Tomorrow is the 4th of July and our annual Independence Day celebration.

May God bless America, and protect those who are in harms way defending her.

May the memory of all those who have fallen, been wounded, and/or served be a source of strength to us all.

May your celebration of this day be more meaningful and significant than burgers and beer.

Please Have a Happy and Safe Independence Day!

This Article posted with author’s permission:

On April 15, over a million people—who had already smelled the contaminated coffee of the Obama regime’s galloping socialism-cum-communism-cum totalitarianism—attended thousands of Tea Parties across the country. Since then, the Tea Party movement has grown exponentially, with hundreds more taking place on a regular basis and attended by Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, et. al.

All increasingly horrified at Obama’s breakneck efforts to destroy free-market capitalism, inflict decades of debt on future generations, spit on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, employ a Hitler-like force of ACORN brown-shirts (read what Dr. Paul L. Williams has to say about them here [sic] here) to manipulate the census and intimidate critics, compromise our military and intelligence services, and ultimately bring about a caliphate of repressive Muslim (Sharia) “law” to the United States of America.

Sure enough, a day before the Tax Day demonstrations—which Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the “president” knew nothing about—Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a fatwa that declared the extraordinarily peaceful Tea Party attendees de factor “domestic terrorists”—including our military! As radio host Dr. Laurie Roth has written: “That offensive and lying list ended up targeting two-thirds of the country, certainly those who love their freedom, Constitution, and God.”

That was then. Today, we are zooming towards 10 percent unemployment (and higher in several parts of the country), a cap-and-trade tax—the biggest tax hike in American history—that will effectively kill commerce and inflict ongoing hardship on the 95 percent of people Obama in campaign mode promised not to tax, a socialized medicine scheme that will ration healthcare, aggressively promote killing the young via abortions and deny timely diagnoses and treatments to older Americans, and afflict our nation with the same kind of system that has failed so grievously around the world.

“According to Osama Bin Laden,” writes Arnold Ahlert, “one of the principle reasons for the perpetration of the 9/11 atrocities was to cripple the American economy. He and al Qaeda needn’t have bothered. A feckless Congress and a clueless president are more than up to the job.”

FEAR & LOATHING

People are not only afraid—they are disgusted. Disgusted as the “president”:

• Goes on extended apologize-for-America tours to Europe and the Middle East.
• Genuflects like an obsequies toady to an Arab potentate.
• Condones the Iranian dictator building nuclear weapons but slams Israel for building housing.
• Stays mute for 10 days as the same Iranian madman incarcerates and slaughters protestors, at the same time as he (Obama) eliminates funding for pro-democracy programs inside Iran.
• Sides with the Marxists Castro, Chavez, and Ortega in lamenting the coup that deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
• Attacks those who fight terrorism while letting terrorists go free.
• Gives multimillions to Hamas terrorists while Americans are out-of-work and starving.
• Puts us on the path to a European-dominated (and failed) financial-regulatory system.
• Threatens our safety and security, as Jim Talent and Mackenzie Eaglen have documented, by cutting $1.4 billion from missile defense (in both America and Europe), ending F-22 production despite the objections of senior Air Force leadership, ending C-17 cargo aircraft production, and delaying Army modernization and the Navy’s CG(X) Cruiser Program.
• Makes end-runs around the Constitution with an avalanche of Executive Orders and the appointment—ala Stalin—of over 20 Czars.
• Manipulates the spineless, now state-run leftwing media (ala Putin and Chavez), to spread his hate-America message.
• Proves daily that appeasement to America’s enemies runs thick in his Leftist blood.
• Demonizes any and all dissenting voices in his push to obliterate our First Amendment right to Free Speech.
• Pushes with equal fanaticism to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
• Pretends—against empirical evidence—that his utterly failed $787 billion-dollar “job-creating” Stimulus Bill, $800-billionTarp bill, $417-billion appropriations bill (with thousands of earmarks), Bailout travesty and budget have all worked!
• Continues to flout the U.S. Constitution, as David Crockett has spelled out, by violating the law in seizing control of GM and Chrysler without proper authorization from Congress as well as seizing corporations and presuming to set the salaries of their leaders; using the community organizers from ACORN for rank political purposes; pandering to sworn enemies (treason, anyone?); compromising alliances with our tried-and-true allies Israel, Britain, France and Germany while implementing policies that favor Hamas, Iran, Egypt, Syria, and other terrorist hotbeds; and illegally firing Inspectors-General investigating the corruption of his cronies.
• Most egregious, fails to produce the crucial document which would prove his dubious eligibility to be a valid, lawful, and legitimate President of the United States—his birth certificate—all the while paying over a million-dollars to his attorneys to block the ongoing investigations of this vital issue.

As readers of my articles have read before, this is the short list!

ARMED FOR BEAR

The majority of Americans—including the Obama constituency of Blacks, Hispanics, gays, feminists, and liberal pundits, et al.—are now having Buyer’s Remorse! The only people not cringing at every news cycle and weeping with regret are the radicals in Congress and the union organizers who hope to ride the Obama gravy train into the Socialist “paradise” they’ve been yearning for– and planning—over the past several decades.

But for most people, when they consider what this alien hybrid of a Manchurian Candidate and Trojan Horse has done in five short months to bankrupt our country and everyone in it, it clear that this “president” is the worst thing that has ever happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Not quite ready for a full-fledged rebellion, Americans are gearing up once again to express their grievances on July 4^th—the 233^rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—in thousands of Tea Parties across our country. But even before they take place, it is heartening that citizens have been hard at work in heroic efforts to save America from the catastrophe known as Obama.

“In fact,” writes political journalist JB Williams, “the Obama administration has made so many wrong moves so fast that it has frightened people across the nation into action. According to the Tenth Amendment Center:

• 35 or more state legislatures are rushing state sovereignty legislation through to reclaim States Rights under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, preparing to defend the states against an overreaching federal juggernaut.
• Many of the same states are also rushing Second Amendment protections through to assure their citizens that even under conditions of Martial Law, the states are prepared to defend Second Amendment rights.
• Several Constitutional Convention efforts to enforce constitutional limitations on a runaway Fed are in the works.
• A Grand Jury effort is underway to force Obama to open up the birth, college and passport records he has spent a million bucks to keep sealed and secret.
• Numerous lawsuits are pending in numerous courts demanding that Obama make his life “transparent” for all to see, all of them convinced that he cannot pass Constitutional muster for the office he holds.
• Guns and ammo sales have been through the roof for months now.
• Companies are laying off and cutting back in preparation for worsening economic conditions.
• Soldiers and Sheriffs are restating their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution and the people against all enemies, foreign and domestic, including a runaway Fed if need be.
• TEA Party movements opposing excessive taxation and unbridled wealth redistribution are growing across the country.”

Individual stalwarts, too, have their own unique strategies. Ron Ewart, president of The National Association of Rural Landowners, says that The Only Truly Effective Tea Party your messages of freedom to where [politicians] live, eat, procreate and sleep…because the perpetrators will have to pay a personal price for their misdeeds before they get the message.” And JB Williams recommends ”taking your protest to the front steps of every local TV news station in America so that the media can no longer ignore the movement.” involves “taking

True to form, the Obama regime (yes, regime) has already tried to suffocate the free speech that the upcoming Tea Parties embody. After the April 15^th Tea Party in Atlanta proved to be one of the best-attended in the country, with over 20,000 participants, its organizers secured the same location, the Gwinnett Place Mall, for July 4^th, only to have its permit pulled about a week ago. Turns out, Melvin Simon ((a Forbes 400 billionaire and co-chairman of Simon Property Group, Inc.) owns the Gwinnett Place Mall, has been a major contributor to Obama (and other Leftists), and gave at least $1 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation. And his wife Bren was a major contributor to Obama’s inaugural committee. The good news is that their efforts failed and just days ago, the Atlanta organizers secured a new location.

WHAT’S AT STAKE

“We are a nation in grave danger of being deprived of everything so many Americans worked, fought, and sometimes died to maintain,” writes Alan Caruba. “We are being betrayed by a political and economic socialist theory that is the antithesis of the American system of governance [which] killed millions in the last century. America in 2009 must be reclaimed in the name of all those who came before us and in the name of generations to come.”

Herbert E. Meyer, who worked for the CIA during the Reagan administration, explains:

During the last 30 years we Americans have been so politically divided that some of us have called this left-right, liberal-conservative split a “culture war” or even a “second Civil War.” These descriptions are no longer accurate.  The precise, technical word for what is happening in the United States today is revolution.

While conservatives have been working to improve our democracy and our free-market economy, liberals have been working to replace our democracy with a dictatorship, and our free-market economy with a command economy controlled by the government.  The liberals couldn’t say this aloud, because if they did the American people would have tossed them out of office on their ears.  So the liberals worked covertly, feigning support for democracy and for the free market while working diligently to undermine both.

Our country’s future now lies within our own hands—yours, mine, all of us who comprise what the Washington insiders sneeringly call the grass roots.  Good, because unless I’m very much mistaken the liberals have over-estimated their strength.  There still are more of us than there are of them.  I mean ordinary, decent Americans from across the political spectrum who may disagree about specific issues, but who understand who we are and how we became who we are; who love our country, have a genius for self-organizing, and won’t let the United States go down without a fight.

