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Eurasian alliances challenge US clout
5:00AM Tuesday July 24, 2007
By Michael Richardson
China and Russia are seeking to cement their strategic partnership and create a multi-polar world in which the United States will find it much more difficult to dominate international affairs.
It is tempting to see the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation as an expanding bulwark against Western influence in Eurasia.
Founded in Shanghai in 2001, the regional group has six full members: China, Russia and four former Soviet republics in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The organisation will hold its annual summit next month.
Neighbouring states are flocking to associate themselves with the group at the highest possible level. Among them is Iran, seeking protection and allies in its battle to fend off pressure from the US, Europe and other countries that suspect it is secretly trying to develop atomic weapons in the guise of a peaceful nuclear programme.
Iran is already an observer member of the SCO and its hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to attend the August 16 summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as a distinguished guest, intensifying speculation Tehran may join the group as a full member.
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AdvertisementWhen the US asked several years ago to send observers to SCO summits, its request was refused. Then Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, were admitted as observer members.
At their 2005 summit, the SCO leaders called on the US and its Nato partners, which had been given military facilities in Central Asia after al Qaeda's attacks on America in September 2001, to set a timetable for withdrawal.
Around the same time, Uzbekistan expelled US forces stationed in its territory.
It seemed that a co-ordinated attempt was under way to exclude the US and its Western partners from Central Asia. But since then, there have been other developments suggesting that the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation should not be seen as an anti-Western alliance.
For a start, if it does expand to include new full members, they could include - in addition to Iran - Mongolia, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. All of which have close ties with the US.
The US-led invasion of Iraq has exposed the limits of American power while providing a rallying point for Muslim extremists. The security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating sharply.
Taleban guerrillas and their al Qaeda allies are making a comeback in the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border zone, using revenue from opium poppy cultivation and the drug trade to buy weapons, explosives and influence.
This threatens stability not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan but in the Central Asian republics that belong to the SCO.
The latter have recently expressed fears about an upsurge of Muslim radicalism, although critics say this is due more to domestic repression of dissent than to external jihadist influence. Significantly, Kyrgyzstan, host of next month's SCO summit, agreed a year ago to allow the US and its Nato partners to continue using a key airbase to support operations in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Russia's relations with Iran have gone downhill over the nuclear issue and the related problem of Iran's potential ballistic missile threat to Europe and the US.
China has joined Russia, the US, Britain and France - the other four permanent members of the United Security Council - to ratchet up sanctions against Iran.
The Chinese and Russian defence ministers insisted last month that the SCO was a counter-terrorism group, not one directed against any third countries. The SCO defence ministers said in a joint statement that the group must increase regional and international security co-operation, paying special attention to the problems of separatism, terrorism, extremism, drug and arms trafficking, illegal migration and other forms of transnational crime.
Underlying this common interest in crushing Muslim and other challenges to state authority, is a struggle between China and Russia for influence in the Central Asian region.
Moscow wants to re-establish its dominance in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Indeed, there is a competing Russian-led counterpart to the SCO, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation for the region. Beijing, meanwhile, aims to draw the Central Asian republics into China's orbit.
The competition is most evident as China and Russia compete for control over Central Asia's rich energy resources, particularly its oil and gas. The president of non-member Turkmenistan - the second-biggest natural gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia - will attend the SCO summit in Bishkek next month as a distinguished guest.
Until now, all its gas has been piped to Russia, often at relatively low prices.
However, this month Turkmenistan signed a deal with China to produce and export gas to China for the next 30 years. According to official Chinese reports, the gas will be funnelled into China, the world's second largest energy user after the US, via a planned Central Asian pipeline funded by China.
China already gets substantial amounts of oil from Kazakhstan by pipeline. By providing an alternative energy outlet to Russia for Central Asian energy producers, Beijing is aiming to play a trump card in the new Great Game for EurAsia.
* Michael Richardson is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10453331&pnum=0
Gingrich says Fred Thompson presidential bid could keep him out of race
Former top aide to Gingrich to become Thompson adviser
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that a White House bid by fellow Southerner Fred Thompson would make him less likely to join the race.
"If Fred Thompson runs and he does well, then I think that makes it easier for me to not run," Gingrich said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "On the other hand, just given what you've seen with (John) McCain the last few months, how can you predict?"
Gingrich, a Republican who in recent months has been actively promoting his ideas for reforming government, reiterated that he would wait until early October to make a decision.
He has at times offered conflicting hints about his plans.
In May, he said "it is a great possibility" that he would pursue the presidency. But a month later he said the probability was "4-to-1 odds" against.
"I've always said it was unlikely I would run," the former Georgia congressman said Friday.
Gingrich is scheduled to give a daylong briefing at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday where he plans to contrast the private sector, which he calls "the world that works," with the government, which he calls "the world that fails."
The speech is part of a broader public relations campaign planned for the coming months.
"The system is simply broken," he said, citing failing public schools, the government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina and its inability to control immigration. "I don't think you can fix these systems ... I would outsource large parts of them."
In a related development, Rich Galen, a former top aide to Gingrich, will become a top adviser to Thompson, the former Republican Tennessee senator who is likely to officially enter the presidential race in September.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/NEWS/70721003/1001
3 months later i finally get a response
Dear Mr. chunga.... :0
Thank you for contacting my office regarding immigration. Our immigration system is broken and must be reformed. As the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 110 th Congress, I worked tirelessly with my fellow Senators as well as the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a "grand compromise" regarding immigration.
This compromise would have ensured the security of our borders while providing practical solutions regarding the millions of undocumented immigrants already residing within the United States . Unfortunately, the Senate was unable to reach agreement on the legislation in its current form.
Although this legislation has been set aside for now, I continue to believe that the "grand compromise" included many of the elements needed for a solution to our broken immigration system. The legislation made border security a top priority by providing for 20,000 border patrol agents and requiring 700 miles of new fencing along the border. It also provided the resources needed to detain up to 31,500 aliens per day on an annual basis, effectively ending the old "catch and release" program. Importantly, the bill required that all of these border security measures or "triggers" be implemented before any other provision of the comprehensive legislation was begun. Additionally, it provided $4.4 billion in federal funding to help ensure that the enforcement "triggers" were met. The legislation also mandated the development of an effective electronic employment verification system, which would have ensured that employers had the ability to verify the legal status of those they considered hiring.
In addition to the strong approach the comprehensive immigration bill would have taken towards border security, it also included a firm but reasonable approach towards those individuals here illegally. Currently, there are more than 12 million people living in the United States without proper documentation. This legislation required undocumented immigrants to go on "probationary" status and to undergo extensive background checks. If an individual passed the necessary security checks, paid substantial fines, and demonstrated proficiency in English, the individual would have "earned" the privilege to remain in the United States . In order to be eligible to earn that privilege, however, individuals would also have had to return to their home countries and apply through a consulate or an embassy. By requiring immigrants to earn their privilege to permanent legal status, the bill provided a reasonable solution to the country's immigration problems that would have been both tough and fair.
It is also very important for our economy that we create an effective temporary worker program that allows an employer to find a temporary worker when no willing US worker is available. Under the immigration bill, those desiring temporary employment in the United States would have been issued a "Y" visa, which would have been good for two years. Then, the migrant worker would have had to return to his or her home country for a period of one year before being allowed to return back to the United States .
Another important aspect of this bill was the creation of a merit based system for allocating green cards. This new system focused on attracting the immigrants who would make the biggest contributions to our society. The system was designed to reward those who had demonstrated a proficiency in English, had received higher forms of education and other training, and had employment opportunities in the United States . Not only would this practice have strengthened the economy of the United States , but it would have ended the practice of "chain migration," a practice that allows people to immigrate simply by virtue of being related to those who are already here legally.
Again, I thank you for contacting my office. It is my belief that this country is in desperate need of a comprehensive immigration bill to fix our current problems and I hope the Senate is able to eventually agree on a suitable compromise. I will keep in mind your input as we continue to debate immigration. If you have any additional questions on this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to contact my office or visit my website at www.specter.senate.gov .
Sincerely,
Arlen Specter
Interview with Duncan Hunter
Telephone interview recorded on Friday, July 13, 2007 at 2:30 pm EST by Tom McLaughlin for Family Security Matters.
Hello. This is Duncan Hunter.
Thank you for calling, Congressmen. I’ll be recording this conversation. Is that all right with you?
It is.
