenable levels of debt. So, there’s no reasonable reason at all for anyone to think the path we’re going down is going to be successful. So, why does the left keep pursuing unachievable utopias?

Because if they accept that this ideology can’t work, then they diminish themselves because….let me explain it to you this way. This has been going on for thousands of years, which is the reason I go all the way back to Plato’sRepublic and Thomas Moore’s Utopia. and I go back to Thomas HobbesLeviathan — those are hundreds of years old. Of course, the Communist manifesto with Marx and Engels. The fact is that wittingly or unwittingly, the modern day masterminds who push this agenda they always believe the world begins with them and it begins today.

They always believe they have a better notion of an ideal society than the guy before them. So Obama is smarter than Plato, you see. Pelosi is smarter than Hobbes. Reid is smarter than Moore. They’re not really interested in history. As a matter of fact they have to break from our history in order to advance what is a very alien notion — which is why I get into the philosophical underpinnings that seem to allure millions of people while it is destroying those people.

And one of the ways they do this is by making these far off promises and predictions, big, ambitious images of what the world would be like and how mankind would be if only the individual was squelched, if only you surrendered more of your liberty and private property to the central authority, to the mastermind, the experts and their Army of bureaucrats — then they could rearrange society in a way in which we have equality of income and equality of social outcomes. Then we could build this rainbow to paradise. This is how they argue. This is what you heard in State of Union Address in so many words.

There is much more to this great interview...click here to go to Right Wing News and read the entire conversation (and when you are done go out and buy the book-its a must read, if you care about the future).

Analyzing Obama's Strange SOTU Foreign Policy Claims

2012-01-26T08:33:00.000-05:00

By Barry Rubin

In his State of the Union message, President Barack Obama began by wrapping himself in the flag, patriotism, and love of the armed forces while trying to highlight his foreign policy achievements. Among his points:

“The United States [is] safer and more respected around the world.”

Presumably, a lot of Americans will believe this. The United States may be said to be safer in terms of facing direct terror attacks but that was basically true in 2002. As for “more respected”—a phrase no doubt chosen to seem more statesmanlike than saying “more popular”–that is a joke. If there’s one thing that should be obvious (and this is often revealed even by international public opinion polls) it is that the United States is not more respected at all.

Moreover, while individual Americans may be relatively safe from terrorist attacks in their homes, neighborhoods and workplaces within the territory of the United States—a perception partly reinforced by redefining terrorist attacks as something else—U.S. interests abroad are far less safe.

“For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.”

True, though the remaining forces may have to fight to defend themselves. This withdrawal, of course, was planned by Obama’s predecessor and Iraq is not doing so well today.

“For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated.”

Aside from the lack of grammar here—was Obama trying to avoid saying that these people were killed?—the statement is true. The problem is that Hamas, Hizballah, the Turkish regime, Iran, Syria, and the Muslim Brotherhood add up to a far bigger threat, a problem magnified by Obama refusing to acknowledge they are a threat.

“The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.”

While the latter point about withdrawal is true, the Taliban is still quite strong. It would be quite possible for the Taliban to return to power within five years.

Then Obama rearranges history—quite obviously though no one in the mass media will point this out:

“Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.”

In fact, of course, the successes against al-Qaeda were obviously achieved before the withdrawal. Are al-Qaeda operatives trembling in fear before the might of America? Of course not. And in both Pakistan and Yemen (one should add Somalia) they are doing quite well. Obama could have done better by referring to the defeat of al-Qaeda as being part of the American “victory” in Iraq.

“From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.”

Again, Obama tells an unnecessary lie. The withdrawal from Iraq is a correct move but hardly puts the United States in a position of strength, especially given Obama’s deep cuts on the military. And of course the end of the war in Afghanistan was planned long before any withdrawal in Iraq; indeed it was basically planned during his predecessor’s term.

As for an “enduring partnership with Afghanistan,” that’s the kind of statement bound to come back to haunt Obama. Afghanistan remains unstable, its government is angry with Obama, and the tide may well turn there after a U.S. withdrawal.

Next, Obama turns to the Arab Spring. He refers to his success in Libya:

“A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators – a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone.”

True, but what will replace him?

“And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can’t be reversed, and that human dignity can’t be denied.”

In fact, for two and a half years, Obama strongly backed—in contrast to predecessors—that regime which denied “human dignity.” And he’s doing very little to help that transformation now.

My number-one complaint about Obama—not that there aren’t others but this is in first place—is that he never hints at the dangers in the region precisely because he doesn’t recognize that they exist.

And, in total contrast to his actual policy, he gives lip service to doing something productive:

“While it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings – men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty.”

In fact, though, Obama has basically ignored the “violence and intimidation” against Israel; the people of the Gaza Strip; the Turkish people; the Iranian people; the tyranny taking shape in Lebanon; the Christians in Iraq and Syria; and elsewhere.

How can “tyranny” be “no match for liberty” when U.S. policy is largely on the side of tyranny, indeed a tyranny of a worse kind that has previously prevailed in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Turkey?

When it comes to U.S. security interests, Obama can only talk about Iran, where he claims success:

“Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent.”

Nice. But Iran is still advancing in its nuclear program and its influence in Lebanon and Iraq increases while Tehran adequately defends its interests in Syria. If the State Department had not restrained Obama, he would also have handed Iran a victory in Bahrain.

On nuclear weapons, Obama repeats the standard line:

“America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”

And if it doesn’t? Yes, it is quite true that Obama led a move to tougher sanctions on Iran but he did so only by excluding Russia, Turkey, and China from compliance. I would argue that the same result could have been achieved far earlier than Obama did it.

Here is the worst sentence of the speech: “The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe.” It is precisely the lack of American leadership that is being felt.

“Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever.” Really? The South Koreans would probably agree but generally the alliances are not stronger than ever but about as weak as they have ever been.

“Our ties to the Americas are deeper.” Actually, Latin American leaders are very unhappy, feeling that Obama has coddled the Chavez dictatorship while ignoring them.

“Our iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.”

This is a carefully constructed sentence which I find makes me even more suspicious about Obama’s commitment toward Israel. Why? Because it is true that the bilateral military cooperation is as good as it has ever been. But all other areas of relations are terrible. This sentence tells me that Obama understands that and wants to accentuate the positive without doing anything to improve the negative. He thinks U.S.-Israel relations are good enough and will not—even if, or especially if, elected to a second term–make any effort to improve relations with Israel or U.S. support for that country. After all, he thinks that the relationship is perfect right now.

Another point to notice is Obama’s failure to mention—much less highlight—the Israel-Palestinian “peace process.” They’ve given up on that one, at least for 2012.

And then he concludes with this statement, remarkable for being so directly opposite to the truth:

“America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Wow, first, America is not back because Obama has reduced U.S. influence, leverage, and activism. Second, who has done more than Obama to assert that U.S. power is in decline? And, third, this fact is totally obvious to leaders in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Obama, however, is always one for doubling down on his lies or errors. (You choose the word you prefer.):

“That’s not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That’s not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin; from Capetown to Rio; where opinions of America are higher than they’ve been in years.”

The truth is generally the exact opposite and even in the polls one can see this. Obama can be daring because he knows the media won’t bash him for saying stuff like this.

There’s something else I find fascinating and generally ignored about this speech. All presidents, of course, want to put the accent on the positive. But with Obama I don’t see any real consideration of threats and problems. Yes, he mentions al-Qaida and the Taliban (no longer a problem, he says) and Iran (under control and they will be pressed into making a deal), and democratic transitions (we don’t know what will happen but…).

Nevertheless, America faces no real threats or enemies. revolutionary Islamism doesn’t exist as an issue; Russia poses no problem; Chavez and Castro and various other dictators are vanished; even underdevelopment or instability aren’t mentioned. There is a Pollyanna aspect to Obama arising from his belief that everything would be okay as long as America behaves properly and he is president. In his world there are no real conflicts; few true enemies but only misunderstandings. With Obama the problem is not merely his politics and views but also his total lack of true understanding about international affairs, security issues, and strategy.

Governor Mitch Daniels gave the Republican response and stuck completely to domestic economic issues, which was after all Obama’s main theme. Yet international affairs was the only other theme and if Obama’s critics can’t do a better job of analyzing his claims, responding to his policies, and offering an alternative to his strategies he is more likely to remain president for five more years.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Buffet and Secretary Take Their Act On The Road

2012-01-25T23:19:00.000-05:00

Warren Buffet and his secretary going on a press tour to help Barack Obama sell the country on the "Buffet rule"

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Buffett’s secretary since 1993, Debbie Bosanek, sat next to her boss just hours after being invited by the president to the State of the Union address, where the president made her the face of tax inequality in America.

Bosanek pays a tax rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent.

“I just feel like an average citizen. I represent the average citizen who needs a voice,” said Bosanek. “Everybody in our office is paying a higher tax rate than Warren.”

During Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Obama, for the first time, put a minimum percentage figure on the amount of taxes the ultra-rich should pay – 30 percent – an idea that has been referred to as the “Buffett rule.”

“The question is what is fair when you have to raise multi-trillions to fund the United States of America,” said Buffett. ”[Raising taxes] will not change my behavior. I have paid all different kinds of rates and I’ve always been interested in making money. I believe this should be a defining issue. Debbie works just as hard as I do and she pays twice the rate I do.”

Of course this is not true. Buffett's income is mostly capital gains, which means it was already taxed when Buffett first made the money that he used to invest. Then it was taxed at the corporate level when the companies he invested in earned the income. Finally it was taxed as capital gains, so the tax rate nonsense true, but not true.

Finally there is no truth to the rumor that the next move in the president's war on rich people is to force anyone making over $250,000/Year pin the patch below on their clothing (but based on his speech yesterday, it does seem like the next logical step.

Emergency Tip Jar Request

2012-01-25T20:52:00.001-05:00

PLEASE Help My Laptop is Dying!!

In the past week my computer needed emergency rehab 3x. HP tech services have been very nice, but they have only come up with temporary solutions. This laptop is on life support, unfortunately a new one is not in the family budget.