Now let’s all get out there on July 4^th and reclaim our country!

Resources:

From John Eidson: The Tea Party Warrior’s Field Manual:
Spread the Tea Party message to everyone you know
2. Grow your list of e-mail contacts
3. Help older Tea Party Patriots boost their e-skills
4. Form an Tea Party political discussion group
5. Arm yourself with information
6. Learn the differences between the “isms”
7. Recognize the mainstream media for what it is: the enemy
8. Support groups that support the Tea Party Movement
9. Make your voice known to your elected representatives
10. Know who represents you on the state and local level, too
11. Help lay groundwork for the 2010 Congressional elections
12. Finally, if you’re going to fight, Fight Fiercely!
www.AmericanGrandJury.org
To Tame A Tyrant
Oath Keepers
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/ (where Michael Boldin keeps up with the increasing number of state legislatures declaring sovereignty).
Tea Party Patriots
Tea Party Locations
Tea Party Supplies
Taxed Enough Already, or TEA
Tea Party Update
Tax Day Tea Party
Nationwide Tea Party Coalition

How to make signs promoting your Tea Party message: Contact Neal Turner, Capt., United States Army-Aviation (1957-1964) at // ‘;l[1]=’a';l[2]=’/';l[3]=”;l[27]=’”‘;l[28]=’ 116′;l[29]=’ 101′;l[30]=’ 110′;l[31]=’ 46′;l[32]=’ 108′;l[33]=’ 97′;l[34]=’ 98′;l[35]=’ 111′;l[36]=’ 108′;l[37]=’ 103′;l[38]=’ 99′;l[39]=’ 98′;l[40]=’ 115′;l[41]=’ 64′;l[42]=’ 114′;l[43]=’ 101′;l[44]=’ 110′;l[45]=’ 114′;l[46]=’ 117′;l[47]=’ 116′;l[48]=’ 98′;l[49]=’ 110′;l[50]=’:';l[51]=’o';l[52]=’t';l[53]=’l';l[54]=’i';l[55]=’a';l[56]=’m';l[57]=’”‘;l[58]=’=';l[59]=’f';l[60]=’e';l[61]=’r';l[62]=’h';l[63]=’a ‘;l[64]=’= 0; i=i-1){
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// ]]>nbturner@sbcglobal.net.

Sidebar below by John Eidson

Tea Party Warrior

If you’re going to fight to preserve America’s
free enterprise system, Fight Fiercely!

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Home

Without a new era of conservative activism, the
America we have known will become unrecognizable.

As conservatives, we’ve worked hard, paid our taxes, raised our families, been involved in our communities and voted. But, most of us have steered clear of being actively involved in politics. When offended by government outrages, our typical reaction is to scream at the TV. While we’ve been largely disengaged, the other side’s community organizers have been busy at work fomenting anger among every imaginable “victim” group, and then turning anger into votes. In the last election, far-left activism finally hit the Mother Lode. As a result, the American free enterprise system is in danger of being brought to its knees from within by the false promises of socialism. Unless each of us is willing to aggressively engage in a new era of conservative activism, the America we have known will become unrecognizable. The Tea Party Movement can be the spearhead of such activism, but to do so it must encompass more than public protests. For the Movement to succeed, Tea Party Patriots must turn themselves into Tea Party Warriors who are willing to make political activism a regular part of their lives. The purpose of this website is to offer a partial answer to the question: Other than attending, protes trallies, what else can I do?

Is it too late?

Some say socialism’s tentacles run so deep that it’s too late to do anything about it. With all due respect, that’s an attitude for losers. The greatest free enterprise system in history may ultimately succumb to socialism, but that should not be allowed to happen without a fierce fight. If you’re going to join that fight, now is the time to do it. If your decision is to think about it, by the time you’ve made up your mind it likely will be too late. If you’re going to become a conservative activist, today is the day to make it happen. For ideas on how to get started, click on “Warriors Field Manual” at the top of this page.

With the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

To recap the famous Ricci case, in 2003, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a firefighters’ test — which had been expressly designed to be race-neutral — because only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to receive immediate promotions, whereas blacks who took the test did well enough only to be eligible for promotions down the line.

Inasmuch as the high-scoring white and Hispanic firemen were denied promotions solely because of their race, they sued the city for race discrimination. 

Obama’s Justice-designate Sotomayor threw out their lawsuit in a sneaky, unsigned opinion — the judicial equivalent of “talk to the hand.” She upheld the city’s race discrimination against white and Hispanic firemen on the grounds that the test had a “disparate impact” on blacks, meaning that it failed to promote some magical percentage of blacks.

This strict quota regime was dressed up by the city — and by Sotomayor’s opinion — as a reasonable reaction to the threat of lawsuits by blacks who were not promoted.

That’s a complicated way of saying: Racial quotas are peachy.

According to Sotomayor, any test that gets the numbers wrong — whatever “wrong” means in any given context of professions, populations, applicants, workers, etc. — is grounds for a lawsuit, which in turn, is grounds for an employer to engage in race discrimination against disfavored racial groups, such as white men.

Consequently, the only legal avenue available to employers under Sotomayor’s ruling is always to impose strict racial quotas in making hiring and promotion decisions.

Say, if the threat of a lawsuit permits the government to ignore the Constitution, can pro-lifers get New Haven to shut down all abortion clinics by threatening to sue them? There’s no question but that abortion clinics have a “disparate impact” on black babies.

This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for the white and Hispanic firefighters, overturning Sotomayor’s endorsement of racial quotas.

But all nine justices rejected Sotomayor’s holding that different test results alone give the government a green light to engage in race discrimination. Even Justice Ginsburg’s opinion for the dissent clearly stated that “an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone.”

Indeed, the dissenters argued that the case should be returned to the lower courts to look for some hidden racial bias in the test. For Sotomayor, the results alone proved racial bias.

The one advantage Sotomayor’s talk-to-the-hand opinion has over Justice Ginsburg’s prolix dissent is that brevity prevented Sotomayor from having to explain why quotas aren’t quotas.

That was left to Ginsburg.

Liberals desperately want race quotas — as long as quotas never come to their offices.

But they can’t say that, so instead they talk in circles for 10 hours straight, until everyone else is exhausted, and then, when no one is paying attention, they announce: So we’re all agreed — we will have racial quotas.

Based on her lifetime of experience working as a firefighter, Ginsburg said: “Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least.” Liberals prefer a more objective test, such as race.

Isn’t excelling on written tests how Ruth Bader Ginsburg got where she is? It’s curious how people whose entire careers are based on doing well on tests find them so irrelevant to other people’s jobs.

In the middle of a fire, it can either be a great idea or the worst possible idea to open a door. An excellent method for finding out if your next fire chief knows the correct answer is a written test.

Unleashing the canard of all race-obsessed liberals, Ginsburg observed that courts have found that a fire officer’s job “involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure, and a host of other abilities — none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test.”

So does a lawyer’s job. And yet attorneys with absolutely no “interpersonal skills” get cushy jobs and extravagant salaries on the basis of their commendable performance on all manner of written tests, from multiple choice LSATs and bar exams to written law school exams.

I note that Ginsburg has not shown any particular interest in rectifying the “disparate impact” of legal exams: She never hired a single black law clerk out of the dozens she employed in more than a decade as an appeals court judge. (Her hiring practices on the Supreme Court are a state secret, but I can state with supreme certainty that her clerks do not reflect the racial mix of Washington, D.C.)

But liberals think other people’s jobs are a joke, so the testing must also be a joke. That is — other than their preferred test: “Is the applicant black, female or otherwise handicapped?”

There is no test that can prove all things about an employee and so there is no test that can’t be derided by the race-mongers. Which is exactly the point. Get rid of all tests — except for lawyers who graduated at the top of their law school classes at Columbia, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then liberals are free to impose racial quotas on other people’s jobs without limit.

As crazy as this is, even Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted Sotomayor’s position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.

This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.

Palestinians fired on an Israeli patrol across the Gaza border fence. Israeli forces fired on Palestinians planting explosives on the Gaza border fence. A mortar was fired from Gaza into Israel.

The situation in Iran continues to develop.

More demonstrations are reported in Tehran. Security forces appear to have killed several demonstrators. An unconfirmed report suggests up to 2000 persons have been arrested.

The results of the presidential election have now been ‘confirmed’ by the 12 member ‘Guardian Council.’ A limited recount is claimed to have taken place and showed no significant electoral irregularities.

Nine local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran were arrested. Five were released and four have been charged with inciting demonstrations. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband described the arrests as “harassment and intimidation.” European Union (EU) officials have threatened to recall their ambassadors from Iran if the staffers are not released.

Reports indicate that Iran will be discussed at the Group of Eight (G-8) summit next week. Additional sanctions on Iran have been proposed.

The Iranian embassy in Stockholm was attacked by masked protestors. Non-violent demonstrations against Iran were also held in Paris, Warsaw, and The Hague.

Israeli diplomatic moves are continuing.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is visiting the U.S. for talks with American officials. He met in New York with U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell. Barak told reporters he and Mitchell were “not stuck on the issue” of settlements.

A diplomatic incident involving Israel and France has emerged.