Okay. Let’s get started. I have twelve basic questions for all the presidential candidates, but I have one especially for you given your background. You served your country as a soldier in Vietnam. You must be having some thoughts about what happened in 1975 when the Democrats were in the majority in the United States Congress, and what is being threatened today for Iraq now that Democrats have taken control of Congress again.
Well, I think we’re going to prevail in Iraq, and I think the government of Iraq is going to hold and that the army will hold. There are a hundred and twenty battalions that make up the Iraqi Army. They’re being trained and equipped right now and a lot of them are getting quite a bit of combat operational experience.
Um-hmm.
In my estimation, Iraq will move along. It’s an inept government as most new governments are, but I think it will mature over a period of time. I’m reminded that in Vietnam, Congress totally cut off aid to South Vietnam - which was a left-wing reaction to the Democrat, left-dominated Congress. It really, to a large degree, was a function of Watergate.
Um-hmm. Yes it was. Do you have as much confidence in our Democrat-controlled Congress as you do that the Iraqi government will hold?
Yes. There are much smaller margins and a less left-leaning Congress now than we had right after 1974. Nixon was paralyzed by Watergate in 1974.
Yes. Well, I hope you’re right. Have you seen the rest of my questions? I sent them ahead of time to Mr. Tyler.
No. I haven’t seen them.
Well, I’m going to them now. First of all: When and why did you decide to run for president?
Well, I’ve always been focused on national security issues during my entire career in congress - twenty-six years - the last four years as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. I think the next five to seven years are going to be years in which national security is a major focus for our country, and I believe that I have particular credentials, strong credentials, to commander-in-chief. I’ve served the country. My son has served two tours in Iraq, and I’ve been a member of the Armed Services Committee for twenty-six years and a chairman of the committee for four. That means I can look the American people in the eye in a military crisis and say, “We’re all in this together.” I think that’s an important element, or dimension, to bring to national leadership. I also think the country needs a rebirth of its economic base, and particularly its industrial base. Right now we’re suffering under what I consider to be very bad trade policies, in which our trading competitors benefit from an uneven playing field, in which our manufacturing industry is double-taxed when it exports, and in which our competitors pay no taxes. We’re allowing China to cheat on trade right now and that unbalanced or uneven playing field is accruing to our detriment. It’s caused massive trade imbalances - massive trade losses for the US and the resultant losses of jobs and business. I want to change that as president.
Okay, that’s the why of it . . .
I’ll stop the Chinese from cheating on trade.
Okay. When did you make the decision to run?
I thought about it over the last several years and it was a decision I made about four or five months before I announced.
All right.
So, I don’t have a particular, ah, moment, but it was decision that was a long time in the making.
Okay. What do you see as our biggest domestic problem?
I think, ah, high-paying jobs and a strong economy for this next generation, so they can have the opportunity they deserve and the educational opportunity they deserve. That’s going to require a strong industrial base. That’s why it’s so important that we renew America’s manufacturing base. I think that is, in fact, our biggest problem because the manufacturing base is important to Americans for two reasons: One, it supports high-paying jobs that will allow this next generation to support an aging generation which will be dependent upon them. But secondly, a strong industrial base is important to national security. As the industrial base erodes and moves off-shore, that’s going to make it very difficult for the United States over a period of time to be able to continue to have the support that it needs in the industrial base to be able to maintain all of the weapons systems and the weapons development that we need.
Um-hmm.
Basically, America’s industrial base - what FDR called the “arsenal of democracy” - won World War I, World War II and the Cold War for this country. That industrial base is being fractured and moved off-shore right now. We need to stem that hemorrhage of industrial capability and bring some of it back to the United States. I think we should take down manufacturing taxes to zero in this country. We need to stop the Chinese from cheating on trade. That means passing the Hunter/Ryan bill which stops currency devaluation on the part of China - they’re devaluing their currency by forty percent right now - and that will provide some stability to the manufacturing base in this country.
So, you are not against what is commonly referred to as “free trade.” You would like to re-negotiate the position of the United States in that realm. Would that be a safe way to sum it up?
Yes, but in two areas: One is that China is cheating on the trade rules as they stand right now. When you devalue your currency by forty percent, that’s a species of state subsidy and that allows Chinese products to undercut the costs of American products across the board. The other one is that the trade deal we signed after World War II, when most of the world was burned out, was very uneven. It gave other nations the ability to subsidize their industries by rebating their taxes to them - allowing that to take place for every nation except the United States. The United State is the only one of the top ten trading countries that cannot rebate its taxes to its manufacturers.
And that’s because of some policy made domestically and not because of some international agreements?
No, that’s an international deal that we made. We agreed under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that we would be treated unequally from all the other trading countries of the world. It was almost foreign aid. We did that after World War II when the rest of the world was in pretty bad shape. Today the countries that were burned out now have robust manufacturing capability.
Indeed. Well, what do you see as our biggest foreign policy problem?
I think that, obviously, the development of nuclear weapons in Iran - the pursuit of nuclear weapons in Iran, the fact that North Korea has some now and is racing to develop the means for delivery, and the emergence of China as a new superpower stepping into the shoes of the former Soviet Union.
Um-hmm. Okay. In our struggle against Radical Islam, how important is the propaganda war?
Here’s what I would say: with the emergence of mass media since [World War II], the emergence of things like the internet, the proliferation of television stations and radio stations around the world, has minimized the ability of any one entity to shape the news. Now I would say that what I call the “American example,” that is, just the basic decency and goodness of the American people that is manifested in lots and lots of activities, like the fact that we undertook - in the tsunami - we undertook an airlift that was bigger than any airlift since the Berlin Airlift.
Hmm. I didn’t realize that.
Yes, and we responded, with the American fleet, to the requirements - to the humanitarian requirements - in a way that was totally unprecedented. I think the world takes note of that. I also think that in Iraq, al Qaeda for example, in driving these bomb-laden trucks into crowds of women and children, has damaged its image in the Muslim world. I think that’s been evidenced by the new move by the Sunni population in Anbar Province against al Qaeda leadership.
Um-hmm.
And the turnaround that we’ve seen in cities like Fallujah and Hamadi.
So, as president you would use the bully pulpit to call more attention to actions like that.
Yes, I’d say to what I call the American example, the example of spreading freedom and supporting humanitarian operations around the world - all the good things that are manifest in America.
All right. How will you deal with our legal and illegal immigration problems?
You know, I wrote the bill that mandates a border fence that was signed into law by the president. That’s the 850 miles of border fence that is now mandated to be constructed across Arizona and New Mexico and Texas. I wrote that bill. They’ve only built thirteen miles of that fence so far. Putting up a fence across the southern border - it’s a double fence with a border patrol road in between - I built the fence in San Diego which has reduced the smuggling out there of people and narcotics by more than ninety percent. The 854-mile fence is mandated to be constructed across the major smuggler’s corridors in those three states that I mentioned - Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. That will go a long way toward enforcement of the border, which is key not only to the immigration issue, but also to the security issue. So enforcement of the border is something I would put a lot of emphasis on. But number one - I’d just simply carry out the very law that I wrote as a congressman and that’s the Border Fence Act.
Okay. How do you understand the first part of our Fourteenth Amendment, and I quote: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside”?
(The Congressman’s car was passing through a suspension bridge and there was interference as I read the question) I haven’t had a legal analysis of that amendment lately but I know Bilbray’s legislation, Congressman Bilbray’s legislation, contemplates that there’s not an absolute right to have citizenship as a result of having been born in the United States, and I think that’s a substantive argument which appears to have some merit.
So as president you would, say, use the Attorney General to challenge the way that’s interpreted?
Yeah, well, I don’t think you want a president that makes decisions on fairly complicated legal rulings as he’s driving in a car through a bridge. I would say this - what I’ve seen of that analysis of the Constitutional amendment [in the proposed bill] appears to have merit and I’d look very carefully at that. I don’t think it makes good sense that people can simply be smuggled into the United States and having done that, acquiring citizenship for their child.
I live in a sanctuary state - right on the border between Maine and New Hampshire on the Maine side - would you require states and cities to restrict federally-subsidized social services to citizens only?
I think, generally speaking, one thing about Americans is that we don’t step over people who are dying on the basis that they are not citizens. We handle emergency calls for all.
Um-hmm.
But I would say that of course you would continue emergency medical care - life-saving medical care would not be denied people - but I think I think that it’s absolutely appropriate that taxpayers’ benefits not go to people who are here illegally.
Okay. You’ve already answered some of these questions . . .
Do you remember Proposition 87 we had in California?