I Need To Replace This PC Before It Dies – So “The Lid” Won’t Have To Close Down Until I Can Get a New One.

PLEASE HIT THE TIP JAR

(see the left hand column on the blog) Any amount would be wonderful

Egypt’s Parliament Is 75% Islamist: Egypt-Israel Peace Agreement is Dead Even if Treaty Still Exists

2012-01-25T14:16:00.000-05:00

By Barry Rubin

We’re starting to get a good picture of what the lower house of Egypt’s parliament will be like. Close to 50 percent of the seats will be held by the Muslim Brotherhood. Another 25 percent will be held by the al-Nour party of Salafists. With 75 percent, the two Islamist parties will be able to do as they please.

But, they — or at least the Brotherhood — are determined to be cautious. Note that there is a big difference between actually being moderate and simply being patient, advancing step by step toward radical goals. The Western media will report that the Brotherhood is indeed moderate. Actually, as I review coverage over the last year it is almost impossible to find even a single article in the mass media that reports any such evidence, much less analysis, despite the massive documentation available to the contrary .

The non-Islamist seats will be held by the Wafd, nine percent, and the Free Egyptians Party, another nine percent, with the rest spread among a dozen different parties, mainly liberal with a small number of leftists. The Wafd will be willing to make deals with the Islamists in order to obtain a share of power for itself. Only the Free Egyptians will oppose them with determination.

There is no reason to believe the “moderates” will be able to work together; the Islamist parties also won’t unite. There is, however, an important difference. While the Wafd’s cooperation with the Brotherhood will undermine the ability of anti-Islamist forces doing anything at all, the Salafists will pull the Brotherhood toward a more militant stance.

Both Islamist parties will support laws making Egypt more Islamist, and when the Brotherhood does less than the Salafists want it will be proclaimed as moderate. Yet the two parties have no substantive difference on foreign policy except about how openly anti-American they will be and how active to push on conflict with Israel. Internationally, the Brotherhood will be portrayed as a wonderful bulwark against the Salafists, even as it moves Egypt step by step down the road toward radical Islamism.

Two key events will dominate Egyptian politics: writing the constitution and also the election of the president, currently expected in June. In order not to scare people, the Brotherhood continues its strategy of not directly sponsoring a presidential candidate. It is likely, however, that the Islamists will vote for Islamist candidates and in any run-off the likely two candidates will be an Islamist, probably Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, and the radical nationalist Amr Moussa. But here’s a thought: what if the two candidates that receive the largest number of votes in the first round are both Islamists? That could mean an all-Islamist run-off between the Brotherhood’s favorite and a Salafist.

Finally, here are some thoughts about the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. This provides a wonderful case study of how the media and elite analysts have entirely missed the point. Generally, the discussion is over whether the Islamists will explicitly revoke the peace treaty. It is said that they will be moderate because they won’t tear it up.

The problem is that for all practical purposes they have already done so. Consider what the treaty is all about. It was Egypt’s acceptance of Israel’s existence, agreement that there were no issues between the two countries that could lead to war, and pledge that there would be no more armed conflict.

Yet the Brotherhood and the Salafists do not accept Israel’s existence, they openly look forward to wiping it off the map. They see multiple issues between the two countries worth fighting wars about. They are the patrons of Hamas. And we can no longer assume that Egypt will not go to war with Israel.

Thus, whether or not the piece of paper remains, it is now meaningless. For example, there will still be an Israeli embassy in Cairo but no Egyptian government official will meet the ambassador and no Egyptian would dare talk to an Israeli diplomat. Israeli tourists will be able to visit Egypt but few will do so because of the security risk. There will also be a natural gas pipeline but it will be out of operation most of the time due to terrorist attacks.

True, it is better to have the treaty in existence, for its dissolution would be a sign that war is closer. Yet the treaty no longer has any content. In other words, the treaty will probably exist until, if that ever happens, the day Egypt’s government goes to war with Israel. And if Egypt does not go to war with Israel it will not be because of the treaty, or the belief that disputes have been resolved, or a decision that war is no longer desirable.

It will only be because the Islamists calculate that they might not win the war, that the armed forces will oppose going into a losing battle, that the generals fear losing U.S. military aid, and that Egypt had a president who opposed war.

But none of those four points — which might be sufficient to prevent an open war — relate to the thinking of President Anwar al-Sadat and other Egyptian leaders that the two countries were now in a situation of “no more war, no more bloodshed.”

Remember that due to realistic calculations, Syria has not attacked Israel directly for almost 40 years but there is no peace between those two countries and the Syrian government has constantly plotted attacks on Israel through Lebanon and by terrorist groups in various places. The Gaza Strip is now Egypt’s equivalent of Lebanon.

There should be no doubt that the Brotherhood and Salafists will promote war with Israel indirectly, through Hamas and other fronts. Egyptian volunteers might go into the Gaza Strip to fight; weapons, money, and terrorists will cross the Egypt-Gaza border without restriction. Hamas camps are already opening in the Sinai that will make weapons and organize supplies.

So the treaty is useless, except for limiting conventional Egyptian military forces in eastern Sinai. If Egypt’s army doesn’t advance, breaking the limits set by the treaty for that zone, that is a good thing, a sign that it is not about to attack Israel.

But there will be various terrorists and Hamas units operating in the area anyway, using it as a safe haven. Even if al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, or Hamas were to attack Israel from eastern Sinai, Israel could not retaliate there lest that bring war with Egypt. Israel will have to depend on Egypt’s army to police the area and block terrorists. But once a new constitution and president are in place, Egypt’s army cannot be depended on to do so. What would happen to a general who was too vigorous in, to use the common Arabic expression, being “Israel’s defender”?

Do you think we will be seeing headlines reading: “Egyptian authorities arrest terrorists planning to attack Israel”? Are we going to be hearing news items like: “The Egyptian government has confiscated rockets, mortars, and weapons being shipped into the Gaza Strip for use against Israel”? And if not, then how is Egypt’s government observing the peace treaty?

From Israel’s standpoint, of course, the treaty has no value.

Thus, while Western analysts cheer about the “continuation” of the Egypt-Israel treaty, it is now effectively a dead letter.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Detailed Fisking of President Obama's Frightening Speech (Spending, Taxes, Threats and LIES)

2012-01-25T11:21:00.004-05:00

The president's State of the Union address last night was nothing short of frightening. Sure there was the usual lies, twisted facts and campaign rhetoric we have all come to expect from Barack Obama. But speech had an undercurrent of intimidation, a feeling that he was going to accelerate his attack on our liberties, that his class warfare rhetoric was more than just politics but a legal threat. He scapegoated corporations and the well off to the point where you could legitimately wonder if he was going to try and throw them all in jail.

Below are the parts of the speech I found particularly troubling:

Let's remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that weren't, and personal debt that kept piling up.

He believes that the problem here is capitalism, when the real problem is we began moving away from capitalism long before he took office, Johnson's "Great Society" took away many incentives to work, Nixon took us off the gold standard and tried to switch us to a controlled economy (remember his price controls).

In 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn't afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other people's money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn't have the authority to stop the bad behavior.

Yes some banks took advantage, that is indisputable. What is also indisputable is they were forced to make those loans, by presidents and congresses who believed that everyone had a constitutional right to own their own home. They were also forced by attorneys (the future president Obama included) who sued and courts who ruled that banks had to give mortgages to poor people who couldn't afford them.

It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt, and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect.

Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there were a total of 133,563,000 people working in January of 2009, as of December 2011 there are 131,900,000 meaning that there are 1,663,000 less people working than when Obama took office. Actually this understates the problem. In order to keep pace with the population growth we need to be adding about 100,000 jobs/month or 3,600,000 jobs during Obama's tenure, so technically we need to add approximately 5,263,000 jobs for Obama to get employment to the point of which he took over. By the end of this (and God willing his only) term as President, Barack Obama would have to add a total of of 6.4 million jobs to clean up the employment situation and leave it the way he found it.

Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we've agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we've put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again.

An outright lie perpetuated by the leaders of both parties, they did not cut the deficit by two trillion, they cut the GROWTH of the deficit by two trillion. There is an assumed base line of spending growth, that's what they cut. Think of it this way. Say you have decided to by a new sound system for your house in five years. You assume you are going to pay $10K for the sound system. Next week you change your mind and decide to buy a sound system for $5K. Have you saved any money or did you just decided to grow your bills by $5K less then you decided a week ago? That's how the government came to the $2 trillion cut, they decided to increase the federal debt by less than they had planned to--they cut nothing.

The state of our Union is getting stronger. And we've come too far to turn back now. As long as I'm President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

Ah..its blame Bush time, but here are the real facts courtesy of the Heritage foundation. The "Bush Tax Cuts created more jobs, and increased GDP and real wages. Is that what Obama plans to oppose?

And even better, by lowering taxes we increased tax revenues.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

Actually we purchased GM at distressed rates and handed it over to the UAW as a gift, thus screwing all of the other bond holders and the American people whose money he used. He prevented GM and Chrysler from going into Chapter 11 where the unions would have had to share the burden.

.....We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it.

So let's change it. First, if you're a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn't get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home.

Threat number one, if you move jobs overseas we are going to tax you more. That is the progressive way deal out penalties. Truth is this will result in companies moving their home offices overseas also.

The answer is simple for anyone who understands capitalism. Companies aren't moving jobs overseas to be mean to Americans, they are doing it to make a profit. A CEOs job is to maximize profits for the investors. If Barack Obama wants jobs to move back (or stay in the United States) he should find ways to make it cheaper to run businesses in this country! Lower taxes, regulation reform. He should understand that it isn't just the restrictions put on businesses through regulation, its the cost of complying with and reporting to the government that you have complied with those regulations.

Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here.

An alternative minimum tax for corporations will result in more jobs lost, more jobs going overseas and (I assume) higher accounting fees. If he wants each corporation to pay its fair share, simplify the tax code, close loopholes and reduce the overall tax rate. Maybe he should ask his good buddy Jeff Immelt of GE, his company paid no taxes last year and shipped jobs over seas.

