Quote of the Day - October 12, 2011

Top Ten Richest Celebrities Supporting 'Occupy Wall Street'

The Blaze thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of Occupy Wall Street's wealthiest celebrity supporters. Given that OWS "are the 99%," and, given the movement's general distaste for "the other 1%," we wonder how enjoying support from the wealthy elite jibes with movement's core principles.

It is difficult to gauge who is most hypocritical in this instance - the wealthy "1%'ers" supporting a movement that claims to revile everything celebrity represents, or OWS protesters for "selling out" and accepting help from the purported "enemy."

Read More . . . 

Occupy Wall Street comes to Doylestown?

'The Kitchen Table Patriots' is

NOT

endorsing or encouraging a counter-protest

The protesters demanding "jobs and not cuts" have decided to have a demonstration in Borough of Doylestown, PA at State and Main streets starting at 4 PM on Thursday (We'll bet they get a Starbucks latte first, also on the same corner along with a dozen other small independently owned businesses).

See the story in the Doylestown Patch here.

There have been calls for a counter-protest.

We were initially supportive of the idea.

After much consideration we have concluded the following:

• Protesting folks that cannot see the difference between Doylestown (actually Main Street) and Wall Street is a futile effort.
• They will only advance their misguided cause and gain credibility if we were to take the time appear at their venue.
• Protesting them will give them power and not advance the cause of liberty.

We will not be participating in any counter protest.

For those of you who do decide on your own to go, please consider the following guidelines.

• Bring a sign with a positive alternate message. Check our Facebook page for sign suggestions.
• Do not engage in shouting, name calling or any direct confrontation. They want this. Do not fee their egos.

We do not want to play into their hands or that of the media. Please be mindful.

Oct 13 meeting reminder

 You Are Cordially Invited! 

Lafayette statue sketch, copyright 2011

To the 1^st Bucks County Patriotic Art Exhibition!

Friday, November 4, 2011

6:30-9:30 P.M.

The Historic Moland House

1641 Old York Road

Hartsville, Pennsylvania

Enjoy refreshments and live music, while

viewing Marra's Bucks County inspired works of art

Admission $5 per person

25% of art sales will be donated towards the Lafayette statue

Donations are accepted at the show and through the website lafayettestatue.blogspot.com

RSVP to Gregory Marra

610-294-8658

gwmarra@gmail.com

Welcome to Washington's Headquarters at the Moland House

1641 Old York Road, Hartsville, PA  18974

In the early evening of 10 August 1777, eleven thousand Continental and militia soldiers are marching up York Road towards the Cross Roads with Bristol Road [Hartsville, PA] on their way to Coryell's Ferry [New Hope, PA] to camp four miles across the Delaware River.  General George Washington receives a dispatch from John Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress, placing the 260-vessel British fleet, hauling 17,000 troops under General William Howe, fifty miles south of the Delaware Capes [May & Henelopen] on 7 August. Unsure and wary of Howe's intentions, Washington immediately halts his force to encamp around the bridge over the Little Neshaminy Creek in Warwick Township, Bucks County.  Knowing the area and having ridden through only ten days earlier, he selects the substantial stone dwelling of Widow Moland as his Head Quarters on the farm north of the bridge.  

See & Download the Flyer Here . . . 

Nullify Now! Philadelphia

Introduction to the Constitution

Lecture Series featuring Dr. Larry Arnn, Hillsdale College President

Introduction to the Constitution - Part 4

If you see a story that you believe would be useful and important to our readers, simply respond to this email with a link and a brief description of why it is important.  (Even if it may be obvious)

LISTEN LIVE TO REPATRIOT RADIO

"BETTER THAN EVER"

(all times are eastern)

Thursday 3-4pm "America's Black Shield" - Ted Hayes and Terrance Lang

Agenda 21 Creeps Into California Land Use Policy

New Meeting Schedule for the Concerned Citizen's Group.   The Concerned Citizen's Group will no longer meet weekly on Wednesdays and instead we will be having our "weekly" meeting at various government meetings around the Delaware Valley area: town councils, school boards, county commissioners, zoning boards, water boards, etc.