Yes.
I supported Prop 87.
Okay. Victory in Iraq: what would it look like? You pretty much described that in answer to the first question.
I would say a country that is a friend, not an enemy of the United States - a country that has a modicum of freedom and which will not be a state sponsor of terrorism.
Hmm. How important do you think democracy is in the Middle East?
Having a modicum of representative government, which I think Iraq has right now, is an important element of the seed that we’ve planted in that part of the Middle East. It is, I think, an important thing, and hopefully something that will - as difficult and as tough as this is - will lead to stable governments that will have a benign relationship with our nation. That should accrue to the long-term benefit of the United States and our interests in that region.
Do you think it would be . . .
It’s not something that comes easy, but I think it’s something that’s worth working for. I think we do that - I think we pursue a modicum of democracy - understanding that it’s being done in a culture that’s been trained to accommodate dictators, and that the change is not easily delivered.
Hmm. Hopefully it will be contagious.
Yeah. Well, we saw little ripples in Lebanon and in Egypt after we, after the elections in Iraq.
We did. We did. How would you deal with Iran? You already partially answered that question as well, but . . .
Yeah. I think Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear devices.
Um-hmm.
And in my administration they would not be allowed.
All methods of persuasion on the table . . .
Yeah.
Okay. What do you think of the old quote: “That government is best that governs least”?
I like that.
Attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but I guess he didn’t say it. I guess it was Henry David Thoreau of all people, but . . .
Is that right?
Yeah.
I think that’s generally a good statement. Of course all those statements are subject to exceptions. There are certain times when you need strong national leadership, especially in time of war, and there are times, for example when you need to enforce your borders and you need to have strong federal action.
Would you shrink our federal bureaucracy, other than the military?
I think we can bring the bureaucracy down markedly. We can even bring down some of the bureaucracy in the military.
All right. How would you interpret our Second Amendment?
Well, the right to keep and bear arms - I think that’s a very important part of homeland security. The ability of a person to own and maintain a firearm and to protect his house and his community and his country is an important part of our national security.
Okay. Last question . . .
I’m also a big hunter but I think hunting is not the reason you’ve got a right to keep and bear arms.
Hunting is not the reason? More personal security.
Personal security and the security of our community and our country.
Um-hmm.
You know, especially when we’ve been invaded recently with the attack on 9-11, if there had been a ground attack that had accompanied the aerial attack in a city like New York where all the good people had been disarmed, it would have been devastating.
Certainly. Last question: How would you handle efforts as president to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine?
Well, I think the attempt to muzzle talk radio under the so-called Fairness Doctrine is a reflection of the fact that liberals don’t like that most Americans are conservative. Talk radio is generally conservative because it reflects the views of the American people. The idea that you have to inject liberal views on talk radio [broadcast] to a community that is not liberal is, I think, an invalid concept. I think we’re going to have to protect the free speech of talk radio from the objects of its criticism, and that is - liberal politicians.
Um, if I could ask one more - I saw on your web site that you would increase the size of our military. You were specific about Marines.
Yeah, about ten extra battalions for the US Marine Corps. We made this recommendation when I was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. You’d have to go back and look at the paperwork, but I believe it was ten battalions for the Marines and something like about eight additional Army brigade combat teams.
How big is a brigade?
A battalion is actually about 800 folks, so a brigade is maybe, ah, 3000 folks.
And you made that recommendation about four years ago?
We made it a recommendation two years ago to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps over the objection of the Pentagon which said they didn’t [need them] - and I actually increased the size of the Marines over the last couple of years to 180,000 people.
You wrote a bill that was passed that would do so?
The Administration came back this year with a proposal that’s in agreement with that. They do recommend now increasing the size of the Marine Corps and the Army. As a matter of fact, over the last couple of years we’ve increased the in-strength of the Army by 30,000 persons and we’ve increased the size of the Marine Corps to 180,000. I did that by putting in provisions for additional in-strength in the Marine Corps over the last several years.
Well Congressman, I really thank you for your time and Family Security Matters thanks you as well.
You’re very welcome.
And best of luck with your campaign.
Thank you.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/challenges.php?id=1152453
Next war inevitable
Nasrallah's control over south Lebanon complete despite presence of UN troops
Majdi Halabi Published: 07.13.07, 08:01 / Israel Opinion
A year has passed since the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, yet it appears that nothing has changed in south Lebanon. The entire region still belongs to Hizbullah. Nothing happens there without the organization's approval.
Even weddings are coordinated with Hizbullah activists so that everything is orderly and no "undesirable songs" are played, heaven forbid, that praise another leader except for Nasrallah – I was told of this by a Lebanese friend who resides in the south of the country. He says that members of the organization take care of everything. The money available to close associates there is doing its job, and the southern villages show absolute loyalty to Hizbullah and to Nasrallah.
Hizbullah members transferred huge sums to the south and earmarked funds to rebuilding homes destroyed by the IDF during the war. In some cases the organization even earmarks funds for people who lost their jobs.
Hizbullah's control in the south is absolute not only in civilian matters, but also when it comes to military affairs. Recently, many Hizbullah flags were hung on 10-meter high (roughly 30 feet) flagpoles under the open eyes of UNIFIL and Lebanese troops, and while the IDF observed this from border outposts. The flags were placed there with no resistance or even protest on the part of Israel, and it appears we are back to the situation that prevailed here following the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.
We will likely see the flags followed by activists, outposts, arms, and also missiles. And again we will reach the nightmare scenario with farmers and soldiers moving around under the shadow of abduction threats, and this time under the supervision of UN observers and the Lebanese army and with silence on the part of Israel, who would not be quick to provoke.
Hizbullah preparing for war
The situation in Lebanon is volatile. Hizbullah is planning a revolution and a takeover of the Lebanese government, and aims to establish an alternative government with its new partner, Michel Aoun, who up until recently was considered an Israeli spy. This coup will immediately by recognized by Syria and Iran, and the whole of Lebanon will go up in flames. Under such circumstances, it would be natural for the fire to be directed at Israel again.
This is the scenario discussed in Lebanon lately, and Lebanese of all factions I spoke to claim that Israel's failure in its war against Hizbullah brought the organization to a position of power it never enjoyed before. Its military power, which was able to withstand the most powerful and sophisticated army in the region, deters all rivals and the government, which does not even dare openly discuss the notion of disarming the organization.
Meanwhile, Hizbullah continues to bring in huge quantities of sophisticated weapons and various types of missiles into Lebanon and smuggles them to the south. There is no doubt, Hizbullah is preparing for another war against Israel, this time with direct Syrian and Iranian military backing.
Many Lebanese viewed Israel as the key to resolving their problems, yet following the failure in the last war they see a grim future that would lead to cruel Syrian and Iranian control over them. Hizbullah defeated Israel, according to what many in Lebanon say, and they wait for Israel to restore its former glory.
Yet meanwhile, even though Olmert boasts of "expelling" Hizbullah from south Lebanon, Nasrallah's organization is still in full control. It will pull out its weapons when needed and launch the daily missile barrage, similarly to what happened here in the Second Lebanon War.
All the talk about Security Council Resolution 1701 and its implementation on the ground is futile, or as they say in Lebanon: Empty words.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3424693,00.html
probably get the same answers 8) grub!
LOLROTF.. Jupiter is closer to the sun?
Rothschild knows less about the Earth and her neighbors than a typical 2nd grader! LOL! Excellent! Typical liberal! Maybe we should ask Al Gore the same questions!
so where's the outrage over yet another hypocritical conservative values LIAR?
Vitter Flashback: Clinton should resign.
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) first got his start in Congress after replacing former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), who “abruptly resigned after disclosures of numerous affairs” in 1998. At the time, Vitter argued that an extramarital affair was grounds for resignation:
“I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess,” he said. [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]
Top Global Warming Advocate: Jupiter & Saturn Closer To Sun Than Earth
Live Earth kingpin dismantles his own credibility on national radio as propaganda bandwagon is massive flop
by Paul Joseph Watson
Global Research, July 9, 2007
prisonplanet.com
Live Earth's half empty stadiums and lackluster TV viewing figures were preceded by another embarrassment after one of the propaganda bandwagon's kingpins and a top global warming advocate responded to a question about solar-system wide climate change by claiming that Jupiter, Mars and Saturn were closer to the sun than Earth.
David Mayer de Rothschild is the youngest child (born 1978) of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, of the British wing of the Rothschild banking family.