Third, if you're an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you're a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here. And if you want to relocate in a community that was hit hard when a factory left town, you should get help financing a new plant, equipment, or training for new workers.

I agree with the relocation idea, but that is a local decision not a national one.

I will go anywhere in the world to open new markets for American products. And I will not stand by when our competitors don't play by the rules. We've brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last administration - and it's made a difference. Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires. But we need to do more. It's not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they're heavily subsidized.

...And its not fair that conservative bloggers can do research and prove that I am a disaster for America.

Tonight, I'm announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections to prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing our borders. And this Congress should make sure that no foreign company has an advantage over American manufacturing when it comes to accessing finance or new markets like Russia. Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you - America will always win.

Great more bureaucracy! Isn't this what the Dept. of Commerce does?

.....For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on education each year, we've convinced nearly every State in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning - the first time that's happened in a generation.

They've forced teachers to "teach to the tests" and have introduced curricula that are more like progressive indoctrination than education---politically correct nonsense, and fake history...thank you Mr. President.

But challenges remain. And we know how to solve them.

Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren't helping kids learn.

Lets talk about giving those teachers resources. As Reason reported in March 2011

As you can see, with the exception of Switzerland, the U.S. spends the most in the world on education, an average of $91,700 per student in the nine years between the ages of 6 and 15. But the results do not correlate: For instance, we spend one-third more per student than Finland, which consistently ranks near the top in science, reading, and math.

So the question becomes is it that we aren't spending enough money on education or are we spending it wrong? Have lucrative pension plans for long retired teaches become too big a burden on the education system, or is it the cost of complying with Dept. of Education regulations? If Barack Obama and the progressives truly want to improve education, those are the questions I would start with.

We also know that when students aren't allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.

School isn't for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with a kid (after consulting with parents) quitting school at 16 or 17 and becoming an apprentice plumber or painter...etc. If Obamacare is fully implemented those kids will end up making more money than doctors. In the end it is not a government decision... it's a family decision!

When kids do graduate, the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college. At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.

Of course, it's not enough for us to increase student aid. We can't just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we'll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who've done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it's possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can't stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can't be a luxury - it's an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

If it isn't a constitutional right---It Should be!

Because the right to go to college is in the constitution right next to free healthcare, free high speed internet and of course free Oreo Cookie Ice Cream (hey if the progressives can invent stuff for the constitution why can't I?

Let's also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren't yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

That doesn't make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That's why my Administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That's why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office.

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let's at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

The border is still porous, look at how many of those prevented terror attacks over the past few years have been perpetuated by illegal aliens such as the attempted Time Square bomber, or the arrest of the terrorist who was trying to blow up a building in Houston. The only reason illegal immigration is down is that thanks to this President the economy is awful. There are fewer people who see the US as an opportunity to become successful.

You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who's willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs thought that Obama was bad for the country according to his biography:

Steve Jobs told President Obama that he was "headed for a one-term presidency" if he did not adopt more business friendly policies, according to a biography of the legendary Apple CEO to be released Monday. He even offered his assistance to avoid that outcome.

Here comes the energy lie:

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we've opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I'm directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it's been in eight years. That's right - eight years. Not only that - last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

Let's see of he really opens up those resources. The oil production that he is bragging about now is the payoff for the oil leases opened up by George Bush. Between that and the decrease oil/gas usage because of the falling economy and the increases in crude oil costs, yes we reduced our dependance on foreign (and all oil). And, according to the house oversight committee, the price increase was deliberately caused by the Obama administration.

But with only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, oil isn't enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy - a strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

An out and out lie! A 2009 study by the non partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) sheds light on America's energy resources. It shows show the U.S. supply of recoverable oil to be 167 billion barrels of oil, the equivalent of replacing America's current imports from OPEC countries for more than 75 years. And that's just the oil, when you include gas and coal, the U.S. has energy reserves the equivalent of 1.3 trillion barrels.

..What's true for natural gas is true for clean energy. In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world's leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries. Because of federal investments, renewable energy use has nearly doubled. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it.

The bottom line is the battery industry still haven't developed the necessary technology, which is one of the reasons Chevy Dealerships do not want to waste their showroom space on the volt.

..When Bryan Ritterby was laid off from his job making furniture, he said he worried that at 55, no one would give him a second chance. But he found work at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan. Before the recession, the factory only made luxury yachts. Today, it's hiring workers like Bryan, who said, "I'm proud to be working in the industry of the future.

Our experience with shale gas shows us that the payoffs on these public investments don't always come right away. Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy. I will not walk away from workers like Bryan.

No he will give federal money to companies owned by his big donors and other friends, like Solyndra, let them go bankrupt and THEY will walk away from workers like Bryan.

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change

Maybe they haven't because with each passing day there is new information that "climate change is nothing but a hoax designed to redistribute income world-wide.

Building this new energy future should be just one part of a broader agenda to repair America's infrastructure. So much of America needs to be rebuilt. We've got crumbling roads and bridges. A power grid that wastes too much energy. An incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world.

What he neglects to say is that smart power grid he is talking about will be able to regulate your individual usage, if you like your home cold in the summer...forget it! Your house will have a "brown-out."

And there is that constitutional right to high speed internet. Sorry I don't want any government progressive or conservative, regulating the net.

During the Great Depression, America built the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. After World War II, we connected our States with a system of highways. Democratic and Republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, from the workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today.

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

There is that budget trick again. That spending on the wars in future years was never part of the budget, so Obama wants to fund those projects with money that was never there.

The President's executive order, known as the “High Road Contracting Policy” gives preferential treatment to government construction contractors that pay their hourly workers a "union wage" and provide additional benefits such as health insurance, employer-funded retirement plans and paid sick leave. In other words even non union shops have to may money to the Unions and increase benefits if they want to get federal projects. This move not only further depresses the Construction industry, but raises the cost of Federal construction projects between 10-20% increasing the federal deficit.

There's never been a better time to build, especially since the construction industry was one of the hardest-hit when the housing bubble burst. Of course, construction workers weren't the only ones hurt. So were millions of innocent Americans who've seen their home values decline. And while Government can't fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn't have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.

That's why I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won't add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.

I forgot, there is the constitutional right to being protected from making bad personal choices. I believe that is part of the 37th amendment.

Let's never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.

Except for the unions of course.

We've all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn't afford them.

That is nanny-statism, the government needs to be looking over your shoulder to protect you...from you.

So if you're a big bank or financial institution, you are no longer allowed to make risky bets with your customers' deposits. You're required to write out a "living will" that details exactly how you'll pay the bills if you fail - because the rest of us aren't bailing you out ever again. And if you're a mortgage lender or a payday lender or a credit card company, the days of signing people up for products they can't afford with confusing forms and deceptive practices are over. Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them.

The government's job is not to protect a business from making stupid decisions---well except in a socialist society where government is making the stupid decisions.

BTW Richard Cordray, was one of the unconstitutional recess appointments Obama made when Congress was not in recess.

Next we come to "Brown-Shirt" type threats.

We will also establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and protect people's investments. Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there's no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That's bad for consumers, and it's bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.

And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.

Will they also go after the politicians like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden who helped to create the crisis or the attorneys like Barack Obama who participate? Of course not. The only purpose of doing this is intimidation pure and simple. Big Business better toe the line and do what he says or he is going to throw them in jail.

.....Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let's agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.

Sure...what are we going to cut to pay for it?

When it comes to the deficit, we've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings.

That's a lie (see above)

But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we're poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

A fake argument. Buffett is paying a lower tax rate than his secretary because its Capital Gains, which is at a lower rate because it was already taxed at the corporate level and to encourage capital investment which fuels the economy and creates Jobs.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else - like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both.

There is not enough rich person income to solve our massive debt problem over the short or long term. The top 3 percent of earners, those making $250,000 or more, have about $2.3 trillion in total annual income. So even if we took all their money it would only pay our bills for a bit over six months. it would only fund the government this year for just over six months. If you wanted to limit it a bit and only confiscate all the income of the 400 wealthiest Americans that would net only about $1.4 trillion, a pittance in the Obama budget. It would pay the federal government's bills for about Four and a half months, after which the government nor those wealthy 400 would have anything left to buy guacamole dip for their Super Bowl Party (nor pay the electric so they can watch the game on TV).

...But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up. You're the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You're the ones who need relief.

If he cared about fair share, the President should be talking about simplifying the tax code and closing loop holes, not increasing the tax rate. And allow me to suggest a different "Buffett Rule." My rule is that Berkshire Hathaway, the company primarily owned by Buffett, his family and friends, should pay the $1,000,000,000 in back taxes that even their internal auditors admit they owe to the IRS

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

Finally something positive to say, I have the President's approval to call it class warfare all I want. Before I had been doing it without his approval so I feel much better now.

I recognize that people watching tonight have differing views about taxes and debt; energy and health care. But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right now: Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken.

And nothing will get done till we free congress and the presidency from progressive control.

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let's take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let's limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let's make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can't lobby Congress, and vice versa - an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

I agree with this 100%, but did he get Nancy Pelosi's permission first?

Some of what's broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything - even routine business - passed through the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.

Wait a second but isn't he the president that rejected the Keystone pipeline because he wasn't given enough time to decide, event though the project had been going through channels for years?

The executive branch also needs to change. Too often, it's inefficient, outdated and remote. That's why I've asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy so that our Government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.

And, God Willing it will change in January of 2013.

Finally, none of these reforms can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas.

Does that mean his congressional supporters need to stop crying racist every time someone disagrees with Obama's policies?

I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That's why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That's why we're getting rid of regulations that don't work. That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.

HUH? Did he forget to read the legislation also. Government is regulating everything about insurance even to the point where pro-life faith based organizations have to pay for the the entire cost of the "morning after abortion pill." Think about that for a second, not only does it trounce the freedom of religion, but there is no deductible for an abortion poll or contraceptives, but there is one for Chemo, or dialysis, or transplants, or even the Zantac we need to calm our stomachs when we realize what this guy is doing to our country.