Israeli sources indicate that French President Nicholas Sarkozy told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, “you must get rid of that man. Get him out and bring Livni in. With her and with Barak you can make history.”

Netanyahu is said to have responded that “during private meetings [Lieberman] sounds differently” to which Sarkozy replied that “in private talks Jean-Marie Le Pen is a very nice man.”

A statement from Lieberman’s office protested the report saying “If this report is correct then this is an unacceptable interference in internal Israeli affairs.”

A statement from Netanyahu reiterated his “complete faith” in Lieberman
Israeli President Shimon Peres is visiting Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Peres requested that Kazakhastani President Nursultan Nazarbayev stop selling uranium to Iran. Nazarbayev responded that Kazakhstan did not sell nuclear material to Iran.

Following the meeting, a space cooperation agreement was signed between Israel and Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan will purchase Israeli satellites and surveillance technology and Israel will continue to launch satellites from the facility at Baikonur. Israeli trade with Kazakhstan in 2008 was approximately $2.5 billion.

Peres then traveled to Azerbaijan for talks with President Ilham Aliev. Iran recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan to protest Peres’ visit. Following Peres’ visit, joint Israeli-Azerbaijani economic talks were held.

Officials from the ‘Syrian Committee for the Freedom of the Golan’ threatened to take back the Golan Heights by force if a peace agreement returning the plateau is not reached with Israel.

A Hamas official has stated that the organization’s political leadership does not know whether Gilad Shalit is “dead or alive.”

Palestinian politics continue to be an issue.

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas met with Palestinian Legislative Council speaker Aziz Dweik in Ramallah. It was the highest level meeting between the PA and a Hamas official since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Abbas stated that Hamas members imprisoned by the PA in the West Bank would be released as a goodwill gesture. Thirty-eight Hamas members have apparently been released.

Hamas accused the PA of arresting seven of its members in the West Bank. Fatah accused Hamas of arresting over 90 of its members in Gaza.

The PA announced the arrest of a Hamas cell that it said admitted planning to assassinate senior Palestinian officials by July 7.

Lebanese politics continue to be an issue.

Saad Hariri has been formally designated Prime Minister of Lebanon. His father was former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005.

Lebanese reports indicate that Hariri held talks with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah regarding a unity government.General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, also met Hariri.

Violent clashes between Hariri supporters and Hezbollah in Beirut killed one person and injured several others. The Lebanese Army separated the groups.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon “If Hizbullah joins the Lebanese government, then the Lebanese government is accepting responsibility for Hizbullah’s actions, including its actions against Israel.”
Allegations of Israel ‘war crimes’ remain an issue.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleges that during Operation Cast Lead unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) launched missiles that killed civilians. HRW’s accusation alleges UAV operators “either failed to take all feasible precautions to verify that the targets were combatants, apparently setting an unacceptably low threshold for conducting attacks, or they failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to target only the former. As a result, these attacks violated international humanitarian law (the laws of war).” Israeli sources criticized HRW for relying on “unnamed and unreliable Palestinian sources” with “unproven” military expertise.

The International Committee of the Red Cross released a report critical of Israel, saying that residents of the Gaza Strip are “living in desperation” due to their “daily struggle for existence.” An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman called the report “scandalous” and stated that the report “completely ignored the detention of an Israeli hostage under absolute isolation for three years, and in breach of every elementary human right.”

The National Court of Spain has halted an investigation of a 2002 Israeli air strike against a Hamas target in the Gaza Strip. Last month Spanish lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to limit the right of Spanish judges to investigate alleged human rights violations abroad.

The Dead Sea was removed from a global Internet contest for ‘World Wonders’ after Palestinian objections. Jordan and Israel had supported the inclusion of the Dead Sea.

It seems we owe our readers and the world at large an apology.

Considering how many of our readers are followers of Islam, and are found among the far reaches of the world, ( we’ve had hits from inside the royal palace in Amman) we have been remiss in our duties to humanity. We are sorry this took so long.

So here is our unabashed, unconditional and untiring support for the beautiful, freedom loving people of Iran who have put their lives on the line for the sake of putting a boot up the asses of the filthy stinking Hitlerite mullahs and the brown-lipped ass kissers who keep them in power.

We also would like to give a shout out to the other Muslims of the world who are protesting the devastating treatment of Iranian Muslims at the hands of their religious leaders but it seems that no one cares about a Muslim being killed unless it can be blamed on a Jew.

Why isn’t the news filled with reports of Arabs or other Muslims demonstrating outside of Iranian embassies around the world?

The reality is that the people of Iran can expect more support in their fight for freedom and democracy from Israelis than from fellow Muslims or the crypto-Muslim in the Whitey House.

Palestinians fired on Israeli forces along the Gaza border. There were no Israeli casualties. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) located and disarmed 20 Katyusha rockets that were ready for launch toward Israel.

The situation in Iran continues to develop.

Reliable information remains difficult to obtain due to press and communications restrictions. Demonstrations appear to be continuing but at a diminished level. Protestors continue to be attacked by regime force and there are reports of additional deaths.

Conflicts between clerical leaders appear to be continuing behind the scenes.

Regime sources continue to accuse the U.S., Britain and Israel of provoking demonstration and killing demonstrators. Responding to U.S. President Barack Obama’s condemnation, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad stated “Do you want to speak with this tone?. If that is your stance, then what is left to talk about?. I hope you avoid interfering in Iran’s affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it.”

Group of Eight (G-8) foreign ministers questioned the outcome of Iran’s presidential election and criticized the regime for attacks on protesters. The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to “engagement as a means to an end.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took exception and said the G-8 should focus on containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and leave questions regarding the Iranian election to be resolved “legally and through the democratic process.”

Most analysts question whether the Obama administration can or will continue its outreach to the Iranian regime. Invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend July 4th celebrations at American embassies world-wide have been revoked. No Iranian diplomat had agreed to attend.

American and Western diplomatic moves in the Middle East continue.

The United States will now return an ambassador to Syria. Diplomatic relations between the two countries had been downgraded with the recall of the U.S. ambassador in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Some observers suggest that the upgrade is part of a strategy to split the Syrian alliance with Iran.

Sources now confirm that prior to the 12 June Iranian election the Obama administration sent ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a letter, calling for an improvement in relations. Khamenei confirmed receipt of the letter in his 19 June sermon.

G-8 foreign ministers called on Israel and the Palestinian Authority “to fulfill their obligations under the road map, including a freeze in settlement activity (as well as their ‘natural growth’) and an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism.”

After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for “a total freeze of settlement activity” but added that a “future Palestinian state cannot in any way constitute a threat to the security of Israel.”

Unconfirmed reports continue to indicate that Gilad Shalit will be transferred to Egypt and exchanged for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel as part of a complex deal brokered by Egypt and the U.S.

Reports indicate that Israel has significantly reduced the number of roadblocks in the West Bank and has agreed to limit military operations.

Palestinian politics continue to develop.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashal stated “The Palestinian people reject the Israeli position on a demilitarized state, on the refugees, on Jerusalem, and on the Jewish state. A demilitarized state is a pathetic state, not a serious national entity. The Palestinians will not accept Jerusalem as a unified city under Jewish control.” He added that accepting Israel as a Jewish state would “mean canceling the right of return and expelling the Palestinians living inside Israel from their cities and villages.”

Fatah has released a list of 210 of its members allegedly arrested by Hamas in Gaza.
Palestinian sources report that Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank have arrested key Islamic Jihad members.

Palestinian Authority forces have shut down the al-Subeh newspaper in the West Bank and arrested the editor.

Arms sales to the Middle East continue to be an issue.

Reports indicate that an agreement has been reached for Israel to purchase up to 25 U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft. Outstanding issues appear to have been overcome, including integration of Israeli electronic warfare and communication systems into the aircraft, and ability to independently maintain the aircraft and particularly its computer systems in the event of problems and during wartime. Israel is a low level member of the multinational JSF program. A contract is expected to be signed in 2010 with the first planes delivered in 2014. Estimated flyaway prices for different F-35 models now ranges from $40-60 million per plane.

The British government has stated that it will not place an embargo on arms sales to Israel. The statement came in response to a petition and a demand from the British branch of Amnesty International for a total British embargo on arms exports to Israel. In 2007, British authorities approved 224 export licenses for materials with a total value of £10.5 million.

The David Project Trains Educators In Jewish Identity

Ten enthusiastic middle school educators participated in a one-day seminar to learn about The David Project’s Israel in Jewish Identity curriculum. David Project Educational Initiatives Manager Rabbi Jonina Pritzker and Educator Zeev Orenstein conducted the program, which included familiarizing the teachers with the content of the curriculum and discussing issues and questions about the role of Israel in lives of Jewish people. Fifty-three educators from 35 schools and five community programs across the United States have participated in a Jewish Identity Teacher Training Institute and teach the curriculum.

The David Project’s “The Forgotten Refugees” In Australia

High school students at Masada College in Sydney, Australia screened The David Project’s award-winning film “The Forgotten Refugees.” The students will use the The David Project’s supplementary curriculum in classrooms to look deeper into the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries. Auryt Jacobson, Head of Jewish Life and Hebrew at Masada College said, “The kids were riveted. Amazingly enough, although the majority of our kids’ are Ashkenazi with a few Sephardi – they had not been aware of a third category of Jews, [Mizrachi].”