Rothschild's recent book, 77 Essential Skills to Stop Climate Changes, calls for ordinary people to limit outward behavior and even work at home and was used as part of the PR blitz to accompany the Live Earth project.
Appearing on The Alex Jones Show this past Friday, Rothschild reacted to a point about massive climate change at every point of the solar system and its relation to natural sun cycles by claiming Mars, Saturn and Jupiter were closer to the sun than Earth!
Here's a brief transcript of the exchange.
ALEX JONES: "The polar icecaps of Mars are receding at several miles a year, much faster than ours and that the moons of Saturn and Jupiter are melting, in fact several of their moons were ice and are now liquid seas - how are SUV's causing that David Rothschild?
ROTHSCHILD: "Because those planets are closer to the sun, my friend."
ALEX JONES: "No, Jupiter and Saturn are not closer to the sun and neither is Mars."
Rothschild then quickly changes the subject and when the point is raised again later in the show, he makes no effort to correct himself.
.
Last time we checked, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were all orbiting the sun at a greater distance than Earth.
Rothschild's hilarious screw-up is yet another example as to why the general public remain unconvinced by the error-strewn apocalyptic admonitions of the climate cult.
A Mori poll released last week found that a majority of the UK population were still skeptical about man-made global warming and believed the threats were being exaggerated for political purposes and to make money.
Throughout the radio appearance, Rothschild parrots empty sound bite platitudes about there only being "one earth," while failing to address recent scientific analysis which reveals that the oldest plant DNA ever discovered showed that "the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed," again underscoring the fact that climate change is a routine and natural phenomenon that has occurred throughout earth's history.
Although Rothschild stresses the existence of just one earth on numerous occasions, it appears as though he thinks there is another one earth orbiting the sun - at a greater distance than Saturn or Jupiter!
He also glibly repeats the charge that the radio station he was appearing on, the Genesis Communications Network, was bankrolled by the oil industry and that was the reason for challenging the monopoly on truth that the man-made global warming crowd attribute themselves.
Deliciously ironic therefore it is that big oil men like the chairman of British Petroleum Peter Sutherland are fanning the flames of global warming hysteria in order to create artificial scarcity and drive up prices, while also getting fat off the peak oil scam, another charade manufactured by the oil companies and gleefully embraced by phony environmentalists.
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General Lord Guthrie, director of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, also recently called for the elite to, "Address the global climate crisis with a single voice, and impose rules that apply worldwide," (global government).
In addition, it was the Rothschild family itself that helped fund the Rockefellers to create the first giant trusts and oil monopolies in the late 19th century.
Every time a public figure or scientist dares to question the global warming orthodoxy, they are savaged as being in bed with oil companies and yet it is the oil company chieftains that are pushing climate change harder than anyone.
Madonna, owner of 6 evil gas-guzzling cars and producer of 440 tonnes of CO2 during her Confessions tour, performs at Live Earth in London.
Rothschild's red-faced gaffe was allied with an embarrassingly lukewarm response to this weekend's Live Earth propaganda extravaganza, at which we saw hypocritical pop stars perform to half-empty stadiums around the world.
The television audience also fell way below expectations and the event was branded a "foul-mouthed flop" by newspapers. Just hundreds turned up to one of the events held in Washington at which Al Gore appeared.
"Organisers of the global music concert - punctuated by swearing from presenters and performers - had predicted massive viewing figures," reports the Daily Mail.
"But BBC's live afternoon television coverage attracted an average British audience of just 900,000. And the peak audience, which came when Madonna sang at Wembley, was a dismal 4.5million. Three times as many viewers saw the Princess Diana tribute on the same channel six days before."
"Two years ago, Live 8 drew a peak television audience of 9.6million while Live Aid notched 10million in 1985."
As more jet-flying celebrity hypocrites lecture us on changing our lifestyle and as more "experts" fail to get even the most basic facts correct, expect more acolytes to desert the cause and for global warming to be consigned to the dustbin of scientific theory, just as the "global cooling" scare of the 70's quickly evaporated under widespread ridicule.
Global Research Articles by Paul Joseph Watson
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6271
Can a pacifist liberal shoot off fireworks?
Since it's reenacting "bombs bursting in air" and unjust "warmongering"?
Liberals say that freedom is free, so why can liberals shoot fireworks and be given a free pass? Oh, the hypocrisy of liberalism! It's only glorifying war!
Al Gore's son's greenness is shown in more than a Prius.
He also shows daddy that he's a good liberal pothead. Maybe Al's been smokin' some with his uncontrolled outbursts lately?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0428148420070705?feedType=RSS&rpc=22&sp=tru...
Will Al Gore make a statement about the war on drugs being a leading contributor to global warming in order to exhonerate his son?
Family Jewels: Examples of CIA Misconduct
Associated Press
Associated Press
June 27, 2007
Some examples of CIA misconduct described in 693 pages of documents released by agency Tuesday:
One plot against Fidel Castro:
CIA Office of Security Director Howard Osborn described a plot begun in August 1960 to kill the Cuban dictator. Ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu, a top aide to Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, was recruited to approach mobster Johnny Roselli and pass himself off as the representative of international corporations who wanted Castro killed because he'd caused financial losses for their Cuban operations.
Roselli was to be told the U.S. government should never hear of the plot. Roselli introduced Maheu to 'Sam Gold' and 'Joe,' who were actually 10-most wanted mobsters Salvatore Giancana, Al Capone's successor in Chicago, and Santos Trafficante. The mobsters turned down $150,000 and worked for free. CIA gave them six poison pills; they tried unsuccessfully for several months to have several people put them in the Cuban leader's food. This particular plot was dropped after the failed CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but other plots continued against Castro although they are not detailed in these documents.
At one point, Giancana asked Maheu to bug the Las Vegas hotel room of entertainer Dan Rowan to see if Giancana's girlfriend, singer Phyllis McGuire, was sexually intimate with Rowan. The technician, however, was arrested planting the bug and Osborn's office eventually had to tell Attorney General Robert Kennedy how the episode came about in order to get the Justice Department to drop charges against Maheu and the technician.
___
Studies of U.S. radicals:
The documents reflect the CIA's interest in Students for a Democratic Society. The radical left-wing group had chapters on major college campuses around the country.
In a document entitled 'SDS and other student activist groups,' the CIA said that it produced a 30-page study of the organization 'and its foreign ties.'
The agency produced another paper entitled 'Restless Youth,' including a 'most sensitive section' that 'was a philosophical treatment of student unrest, its motivation, history and tactics.
'It drew heavily on overt literature and FBI reporting on SDS and affiliated groups,' the document said. Another section of the report comprised '19 chapters on foreign student dissidence.'
The agency 'began following Caribbean black radicalism in earnest in 1968,' the summary said.
The agency provided the CIA director a memo 'with special attention to links between black radicalism in the Caribbean and advocates of black power in the U.S.'
The agency 'wrote typescript memos on Stokely Carmichael's travels abroad during a period when he had dropped from public view,' the summary added. The prominent black activist popularized the rallying cry 'Black Power' during the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s.
___
Studies of political convention protesters:
The CIA participated in an interagency group created in 1970 'to produce fully evaluated national domestic intelligence studies, including studies on demonstrations, subversion, extremism and terrorism.
'The White House has insisted that the existence of this committee be kept secret,' said the document, entitled 'Intelligence Evaluation Committee and Staff.' 'Awareness of its existence within this agency has been limited to' fewer than 10 people.
'At the request of the White House, a series of estimates was prepared' by the group on 'Potential Disruptions at the 1972 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Fla.'
The CIA 'provided from February through August 1972 periodic contributions for these estimates concerning foreign support for activities planned to disrupt or harass' the GOP convention.
Similar studies were prepared by the group on the Democratic National Convention.
___
Mail opening:
Surveillance of mail from China was dubbed 'Project WESTPOINTER' and began in the fall of 1969, lasting through October of 1971. A June 1973 memo says it was based in the San Francisco area and the 'target was mail to the United States from Mainland China.' The memo doesn't say how many letters were opened and reviewed.
Another document said that 'since 1953, CIA has operated a mail intercept program of incoming and outgoing Russian mail and, at various times, other selected mail at Kennedy Airport in New York City. This program is now dormant pending decision on whether to continue or to abolish it.'