...As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana'a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qadhafi was one of the world's longest-serving dictators - a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can't be reversed, and that human dignity can't be denied.

Egypt is now in the hands of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the new Libyan leadership has connections to the Islamist al Qaeda, in another year or two when the new regimes solidify their power Egyptians and Libyans may be begging for their old tyrants.

Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one. The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.

Lets look at Iran...they keep taunting the US "we are going to close the straits of Hormuz...Just kidding." By my count they have threatened and even practiced for that closing at least three times during the past two years. America has become a joke to them.

And as far as all options on the table, why is the Obama administration warning Israel not to defend herself against Iran.

President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike. The U.S. wants Israel to give more time for the effects of sanctions and other measures intended to force Iran to abandon its perceived efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Time for another lie?

...Our iron-clad commitment to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.

Read the above, or anything else I have written about Obama over the past three years. His iron-clad commitment to Israel reminds me of George McGovern's 1000% commitment to Thomas Eagleton in 1972

Above all, our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it. As they come home, we must serve them as well as they served us. That includes giving them the care and benefits they have earned - which is why we've increased annual VA spending every year I've been President. And it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our Nation.

With the bipartisan support of this Congress, we are providing new tax credits to companies that hire vets. Michelle and Jill Biden have worked with American businesses to secure a pledge of 135,000 jobs for veterans and their families. And tonight, I'm proposing a Veterans Job Corps that will help our communities hire veterans as cops and firefighters, so that America is as strong as those who defend her.

I happen to like the idea of offering tax benefits for hiring one of our returning heroes, I hate the idea of another federal bureaucracy like a veteran's job corps.

But that was what the speech was all about, more spending, more taxes, more threats---more LIES!

Newsbusted Exclusive: Obama Wins Nobel Prize In Music

2012-01-24T14:06:00.000-05:00

I guess it was bound to happen, President Obama impromptu rendition Al Green's soul classic “Let's Stay Together caused such a stir that now the Nobel Committee wants to award the former peace prize winner a Nobel prize in Music. Of course it matters not that Barack Obama is not a musician (he didn't deserve the peace prize either). The real controversy is that the prize committee has never before awarded a Music prize. But according to this special report by Newsbusted Anchor Jodi Miller, that should not be a problem

Other stories covered in today's Newsbusted the twice-weekly faux-news program from Newsbusters.org include the real reason President Obama went to Disney World last week, what the South Carolina primary losers got from the state's GOP, why NBC was not upset about its 8th place finish in last week's ratings and much, much more.

Please don't forget to watch today's version of Newsbusted as the consequences of missing this episode may be horrible. A reader forgot to press play last on Friday and Iran bombed his house, the worst part was that Ron Paul said it was the guy's fault for provoking Iran.

Oh and if you cant see the video below click here.

The Unspoken Truth, Under Obama Israel Can No Longer Trust the US Govt

2012-01-24T08:32:00.001-05:00

By Barry Rubin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

HYPOCRISY! Romney Whines About His Opponents Use of Democratic Party Tactics Then Uses Them Himself

2012-01-24T07:51:00.002-05:00

Granted, I was a bit tired last night but Governor Romney confused me a bit during the debate yesterday. I could have sworn he said something about Republican candidates not using Democratic Party tactics against each other just before he launched into a Nancy Pelosi-like tirade about the Gingrich ethics probe.

In early December Pelosi told TPM

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Pelosi said. “I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

Pressed for more detail she wouldn’t go further.

“Not right here,” Pelosi joked. “When the time’s right.”

According to Mitt Romney, Gingrich resigned in shame because of his ethics violations. His surrogate Chris Christie said the Gingrich ethics violations were an embarrassment to the party. Chris calm down..have some jelly donuts or something.

Why are they making this an issue when it is clear that the former speaker did nothing wrong? That's what the Bill Clinton-controlled IRS found.

As reported by CNN right after the IRS made its ruling:

Tax fraud? Well, never mind. After a three-and-a-half year examination, the Internal Revenue Service -- Bill Clinton's IRS -- has issued an official finding: no violation of tax laws. Critics said the course, which was videotaped and widely distributed, was too political; a scheme to use a tax-exempt educational foundation to promote a Republican agenda and elect Republican candidates.

But in a 74-page memorandum, the IRS said otherwise, quote: "The taught principles from American civilization that could be used by each American in everyday life, whether the person is a welfare recipient, the head of a large corporation or a politician." It said: "The course was not biased toward particular politicians, or a particular party. The facts show the class was much more than a political platform."

There was no comment from Congressman Bonior, who had accused Gingrich of tax fraud, but there was comment from the president of the foundation that sponsored Gingrich's course.

The Facts show that Mitt Romney is doing exactly what complained his opponents were doing, using false Democratic Party rhetorical tactics to spread lies about his opponents. This kind of scorched-earth campaigning only serves one purpose, to re-elect Barack Obama.

Brzezinski Tells Salon: Those Rich Jews Control Congress

2012-01-23T14:08:00.003-05:00

Brzezinski is someone I have learned an immense amount from", and "one of our most outstanding scholars and thinkers--Senator Barack Obama

This Salon headline will bring agreement from many anti-Semites who believe the Jews (or Zionists) control the world.

Zbig: Israelis “bought influence”and outmaneuvered Obama

By Zbig, the author is talking about, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser for Jimmy Carter, famous for helping to create the Taliban, inventing anti-Israel conspiracy theories and spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Salon did a phone interview with the former national security adviser from his office at The Center for Strategic and International Studies, The George-Soros created progressive foreign policy think tank. The purpose of the interview was for Brzezinski to "pimp" his new book “Strategic Vision, about China taking over America's role in World Affairs.

Though the book was about China, Salon couldn't resist having Brzezinski toe the "progressive" line about Israel.

Brzezinski has both praise and criticism for the president: “He was an improvement by a very large score over his predecessor, but he could have been better.” He thinks the Obama administration “should have stuck to its guns in promoting a fair settlement” in the Middle East. A longtime foe of Israel’s partisans in the United States, he says the Obama team “fumbled by getting outmaneuvered by the Israelis.” Then he gets blunter: “Domestic politics interceded: The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.”

That was just Zbigniew Brzezinski’s way of saying "Those rich Jews are controlling Congress.

And its not the first time, back in 2007, when Brzezinski was part of Obama's Anti-Jew Crew schooling the future president on foreign policy. He taught the president that those Jews to often claim Antisemitism when people uses anti-Semitic slogans such as Jewish-power controls foreign policy.

Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski says that the pro-Israel lobby in the US is too powerful, while the slur of anti-Semitism is too readily used whenever its power is called into question.

Presenting a solution for the Middle East, he listed historical compromises that had to be made by Israelis and Palestinians but accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) -- the largest and most influential lobby group -- of obstructing peace efforts. He said: "AIPAC has consistently opposed a two-state solution and a lot of members of Congress have been intimidated and I don't think that's healthy.

What make's the former national security adviser an anti-Semite, not because he is anti-Israel, that just qualifies him to be a friend of the Obama administration. It is Brzezinski's use of anti-Semitic memes such as "the Jews control foreign policy," that proves him to be an anti-Semite.

Brzezinski, has another nasty habit, he does not believe that Jews have any right to defend themselves. He criticized Israel attacks on Hamas as being unwarranted because the Kassams the terrorists were launching were simply an nuisance. He suggested to President Bush to blow Israeli airplanes out of the sky if they dare to launch an attack on the Iranian nukes.

But Brzezinski isn't the only culprit in this affair, Slate writer, Jordan Michael Smith (you know what they say about people with three names), went totally off the subject to have "Zbig" promote his anti-Semitic stereotypes. Purposely luring "Zbig" in, so the bigoted former NSA could give some cover to the progressive position on Israel. That is media bias in action.

Message To The Four GOP Candidates: End the Circular Firing Squad!!

2012-01-23T12:25:00.001-05:00

This morning I saw Mitt Romney surrogate Chris Christie take a page out of Nancy Pelosi's playbook calling Newt Gingrich an embarrassment to the GOP, Gingrich keeps harping on the "non-Issue" of Romney's tax returns (the financial disclosure forms have long-since been filed), Rick Santorum accuses just about everyone in the world of not being pro-life enough.

Folks, its time for all this to end. Instead of working hard for your nominations you are working against the most important goal....defeating Barack Obama. With his billion dollars and ability to ~~spin~~ lie about everything, turning it into class warfare, all you are doing is writing his commercials for him. If you truly believe that Barack Obama is bad for the country calm down and stop campaigning for him.

Mitt, turn Governor Christie off..he doesn't really help your case with the Conservative part of the party and you already do well with the moderates and liberals. And publicly declare that your Super PAC turn off the negativity.

Newt, same with you! I get it-- the dirty campaign waged in Iowa by Romney's Super PAC pissed you off, so you fought back with the Bain nonsense and making his tax return an issue. But what gave you the win in South Carolina was your attacks on the press and your great ideas.

Rick, your first debates were, spent whining, you fought back and that's great, but stop making the debates about you attacking people. I guarantee you that Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney would be better on life issues than Barack Obama. Talk about your ideas, and why your ideas will be great, not why the other guys are awful.

Look, I am not looking for you guys to kiss, hug and then go shopping for furniture, I am just looking for a spirited debate on the real issues not personal attacks. The kind of debate that will elevate each one of you individually and the party in general. Each one of you have said that a second Obama administration would be a disaster for America--I urge you all to remember that.

Switch to decaf or something.

John Hawkins agrees, read his letter to the candidates here

Are You Left-Wing Right-Wing? How About an Honest-and-Accurate Wing ?

2012-01-23T06:09:00.000-05:00

Note: I have often called Dr. Barry Rubin my friend and teacher. The friend part is obvious, but have you ever wondered what I meant by teacher? Its not that he has taught me more about the Politics of the Middle East and diplomacy since we "met" than I learned in the first 50 years of my life (although that is true). Barry taught me how to analyze the news and make ones case, how it is better to provide a rational, unemotional, factual argument rather than a froth-at-the-mouth emotional case. He taught me to respect the readers by understanding that I don't have to hit them over the head with every argument, and he taught me that certain sources are like a broken clock, they are correct one out every 12 times and that is purely by accident.