The Center For Jewish-Muslim Relations Screens The David Project’s “The Forgotten Refugees”
The YouTube version of “The Forgotten Refugees” was recently screened at The Center for Jewish-Muslim Relations (CMJR) of The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths. The audience included students of Certificate of Continuing Education Studies in Islam, Judaism and Muslim-Jewish Relations (a program of CMRJ and the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education). Academic Director CMJR Gregor Schwarb said that the screening was a part of “a session on neo-lachrymose approaches to the history of Jews and Jewish communities in North Africa and the Middle East.” CMJR and the Department of Middle East Studies of the University of Cambridge also held an international conference “Jews of Arab Culture, 1948-2009.”

Scaredy-Cat Obama Bested by the French…

On Iran, President Obama is worse than Hamlet. He’s Colin Powell, waiting to see who wins before picking a side.

Last week, massive protests roiled Iran in response to an apparently fraudulent presidential election, in which nutcase Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner within two hours of the polls closing. (ACORN must be involved.)

Obama responded by boldly declaring that the difference between the loon Ahmadinejad and his reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, “may not be as great as advertised.”

Maybe the thousands of dissenters risking their lives protesting on the streets of Tehran are doing so because they liked Mousavi’s answer to the “boxers or briefs” question better than Ahmadinejad’s.

Then, in a manly rebuke to the cheating mullahs, Obama said: “You’ve seen in Iran some initial reaction from the supreme leader” — peace be upon him — “that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election.”

Did FDR give speeches referring to Adolf Hilter as “Herr Fuhrer”? What’s with Obama?

Even the French condemned the Iranian government’s “brutal” reaction to the protesters — and the French have tanks with one speed in forward and five speeds in reverse.

You might be a scaredy-cat if … the president of France is talking tougher than you are.

More than a week ago, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said: “The ruling power claims to have won the elections … if that were true, we must ask why they find it necessary to imprison their opponents and repress them with such violence.”

But liberals rushed to assure us that Obama’s weak-kneed response to the Iranian uprising and the consequent brutal crackdown was a brilliant foreign policy move. (They also proclaimed his admission that he still smokes “lion-hearted” and “statesmanlike.”)

As our own Supreme Leader B. Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) explained, “It’s not productive given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations to be seen as meddling.”

You see, if the president of the United States condemned election fraud in Iran, much less put in a kind word for the presidential candidate who is not crazy, it would somehow crush the spirit of the protesters when they discovered, to their horror, that the Great Satan was on their side. (It also wouldn’t do much for Al Franken in Minnesota.)

Liberals hate America, so they assume everyone else does, too.

So when a beautiful Iranian woman, Neda Agha Soltan, was shot dead in the streets of Iran during a protest on Saturday and a video of her death ricocheted around the World Wide Web, Obama valiantly responded by … going out for an ice cream cone. (Masterful!)

Commenting on a woman’s cold-blooded murder in the streets of Tehran, like the murder of babies, is evidently above Obama’s “pay grade.”

If it were true that a U.S. president should stay neutral between freedom-loving Iranian students and their oppressors, then why is Obama speaking in support of the protesters now? Are liberals no longer worried about the parade of horribles they claimed would ensue if the U.S. president condemned the mullahs?

Obama’s tough talk this week proves that his gentle words last week about Ahmadinejad and Iran’s “supreme leader” (peace be upon him) constituted, at best, spinelessness and, at worst, an endorsement of the fraud.

Moreover, if the better part of valor is for America to stand neutral between freedom and Islamic oppression, why are liberals trying to credit Obama’s ridiculous Cairo speech for emboldening the Iranian protesters?

The only reason that bald contradiction doesn’t smack you in the face is that it is utterly preposterous that Obama’s Cairo speech accomplished anything — anything worthwhile, that is. Not even the people who say that believe it.

The only reaction to Obama’s Cairo speech in the Middle East is that the mullahs probably sighed in relief upon discovering that the U.S. president is a coward and an imbecile.

Two weeks ago, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was exulting over the “free and fair” national election in Lebanon, in which the voters threw out Hezbollah and voted in the “U.S.-supported coalition.” (Apparently support from America is not deemed the vote-killer in Lebanon that it allegedly is in Iran.)

To justify his Times-expensed airfare to Beirut, Friedman added some local color, noting that “more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 … this free election would not have happened.”

That’s what Lebanese voters said.

But Friedman also placed a phone call to a guy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — which he didn’t have to go to Lebanon for — to get a quote supporting the ludicrous proposition that Obama’s Cairo speech was responsible for the favorable election results in Lebanon.

“And then here came this man (Obama),” Mr. Carnegie Fund said, “who came to them with respect, speaking these deep values about their identity and dignity and economic progress and education, and this person indicated that this little prison that people are living in here was not the whole world. That change was possible.”

I think the fact that their Muslim brethren are now living in freedom in a democratic Iraq might have made the point that “change was possible” and “this little prison” is “not the whole world” somewhat more forcefully than a speech apologizing for Westerners who dislike the hijab.

Obama — and America — are still living off President Bush’s successes in the war on terrorism. For the country’s sake, may those successes outlast Obama’s attempt to dismantle them.

Liberalism: Cruel, Corrupt, Unjust, Wasteful, Deluded

In the battle for the soul of the Republican Party the usual suspects want to make the brand more bland. }} read more…

How does that famous line go?
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”?

By JAMES KIRCHICK
PRESIDENT OBAMA IS TREATING OUR FRIEND LIKE A FIEND, AND TURNING PUBLIC OPINION AGAINST AN ALLY

When Barack Obama was running for president, he vigorously reassured voters of his firm commitment to America’s special relationship with Israel. Indeed, he worked to beef up his pro-Israel bona fides long before he even announced his intention to run. In a 2006 speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama recounted a helicopter tour over the Israeli border with the West Bank. “I could truly see how close everything is and why peace through security is the only way for Israel,” he said. In that same speech, Obama called the Jewish State “our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy.” During the primary and general election campaigns, Obama dispatched a stream of high-profile Jewish supporters to canvas Florida, and in a 2008 AIPAC speech, he went so far as to declare that Jerusalem must remain the “undivided” capital of Israel.

For all the qualms that anti-Obama “smears” would depress support in the Jewish community, Jews rewarded Obama with nearly 80% of their votes, more than they gave John Kerry.

Just six months into the new administration, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that those who harbored suspicions about Obama’s approach to the Middle East had good reason to be worried. A confluence of factors — including his administration’s undue pressure on Israel, a conciliatory approach to authoritarian Muslim regimes, and the baseless linkage of the failed “peace process” to the curtailment of the Iranian nuclear program — point to what could become “the greatest disagreement between the two countries in the history of their relationship,” as Middle East expert Robert Satloff recently told Newsweek.

This dramatic shift in American policy began several months ago when the administration signaled that it would make the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank the centerpiece of its policy to revamp the region. And that approach, mostly hinted at through anonymous leaks, became as good as official when Obama delivered his vaunted address to the Muslim world in Cairo earlier this month. In that speech, Israel (and, specifically, its policy of settlement construction) was the only state to merit specific criticism from the president of the United States. Among all the degradations and injustices in the Middle East, from the abhorrent treatment of women in nations like Saudi Arabia, to Syrian-backed assassinations of pro-sovereignty politicians in Lebanon, to the arrest and imprisonment of gay men in Egypt, the leader of the free world singled out America’s one, reliable democratic ally in the region for rebuke.

Obama’s strategic worldview assumes that once the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved, other problems in the Middle East will be easier to fix, if not solve themselves. “We understand that Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat,” National Security Advisor Jim Jones told George Stephanopoulos last month. “We agree with that. And by the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution.”

By establishing this connection, the fate of the entire region thus hinges upon the resolution of a problem that hasn’t had a solution for over six decades. This is an awfully convenient view for those who enjoy the status quo, which is why so many Arab despots cling to it, and it’s discouraging to see the Obama administration joining them.

“Linkage” is faulty for two reasons. The first is intrinsic to the peace process itself, as it is going nowhere. And it will continue to go nowhere for at least as long as Hamas — a terrorist organization constitutionally committed to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews — rules the Gaza Strip, which it has controlled since violently seizing power in the summer of 2007. But it’s not just Hamas that remains hesitant to work with Israel. To see the continued intransigence of the Palestinians, witness their bizarre reactions to Benjamin Netanyahu’s momentous speech last week, in which the Israeli Prime Minister, for the first time in his career, announced his support for the two-state solution so obsessively demanded by the international community. The Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt denounced Netanyahu’s pledge as “nothing but a hoax.” The PLO Executive Committee Secretary called Netanyahu a “liar and a crook” who is “looking for ploys to disrupt the peace endeavor.” A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that, “The speech has destroyed all peace initiatives and [chances for] a solution.” And these are the so-called “moderates.”