___
Drug and behavior-alteration testing:
One CIA summary entitled 'Drug Testing Program' said 'the attached summary from' the Office of Research and Development 'describes research into a behavioral drug. Conversations ... indicate that the reported drug was part of a larger program in which the agency had relations with commercial drug manufacturers, whereby they passed on drugs rejected because of unfavorable side effects. The drugs were screened ... and those selected for experimentation were tested ... using monkeys and mice. Materials having further interest, as demonstrated by this testing, were then tested at Edgewood, using volunteer members of the armed forces.
'Carl Duckett emphasizes that the program was considered as defensive, in the sense that we would be able to recognize certain behavior if similar materials were used against Americans.'
There is no mention of the testing of the psychedelic drug LSD on unwitting U.S. citizens, one of whom committed suicide by jumping from a hotel room during the experience, which the congressional investigators learned of and described.
A May 22, 1973 memo entitled 'The Family Jewels Exercise' noted that then-Director William Colby wanted more information about 'an EA division project.' Colby, said the summary, wanted to know, 'What do these agents do in the states?'
The same memo said that Colby wanted 'fuller information' on the cryogenic magnetometer 'that is used on unwitting subjects.'
___
Imprisonment of defector:
'The Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko was confined at a CIA facility from April 1964 to September 1967 while efforts were being made to establish whether he was a bona fide defector. Although his present attitude toward the agency is quite satisfactory, the possibility exists that the press could cause undesirable publicity if it were to uncover the story.'
There is no mention of the later finding by congressional investigators that he was kept in a cell and subjected to grueling interrogators for that period.
___
Wiretapping U.S. journalists:
'Under pressure from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy' in 1962, CIA director John McCone 'agreed to tap the telephones of columnists Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott in an effort to identify their sources for classified information which was appearing in their columns,' says a memo a decade later to the agency's director.
Most of the information related to the Defense Department.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=30781
4 Held in Scottish Attack as British See Broader Plot
By ALAN COWELL and RAYMOND BONNER
LONDON, Sunday, July 1 — British officials raised the country’s terrorism threat alert to its highest level on Saturday after two men slammed an S.U.V. into entrance doors at Glasgow Airport and turned the vehicle into a potentially lethal fireball.
Less than 38 hours earlier the police uncovered two cars in London rigged to explode with gasoline, gas canisters and nails.
Early Sunday, after a day of fast-moving developments, the London police announced that two people had been arrested in Cheshire, in northwest England, “in connection with the events in London and Scotland.”
The arrests were in addition to those of the two occupants of the blazing car at Glasgow Airport. A witness to the attack said on BBC television that one of the car’s occupants had been ablaze from head to foot, and as he struggled with the police, “was throwing punches and shouting ‘Allah, Allah.’ ”
Britain’s threat level is now at “critical,” meaning another attack is considered imminent. The threat has not been as high since last year, after authorities discovered what they called a plot to attack trans-Atlantic airliners with liquid explosives.
A British security official, who like many other officials who disclosed information insisted on anonymity, said Saturday that the heightened level reflected an assessment that the London and Glasgow cases were “linked in some ways and, therefore, there are clearly individuals who have the capability and intent to carry out further attacks.”
The links relate to the way the London car bombs and Glasgow airport attack were planned, using vehicles and gasoline, the official said.
In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement from Secretary Michael Chertoff saying there were no plans to raise the national threat level because there was “no specific, credible information” suggesting any threat to the United States.
But the federal government took a number of steps, given the events in Britain and the approaching July 4 holiday, to elevate security.
Homeland Security officials said they included additional bomb detection canine teams at airports and behavior-detection squads.
The New York City police said they were monitoring events in London and Scotland and were maintaining the heightened security that began after the discovery of the car bombs in London.
The measures include sending officers into parking garages with sensors that detect the presence of chemical, biological and radiological agents, and closely monitoring tourist areas, including nightclubs, said the department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne.
Although there were questions throughout the day about whether the Glasgow vehicle crashed intentionally, by Saturday night, Sir William Rae, the chief constable of the Strathclyde area around Glasgow, said it was an act of terrorism.
Mr. Rae said one of the two men was found to be wearing a “suspicious device” at the hospital where he was being treated, and the hospital was evacuated. Mr. Rae declined to comment on reporters’ suggestions that the assailant — said to be in critical condition — had been wearing an explosive belt. A person with knowledge of the investigation, however, said that the device was a suicide belt, and also that the car contained propane canisters.
Mr. Rae said the attack at the airport, Scotland’s largest, was linked to the car bombs in London, but he did not elaborate.
The airport in Liverpool was also closed on Saturday, apparently reflecting a fresh area of concern in an increasingly jittery nation.
In July 2005, four suicide bombers killed 52 people on London’s transit system, and another set of attacks failed two weeks later, bringing home to Britain fears of homegrown terrorist attacks among its disenfranchised South Asian population. Witnesses said the two men in the Glasgow attack were South Asian.
In office only since Wednesday, a somber Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared briefly on national television from 10 Downing Street late Saturday. “I want all British people to be vigilant and I want them to support the police and all the authorities in the difficult decisions that they have to make,” he said. “I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong.”
Saturday was the first full day of the school summer vacations; thousands of people were awaiting flights in Glasgow. The sight of the dark green Jeep Cherokee smashing into the building and bursting into flames spread panic and terror in the terminal. A Glasgow police spokeswomen, Elisa Dunn, said that five bystanders were injured, and that one was hospitalized for a leg injury, according to The Associated Press.
Hours after the attack, hundreds of passengers remained on stranded airplanes on the tarmac. The authorities said they could not be allowed into the terminal because of potential further dangers.
The events in London and Scotland deepened foreboding among security experts that Britain was confronting a new threat: the use of relatively unsophisticated, homemade explosive devices to spread mayhem.
The alert began early Friday, when the two cars, Mercedes sedans, were found in the central West End theater and nightclub district.
After the midafternoon crash through doors at Glasgow Airport on Saturday, accounts by witnesses gathered by news agencies were confused, but some spoke of the two occupants of the car smashing bottles of gasoline and struggling with police officers and others who tried to restrain them. The man on fire may have immolated himself.
The attack came as London — already worried by the rigged cars — braced for a weekend of high-profile events, including a concert to honor the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales; a Gay Pride March; and the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
The police in the capital stepped up foot patrols as counterterrorism officers hunted suspects linked to the cars found in London.
But Mr. Rae, the Scottish constable, said there had been no intelligence warning of an attack in Glasgow.
Prime Minister Brown, who is himself a Scot, summoned two emergency meetings of the high-level security committee called Cobra to try to come to grips with the attacks. Likewise, in the United States, Mr. Chertoff held so-called principals meetings, involving other cabinet-level officials. And officials with the Transportation Security Administration held a conference call with airport and airline officials from around the United States.
In London, counterterrorism experts suggested that whoever abandoned the two explosives-laden Mercedes might have been what a senior Western official called “less directed from Al Qaeda and more a matter of a homegrown group,” although their plan seemed to be modeled on terrorist attacks in Iraq.
Several experts and officials said the technology behind the London car bombs seemed amateurish. While the attackers apparently tried to detonate the bombs using cellphones, “they didn’t go off because there were not top-grade people putting them together,” one Western official said.
If the plot turns out to be the work of a small, unknown cell, that could raise alarms that Britain’s terrorism threat is broader than the 2,000 suspected radicals known to the authorities. The Western official said British investigators were pursuing several “good leads.”
The attack in Scotland also seemed marked by improvisation.
BAA, the company that runs the airport, said a vehicle “drove into a front door at the check-in area” and “caught fire on impact.”
One witness, Scott Leeson, said the Jeep had sped up to the building at around 30 miles per hour.
“Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight into the door,” the Press Association news agency quoted Mr. Leeson as saying. “He must have been trying to smash straight through.”
Another witness, Lynsey McBean, 26, told the Press Association: “We saw a green Cherokee drive straight into the front door of the airport but it got jammed. They were obviously trying to get it farther inside the airport as the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them. One of the men, I think it was the driver, brought out a plastic petrol canister and poured it under the car. He then set light to it.
“At that point a policeman came over, the passenger got out of the car and punched him. At that point I began to run away. But when I looked back several people had run over to try and stop the men.”
There were no public claims of responsibility for the car bombs on Friday, which were uncovered almost by accident when an ambulance crew and traffic wardens separately discovered the sedans.
But a posting on an online forum monitored by the SITE Institute, which tracks jihadist Web sites, asked whether London had been “craving explosions from Al Qaeda” after authorities in June bestowed a knighthood on the author Salman Rushdie, reviled by some radical Muslims for his book “The Satanic Verses.”