We will still have monthly meetings on Saturday's. The next monthly meeting will be on Saturday, October 8^th at P J Ryan's, 231 Bridge Street, Phoenixville - 6pm.  Radio Talk Show Host Maggie Roddin will do a presentation on U.N. Agenda 21 and have any updates that may have come from the U.N. or local sustainable development  . . . don't forget hay is now deemed a pollutant by the EPA . . . no hay, no crops, no animals, no food.   We will also be showing a movie on U.N. Agenda 21 at the October 8^th meeting.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me back or contact Maggie at www.theunsolicitedopinion.com or Maggie@theunsolicitedopinion.com

If you would like to join the Green Team or volunteer for a sub-committee, please email us

CONTACT Diane about this email at : uncanney2@verizon.net   

Dear Patriot,

Please join Americans for Prosperity Foundation and thousands of grassroots activists for the 5th annual Defending the American Dream Summiton Friday and Saturday, November 4-5 at the Washington Convention Center in downtown Washington, DC.

Last year, more than 2,600 of our best activists descended on Washington for the Summit to demonstrate to elected officials, government bureaucrats, and the national media that the grassroots movement is alive and well.  We focused on reining in out-of-control spending and taxation, advancing sound free market public policy, and in a very real way, defending the American Dream.

Special bus packages are running from PA and for only this week you can register for an additional $70 off those all-inclusive bus packages. Sign up now to take advantage of this great opportunity! Use the code "Bus70" when registering.

Bus packages from PA include round trip transportation and hotel accommodations on top of all the other benefits of the Defending the American Dream Summit.

Summit Highlights Include:

• Friday Gala Dinner
• General Session with Keynote Speakers
• Continental Breakfast on Saturday morning
• Special Interactive Sessions for Teens & College Students
• Movie Night featuring Entertaining Films By Liberty Loving Filmmakers
• Seminars for Youth On Why Freedom Matters and How they Can Make a Difference
• Bloggers Row
• Free-Market Job Fair
• State-Specific Strategy Meetings
• Network With Leading Activists From Across The Country

 ... and much more!

Don't forget, receive $70 off a bus package until midnight on August 14th! Click here to register today and help defend the American dream! Use the code "Bus70" when registering.

Defending liberty and promoting prosperity is a family affair.  Give your children the gift of freedom and bring the whole family to the Defending the American Dream Summit this year.  In fact, we're offering a discount for families and small groups! Click here for more information about our special packages.

Join us and thousands of fellow freedom fighters and send a message that the American Dream is alive and well in this great country!

Sincerely,

Tim Phillips
President
Americans for Prosperity Foundation 

The Doctrine of Abrogation: Open the Koran Day

It's time to sign up!

 

 Earlier this year we announced a major event for this fall, "The Doctrine of Abrogation: Open the Koran Day."

We have scheduled this event for the weekend of October 28 - 30, 2011, which is close to the two year anniversary of the Ft. Hood jihadist massacre perpetrated by Major Nidal Hasan (pictured at right).

If you would like to learn more about this national event, or would like to host a local venue, please click here.

Please read the description of the event and the sign-up instructions carefully, and then access the sign-up form at the bottom of the page.

Also, if you would like to study the Koran, we have a resource to recommend. The Qur'an Dilemma is an accurate, readable English translation that contains commentaries and analysis, including commentaries on the doctrine of abrogation, the history of the codification of the Koran, chronological sequence of the Koran, and the status of women in the Koran. To find out more visit here.
 