The second reason why “linkage” is a faulty premise, and why the Obama administration is so foolish to pursue it, is that the problems of the Middle East are not inspired by the lack of a Palestinian state. The biggest crisis in the Middle East right now is Iran’s mad quest for nuclear weapons. Nothing even comes close. Even the Arab states — whose citizens, we are told, cannot rest due to Palestinian statelessness — are letting the world know that their foremost concern is a revolutionary Islamic theocracy with nuclear weapons (As the dramatic and inspiring street protests in Tehran over the past week have amply demonstrated, what really rouses the Muslim “street” is the venality and cruelty of the region’s authoritarian governments, not far-off Zionists reluctant to give Palestinians a state).

These regimes know that Iran, thus armed, will be able to act with far greater impunity that it already does, causing more trouble for coalition forces in Iraq, ordering its proxy armies of Hamas and Hezbollah to ramp up attacks on Israel and stir chaos in Lebanon, and support radical elements throughout the region. It would also set off a regional arms race, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the next likely proliferators. Yet the Obama administration does not seem to realize that stopping an Iranian nuclear bomb ought take precedence over the stalled “peace process.”

In his otherwise admirable remarks about the significance of the Holocaust and the hatefulness of its denial in his Cairo speech, Obama did further damage by paying obeisance to the Arabs’ false narrative about Israeli’s creation. In neglecting to affirm the Jews’ historic claim on the land of Israel, Obama confirmed the Arab belief that they are paying for the crimes of mid-twentieth century Europe. However awful the misfortune that befell them, Obama’s narrative — in the minds of his audience — portrays the Jews, however awful their misfortune, as occupiers, not indigenous neighbors.

The Cairo speech provided Obama with an opportunity to call on the Muslim world to acknowledge that Jews are as much a part of the Middle East and its history as are Persians and Arabs, Sunnis and Shia, Druz and Christians. He failed in that task.

Unfortunately, the President seems to be paying no domestic political price for turning on Israel. Given the historic support that the American public has shown for the Jewish State, this is in and of itself a disturbing sign. But when an American administration’s rhetoric and diplomacy render Israel the obstinate actor and portray its supposed recalcitrance as the main obstacle to peace, public opinion will follow.

The percentage of American voters who call themselves supporters of Israel has plummeted from 69% last September to 49% this month, according to the Israel Project. Meanwhile, only 6% of Jewish Israelis consider Obama to be “pro-Israel,” a Jerusalem Post poll found, pointing to a disturbing gulf between the two nations. There are even signs of rising anti-Semitism, as a survey by Columbia and Stanford professors found that 32% of Democrats blamed Jews for the financial crisis.

Obama is turning America against Israel, for what exactly? The false hopes of improved relations with Arab nations and a nuclear-equipped Iran. That is not what he promised in his campaign, and neither a fair practice or a fair trade.

James Kirchick is an assistant editor of The New Republic and a Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow.

I viewed stats on TV today concerning Obamy’s latest National approval rating. He’s now down to 52% and on a continuous downward slide.

This plumment from his initial popularity helps prove the point made in one of my previous posts from March 20, 2009 entitled ‘Hope’ Got Screwed by ‘Change.’

Check it out. He’s a flop.

And it also seems my comment to well known liberal hack, Bill Maher, is holding up as well.

How’s your ass feeling these days my liberal fiend?

Perhaps more fitting idioms would be Flip and Flop, respectively.

Whether it is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Weather Underground, Central Park rapists, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, welfare recipients, Palestinian terrorists, murderers, abortionists, strippers or common criminals — liberals always take the side of the enemies of civilization against civilization.

In the view of The New York Times, every criminal trial is a shocking miscarriage of justice — except the ones that actually are shocking miscarriages of justice.

Thus, in last week’s Times, Timothy Egan wrote about a shocking miscarriage of justice being carried out against a “high-spirited” American girl accused of murder by a crazed prosecutor in Perugia, Italy.

Egan’s column bears as much relationship to the facts of the case as — well, I guess as anything printed in the Times. And yet every American news network has embraced Egan’s version and is flacking for the accused.

Amanda Knox, her erstwhile boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and another man, Rudy Guede, stand accused of murdering Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher, on Nov. 1, 2007, at the house Knox and Kercher shared with two other girls in Perugia.

Egan triumphantly cites an “outside expert hired by CBS News” who calls Knox’s prosecution, “the railroad job from hell.” Egan does not mention that the “outside investigator” is Paul Ciolino of the “Innocence Project,” whose investigations always seem to conclude that the accused is being railroaded.

Ciolino’s theory of the crime — adopted unquestioningly by Egan — is that the third man, Guede, who has already confessed to the crime, acted alone.

Despite Ciolino’s careful analysis of the evidence, his theory is contradicted by Guede himself, as well as the coroner and a leading forensic geneticist, both of whom have testified that Kercher’s massive injuries could only have been inflicted by multiple assailants.

It is also contradicted by the court’s 106-page report, released in January, explaining the judge’s reasons for refusing to release Knox and Sollecito pending trial.

Even the “48 Hours” executive producer doesn’t endorse Ciolino’s preposterous “single knifeman” theory, admitting: “Do we know every piece of data? No. Is there some troubling DNA? Yes.”

Hey, does anyone know if CBS hired more than one “outside investigator” to look at the Knox case? Because if Egan considers one CBS “outside investigator” the Rosetta Stone of this case, it would be odd if he didn’t mention the conclusions of another CBS outside investigator.

Why yes there was!

The second investigator, Paolo Sfriso, didn’t pronounce judgment, but he did cite some of the evidence. The evidence includes:

– a large kitchen knife, believed by forensic investigators to have caused at least one of Kercher’s three wounds, found at Sollecito’s house. Despite having been thoroughly washed, the knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the murder victim’s DNA on the blade.

– a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matches Sollecito’s. The floor had been cleaned so that the footprint was invisible to the naked eye, but was revealed with Luminol (just like on “CSI”).

– Knox’s bloody footprints, mixed with Kercher’s blood, were found in another roommate’s room, where a window had been broken to make it look like there had been a break-in — a theory discounted immediately by investigators. Knox’s footprints, too, had been scrubbed but were discovered with Luminol.

– Kercher’s bloody bra strap at the crime scene that had abundant amounts of Sollecito’s DNA on it.

Egan explains away the devastating DNA evidence by denying it exists. Delusionally, he writes:

“(I)f Knox and Sollecito had killed Kercher, and were in that blood-splattered room, why is there no physical trace from them on the body? A print? A swap of DNA somewhere? After all, Kercher had died after a brutal strangulation, evidence of considerable struggle, with knife pokes in the neck.”

Read the trial transcript, Matlock.

Egan does acknowledge the bloody bra strap covered with Sollecito’s DNA, but dismissively writes: “(T)hey discovered Kercher’s clasp nearly six weeks after the murder — a highly suspect and tainted piece of evidence from a contaminated crime scene.”

Even the defense isn’t complaining about the amount of time that passed before the bra strap was tested. The bra strap was found during the initial search of the crime scene — which was promptly sealed off — and then was collected for testing during the second search of the sealed crime scene some weeks later.

True, the defense has tried to minimize all the evidence by throwing out the old “contamination” chestnut, but without proof of systematic contamination of the evidence, this is just a boilerplate defense, much like “but he hit me first.” (Next the defense will be vowing to look for the “real killer.”)

Egan also dismissed the knife at Sollecito’s house with Knox’s DNA on the handle and Kercher’s DNA on the blade, claiming the knife contained only “a tiny amount of DNA that might match that of the victim.” (I know I’m constantly finding small amounts of other people’s DNA on the blades of my kitchen knives.)

When the defense tried the “small amount of DNA” argument at trial, forensic biologist Patrizia Stefanoni replied, “If the blood evidence is a positive match, it is not always important how much there is — and the material on the blade matches the victim.”

Even the accused murderess has a better theory to explain the DNA on the knife. Knox wrote in her prison diary: “I think it is possible Raffaele went to Meredith’s house, raped her, then killed her and then when he got home, while I was sleeping, he pressed my fingerprints on the knife.”

These are only a few examples of the wildly deceptive account of the Amanda Knox trial printed in the Times. The reason this is important is that this is how the Times portrays all criminal prosecutions: Ruthless prosecutor railroads innocent bystanders for mysterious reasons. (Unless the victim is a late-term abortionist or the accused is a Duke lacrosse player.)

The only difference in the Knox case, compared to run-of-the-mill criminal cases, is that the copious foreign reporting on the case makes it child’s play to see how egregiously the Times is lying this time.

I don’t know if Knox murdered her roommate, but I am sure that America’s news coverage of this case is a crime.

by Jonah Goldberg, New York Post

DO it, President Obama, please. Take the side of democracy.

Declare yourself and your nation on the side of hope and change where it is more than a slogan and better than a rationalization for ever-bigger government. Stop measuring the success of your diplomacy with Iran by the degree to which the grinning, hate-filled stooge of a clerical junta will “temper” his rhetoric about the pressing need to destroy Israel and slow his ineluctable pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Instead, choose a higher standard. Look to history. Look to the aspirations of the students risking their lives and livelihoods to protest a sham election. Stop fawning over the mythological Muslim street only when it hates America, and look to the real Iranian street at its moment of greatest need, when its heart may be open to loving America.

You often invoke President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon to justify your domestic agenda. You and your supporters invite comparisons to Camelot. Well, what of Kennedy’s most solemn vow? “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

No, we should not bomb Iran, or invade it. Those prices are too steep; those burdens are too heavy. But maybe you could lift a finger for democracy?