No “established link” exists between the knighthood and the car bombs, a British security official said.
The Times of London reported Saturday that the police had warned nightclub operators a few days ago of the threat attack.
The two cars were parked around a corner from each other. The first to be discovered and disarmed was outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in the Haymarket near Piccadilly Circus. The second had been nearby on Cockspur Street leading to Trafalgar Square but towed for a parking infraction about 90 minutes later, the police said.
Sajjan M. Gohel, a security expert, said the police were pursuing a theory that the two car bombs had been designed to explode one after the other — the first to bring people into the street and the second to cause great loss of life. The fact that Thursday night at Tiger Tiger was ladies’ night, he said, recalled a conspiracy in 2004 in which British-born bombers said they wanted to attack women at a nightclub, whom they viewed as promiscuous, in conversations monitored by British intelligence.
Reporting was contributed by Dexter Filkins from Cambridge, Mass.; William K. Rashbaum and Kareem Fahim from New York; and Eric Lipton from Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/world/europe/01britain.html?ei=5090&en=f921e1f0886eca33&ex....
well said razor and very true
The only people the commies believe
giving hard questions to, are people that actually have solutions found on the right side of the aisle. It makes me sick how they make the leftist political entitlement whores and Hollykooks look like gods, who both refuse to spare anything of their own for their causes and plans.
I wonder why liberals still drive cars!
i can imagine how that went :)
LOL. It's an example of how credible the
liberal media really is. Larry King drinks Paris kool-aid! LOL. You should have heard his questions!
i try to avoid crap like that lol
Anyone see Larry King roll over in his interview
with Paris Hilton? Liberal Larry King evidently never does his homework in combating lies on his show on the Commie News Network.
Chávez hints at nuclear future for Venezuela
Luke Harding in Moscow
Friday June 29, 2007
The Guardian
President Hugo Chávez yesterday hinted that Venezuela could try to become a nuclear power, during a visit to Russia apparently timed to antagonise the White House.
Mr Chávez defended Iran's right to pursue a nuclear programme and said it might be a good idea if Venezuela eventually did the same thing. Speaking before an audience of communists and other elements hostile to America, Mr Chávez said: "Iran has a right to have a peaceful atomic energy industry, as it is a sovereign country.
Article continues
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"The Brazilian president has declared his atomic energy initiatives, and Brazil has a right to do that as well. Who knows, maybe Venezuela will ultimately follow suit." Mr Chávez said he wanted a "multi-polar world in which "real freedom" was possible as opposed to "American freedom", which he characterised as the right to "threaten other nations and destroy cities".
The Venezuelan leader is on a trip that also includes two other US antagonists, Belarus and Iran. His visit to Moscow comes hours before a meeting in the US between Vladimir Putin and George Bush. The two are holding informal talks on Sunday and Monday at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, with deep divisions over the US's proposed missile shield in central Europe, the future of Kosovo and US concerns over Russia's resurgent authoritarianism under Mr Putin.
Kremlin officials yesterday said it was a coincidence that Mr Putin was holding talks with Mr Chávez tomorrow and Mr Bush on Sunday.
But the newspaper Vedomosti suggested the visits were designed to demonstrate Russia's independence. Others suggested it was Mr Chávez who was making the running. "The timing wasn't initiated by Russia," said Viktor Semyonov, an economist at Moscow's Institute of Latin American Studies. "It all comes from Chávez.
"It's more about money than politics; Chávez is supporting Russia's rapidly increasing economic presence in Venezuela."
During his three-day visit to Russia, Mr Chávez is expected to buy more military hardware, including as many as five submarines. He will also tour a helicopter factory and hold talks with Mr Putin tomorrow in Rostov-on-Don.
Last year Mr Chávez spent $3bn (£1.5bn) on Russian arms. But yesterday he said: "We don't want war. We want peace. There were rumours we came here to buy weapons. This is not the priority of my visit ... The priority is cultural interaction and the exchange of ideas."
But he also boasted of Venezuela's Russian Sukhoi jets: "When they appeared in the sky over Caracas during a parade on independence day two years ago, then we broke the fetters of dependence on the US."
In Belarus, Mr Chávez may also discuss a new air defence system, after saying this week that Venezuela's current system was insufficient. He will then go to Tehran for talks aimed at further deepening ties with Iran.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2114634,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
White House Pleads for Patience on Iraq
Associated Press | June 26, 2007
WASHINGTON - The White House appealed Tuesday for more patience on the war in Iraq as Democrats warned that time was running out and a prominent Republican declared that President Bush's strategy was not working.
In a floor speech Monday, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the U.S. should reduce the military's role in Iraq and called on Bush to press other diplomatic and economic initiatives instead. Because of Lugar's position as the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, his speech was a blow to the administration as it tries to shore up sagging political support for the unpopular war.
Poll: Should Congress give the Bush plan in Iraq more time to unfold?
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Lugar was a thoughtful man and that his remarks came as no surprise.
"We've known that he's had reservations about the policy for some time," Snow said Tuesday.
But the spokesman later added: "We hope that members of the House and Senate will give the Baghdad security plan a chance to unfold."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Lugar's speech "brilliant" and "courageous" and said it would later be noted in the history books as a turning point in the war.
"But that will depend on whether more Republicans take the stand that Sen. Lugar took," added Reid, D-Nev.
Lugar's position is unlikely to affect votes on upcoming anti-war legislation. Spokesman Andy Fisher said Monday that Lugar is not planning to switch his vote and embrace a deadline for troop withdrawals. The purpose of the speech was to express his concerns publicly before Bush reviews his Iraq strategy in September, Fisher said.
Take Action: Tell your public officials how you feel about this issue.
In January, Lugar voted against a resolution opposing Bush's troop build up, contending that the nonbinding measure would have no practical effect. In the spring, he voted against a Democratic bill that would have triggered troop withdrawals by Oct. 1 with the goal of completing the pullout in six months.
However, Lugar's grim assessment of the war puts substantial pressure on the administration to change course and could provide political cover for other GOP members to speak out against the war before September. Most Republicans have said they were willing to wait until the fall to see whether Bush's recently ordered troop buildup in Iraq was working.
But if progress is not made by then, GOP members say they will demand a change in course.
Next month, the Senate will vote on whether to cut off money for combat, demand that troop withdrawals commence in four months, restrict the length of combat tours and rescind Congress' 2002 authorization of Iraqi invasion.
Expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to pass controversial legislation, the proposals are intended to increase pressure on Bush and play up to voters frustrated with the war.
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,140402,00.html?wh=news
Cornyn Says Momentum Building Against Senate Immigration Plan
By Nicholas Johnston
June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Momentum is building against immigration legislation among Senate Republicans, said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who is opposing his old ally, President George W. Bush, on this issue.
``We're beginning to see some of the people that would have ordinarily voted to proceed with the bill to say, `hey, this process is not fair, it's not transparent,''' Cornyn said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' scheduled to air today. ``The way this bill has come up has caused it some serious problems.''
The Senate will need 60 votes on June 26 to resume debate on the biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration policy since 1986. The measure, Bush's top domestic priority, would create a guest- worker program and a path to legal status for 12 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Cornyn cited fellow Texan Kay Bailey Hutchison, as well as Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, as examples of Republicans who may have supported the measure and are now opposed. Supporters said they weren't counting on those senators to reach 60 votes.
A June 7 Senate vote fell 15 short of the total needed, with seven Republicans joining 37 Democrats and one independent to move toward final passage. Cornyn voted in opposition.
In an attempt to resuscitate the measure, Senate leaders agreed this week on a limited package of about two dozen amendments to be considered next week.
`Behind Closed Doors'
Cornyn said that isn't enough.
``This is a bill that was written behind closed doors by a small group of senators, and now it's being brought to the floor again without an opportunity to offer, freely offer, amendments and to have the kind of debate that I think this topic deserves,'' the senator said.
Cornyn said the congressional debate on what to do with the 12 million immigrants illegally in the U.S. has ``fallen short'' because it has focused only on whether to give them citizenship or deport them.
The current proposal, which would let undocumented immigrants gain legal status after paying a fine, isn't sufficient punishment for people in this country illegally, the senator said. ``It looks like we're selling American citizenship,'' he said.
Cornyn said the U.S. would be in ``big trouble'' if failure to pass immigration legislation blocked an increase in the number of visas for skilled workers, as sought by technology companies including Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, and Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker.