 2012 Presidential Candidate Selector
or Obama, His Allies & Critics Matching Quiz

Politicians have already indicated their 2012 presidential aspirations. This matching quiz includes President Obama, top members of his administration, Obama's most vocal critics (Boehner, Cantor, etc.) and likely White House prospects (Palin, Pawlenty, Jindal, etc.). You may select a position for every issue, or just select issues important to you. The political figures' positions are based upon their voting records, special interest group ratings and their statements in the public record. In cases where there is no known public record or statement, these politicos are not given a score on that issue. We add candidates, revise their views and include new issues as they become known or change. Check back often for updates.   

 Read more: 

	Enterprise Update Eliminating barriers to enterprise and innovation

Obama Confirms Fears About New Financial Regulator

By James Gattuso

The newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took a step forward today to getting its first director, as the Senate Banking Committee voted 12-10 to confirm Richard Cordray in the post. Even before the vote, however, President Obama raised the stakes.

Referring to Bank of America's decision to impose a $5 debit card fees, he declared that "this is exactly why we need somebody whose sole job it is to prevent this kind of stuff from happening."

>> Click here to read the full report

Columbus Day and Voyages that Defined America  by Newt Gingrich

 When, in 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew sailed from Spain in a few crowded ships into an unknown horizon, they hoped to discover a trade route to India. They hit instead on a continent of new opportunities. Columbus's accidental discovery opened a permanent passage across the Atlantic and redrew the map of the world.
 
 Millions of people have followed Columbus in the centuries since, many of them also boarding cramped ships and casting off on a dangerous trip to a place they had never seen, leaving their old lives behind. Others have come more recently, by air or over land. Even those who preceded Columbus by many centuries once came from somewhere else, in search of a place to settle down. The leap to this continent required incredible bravery from all new Americans--from Columbus, from those seeking a better life, and from those fleeing persecution. Of course, some of those who came here were brought against their will, but that did not prevent their descendents from making contributions as well.
 
 As we celebrate Columbus's discovery this week, we should also recall how the rest of us got here. Columbus Day, as Peter Roff noted at US News, is an opportunity to remember that most of us are descendants of people who came to America as immigrants, whether generations ago or only recently.
 
 The early pilgrims were immigrants by another name, in search of freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit. Some of America's greatest cities began as their modest settlements of flimsy shelters barely able to weather the harsh winters. In the centuries that followed, these towns became bustling industrial cities as more immigrants from all over the world came to start new lives here in the United States. Like the pilgrims, many of these Americans, too, met a cold reality when they arrived, in which, with great effort, they tried to create opportunities for themselves and their children.

RedState Morning Briefing

For October 13, 2011

1. Superficial Agreement

Last night on AC360, John King filled in for Anderson Cooper and noted that a number of the Republican Presidential candidates are tempering their tone toward the Occupy Wall Street crowd. He asked if I stood by all my harsh words toward them. "Absolutely," I replied.

Part of the reason the candidates are toning down is because it is a good way to put more light on Mitt Romney being more of Wall Street than the rest of them. There is a populist campaign against Wall Street to be waged by the GOP and Mitt Romney can't do it.

But in waging such a campaign - one I think needs to be waged - the right needs to be very careful about going too far down the Occupy Wall Street road.

The hipsters, hippies, and assorted police car poppers on Wall Street are as upset as some on the right with the bank bailouts, etc. Superficially there is a lot to agree on.

2. Maybe That's Why He Is Unemployed

Does the White House just not vet these people?

The Obama Administration wanted to show the President in a blue collar setting, so they put him at a table with several bottles of Budweiser and some unemployed workers. Note that the President had a Budweiser in front of him, but wisely opted for a Guiness.

In any event, one of the unemployed workers is a guy named Mark McKim. Turns out Mr. McKim was arrested in 2006 for DUI and possession of drugs. In 2007, he was arrested for violating probation.

There might be a reason other than the GOP for Mr. McKim's unemployment.

Again, does the White House not vet these people?

3. The Moment With Lasting Impact

Joining the league of people who got to the first tier, Herman Cain is now under withering fire for his 9-9-9 plan and what it'll mean for the country. Thus far he has held his own, but he is going to have to do better.