I am still working on all of it and hopefully getting better every day. The article below by my friend and teacher Barry Rubin, talks to many of the lessons he has shared with me.

By Barry Rubin

I ran into an older, retired Israeli colleague who is a fine scholar in his field. We hadn’t met for 25 years and agreed to have coffee in a nearby Tel Aviv cafe. In the ensuing conversation I learned some key things about why current intellectual and political discussion is such a wreck.

The retired professor has read nothing I’ve written. He is on the left-wing politically, in the historic non-Communist sense, but his work has always been first-rate and untouched by any political slant. In addition, he has worked amicably with people of different views.

And that’s why I was dismayed by his first question: “Are you left-wing or right-wing?”

I sighed, partly because I hate this starting point of dividing people into two categories. A more appropriate question would have been: “what do you think of … ?” To classify someone is to decide in advance to agree or disagree with whatever they say. To ask someone their view makes it possible to listen and think about the quality of their ideas.

A scholar or analyst, whatever his personal views, should do work that is beyond politics.

Many years ago I wrote a scholarly article on American radical professors of the 1930s and 1940s. I was almost unable to find a single case in which anyone had even been accused of politicizing their academic work or classroom teaching. They viewed such behavior as inappropriate, and perhaps some were worried about how being outspoken might hurt their careers. At any rate, even during the McCarthy era people were pursued for their organizational memberships and not their classroom behavior.

Today, all those old issues of professional ethics have vanished. Professors may spend most of their time being propagandists: throw away scholarly standards and energetically persecute dissenters.

Back to my cafe meeting: if one puts people into a box, all that follows will either be banal agreement or total argument. If this encounter had been in an American context, the next hour or so might have been spent on endless consensus on how great or terrible Obama is. Alternatively, the discussion would have been characterized by a heated argument in which each person would not concede that the other had a single valid point to make. Either way, nobody probably would have learned anything new or need to exercise their brain.

So I gave my standard response:

The international issues I deal with have no “left” or “right” wing aspect to them. The important question is how one analyzes situations, issues, and events. They should be approached as objectively as possible with an honest attempt to be accurate, to produce evidence proving one’s assertions, and to follow where the facts lead.

Perhaps because he is a pre-politically correct person on the left, he completely understood my response and he correctly added an additional point: “And not to conceal things that don’t coincide with your thesis.”

A generation ago, this is how people thought.

You could hold totally different political views, but how you wrote history or taught about works of literature was something else entirely. Not everything people said was predictable, because they actually thought about things rather than merely apply a preexisting political standpoint. Academics across the political spectrum respected what some call the “scientific method” — I prefer “Enlightenment values.”

I continued:

Figuring out whether or not, say, the Muslim Brotherhood is a radical organization is not a matter of political viewpoint. One’s politics should be expressed by what one wants to achieve, not in one’s analysis of the situation.

Although I didn’t say so, an example I had in mind was this: I would like to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That puts me left-of-center in Israel. But my good-faith assessment of the Palestinian political scene (leadership, ideology, groups, public opinion, options) and of the regional situation is that overwhelming evidence claims this is impossible to achieve at this time. The evidence — and there is hardly any actual evidence — offered by those who argue otherwise is not persuasive.

Consequently, I draw policy conclusions from that analysis. No two-state solution is possible at this time. I then go on — I won’t go into this right now — to develop my view of the best policy response to the situation.

Instead, I asked him how he saw this methodological problem in which one’s politics determined whether the Brotherhood was radical or moderate. Here’s approximately what he said:

People on the right slant the facts to fit their political views while people on the left don’t.

After I questioned this, he altered his statement to “most people” in either case. I then asked for examples. He gave two and I will take them one at a time.

He continued:

Rightists say that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is so extreme that you cannot talk to him. He is eager for war to wipe out Israel. You can’t talk to him so therefore war with Iran is necessary.

That’s a fascinating mixture of points from which I think we can learn a lot. Let’s dissect.

The opening point — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so extreme that you cannot talk to him — is clearly correct, not wrong at all. What is needed, though, is to separate analysis from policy proposals and always to look for alternatives.

I think these are the two points that people don’t understand, and they are destroying any productive discussion of intellectual or political issues at present. So let me repeat them:
Analysis should be separate from policy. If people conflate the idea that the Iranian regime is extremely radical, intransigent, and dangerous and thus no deal can be made — the perception of reality — with what should be done about it, people will reject the correct analysis because they don’t agree with the proposed response. Example: We must lie about Palestinian politics or we will damage the cause of peace; we must lie about revolutionary Islamism or we will provoke a war. Of course, lying is most likely to hurt peace or to lead to creating a crisis that will end in war.
When moving from analysis to policy, one should think creatively and not just give a knee-jerk response. There are many alternatives to going to war with Iran. But an accurate assessment of the threat’s existence must be the starting point. Examine each issue and the needed policy response on an individual basis rather than impose an ideological template on it.

To prove how the above two points apply, let me go to his second example, which precisely paralleled the one on Iran:

The right-wing says that the Muslim Brotherhood is radical. Egypt is an enemy. Hence, the only response is a major military buildup.

Here we see the same two points. The Muslim Brotherhood is indeed radical. But that doesn’t make Egypt an enemy, at least certainly not right now. Equally, it does not foreclose other policy responses and a more sophisticated third alternative between pretending all is fine (even worse, supporting the Brotherhood!) and going to war next week.

But before answering how one should deal with these two specific issues, let me explain how ludicrous is this line of argument — we must lie rather than admit the “right-wing nuts” are right — which currently governs our discourse. Consider this:

We are on a ship. Some of the crew says that the ship has sprung a big leak. Some passengers and crew are yelling that the ship will sink and everyone is going to die.

That is a horrible situation that I don’t want to believe. Personally I don’t like the individuals who are crying out warnings. And I don’t believe everyone will inevitably die.

So therefore I will respond: The ship is just fine. Those who say the ship is sinking are right-wing extremists and should be ignored.

Or a historical example:

(This is completely hypothetical and does not correspond with historical reality) 1941: any analyst who suggests that Japan might attack the United States is a warmongering right-wing racist who is more likely to get the United States into a war with Japan. We must insist that no such war is possible because we don’t want war.

(There was, however, a real-life parallel to that one: Stalin punished any Soviet analysts or intelligence agents who warned that Germany might attack the USSR. Yes, that’s how debate is conducted in a dictatorship, but shouldn’t be the method adopted by a democracy).

Here’s an example closer to home:

There are those who say that the U.S. government has a huge deficit that’s only growing. Entitlements are unsustainable. Tax increases won’t even begin to cover it. But I don’t want to admit that is true (especially because conservatives are saying it and I hate those people!). So I will instead insist that everything is fine, we don’t really have to make any major changes, and all we have to do is raise taxes on the rich.

And that’s what’s killed historic moderate liberalism — which would have tried to come up with some solution to a real problem — and empowered radicalism, which ignores reality and just calls the other side nasty names. If you deny the problem exists at all because you don’t like your rivals’ proposed solution, then you are doomed, baby.

My central point: We should agree on what is real using proper and honest methods of analysis.

Then we can discuss what to do about it in a rational fashion. But disagreeing with someone else’s analysis because you don’t like their proposed policy amounts merely to lying deliberately, or to making a fool of yourself by denying what is obviously true and being totally unprepared to deal with the resulting crisis.

What about alternative solutions? I am against attacking Iran militarily at this time. Iran’s firing of nuclear weapons is not inevitable. Covert methods, sanctions, building alliances, supporting the opposition, containment, and other methods offer a way to counter the Iranian threat. Moreover, the ultimate strategy is that if there is a clear and present danger of Iran firing nuclear weapons, it can be attacked at that time. And the interim period can be used to prepare for such a possible operation.

Regarding Egypt, the armed forces pose one force constraining the Islamists. The election of a non-Islamist president (Amr Moussa) in June is another one. There are many things that can — in some cases are — being done to deal with this threat. Unfortunately, the U.S. government isn’t doing them and in fact is helping the “bad guys.”

In conclusion, let me lay down some proposed rules:

Forget about your political view or the view of the writer/speaker. Is their description of reality accurate? Does it take the facts into account and provide evidence? Does it ignore or conceal evidence that undermines their thesis? Is the argument persuasive? Does it successfully answer criticisms of the claims being made? If so, then that person is right. You may then proceed to draw some conclusion about the proper response.

Is the policy response proposed merely a knee-jerk one based on a preexisting ideology, or does it make sense? Is it creative? Does it deal with the nuances of the problem? What aspects of the problem wouldn’t it solve? Would it make things worse in some ways, including unintended consequences?

In other words, don’t ignore reality because you don’t like others’ proposed solutions. Even worse, don’t ignore reality because it conflicts with your preexisting ideological assumptions. If necessary, change your assumptions.

(If you are interested: after laying things out this way to my colleague, we had a useful discussion and found that we could agree on a lot of things that didn’t fit narrow stereotypes of how people think nowadays.)

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

"The Lid's" Sixth Blogaversary

2012-01-22T22:19:00.003-05:00

My "writing career" began in May 2004 with my first contribution to AISH.com. I soon became a regular at AISH and Jewish World Review, but became frustrated because the former wouldn't allow me to be political and the latter would take much too long to review my submissions (a post I submitted in October 2005 is still waiting to be posted).

Therefore, on January 23, 2006 (a Monday like this year) "Yid With Lid" was born. My first post was a short one:

The First Post and Spielberg
Hi All

Forgive me as I have jumped into this blog game kind of late. First let me answer the most obvious question. I am Jewish and I wear a Kippah, hence the name Yid With Lid. There are times when I just feel like ranting and raving and I will just do it here. Hopefully you will find those rants entertaining.