`The Best and the Brightest'
``This is more than just about low-skilled, relatively poorly educated individuals who are picking crops or working on construction sites,'' he said.
``This is about keeping the best and the brightest, the kind of people who train in American universities and who we end up now, under our current policy, sending home so they can compete with us and take jobs overseas,'' the senator said. ``I actually would like to see us pass comprehensive immigration reform.''
With the backing of Democrats who backed the legislation earlier this month, supporters will need almost two dozen Republicans to move forward.
``We'll find out on Tuesday if there's 60 senators,'' Cornyn said. ``It really changes minute by minute.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=home&sid=aGUUzFd3y_Ek
Great post, abracky..
When you have facts, you have facts...
When you don't, you eat crow!
NAACP says that Obama is "black enough"
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1928.html
It's quite shallow that some people can't get over the color of a person's skin.
Still #1 brainless: There is a reason you do not understand.
FNC is FOX NEWS NETWORK:
June 19, 2007
Monday’s Numbers…
Cable News Ratings for June 18, 2007
P2+ Total Day
FNC – 828,000 viewers
CNN – 459,000 viewers
MSNBC – 301,000 viewers
CNBC – 196,000 viewers
HLN – 238,000 viewers
P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 1,700,000 viewers
CNN – 919,000 viewers
MSNBC – 471,000 viewers
CNBC – 138,000 viewers
HLN – 443,000 viewers
25-54 Total Day
FNC – 229,000 viewers
CNN – 131,000 viewers
MSNBC – 127,000 viewers
CNBC – 78,000 viewers
HLN – 94,000 viewers
25-54 Prime Time
FNC – 367,000 viewers
CNN – 231,000 viewers
MSNBC – 182,000 viewers
CNBC – 71,000 viewers
HLN – 178,000 viewers
Morning programs P2+ (25-54)
FOX & Friends – 825,000 viewers (336,000)
American Morning – 340,000 viewers (102,000)
MSNBC Live (7-9 AM) – 183,000 viewers (a scratch with 46,000)
Robin & Co. –182,000 viewers (69,000)
(more…)
http://insidecable.blogsome.com/category/ratings/
Israel: UN forces in Lebanon under orders not to offend Hizbullah
TEL AVIV — United Nations forces have sharply reduced operations in southern Lebanon, enabling Hizbullah to restore its military presence following last year's war with Israel.
Israeli military sources said the UN Interim Force in Lebanon has curtailed patrols and other operations near the Israeli border. They said UNIFIL patrols have been ordered to avoid population centers and refrain from any act that could anger Lebanese supporters of Hizbullah.
Israel has appealed to UNIFIL to expand operations in southern Lebanon, Middle East Newsline reported. But the sources said European Union contingents, including Italy and France, have refused to take any action that could anger Hizbullah.
"The European contingents of UNIFIL are deathly scared of a backlash that would put their troops in danger," a military source said. "We are quickly returning to the 'See no evil, hear no evil approach' that existed before 2006."
The curtailment of UNIFIL operations has facilitated Hizbullah's military build-up in southern Lebanon, the sources said. They said Hizbullah has restored weapons bunkers and tunnels throughout the south, particularly along the Israeli border.
The sources said UNIFIL has stopped patrolling villages south of Lebanon's Litani River. They said these operations ended around April 2007 in wake of Hizbullah-sponsored attacks on peace-keeping patrols.
"The end of the patrols means that Hizbullah has a free hand in all villages in the south," the source said.
On June 17, Lebanese insurgents renewed Katyusha rocket fire into Israel. At least three 107 mm Katyusha rockets landed around the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona. Nobody was reported injured.
On Monday, a group named "Jihadi Badr Brigade-Lebanon Branch" claimed responsibility for the Katyusha strike on Israel. The unknown group, believed to be a front for Syria and Hizbullah, warned of additional attacks.
"We had promised our people holy war," a statement by the group said. "Here, we again attacked the Zionists when a group from the Jihadi Badr Brigades struck the Zionists in the occupied Palestinian territory."
Under the new policy, the sources said, UNIFIL has also dismissed Israeli requests to remove Hizbullah and PLO flags from the Israeli-Lebanese border. UN officers said the flags should be removed by the Lebanese Army, rather than foreign peace-keepers.
"After the Katyusha rocket attack, it's clear that UNIFIL will care even more about force protection and less about keeping our border safe," the source said.
Meanwhile, Lebanon claims it has gained control over virtually all Al Qaida strongholds in the north.
Officials said the Lebanese Army tightened its hold over Fatah Al Islam strongholds in the Palestinian refugee camp of Naher Al Bared camp near the Syrian border. They said the army has captured Samed and Tawounia, regarded as the two main bases of Fatah Al Islam.
"The army is moving in a slow and methodical course against the terrorists," an official said.
Over the last two days, Lebanese artillery pounded what officials determined were the final strongholds of Fatah Al Islam. The strongholds consisted of United Nations-operated schools in Naher Al Bared.
Fatah Al Islam was said to remain in Naher Al Bared's Naji Al Ali neighborhood. The rest of the camp was said to have come under army control.
About 150 people have been killed, nearly half of them Lebanese soldiers, in the Al Qaida insurrection. On Monday, another three Lebanese soldiers were killed amid heavy army shelling of the UN school in Naher El Bared.
Military sources said the fighting could end by next week. They said the Palestinian movement Hamas has sought to mediate a ceasefire.
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/me_lebanon_06_19.asp
Excellent site Razor:
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
Thanks, abracky
Those that cause the biggest problems in our culture
seem to have way too much idle time on their hands. Those that invent whacko conspiracy theories, crime, activists that inundate online polls, etc are just a few examples that come from having too much idle time. The entitlement mentality creates these nuts. Level-headed people have time to address important issues like illegal immigration, but having a nude protest for a few trees in Berkeley that are to be replaced with more tree? COME ON! GET A LIFE, GOONS! WHAT AN INSULT ON THE CIVILIZED WORLD!
http://www.zombietime.com
Precisely, liberals hate corporations
because they are responsible for creating jobs. I also hear that the number one thing that scares liberals is a job application. It's a big reason why you have so many liberal activist trolls on the internet, they don't have a job.
There are abortion protests, but nothing like crackpot liberal naked bike rides to protest cutting down a couple of oak trees.
Very good Razor, could not have said it better.
re"Conservatives don't have time to protest".ROTFLMAO......ain't that special, too busy working to care ........ i guess you'll just complain and keep paying them dirty rotten liberals bils...... too busy to change it!
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA......
..blessings.........
razor. I don't have cable T.V , only cable modem for my internet..
only time i need cable t.v. is for basketball.
Conservatives don't have time to protest
conservatives work and pay liberal's bills. I recycle quite a bit. It's amazing that many of the global warming alarmists still heat 10,000 Square feet homes and fly in their charter jets. Al Gore, Breck Girl, and some Hollywood kooks come to mind.
Is that on your wish list, barry?
Until then, be happy with your 3rd rate CNN or MSNBC...
me, what about you?
Do conservatives even protest? I have never known any to do so. Most i know just complain about issues and not organize or protest what they like or would like to change............ it is protesting that has propelled and evolved America to higher grounds of conciousness..
its is the liberals that do this............
What conservative on this board recycles?
thanks
Republicans need to attack earmarks and stop wasting taxpayer money
By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Friday, June 15, 2007
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) has handed Republican lawmakers a golden (literally) opportunity to end earmarking during the current session of Congress. (In our new book, Outrage, we highlight how abuse of earmarking costs taxpayers $64 billion — three times what it was just a few years ago.)
According to Tuesday's New York Times, Obey warned Republicans that “he would ban earmarking completely if Republicans attacked individual projects to score political points.” What an opportunity for the GOP!
Republicans forgot how to act like the fiscal conservatives they were supposed to be when they controlled Congress and permitted earmarks to proliferate. Now, they can atone for their sins by attacking individual earmarks issued by specific Democrats, and by challenging Obey to make good on his threat.
Republicans need go no further than attacking the earmarks of Congressman Alan Mollohan (D-W. Va.), who's currently under federal investigation. Until the FBI started looking at him, Mollohan was the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee! (Is it any wonder why Congressional approval now stands at 23 percent in the polls?)
Mollohan has a cute racket going. He gets earmarks inserted into spending bills for non-profit organizations in his home state — some of which he helped to set up — and then he goes into real estate deals with the heads of these same organizations and makes a killing.