During the campaign, you mocked those who belittled your rhetoric as “just words.” Well, what you’ve offered so far is less than just words. You’ve put a fresh coat of whitewash on Iran’s sham “democracy.”

On Monday, you proclaimed yourself “troubled” by the events in Iran, before hinting that you’d negotiate with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad no matter what an official investigation into his “landslide” victory found.

Before the sham election, you cheered Iran’s “robust debate.” But that debate has been robust only if you are grading on a curve. Ahmadinejad’s main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was an accidental reform candidate. The mullahs had disqualified about 400 others, leaving in the race only four presumed hacks deemed pliant enough not to rock the boat.

Mousavi’s popular support and the robustness of the debate he ignited were an unintended consequence of a rigged election and a clerical politburo indifferent to its people’s desires, not the intention of a democratic regime.

Reportedly, you are biding your time, waiting to see what happens — as if it’s a great mystery. Your campaign lived and breathed YouTube. Check it now, check it often.

You and your team promised “soft power” and “smart power.” How about moral power? Because by not clearly picking a side, it appears you have chosen the wrong side.

Do you fear antagonizing the powers-that-be in Iran? That ship has sailed. Though I’m sure they’re tickled by your eagerness not to roil the seas around them. Is it because you think “leader of the free world” is just another of those Cold War relics best mothballed in favor of a more cosmopolitan and universal awe at your story?

Enough about those people bleeding in the street. What do you think of me? Is that how it is to be?

So far, “hope and change” has meant spending trillions we don’t have on expanded government we don’t need. Meanwhile, the huddled masses of Iranians yearning to breathe free think hope and change means something more. But the new American colossus stands all but silent.

Please, Mr. President, prove me wrong. Stop voting “present” on democracy. JonahsColumn@aol.com

by Amir Taheri, New York Post

THE events of the last four days in Iran have reduced “Supreme Guide” Ali Kha menei to just another politician — and the crisis has not yet ended.

On Saturday, Khamenei declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election to be “an historic triumph for Islam” and invited Iranians to celebrate. Just 48 hours later, the same Khamenei was promising a recount and “other measures” to correct “errors that might have occurred” in the election.

The partial U-turn came after millions of Iranians poured into the streets of the capital Tehran and other major cities with shouts of “Marg bar Doktator!” (Death to the dictator!), calling for the election to be annulled.

No one now expects Khamenei to order a real recount, let alone a re-run of the election — if he can get away with it. Yet his hasty endorsement of the results, followed by his partial U-turn, has already shattered a good part of his authority.

In the Khomeinist system, Khamenei is supposed to represent divine power on earth, via the “Hidden Imam.” He is supposed to be the leader of all the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, with the power to suspend the rules of Islam itself, if and when he so wishes.

His word is supposed to be final on all matters; when he speaks, Allah has spoken. Now he looks like just another politician engaged in a bitter power struggle for the control of the country.

The rigged election has highlighted a three-way split within the regime:

* One faction — call it “the bitter-enders” — still believes that nothing has changed, that it can continue with Ahmadinejad’s agenda for “preparing the world for the return of the Hidden Imam.”

* A second faction, effectively led by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and now including Mir Hussein Mousavi (the top losing candidate in the presidential election), hopes to keep the regime intact by softening its image at home and abroad and moving toward a Chinese-style system in which tight political control is combined with economic liberalization.

* A third faction believes that the entire Khomeinist system has passed its sell-by date and that Iran is ripe for regime change in the same way that the Soviet bloc countries were in the late 1980s. This faction is led by people like former Interior Minister Abdallah Nuri (a mid-ranking cleric), former rector of Tehran University Muhammad Abbas Sheybani and former members of parliament like Mahmoud A’alami and Imadeddin Baqi.

It now seems likely that Mehdi Karrubi — a mullah who was another of the three losing candidates — may also be joining them. In a statement published in Tehran yesterday, Karrubi claimed that Khamenei’s nomination as “Supreme Guide” in 1989 had also been “a fruit of fraud” — an implicit call for him to step down.

The rigged election has also split the military. The third losing candidate was Gen. Mohsen Rezai Mir-Qaed — who led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for 16 years.

Rezai’s humiliating defeat — in an election widely viewed as rigged — has angered many Guard officers, who see him as something of a father figure. Defense Minister Gen. Mustafa Muhammad Najjar has praised Ahmadinejad in public — but the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Ali Jaafari, has maintained a meaningful silence. More, he has refused to send in Guard units to crush demonstrations in Tehran and 16 other major cites.

Since Ahmadinejad owes his ascent to support from the military-security establishment, any split in the Guard and its allied organs could spell trouble now.

Some compare the current popular unrest with the riots that shook Iran during Muhammad Khatami’s presidency. But there are a number of key differences:

* Khatami was not as unpopular personally as Ahmadinejad is. Thus, Khatami was always able to act as a bridge between protestors and the “authorities.”

* Back then, Khamenei managed to stay above the fray — thus preserving the system’s prestige, if not any actual popularity. This time, he has (for reasons hard to fathom) jumped in the ring in support of Ahmadinejad.

* Today, some heavyweights of the regime are siding with the protestors — shattering the unity of the Khomeinist establishment in the face of a popular challenge. With every day that passes the number of dignitaries declaring support for Ahmadinejad declines — while the number of those calling for his dismissal increases.

* This protest movement isn’t limited to students in major cities. There are numerous reports of unrest in small towns and villages across the country. In some places, like Marivan and Gohar-Dasht, people have attacked government offices, burning the portraits of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and seizing control of ballot boxes.

However the current struggle turns out, the regime has lost a good part of its legitimacy. It is also made clear that peaceful evolution within the regime is not possible. This makes the “regime change” option attractive for the first time since the mid-1990s.

by Ralph Peters

IT must have been the viewing angle: The despots who run Iran somehow missed the halo gracing President Obama during his recent sermon to the Muslim world.

The ruling mullahs’ contemptuous handling of Iran’s presidential election was their response to “the Cairo effect” announced a tad prematurely by the White House.

Our president’s public flagellation of America only emboldened the junta in Tehran — leaving Iran’s power brokers more defiant, determined and dismissive than they’ve been in years.

And the strongest response Obama can muster to the blood in Tehran’s streets is: “I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television.” How bold, how manly, how inspiring . . .

Our president’s speechwriters made the same mistake no end of diplomats and pundits made before them: They didn’t pause to consider the enemy’s viewpoint. Like Obama himself, they didn’t bother trying to understand the mullahs’ logic for acting as they do.

Obama believed that his rhetoric would change the strategic environment — and his White House apostles wasted no time before declaring that his Cairo speech was responsible for Hezbollah’s electoral setback in Lebanon a few days later.

Then administration spokespersons panted to take credit for the “inevitable” election of Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran. But the men who run Iran didn’t play along: Every Basij (regime-thug) baton cracking a demonstrator’s skull in Tehran is a — distinctly clenched — fist shoved in Obama’s face.

Mousavi may have won the most votes: Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably didn’t receive the landslide majority announced two hours after the polls closed — in a country that’s barely progressed beyond the abacus. We’ll never know the real tally of ballots.

Now we have the cynical charade of a “review” of the election results by the Iranian authorities. (The Persian cat really enjoys toying with the mice.)

But the point really isn’t whom the voters chose. It’s that Iran’s entrenched interests read Obama’s meant-to-be-conciliatory remarks as a confession of weakness, a signal that the United States is at the end of its strategic rope.

The result was that the mullahs and state corporatists no longer saw a need to play pretend. Bush worried them. Obama doesn’t. They judged, correctly, that Washington wouldn’t so much as issue a tough-minded statement in response to this mockery of an election. And they were right.

For its part, the administration appears stunned, still unable to believe that its self-abasement toward the Middle East didn’t inaugurate the Age of Aquarius.

Well, consider the view from Tehran (or from Qom, Iran’s religious capital): Improved relations with the United States would rob the religious junta of the justification for much of what it does, from looting the country in the name of righteousness to pursuing nuclear weapons.

The rulers in Tehran need us as an enemy (along with Israel). A demonized foe is essential to their grip on power. And all that rhetoric about the impending end of time and the return of the Hidden Imam? A key faction — which includes President Ahmadinejad — believes it.

Of course, a president who feels that one religion’s as easy to disbelieve in as another can’t fathom the depths of faith in a Muslim fanatic any more than he can grasp the benign devotion of an American Roman Catholic, Baptist or Jew.

Ahmadinejad believes that his faith alone will rule after the any-day-now apocalypse. Obama believes in . . . Obama.

This is not an even match, folks. No man preoccupied with his personal destiny can beat the man ablaze with revelation: This contest features the carnival barker vs. the suicide bomber.

My money’s on Ahmadinejad, not Obama, to trigger change in the Middle East. And it’ll be change you can believe in.

Meanwhile, the Saudis, our paramount enemies, just sit back and smirk after making a court eunuch of yet another American president. The stillborn hopes of greater freedom lie buried in the sand.

Obama’s penitential Cairo sermon betrayed those Middle Easterners who embraced our ideals, who struggled for human rights and democracy, suffering prison, torture and death. Perceived as a confession of weakness and guilt, Obama’s rhetoric electrified our enemies.