Last night Discovery Channel ran an documentary that featured interviews with the real assassins who went after the Palestinian Terrorists who ran the Olympic Massacre. Once again it show that the Spielberg film is a fraud. Why would the Director who created Shindler's List make a movie that is blatantly anti-Israel, and worse yet is based on a fraud. That's right folks, the guy who wrote the book that Spielberg based his movie on claims to have first hand knowledge...he claims to be the head of the Mossad hit squad. Only one problem, he was NEVER IN THE MOSSAD.

So what do you think? Is Spielberg creating a new movie genre? Will his next book be based on Clifford Irving's fraudulent autobiography of Howard Hughes; Or those Fake Hitler Diaries published in Germany a few years ago?

Pat Robertson says no. The movie Munich was just God's way of punishing Spielberg for the movie 1941.

What do you think?

In Sept. 2009, the name of the site was changed from "Yidwithlid" to the "The Lid" in recognition of political focus of the blog. That's also when the masthead changed:

With my first trip to CPAC in February 2010, the pseudonym Sammy Benoit was dropped and I began to use my real name, Jeff Dunetz (O.K. the real, real name is Jeffry but people only use Jeffrey when they are angry at me).

Both as Yidwithlid and The Lid, this site only looked to find the truth while looking to provide a perspective to the news not found elsewhere.

This site successfully led the grass-roots effort to quash President Obama’s nomination of Chas Freeman for Chairman of National Intelligence Council, “broke” the Helen Thomas Rabbi Video, exposed George Soros Support of J Street, exposed the "other" Anthony Weiner scandal (earmarks to campaign contributors), Steve Israel's donations from an ex-con convicted of selling weapons to Iran, and helped expose Maurice Hinchey's earmarking of your tax dollars to ad plumbing lines to his investment properties.

God, willing, I will be able to continue providing you dear readers with content worthy of your time. Every time I work on another post, providing you with something both truthful and worthy is my primary concern.

Thank you for your readership, your "hits" to the tip jar (which is always open) and for your letters and comments which I find an invaluable learning tool!

Here's to the next 8,799 posts!

Thank You Mark Levin: The Great One Meets The Bald One

2012-01-22T20:19:00.001-05:00

Mark Levin at Yesterday's Book Signing

I don't get awestruck easy, perhaps because I've met famous people through my early career in acting and my wife's family in show-business. But yesterday I met Mark Levin and ended up floating rather than walking away.

My daughter's flight arrived late from Florida yesterday (she was visiting her grandfather) and barely made it in time to the bookstore where "the Great One" was signing his new book Ameritopia (click on picture below to purchase a copy).

When we made it to the front of the line, I thanked Levin for helping me with my diet. I explained to him that one of the times I listen to his show is during my drive home for dinner from the train station. Lately during my drive home, Levin has mentioned NY Senator Chuck Schumer and my stomach is sick for hours.

I also thanked him for the times he has mentioned my site on air, he asked me which site was mine, when I told him he smiled and excitedly said, "you're Yidwithlid, I read it all the time--I'm a fan!"

Mark Levin Shakes My Daughter's Hand

HOLY COW! A Fan????

I mumbled something about how wonderful that made me feel and floated down the stairs.

Thank You Mark Levin! Whether you regularly read "The Lid" or was just trying to make me feel good it doesn't really matter because either way it made me feel great!

SHAME ON YOU ED KOCH! Shame On You For Flip-Flopping About Obama

2012-01-21T20:31:00.004-05:00

As Mayor of New York, he was a strong "take no prisoners" leader. As he has aged, Ed Koch has become a foolish political hack. Few remember that in early 2008 he blasted then-Senator Obama's anti-Israel stances. But most remember that without any changes in Obama's positions, he helped elect the man who became the most anti-Israel president since 1948 by convincing Jews that Obama would be a friend of Israel.

After three years of criticizing Obama's anti-Israel policies, Koch has once again decided to be an advocate for Obama in the Jewish community. Again with any changes in Obama's positions.

During the 2008 Democratic Party primary season Koch worried that a Barack Obama would not be a friend to Israel.

Hillary recently attempted to warn Iran that were it to launch nuclear weapons against Israel, the U.S. “would be able to totally obliterate them.” Hillary’s comments were totally in keeping with the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction which kept the Soviet Union at bay during the Cold War when it threatened its European neighbors and members of NATO.

Instead of joining Hillary in a similar warning to Iran, Senator Obama on “Meet The Press” criticized Hillary stating, “It’s language reflective of George Bush…This kind of language is not helpful.”

Koch concluded:

We now know just how far Senator Obama is prepared to go to defend our friends and allies. It is not far enough.

Just four months later, without any change in Obama's positions, Koch endorsed Barack Obama.

Then he went off to heavily Jewish states convincing many American Jews that Israel should not be an issue in this campaign because Obama and McCain were equal in their support of Israel.

Once Obama was elected and proved to be horrible for America and Israel, Ed Koch became a leading critic of the POTUS and his anti-Israel policies. In March 2010 he wrote a commentary for the progressive Huffington post called Never Again Should We Be Silent.

Now, in my opinion, based on the actions and statements by President Obama and members of his administration, there is grave doubt among supporters of Israel that President Obama can be counted on to do what presidents before him did - protect our ally, Israel. The Arabs can lose countless wars and still come back because of their numbers. If Israel were to lose one, it would cease to exist.

In April 2010 Koch doubled-down, telling Neil Cavuto on Fox News;

"I have been a supporter of President Obama and went to Florida for him, urged Jews all over the country to vote for him saying that he would be just as good as John McCain on the security of Israel. I don't think it's true anymore," Koch told Fox News' Neil Cavuto.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got a chilly reception at the White House last week after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new apartments for Jews in East Jerusalem during a visit from Vice President Biden. The announcement drew sharp condemnations from Washington and calls to cancel the construction plans – requests that Netanyahu says he will not heed.

Koch said he believes Obama "orchestrated" what happened in Israel.

"What they did is they wanted to make Israel into a pariah," he said. "It's outrageous in my judgment. "

Koch said he's shocked that Congress, which largely supports Israel hasn't "stood up and said to the president, 'you're wrong on this, Mr. President.'"

Koch went on to say the self-serving Chuck Schumer explained to him he wouldn't speak out against Obama's Israel positions publicly because he was working behind the scenes to get Obama to change is policy (it didn't work). The former mayor continued by saying Schumer promised to speak out against Obama publicly should he not change his policies (Schumer hasn't). He concluded by saying:

"I believe that the Obama administration is willing to throw Israel under the bus in order to please Muslim nations."

Just this past September, Koch was a big part of the GOP victory in the special election to replace Anthony Weiner in NY-9. Koch's reason for supporting the Republican Bob Turner was to send a message to President Obama.

If Jewish New Yorkers and others who support Israel were to turn away from the Democratic Party in that congressional election and elect the Republican candidate to Congress in 2011, it might very well cause President Obama to change his hostile position on the State of Israel and to reestablish the special relationship presidents before him had supported. His own reelection will be decided next year in 2012. The outcome of the 2011 congressional special election in the 9th Congressional District will certainly get his attention.

The former Mayor made this threat to the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave:

But if he doesn't read the tea leaves and change his position, you can be certain I will continue to bang my drum. I will campaign against him not only in New York, but in other parts of the country next year. I'll be loud and clear about what I believe. There are many Floridians who are concerned about the Obama administration's treatment of Israel, and Florida will be crucial to the President's reelection.

This week however, the once strong-minded Mayor made the same flip-flop he made in 2008 as he hosted an Obama fundraising event which raised a half a million dollars from 100 members of the Jewish community.

Koch's change of heart comes the same week as the release of multiple reports of the Obama administration warning Israel not to defend herself against Iran.

President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike. The U.S. wants Israel to give more time for the effects of sanctions and other measures intended to force Iran to abandon its perceived efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Even though I disagreed with many of his positions, Ed Koch was one of my political heroes. He seemed to be a different kind of politician--- one who put convictions in front of party affiliation.

I should have known better. Ed Koch has turned out to be nothing but a political hack, bashing Obama until he sees the election coming and suddenly any backbone is replaced by a wet noodle.

No voter should ever pick a President solely based on their position about Israel, and I could understand if the former Mayor said that other issues were much more important than Israel in the coming election. That is not what happened.

In 2008 he reversed himself lying about Obama to Jewish voters; saying the future President was McCain's equal on the issues of terrorism and Israel. Now he is trying to do it again, first promising "But if he doesn't read the tea leaves and change his position, you can be certain I will continue to bang my drum,"then breaking his promise. Despite the fact that Obama has not budged in his anti-Israel positions, Ed Koch is trying to fool us once again and convince Jews that Obama is a Zionist.

SHAME ON YOU ED KOCH! Shame On You For Flip-Flopping on Obama! When Koch was mayor he used to walk around the NYC saying "How am I doing?" The answer today is.... lousy!

" Arabism Is Dead! Long Live...???"

2012-01-20T13:14:00.002-05:00

By Barry Rubin

An editorial in the moderate Lebanese publication, Lebanon Now, reminds us of just how dramatically the Middle East has changed. Many of the arguments and assumptions that governed the Arabic-speaking world for six decades have simply vanished. Others, though, have just been modified slightly.

The biggest change has been the collapse of Arab nationalism, the ideology and system that governed many countries, controlled the regional debate, and intimidated everyone else into line for six decades. But is the analogy to Eastern Europe in 1991—rescued from Communism and transformed into democracies—or to the situation there in 1945—save from fascism only to be taken over by Communism for almost a half-century?

In other words is the Arabic-speaking world moving into an era of democracy or merely a new form of authoritarianism?

We are reminded vividly of the death of the old order by an editorial in the moderate Lebanese publication, Lebanon Now, discussing President Bashar al-Assad’s attempts to say in control in Syria. The editors write:

“After months of procrastination, months of ignoring the insistence of the international community that he stop murdering his people; after nearly three weeks into the catastrophic Arab League mission to assess the level of violence in the country and after a body count that by conservative estimates has exceeded 5,000, he can only resort to the hollow and outdated rhetoric of an era the Arab world is aching to leave behind.”