For example, saying that he'd require a 2/3 vote to repeal his plan is unconstitutional unless he somehow is able to get it stuck in the constitution as an amendment thereto.

Likewise, saying the American people will keep pressure on Congress to not alter or increase the rates is not credible given that Cain and the other Republicans are fighting to repeal a health care law that Congress and the White House pushed through despite a majority of Americans opposed to it and a tea party movement energized to fight it.

4. Herman Cain's Unrealistic Economic Plan

One of the first things you learn as a young infantry officer is that hope is not a method. You don't hope the enemy behaves in a certain way. You don't hope support shows up at the right time. You don't lead an operation that is based on hope.

As Herman Cain has shot to a surprising lead in the polls more attention has turned to his signature economic program: the 9-9-9 Plan.

There is a lot that is superficially attractive about the plan. It's shortcoming is that it relies entirely on hope. Not just any hope but a hope that runs contrary to everything we know about human nature and the way government operates.

For the sake of argument we'll stipulate that the Plan will do all those things Mr. Cain claims. It will produce more revenue in a fairer way than the current system. I don't disagree with that. Sending regiments of Cossacks out to pillage the countryside would achieve the same purpose.

The plan is unrealistic for two reasons: Congress must pass it and Congress must sustain it.

Conservative history: 

Never let liberals forget that the sub-prime mortgage disaster was Bill Clinton's fault. In 1995 President Clinton's changes to the Community Reinvestment Act enabled ACORN to run a politically correct extortion campaign against mortgage lenders, compelling them by force of law to make unsound (sub-prime) loans to poor minorities who never stood a hope of repaying them.

Praise Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) as perhaps the only intelligent teen comedy liberal Hollywood has ever produced.

Not only does it have a cool, likeable, conservative hero (Matthew Broderick) who bunks off school to avoid liberal indoctrination ("I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists")-but it even includes a brief explanation of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the Laffer Curve, and supply-side economics, poignantly delivered by former Nixon aide Ben Stein. 

Fellow patriots,

Before going any further, I want to recognize that not every Muslim is a terrorist or even an Islamist.  HOWEVER, an unacceptable percentage of Muslims harbor deep hatred towards the United States.  As a Gallup poll has verified ( http://www.gallup.com/press/108457/frequently-asked-questions.aspx ):

7% of all Muslims believe that the 9/11 attack was COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED

6.5% of all Muslims believe that the 9/11 attack was MOSTLY JUSTIFIED

11.3% of all Muslims believe that the 9/11 attack was SOMEWHAT JUSTIFIED

Personally, I'm not comfortable with people coming to this country with this opinion demographic, and I hope you're not either.

Thousands of people have already signed this petition.  Please help make a statement on this issue.  If we get tens of thousands to sign this petition, we will be sending a powerful signal to politicians that Americans recognize that Islamists represent a threat to the freedoms we have long enjoyed as Americans:

http://www.petitiononline.com/nomusimm/petition.html 

Thank you,

Dave

Act of War: Muslim American et al Arrested in Iranian Plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States"

Jihadists teamed with Mexican drug cartels in Mexico (long infiltrated by Hizb'allah) to launch a massive Islamic attack in the United States and assassinate the Saudi ambassador in America.

The US has uncovered and foiled a plan to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, DC - and the plot was backed by Iran's Qods force, which has been killing Americans in Iraq.   

Further, the plot was to enlist a Mexican drug cartel to help get the explosives and weapons into the US across the southern border.

One of the plotters is in custody; the other is still at large.

Muslims Call for Mass Friday Prayer at Wall Street Protests

Read more: 

Muslims Pelt Funeral Processions of Murdered Christians With Bricks

The Muslims murdered these Christians in cold blood because they were Christians, in the worst Cairo riots since Mubarak ouster. And the world talks about the glorious "Arab Spring."