There has been a “Cairo effect.” We just saw it. In Iran.

Now we face our bloodiest year in Afghanistan. Iraq’s exciting progress has ground to a halt. All Palestinian factions just rejected an attempted opening by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And al Qaeda has awakened from its coma.

The desert’s a lousy place to walk on water.

Well, I’m glad that’s over! Now that our silver-tongued president has gone to Cairo to soothe Muslims’ hurt feelings, they love us again! Muslims in Pakistan expressed their appreciation for President Barack Obama’s speech by bombing a fancy hotel in Peshawar this week.

Operating on the liberal premise that what Arabs really respect is weakness, Obama listed, incorrectly, Muslims’ historical contributions to mankind, such as algebra (actually that was the ancient Babylonians), the compass (that was the Chinese), pens (the Chinese again) and medical discoveries (huh?).

But why be picky? All these inventions came in mighty handy on Sept. 11, 2001! Thanks, Muslims!!

Obama bravely told the Cairo audience that 9/11 was a very nasty thing for Muslims to do to us, but on the other hand, they are victims of colonization.

Except we didn’t colonize them. The French and the British did. So why are Arabs flying planes into our buildings and not the Arc de Triomphe? (And gosh, haven’t the Arabs done a lot with the Middle East since the French and the British left!)

In another sharks-to-kittens comparison, Obama said, “Now let me be clear, issues of women’s equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam.” No, he said, “the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life.”

So on one hand, 12-year-old girls are stoned to death for the crime of being raped in Muslim countries. But on the other hand, we still don’t have enough female firefighters here in America.

Delusionally, Obama bragged about his multiculti worldview, saying, “I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.” In Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, women “choose” to cover their heads on pain of losing them.

Obama rolled out the crucial liberal talking point against America’s invasion of Iraq, saying Iraq was a “war of convenience,” while Afghanistan was a “war of necessity.” Liberals cling to this nonsense doggerel as a shield against their hypocrisy on Iraq. Either both wars were wars of necessity or both wars were wars of choice.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan — nor any country — attacked us on 9/11. Both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as many other Muslim countries, were sheltering those associated with the terrorists who did attack us on 9/11 — and who hoped to attack us again.

The truth is, all wars are wars of choice, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Gulf War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. OK, maybe the war on teen obesity is a war of convenience, but that’s the only one I can think of.

The modern Democrat Party chooses — really chooses, not like Saudi women “choosing” to wear hijabs — to fight no wars. But the Democrats couldn’t say that immediately after 9/11, so they pretended to support the war in Afghanistan and then had to spend the next 7 1/2 years trying to come up with a distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq.

Maybe next they can tell us why fighting Hitler — who never invaded the U.S. and had no plans to do so — was a “necessity” in a way that fighting Saddam wasn’t. (Obama on Hitler: “Nazi ideology sought to subjugate, humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale.” Whereas Saddam Hussein was just messing with the Kuwaitis, Kurds and Shiites.)

Meanwhile, Muslims throughout the Middle East are yearning for their own Saddam Husseins to be taken out by U.S. invaders so they can be liberated, too. (Then we’ll see how many women — outside of an American college campus — “choose” to wear hijabs.) The war-of-choice/war-of-necessity point must be as mystifying to a Muslim audience as a discussion of gay marriage.

Arabs aren’t afraid of us; they’re afraid of Iran. But our aspiring Jimmy Carter had no tough words for Iran. To the contrary, in Cairo, Obama endorsed Iran’s quest for nuclear “power,” while attacking — brace yourself — America
for helping remove Iranian loon Mohammad Mossadegh.

The CIA’s taking out Mossadegh was probably the greatest thing that agency ever did. This was back in 1953, before it became a collection of lawyers and paper-pushers.

Mossadegh was as crazy as a March hare (which is really saying something when your competition is Moammar Gadhafi, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein). He gave interviews lying in bed in pink pajamas. He wept, he fainted, and he set his nation on a path of permanent impoverishment by “nationalizing” the oil wells, where they sat idle after the British companies that knew how to operate them pulled out.

But he was earthy and hated the British, so left-wing academics adored Mossadegh. The New York Times compared him to Thomas Jefferson.

True, Mossadegh had been “elected” by the Iranian parliament — but only in the chaos following the assassination of the sitting prime minister.

In short order, the shah dismissed this clown, but Mossadegh refused to step down, so the CIA forcibly removed him and allowed the shah’s choice to assume the office. This “coup,” as liberal academics term it, was approved by liberals’ favorite Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, and supported by such ponderous liberal blowhards as John Foster Dulles.

For Obama to be apologizing for one of the CIA’s greatest accomplishments isn’t just crazy, it’s Ramsey Clark crazy.

Obama also said that it was unfair that “some countries have weapons that others do not” and proclaimed that “any nation — including Iran — should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

Wait — how about us? If a fanatical holocaust denier with messianic delusions can have nuclear power, can’t the U.S. at least build one nuclear power plant every 30 years?

I’m sure Iran’s compliance will be policed as well as North Korea’s was. Clinton struck a much-heralded “peace deal” with North Korea in 1994, giving them $4 billion to construct nuclear facilities and 500,000 tons of fuel oil in return for a promise that they wouldn’t build nuclear weapons. The ink wasn’t dry before the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes.

But back to Iran, what precisely do Iranians need nuclear power for, again? They’re not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse. Iran is a primitive nation in the middle of a desert that happens to sit on top of a large percentage of the world’s oil and gas reserves. That’s not enough oil and gas to run household fans?

Obama’s “I’m OK, You’re OK” speech would be hilarious, if it weren’t so terrifying.

Also visit our Jimmy Carter Un-Presidential Library

On June 14, 1775, Congress in Philadelphia authorized a new Continental Army to prosecute what had just become a shooting war with British regulars around Boston — dispatching Gen. George Washington to organize a siege of the city.

The army’s first major victory came only months later, as a daring nighttime expedition to install artillery at Dorchester Heights forced the British evacuation of the city.

Today, the United States Army celebrates its 234th birthday — marking a proud history in which it has triumphed everywhere from the breastworks of New Orleans to the beaches of Normandy and New Guinea to the streets of Baghdad.

Indeed, the ragtag force that nearly froze at Valley Forge has long since evolved into the most effective defender of human freedom in world history.

Not a bad record, that.

To be sure, today’s Army faces daunting challenges: After nearly eight years of war — most spent fighting a pair of grueling counterinsurgencies — it still must be prepared to defend America’s security from threats all over the world.

Yet the men and women who wear the uniform — some of their generation’s best and brightest — have never shrunk from the task.

Clearly, the country’s freedom remains in good hands.

Happy birthday.

And…

HAPPY FLAG DAY!

Headlines:

“Riyadh and Arab Gulf see Shiite hands behind Iraqi Sunni leader’s slaying”

“Three blasts in Pakistan kill 11 people including prominent anti-Taliban cleric”

And yet somehow the only obstacle to world peace is some Israeli in Hebron who needs to add a bedroom to his house because there’s another baby on the way.

Q: Who kills more Muslims than anyone else?
A: Other Muslims.

Better them than us.

Keep up the good work assholes.

WONDERFUL ARABS, AMERICAN SLAVERS, WICKED JEWS

by Ralph Peters

Salaam aleikum, dudes!

I thought I knew a little bit about the Middle East. Boy, was I wrong. Last week, President Obama set me straight. Here’s what our president taught me during his Middle-Eastern pilgrimage:

There is no more terrorism.

Wow, cool! No more security checks at airports, right? It’s unclear which side won, but it’s all over. Obama didn’t mention terrorism a single time in his star-turn speech in Cairo. Only a few “violent extremists” (our own troops?) remain at large.

America tortured.

I thought there was still a debate about that, but I guess not. And no regime in the Middle East tortures anybody, ever. Our bad.

Churches and synagogues are about to open in Saudi Arabia. Since “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance” and there are “over 1,200 mosques within our borders,” I can’t wait for the first Baptist hymn-sing in Riyadh. Sign me up!

Behind closed doors with Saudi King Abdullah, our president must’ve mentioned the many hundreds of churches and synagogues that thrived on the Arabian Peninsula during the Prophet’s lifetime. Muslims zealots destroyed them. Time to get the bin Laden family’s construction firm on the job re-building!

And stoning converts who leave Islam to death is a no-no, right?

Women can dress any way they want in Saudi Arabia. Just my analysis, based on Obama’s insistence that Islam recognizes “the dignity of all human beings” and that Muslim women must be free to make their own decisions about what to wear. Surely, fashion choices extend to Mecca and Medina, not just Detroit and Paris?

“Islam has always been a part of America’s story.” Guess the Founding Fathers missed that one. But I’m assured that George Washington turned to his mullah in the dark days at Valley Forge, that Daniel Boone read the Koran around the campfire, and that al Qaeda stood by us at the Alamo.

Yeah, there was that misunderstanding with the Muslim Barbary Pirates, when they killed, kidnapped and enslaved American citizens for years – but who’s perfect?

There are “nearly seven million American Muslims.” Who knew? We all thought there were three or four million, max. Is this a preview of the predetermined results of our upcoming census? [Note to editor: Confirm numbers with ACORN.]