What is this rhetoric? To blame everything on “the creation of Israel and the imperial reshaping of the Middle East” after World War One. Well, 1948 (the creation of Israel) and 1918 (when the old Ottoman Empire crumbled and Arab states began to emerge) were a long time ago. Arab nationalism was a response to these events and also to the belief that fascist and Communist systems in Europe offered role models for ruling the Arabic-speaking world.

Arabism was also a way to unite disparate peoples into a coherent state while focusing on a common ethnic identity that might suppress ideological and regional differences while transcending religious ones. In al-Assad’s recent speech, he stated, “Arabism is a question of civilization, a question of common interests, common will and common religions.”

Lebanon Now calls this a, “cobweb-ridden idea.” Yes, indeed, but it is one that sent the Arabs into immense enthusiasm until recently. Still, it no longer does. Today people are focused more on the failures of Arab nationalist regimes in the 1950-2010 period rather than on the alleged sins of the 1920-1948 era. Yet that might only lead to supporting a revolutionary Islamism that argues it can do better than its predecessors.

Same authoritarianism; same demagoguery; same enemies; just a different method of fighting them, the political use of religion rather than of nationalism.

One of the institutions the editorial ridicules is the Arab League. Using that group to advise people how to get rid of dictatorship and replace it with democracy, as is being tried in Syria, is like “a smoking doctor who advises the patient to quit smoking while putting a cigarette in his mouth.”

And yet that’s what Islamism is seeking to do, merely changing the cigarette for a cigar. In doing so, a lot of these old Arabist arguments are merely being recycled. For example:

It isn’t “Arabism” that will unite the people but…Islam.

One of Arabism’s failures is that it didn’t unite the Arabs, but Islamist ideology will unite the Muslims, which it insists is easier to do. That may prove true within individual countries and even across newly forming blocs, counties where the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood holds sway.

Arabism failed to expel Western “imperialist” influence from the region and destroy Israel but Islam will succeed. One Islamist complaint is that nationalist rulers made deals with the West, as Mubarak did. The Islamists, due to the nature of their ideology, won’t make that “mistake.”

Arabism didn’t bring economic success but Islam “is the solution.” It is easy to see that this won’t work in economic terms yet belt-tightening, a renewed revolutionary enthusiasm, and other means might survive hard times by producing pious times. Religion has often succeeded in doing so in the past.

Of course, Syria is also a special case, a place where—again a great turn of phrase by Lebanon Now’s editors—the ruling “a system more akin to organized crime than that inspired by Pericles,” i.e., democracy.

Clearly, Lebanon Now’s editors hope that Syria’s revolution does better than the one they helped lead in Lebanon. Remember, Lebanon was the original “spring” movement and now it is run by Islamists (Hizballah) who took power in an election but ultimately depend on Iranian money, Syrian assassins, and terrorist intimidation to stay in power.

One cannot also help but note that Arab nationalism did work to hold together a country including Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Sunni Muslims, along with non-Arab Kurds. Replacing that “glue” won’t be so easy. Iraq and to some extent Lebanon suggest the alternative solution of each community largely governing itself in practice, albeit with a lot of bloodshed. That won’t be so easy to achieve in Syria.

The editorial concludes:

“Those Syrian people who have decided to forgo sectarianism and self interest in the name of freedom, care not one jot for the illusion that is Arabism; for Syria’s equally mythical lead in taking the fight to the Zionist enemy.”

One hopes that those people win in Syria, where they do have a better chance, but they such a standpoint has clearly not won in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and even—despite appearances—Turkey.

Whether justified by “Arab nationalist” or “Islamist” rhetoric the old scape-goating combined with dictatorship might be too useful a method to abandon.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Newsbusted: Obama to Register 215,000 Illegals To Vote Before Nov. 2012

2012-01-20T12:51:00.001-05:00

This election season President Obama plan's to eliminate the middle-man. In an exclusive story from Newsbusted anchor Jodi Miller we learn that the President is delaying the deportation of 215,000 illegal immigrants till 2013. He plans to make sure that they are registered and get to vote (Democratic) before they are sent to their home countries.

Other stories covered in today's Newsbusted the twice-weekly faux-news program from Newsbusters.org include Occupy Wall Street's plan to sue some political action committees, MoveOn's expansion int Russia, Rosy O' Donnell and Micheal Moore teaming up to beg Obama to bail out one of their important resources, and much, much more.

Please don't forget to watch today's version of Newsbusted as the consequences of missing this episode may be horrible. A reader forgot to press play last on Tuesday and President Obama made a public announcement that he wouldn't allow a water pipeline to be built near the guys's house.

Make sure you press play, or you wont be able to press flush.

Oh and if you cant see the video below click here.

Can Real Liberalism and the Democratic Party Be Saved from the Radical Progressive Takeover?

2012-01-19T08:57:00.000-05:00

by Barry Rubin

“I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of 3 branches of the government working for them, and that ain’t bad.”

– Jack Nicholson as “President Dale” in Mars Attacks.

The far left has at least temporarily won the battle of ideas in the United States and taken over institutions by pretending to be “liberal.” Meanwhile, actual traditional liberalism, which ruled those institutions for many decades, has vanished. Suddenly, we are supposed to believe that “class warfare,” anti-capitalism, hatred of America, Stalinist-style treatment of opponents, the glorification of the extremist Occupy movement, a mass media all too devoted to propaganda, and a betrayal of Enlightenment values are normative liberal ideas!

During the 1930s, the Communist Party tried to take over liberalism but failed miserably. Today, however, the post-Communist left has succeeded in that effort to a remarkable extent, effectively wiping out the memory of what liberalism was actually like. For their part, many conservatives are quite willing to reinforce the left’s rewriting of history, suggesting that Barack Obama and the destruction of once-great institutions is a natural and inevitable outgrowth of people like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.

Yet there is a sizable bloc of traditional liberals who have been repelled by the radical takeovers of institutions and the destruction of their own ideas. They have not yet found a voice but, if given proper treatment and leadership, they are about to far exceed the “Reagan Democrat” phenomenon.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 21 percent of those who considered themselves Democrats when Obama became president no longer do so. And if you add in those still calling themselves Democrats and who will vote loyally while being very disturbed with what’s happening, that number might total about half. These are people who never felt comfortable with the new radicalism, who have woken up in the last three years, or will do so very soon. That’s the constituency I want to speak to. And briefly here’s the message:

The Obama administration is a radical, not liberal, government. Its domestic policies will never get the country out of the current depression. Its foreign policy is a disaster. It is no longer 1911 or 1932 or 1945 or even 1961. The United States has dealt with the old bigotries to a remarkable extent. Environmental pollution has come under control. Conservatives have accepted these changes. Giant corporations are not controlling everything.

America doesn’t have seemingly unlimited funds to devote to achieving perfection and solving every social or environmental problem. The government may have been too small 80 years ago but now it is too big. Spending is too high and debt threatens the country’s future. Regulation is strangling business and impinging on personal liberty to a ridiculous extent. Stop demonizing conservatives. They are not a reincarnation of the Klu Klux Klan or mindless idiots.

Vote Obama and the leftists in Congress out of office. If the Democrats don’t provide you with good alternatives then vote Republican, if only to teach them a lesson and force the party back toward the center. Conservatives are far preferable to radical leftists, just as that was so during the Cold War. If a post-Obama Democratic Party moves back toward the center then you can return to it — and if not, then give up on it.

You shouldn’t have to be a conservative to be horrified by the contemporary situation. But while conservatives and Republican are going to lead the opposition to the status quo, they should seek to build a broad front rather than wage a campaign against historical liberals. This doesn’t mean they have to water down their program, but it should be presented in a way designed to broaden its appeal. The target should be the far left, and its camouflage as merely “liberal” should be exposed.

And if there is not going to be a bipartisan basis for cutting the size of government, reducing spending, rejecting the nanny state, undoing strangling regulation, and undertaking other such needed structural reforms, how will there ever be a working majority to get these things done?

A starting point is to remember what really happened in the course of U.S. history. Since the United States became urbanized and industrialized, there have been three broad positions in American politics: the left, liberalism, and conservatism.

Forget about making Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt your villains. It’s historically untrue and plays perfectly into the left’s hands. It is more than happy to pretend to be the natural successors of such people, all the better to dupe the large part of its constituency that reveres those presidents but would be horrified to understand that it is really being fooled into following the successors of the Communists and New Left.

Consider, for example, the history of the word “progressive.” Originally, the nineteenth-century progressives were people who saw America falling under the sway of corrupt big-city political machines and massive corporations, institutions that had never existed before and against which no effective safeguards existed. Agrarian America had become industrial America.

They understood that only a stronger government and such institutions as trade unions could balance the power of the monopolies. Those progressives also understood that if they failed to rein in what was then an uncontrolled capitalism, there was a real chance of leftist revolution. A great deal was achieved and the tide of radicalism and laissez-faire capitalist domination was avoided. By the end of World War One, the movement ended because it had achieved so many of its goals.

By the 1920s, the word “progressive” was no longer used by liberal reformers and instead was taken over by the left, seeking to cloak itself in an attractive mantle and make itself seem more moderate. In 1924, two Progressive parties were organized: one Communist, the other Socialist and trade union-led. Both quickly collapsed though not before the latter received 17 percent of the vote in the election.

During the 1930s, Earl Browder and other Communist Party leaders used the word “progressive” as a cover. In 1948, it was the name chosen by the Communist Party for its “moderate” front party.

Consider how the Communist Party approached the New Deal. Here’s that party’s leader, Earl Browder, being interviewed in 1936:

“There isn’t an ounce of socialism in the Roosevelt administration. [President Franklin] Roosevelt stands for capitalism but he tries to remedy this capitalism of some of its worst abuses, hoping thereby to give it longer life.”

Roosevelt, Browder continued, was being pulled by some to the left and by others to the right. Consequently, it would be wrong for “all progressives to unite around Roosevelt as the sole means to defeat reaction.” The “progressive side” must be tough and independent to push for the policies it wants.