For example, Mollohan got $30 million of tax money since 1999 for the Vandalia Heritage Foundation, which redevelops dilapidated buildings. Then, he and his wife bought five empty lots on Bald Head Island, N.C. — worth $2 million — with Laura Kurtz Kuhns, the head of the Vandalia Heritage Foundation, and her husband!
He pulled the same trick by buying a farm for $900,000 with Dale R. McBride as his partner after getting McBride’s company, FMW Composite Systems, $4.4 million in earmarks to make equipment for NASA and the Marine Corps.
Of course, stopping Obey from putting earmarks in appropriations bills will require some earmark addicts among the Republicans to quit cold turkey. Specifically, the two leading earmarkers in Congress — Senators Ted Stevens of Alaska and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, both Republicans — will have to stop their massive spending of taxpayers’ money.
Senator Stevens got $325 million in earmarks in the 2006 appropriations cycle, which works out to $500 for every man, woman, and child in Alaska. He lavished our money on a $1.3 million program of berry research, $1.1 million for alternative salmon projects, and $500,000 for fruit and berry crop trials.
Senator Thad Cochran, who postures as a fiscal conservative, spent our money for a $5.7 million grant for the Wildlife Habitat Management Institute, $1.4 million for Mississippi Valley State University, $936,000 to study “advanced spatial technologies,” $517,000 for aquaculture research, and $50,000 for cotton ginning research (presumably to supplement the efforts of Eli Whitney who invented the cotton gin in 1793.)
Republicans need to start acting like Republicans, not drunken, big spending Democrats, and stopping earmarks is a good way to start. As Dave Obey might say, "be his guest!"
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com
http://www.townhall.com/Common/Print.aspx
Let the Segregation Commence
Separatist graduations proliferate at UCLA.
13 June 2007
Commencement weekend is hard to plan at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university now has so many separate identity-group graduations that scheduling them not to conflict with one another is a challenge. The women’s studies graduation and the Chicana/Chicano studies graduation are both set for 10 AM Saturday. The broader Hispanic graduation, “Raza,” is in near-conflict with the black graduation, which starts just an hour later.
Planning was easier before a new crop of ethnic groups pushed for inclusion. Students of Asian heritage were once content with the Asian–Pacific Islanders ceremony. But now there are separate Filipino and Vietnamese commencements, and some talk of a Cambodian one in the future. Years ago, UCLA sponsored an Iranian graduation, but the school’s commencement office couldn’t tell me if the event was still around. The entire Middle East may yet be a fertile source for UCLA commencements.
Not all ethnic and racial graduations are well attended. The 2003 figures at UCLA showed that while 300 of 855 Hispanic students attended, only 170 out of 1,874 Asian-Americans did.
Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino mother could attend the Asian, Filipino, and American Indian ceremonies, plus the mainstream graduation and the Lavender Graduation for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students.
Graduates usually wear identity-group markers—a Filipino stole or a Vietnamese sash, for instance, or a rainbow tassel at the Lavender event. Promoters of ethnic and racial graduations often talk about the strong sense of community that they favor. But it is a sense of community based on blood, a dubious and historically dangerous organizing principle.
The organizers also sometimes argue that identity-group graduations make sense for practical reasons. They say that about 3,000 graduating seniors show up for UCLA’s “regular” graduation, making it a massive and impersonal event. At the more intimate identity-group events, foreign-born parents and relatives hear much of the ceremony in their native tongues. The Filipino event is so small—about 100 students— that each grad gets to speak for 30 seconds.
But the core reason for separatist graduations is the obvious one: on campus, assimilation is a hostile force, the domestic version of American imperialism. On many campuses, identity-group training begins with separate freshman orientation programs for nonwhites, who arrive earlier and are encouraged to bond before the first Caucasian freshmen arrive. Some schools have separate orientations for gays as well. Administrations tend to foster separatism by arguing that bias is everywhere, justifying double standards that favor identity groups.
Four years ago Ward Connerly, then a regent of the University of California, tried to pass a resolution to stop funding of ethnic graduations and gay freshman orientations. He changed his mind and asked to withdraw his proposal, but the regents wanted to vote on it and defeated it in committee 6–3.
No major objections to ethnic graduations have emerged since. As in so many areas of American life, the preposterous is now normal.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-06-13jl.html
Blame America, RON PAUL ACTIVIST KOOK
We were in Afghanistan for the oil, too, right? I can definitely see why you support the dishonorable Ron Paul. You refuse to tackle anything that presents problems with your silly, shallow talking points that seek to blame the land of the free for anything. You are a disgrace, a tool for the enemy. Move to Arabia where those poor terrorists hide in caves and blow up cars where INNOCENTS are gathered. Those poor terrorists are sooo deprived, aren't they?
You can't distinguish between barbarian and civil. I notice in your language you rarely blame terrorists, that's why I conclude that you are a tool for the enemy.
alright razor, I give up on you. Everyone who disagrees with the USA are terrorists... all muslims are bad, nuke them all.. bomb them with depleted uranium so generations of them will be sick... just wipe everyone off the earth but your chosen ones..
that's your mentality... there is no way but your way, no understanding of anything beyond that....
and THAT kind of thinking sells our troops down the river. You think they are not getting sick over the uranium? We are in Iraq for the oil, nothing more noble than that, it's blood money and you support it.. which means you don't support the troops..
you are not honest, adios
<<The terrorists got squat. That's just the truth. Whatever they use is what they've got. They don't use depleted uranium, or cluster bombs, helicopters, tanks, etc,etc...<<
Next thought:
>>The only ones not to blame for killing the innocent people in this war are.... the innocent ones who were killed, the ones who just wanted to work and feed their families.>>
Who are your innocent people? Those that willingly serve as human shields? You talk about innocent person this, terrorist that, but you never evolve into defining who is what. Your conversation seems to always lead back to... "we did it to ourselves."
Ron Paul would have lost the cold war with his attitude. It would have been America's fault, no blame on USSR.
Poor terrorists..
Poor communists..
Reagan was a NEOCON and a fear monger, eh?
Remember, always point out anything negative, never talk about the positives that we have done for those that have been brainwashed by an intolerant religion.
You should really move to Arabia to get a dose of reality
Your mentality is shallow and quite ignorant. "Who wouldn't shoot back??" It's a statement of exhonerating the most intolerant people on Earth while spinning it to a blame of America.
What kind of society decapitates if you don't convert? Should we decapitate back? Your argument falls flat on its face. You completely ignore YOUR argument when I throw it right back in your face. Why? Because my point points to the problem: Intolerance.
Meanwhile, Ron Paul and his minions would rather blame the Land of the Free than the Land of the tyrants. It's typical for those with a mental disorder. Again, move to Arabia...
yeah... I know, was not actually for him. ;)
he doesn't know..
just an empty vessel..
a ship without a rudder..
one fry short of a happy meal..
EDIT - well, it was a correct decision to ban you as you are NEVER able to be civil or discuss anything at all...
all you do is twist stuff around, make lots of wild accusations about people, and never respond directly to a simple question.
you will not answer because the truth will tell something that you don't want told. wonder what that would be...
the question again is..;
"If you are being shot at, will you defend yourself, shoot back?"
The answer of course is YES! Who won't defend themselves?
But as soon as you tell the truth, it will be revealed that you are no different than some whom you describe as terrorists. If I'm the government and I shoot at you... guess what that makes you?
Some of those terrorists... the beheaders definitely and many others should not live according to any just code. But don't you think that some of those folks were never even politically active before they saw their family blown to bits right in front of them.
and what that means then is this.. my point in the beginning.. and Ron Pauls... our foreign policy DOES absolutely without any doubt have an effect on our .. foreign relations.
Our foreign policy has been such that we continually go over to the middle east and kill a bunch of people. They weren't coming here, we were always going there. Any people will eventually defend themselves. There are consequences to you actions... you should've been taught that when you were quite young.
What is the USA?
I don't believe in abortion either, neither does Ron Paul.
What is America to you?
The only ones not to blame for killing the innocent people in this war are.... the innocent ones who were killed, the ones who just wanted to work and feed their families.
The terrorists as I have said before are very limited in the weaponry compared to us. Remember the cold war when we were told Russia had all these nuclear weapons pointed are way.. there was a lot of fear talk... Russia had an army, navy, etc, big time military...
The terrorists got squat. That's just the truth. Whatever they use is what they've got. They don't use depleted uranium, or cluster bombs, helicopters, tanks, etc,etc...
That doesn't mean we are good or bad or anything about them, that truth stands on its own.
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