“It was not violence that won full and equal rights” for black Americans. So much for the Civil War and my ancestor, who volunteered to wear Union blue and paid for it with his life. I thought a half-million Americans died fighting to end slavery. Silly me. Still, it was brave of our president to highlight slavery’s “lash of the whip” in his speech, since his own ancestors, as Muslims along Africa’s Swahili Coast, would have been complicit – if not actively engaged – in enslaving their fellow black Africans for Arab masters. As a self-proclaimed “student of history,” Obama surely knows that.

Holocaust, schmolocaust.

Aren’t those pesky Jews ever going to go away? Yes, denying the Holocaust is “hateful.” But let’s get a grip. Palestinians “endure . . . daily humiliations.” Their lot’s “intolerable.” Israel “devastates Palestinian families.” No wonder our president shunned wicked Israel during his trip – sending a clear, if unspoken, message that Jews are now fair game.

“America’s strong bonds with Israel are . . . unbreakable.” Yup. And they’re issued by Chrysler.

Hamas is a legitimate, recognized voice of the Palestinians. Rocket attacks against civilians, suicide bombings and kidnappings really work.

Iran can have nukes.

Our president’s acceptance of “peaceful nuclear power” for Tehran was coded language for “no pre-emptive military action.”

Jordan doesn’t matter.

So much for one Arab country’s attempts at human decency. If you want attention from our president, you’ve got to be a desert gangbanger.

My wife wondered why Obama didn’t make his speech in Indonesia, the world’s most-populous Muslim state, where he would’ve been welcomed proudly as a home-boy. Obama just reinforced the stereotype that Muslim equals Arab.

Democracy isn’t for everybody.

We’re done peddling that particular drug.

Of course, our president didn’t mention al Qaeda’s catastrophic defeat in Iraq, where millions of Sunni Arabs rejected the terror organization. Iraq was Bush’s war, so it’s all bad.

And forget junk like modern medicine, telecommunications or even the internal combustion engine. Islam’s been the source of real progress. Like “calligraphy.” Medieval Islam’s ballyhooed contributions actually were due to Greek-speaking Christians (including slaves) employed as court officials, to Armenian architects and Jewish physicians. But, yeah, Arabs had really good penmanship.

Our president’s breakthrough message to the Muslim world was that America overthrew democratic regimes, slavery was our history’s central feature, and we invaded people on a whim – but we’re sorry now.

His crowd-pleasing speech sanitized and romanticized Islam, letting the disgruntled populations of the Middle East off the hook for their own self-wrought failures, their monstrous oppression of women (our president’s women’s-right-to-wear-hijab remarks were aimed at Europe), and the violent aggression toward others they often celebrated and generally tolerated.

To Arab ears, especially, the Cairo speech made America the guilty party in our confrontations, as if, on 9/11, crazed Presbyterians had attacked Mecca. Yet, the historical facts are that Islam’s remorseless assault on the West lasted for more than one thousand years, its cruel occupation of Christian lands lasted into the 20th century, and the dream of an all-conquering caliphate remains very much with us.

The last mass slaughter of Christians in Iraq wasn’t a millennium ago, but in 1933. Al Qaeda isn’t an aberration. It’s a manifestation.

Our president may or may not be a student of history, but he can’t just make it up.

Aleikum salaam!

In the wake of the shooting of late-term abortionist George Tiller, President Barack Obama sent out a welcome message that this nation would not tolerate attacks on pro-lifers or any other Americans because of their religion or beliefs.

Ha ha! Just kidding. That was the lead sentence — with minor edits — of a New York Times editorial warning about theoretical hate crimes against Muslims published eight months after 9/11. Can pro-lifers get a hate crimes bill passed and oceans of ink devoted to assuring Americans that “most pro-lifers are peaceful”?

For years, we’ve had to hear about the grave threat that Americans might overreact to a terrorist attack committed by 19 Muslims shouting “Allahu akbar” as they flew commercial jets into American skyscrapers. That would be the equivalent of 19 pro-lifers shouting “Abortion kills a beating heart!” as they gunned down thousands of innocent citizens in Wichita, Kan.

Why aren’t liberals rushing to assure us this time that “most pro-lifers are peaceful”? Unlike Muslims, pro-lifers actually are peaceful.

According to recent polling, a majority of Americans oppose abortion — which is consistent with liberals’ hysterical refusal to allow us to vote on the subject. In a country with approximately 150 million pro-lifers, five abortionists have been killed since Roe v. Wade.

In that same 36 years, more than 49 million babies have been killed by abortionists. Let’s recap that halftime score, sports fans: 49 million to five.

Meanwhile, fewer than 2 million Muslims live in America and, while Muslims are less murderous than abortionists, I’m fairly certain they’ve killed more than five people in the United States in the last 36 years. For some reason, the number “3,000″ keeps popping into my head.

So in a country that is more than 50 percent pro-life — and 80 percent opposed to the late-term abortions of the sort performed by Tiller — only five abortionists have been killed. And in a country that is less than 0.5 percent Muslim, several dozen Muslims have killed thousands of Americans.

But the killing of about one abortionist per decade leads liberals to condemn the entire pro-life movement as “domestic terrorists.” At least liberals have finally found some terrorists they’d like to send to Guantanamo.

Tiller bragged about performing 60,000 abortions, including abortions of viable babies, able to survive outside the mother’s womb. He made millions of dollars performing late-term abortions so gruesome that only two other abortionists — not a squeamish bunch — in the entire country would perform them.

Kansas law allows late-term abortions only to save the mother’s life or to prevent “irreversible physical damage” to the mother. But Tiller was more than happy to kill viable babies, provided the mothers: (1) forked over $5,000; and (2) mentioned “substantial and irreversible conditions,” which, in Tiller’s view, apparently included not being able to go to concerts or rodeos or being “temporarily depressed” on account of their pregnancies.

In return for blood money from Tiller’s profitable abattoir, Democrats ran a political protection racket for the late-term abortionist.

In 1997, The Washington Post reported that Tiller attended one of Bill Clinton’s White House coffees for major campaign contributors. In addition to a $25,000 donation to Clinton, Tiller wanted to thank him personally for 30 months of U.S. Marshals’ protection paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

Kansas Democrats who received hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars from Tiller repeatedly intervened to block any interference with Tiller’s abortion mill.

Kathleen Sebelius, who was the governor of Kansas until Obama made her Health and Human Services Secretary, received hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars from Tiller. Sebelius vetoed one bill restricting late-term abortions and another one that would have required Tiller to turn over his records pertaining to “substantial and irreversible conditions” justifying his late-term abortions.

Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison also got elected with the help of Tiller’s blood money, replacing a Republican attorney general who was in the middle of an investigation of Tiller for various crimes including his failure to report statutory rapes, despite performing abortions on pregnant girls as young as 11.

But soon after Morrison replaced the Republican attorney general, the charges against Tiller were reduced and, in short order, he was acquitted of a few misdemeanors. In what is a not uncommon cost of doing business with Democrats, Morrison is now gone, having been forced to resign when his mistress charged him with sexual harassment and corruption.

Tiller was protected not only by a praetorian guard of elected Democrats, but also by the protective coloration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — coincidentally, the same church belonged to by Tiller’s fellow Wichita executioner, the BTK killer.

The official Web page of the ELCA instructs: “A developing life in the womb does not have an absolute right to be born.” As long as we’re deciding who does and doesn’t have an “absolute right to be born,” who’s to say late-term abortionists have an “absolute right” to live?

I wouldn’t kill an abortionist myself, but I wouldn’t want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for shooting abortionists. But how will criminalizing men making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the shootings of abortionists?

Following the moral precepts of liberals, I believe the correct position is: If you don’t believe in shooting abortionists, then don’t shoot one.

By BENNY AVNI
New York Post

BARACK Obama’s first Middle East trip as president has some Israelis focusing on the journey’s “missing leg.”

Obama’s purpose is to make nice to Muslims, a goal that even Israeli right-wingers appreciate. But as he plans a major speech to Arabs and Muslims from Cairo and a hop over to Saudi Arabia, the Israelis are asking: “Hey, what about us?”

Israeli officials aren’t yet saying they see a symbolic snub — they prefer to talk about the nascent relations between Washington and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But many Israelis and their US supporters are wondering if Obama will fall into a trap set by those in Washington who think the close ties between America and the Jewish state are the main impediment to improving relations with Arabs and Muslims.

Obama’s confrontational demand for a total Israeli freeze on settlement-building should be seen in that context.

Is the object of the demand to find a solution that both Israelis and Palestinians can live with and build on? If so, previous Israeli, Palestinian and US administrations developed formulas that address the concerns of all sides.

However, if Obama simply wants to prove to Arabs and Muslims that he’s willing to pressure Netanyahu — that he is on “their side” — Israelis and their supporters should worry.

They’ll listen carefully to his Cairo and Riyadh speeches. Most are willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he is genuinely attempting to negotiate his way through the Middle East thicket. If that’s the case, skipping Jerusalem on his first regional trip will quickly be forgotten.

But if Obama is planning a sustained public display of confrontation with Israel, this week’s tour will long be remembered as the first real sign that an American president turned away from a worthy tradition begun when President Truman embraced the newly born Israeli state.

beavni@gmail.com