The reporter conducting the interview concluded, “It seems that personally Roosevelt and [Republican leader Alf] Landon look pretty much alike to Browder…but as a Communist leader he prefers Roosevelt to Landon’s supporters.”

Yes, that was the historic situation. The radical left — those who wanted to “fundamentally transform America,” in Obama’s words, and not to remedy its “worst abuses,” as Browder saw Roosevelt — hated real liberals. It merely wanted to fool them, win them over, or destroy them.

Real liberals understood this very well and derided the dupes as “fellow travelers.” During the 1940s and 1950s liberal groups were energetically anti-Communist, suspicious of an excessively big government, believed in American greatness, and supported a U.S. international role as a great

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power.

Remember that it was Truman who led America to recognize and fight the Soviet threat and it was his administration that successfully purged Communists from the U.S. government. And the labor unions threw out the Communists, too.

One of the main groups formed by liberals, in 1947, was the Americans for Democratic Action, an anti-Communist and anti-“Progressive” organization. The ADA’s founding document clearly struck a balance: “The interests of the U.S. are the interests of free men everywhere.” In terms of domestic policies, the ADA wanted to continue the New Deal but warned, “Civil liberties must be protected from concentrated wealth and [an] overcentralized government.”

Within two years, the left was soundly defeated. In the face of the Cold War challenge, liberals worked with the mainstream — that is, non-isolationist — conservatives in forging a bipartisan foreign policy. Meanwhile, the conservatives accepted many of the liberal domestic changes, including the New Deal’s creation of a social safety net and civil rights. The two groups, despite their disagreements, worked together effectively against those who wanted to overthrow the American system The United States prospered at home and abroad.

And if you want to know how totally the left has triumphed today, look at the Wikipedia entry for the Americans for Democratic Action:

“Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is an America political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA works for social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research and supporting progressive candidates.”

This is a 180 degree shift from its original purpose. The transformation of institutions into what the Communists called “front groups” and “transmission belts” has been stupendous. While ADA is no longer significant, the positions it holds today sound like Occupy Wall Street.

The situation today is not the descendant of normative liberalism but rather of the New Left. After its miserable failure in the 1960s (a period peaking from around 1967 to 1973), those who still believe in its dogmas “worked within the system” and ultimately utterly transformed it.

In the late 1960s, for example, former SDS President Carl Davidson came up with “new working class” theory. The cultural-psychological dissatisfactions of the professionals, not the economic grievances of the proletariat, would be the motive force for change. Over time, things like educational indoctrination, the manipulation of public debate, the staffing of the media with people of certain beliefs, and such methods would play a key role in seizing power in the commanding heights of cultural-intellectual production.

In 2008, Carl Davidson headed Progressives for Obama, the explicitly radical component in supporting Obama’s campaign. At that time, nobody else was using the word “progressive.” Now, everyone in that camp uses that label. What better symbol of the far left’s triumph?

The left may lose to conservatism at the ballot box. But its hegemony over universities, publishing, entertainment, culture, and the mass media can only be defeated by an ideological revival of moderate liberalism. Like it or not, those controlling these institutions have been too inoculated with the demonization of conservatives to be challenged by them. As in the Cold War with Communism, what’s needed is an anti-leftist liberalism that can show where the left has lied and deceived.

Today, though, I’m not aware of a single group that has risen to defend a real liberal alternative to the Obama vision or to denounce the far left worldviews and policies so damaging not only to America itself but also to academia and the media.

The key question is this:

If Obama is defeated in November 2012 and the Republicans take Congress in a landslide, would that be enough to shatter the far left’s cultural-educational hegemony and liberate the Democratic Party from its grip? Can a real opposition movement arise?

Or would the left be able to hold on, using hatred and demonization to maintain control?

And no matter what happens politically, can an anti-leftist liberal movement arise to try to take back the media, universities, and other institutions to play their proper role as open and balanced rather than serving as organs of indoctrination?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, will be published by Yale University Press in January. Latest books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Second Wives,Tax Returns and Skeletons in the MSM's Closets

2012-01-18T22:44:00.010-05:00

Unless you were stuck in a cave yesterday, you probably heard about the big Drudge scoop regarding Newt Gingrich's second wife giving an explosive interview to ABC News.

Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband's career with a single interview. Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours, and her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.

But now a "civil war" has erupted inside of the network, an insider claims, on exactly when the confession will air!

ABCNEWS suits determined it would be "unethical" to run the Marianne Gingrich interview so close to the South Carolina Primary, a curious decision, one insider argued, since the network has aggressively been reporting on other candidates.

A decision was tentatively made to air the interview next Monday, after all votes have been counted.

For those of you keeping score at home, Marianne Gingrich was the home-wrecker who broke up Newt's first marriage before his present wife helped to wreck that marriage.

This may anger some social conservatives, but I couldn't give a rat's arse about Newt Gingrich's second marriage. Last time I checked he was running for president of the United States, not for husband. Besides this is nothing new Gingrich already admitted he used to be a creep, claiming he has learned from his mistakes and is now a better person.

The real scandal is not about Newt Gingrich and/or his three marriages, nor is it about Mitt Romney's tax returns--none of these questions are about whether or not these two (or any of the) candidates are the best choice to head up the GOP ticket in 2012.

There is a scandal related to the ABC interview we should be asking. Why is the press working so hard to find and expose skeletons in the GOP candidates’ closets when they still haven't bothered to look inside Barack Obama's closet?

Why are they demanding to see Mitt Romney's tax returns? They never reported on the hypr0crisy seen in Joe Biden's return. He preaches about the GOP not caring about poor people, but has had a little difficulty sharing his own earnings to charity. Why do they report Warren Buffet calling for the wealthy to pay more taxes, but ignore the fact that Berkshire Hathaway owes more than a billion dollars to the IRS?

If the press thinks Newt Gingrich's second marriage two decades ago is relevant to this campaign, why don't they think the fact that Obama ran on a socialist party line 1996 is important?

If the press wants to investigate a candidate, why not get to the bottom of a president who campaigned for “open government” and “full disclosure” will not share his school records his Harvard records, his Columbia College records, or his Occidental College records? Why haven't the MSM investigated why Obama legislative and scheduling records from the Illinois State Senate are missing? They have had five years to look into it!

Why not send a reporter to investigate how Barack Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright's Church but never heard anything controversial? Or investigate what President Obama said in that toast to former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi? There was a video made of the toast, but the LA Times refuses to release it.

If they want to investigate divorces, why not look at DNCC Chair Steve Israel? His record on marriages is very similar to that of Newt Gingrich's. And now that his second marriage is breaking up, doesn't anyone in the press want to know why the divorce records have been sealed? It’s not because the Congressman and Judge Marlene Budd have children. Is there a scandal in there somewhere? Many locals say yes, but even Newsday, the local paper has refused to look into it.

And while we are at it, the MSM is quick to point out who is donating money to the GOP candidates where are the reports about Israel, who is the DNCC chair, taking donations from a man who spent time in prison for smuggling weapons to Iran?

The Mainstream media is quick to point out that Mitt Romney is wealthy. Why don't they point out Nancy Pelosi's wealth? If Romney practices "vulture" capitalism, what about Pelosi's "crony" capitalism? Why doesn’t the media care about the fact that Obama's big donors always seem to get government loans? Why don't they care about the fact that Obama has regular meetings with union bosses but not with leaders of the opposition party?

The answer to all of these questions is the same. The mainstream media hasn't cared about journalism for a very long time. Their only concern is electing progressives. Everybody famous or not, has scandals in their closet. The real scandal however, is the mainstream media only looks under the rocks on the GOP side of the fence and in most cases the "scandals" they find have nothing to do with the fact that this great nation is going to hell in a hand basket and voters are trying to select the person who will best lead us back on to the right path.

Gingrich Closes in on Romney in Post Debate Rasmussen Poll

2012-01-18T13:47:00.000-05:00

If Newt Gingrich ends up with the GOP nomination he owes Juan Williams a major thank you gift. In a national Rasmussen poll taken on Tuesday (the day after the Myrtle Beach debate), the former Speaker of the House jumped to within 3% points of Mitt Romney (well within the margin of error).

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey of likely GOP primary voters nationwide shows Romney with 30% support and Gingrich with 27% of the vote. Gingrich jumped by 11% points since the last poll. Much of his new support came from Former Rick Santorum, who fell by 6% from two weeks ago (from 21% to 15%).

Texas Congressman Ron Paul captures 13% support from likely primary voters (he might have done better if the poll was taken during a full moon), and Texas Governor Rick Perry still hasn't connected with voters as he is last at 4%.

The poll taken two weeks ago was at the beginning of the Bain Capital nonsense, now that he has eased up on that tactic, Gingrich's favoriblity has jumped from 52% to 58%. Romney (from 71% to 68%) Perry (44% to 41%)and Santorum (63% to 59%) all saw a 3% drop in favoriblity.

Likely GOP Primary voters still believe that Romney is the strongest candidate against Obama (43%) but here too the former speaker took a big leap from 17% to 29%. Again the support came mostly from Rick Santorum (from 15-9%).

Much of the GOP electorate are not set on their choice, 51% say they could still change their minds, and another 7% haven’t made an initial choice .

Interestingly Gingich saw one of his biggest jumps with GOP voters with a Household Income of $100K+ moving from 10-28% support possibly indicating that many of those "vulture capitalists" weren't as upset with the Gingrich attacks on capitalism as some of the rest of us, Romney's support amongst the upper incomes stayed consistent while Santourum's took a dive.

Santorum hasn't made any huge gaffes over the past few weeks, and had a pretty good showing at the debate on Monday night. The fact that his support fell off a cliff may mean that once the euphoria of Iowa wore off, people took another, harder look at the former senator from Penn. and and jumped off the bandwagon, or the Gingrich performance in the SC debate convinced Santorum supporters that the former Speaker was a more formidable candidate.

The clearest message to take away from this poll is that GOP voters still haven't made up their minds, and none of the candidates can be presumed to have the nomination locked up. In fact the lead could change many more times before the GOP convention.