President Obama warns the Christians to show restraint. How do the Muslims respond? By pelting the funeral procession with rocks. Their hate and savagery is sanctioned by Obama and an international community bereft of humanity and morality.  

Coptic Church Condemns Attack, Muslims Pelt Funeral Procession With Bricks by Mary Abdelmassih

Hertz says suspended Muslim airport shuttle drivers can return if they clock out for prayer breaks

Last week I covered the flagrant abuse of "prayer times" by Muslim workers at Hertz, an ongoing Islamic pattern outlined in my book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.   

Accommodations for Muslim workers at Hertz resulted in abuse and ....more demands. Muslim workers demanded and received Muslim prayer times, but refused to clock out:

"On the part of workers, they don't want to clock out despite being paid because, according to Thompson, they don't want to feel "monitored" during their religious rituals."

Hertz says that Muslim workers can return to work if they clock out when they pray. They couldn't abuse their prayer times if they clocked out, could they?

Quadruple Honor Killing Trial Begins Today in Canada

Three teenage Shafia sisters, 19-year-old  Zainab, 17-year-old Sahari, and 13-year-old Geeti, with 50-year-old Rona Amir Mohammad, were found dead inside a car in the Rideau Canal back in June of 2009, murdered in a quadruple honor killing by their Muslim mother, father and brother.

Jury selection starts today in a Kingston, Ontario court in the murder trial of a Montreal couple and their son, who are charged with killing three members of their own family. The girls' father, Mohammad Shafia, "believed his daughter had dishonoured him and the family by having a romance with a young Pakistani man in Montreal."

"The girls were not allowed to go out alone, for example, neither to the cinema nor to meet friends and they were not able to dress freely" 

Also murdered along with the Zainab sisters was Rona Amir Mohammad, 50. Ms. Mohammad, who was said to be close to the girls even though they were not her children, was Mr. Shafia's first wife.

VIDEOS * TODAY'S HOT PICKS 

Cutting the Military Budget Will Diminish America

Presidential Policy: Does It Make the Grade?, James Carafano, PhD 

The President is promoting jobs, but if cuts to the Pentagon budget go ahead, America will be seriously weakening its role as a power-broker in the world

Israel: Deal Reached, Gilad Shalit Could be Home in Days

Steve Emerson 

Today's Hot Topics

We choose, you peruse.

The Neglect of "High Flyers"

Herbert London

The Forgotten Christians of the East

Caroline Glick 

The Revisionist History of Sari Nusseibeh

Efraim Karsh

Obama Ignores NSC Report on Weak Border Security

Jim Kouri, CPP 

The Top 100 Statistics About the Collapse of the Economy

Michael Snyder

BREAKING NEWS: Iran's Botched Act of War in Washington

By Dr. Walid Phares

For the Iranian regime to have attempted a terror strike on our soil, it means the Ayatollahs have crossed a red line. What does this mean for America?

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE

The Egyptian Military's Crimes Against Humanity

by Raymond Ibrahim, Hudson New York 

Sunday, the Egyptian military opened fire on thousands of Christians protesting in Maspero, Cairo. In the words of one Christian eyewitness, armored vehicles "came at great speed and drove into the crowds, going backwards and forwards, mowing people under their wheels. The most horrible scene was when one of the vehicles ran over a Copt's [Christian's] head, causing his brain to explode and blood was all over the place. We got a clear message today that we are no first class citizens."

Various numbers of casualties have been given; AINA asserts that at least 35 Christians were massacred, many beyond recognition, and over 300 wounded; hundreds are still missing. Graphic pictures of some of the slain can be seen here.

Of course, you would not know any of this following the Western mainstream media (MSM). Conditioned to always appear "fair and balanced"-especially when the incidents being reported are...

Read the whole entry »

Israel's Jewish Character is her Truth; the Rest is Just Commentary

By Matthew M. Hausman*

A bill was introduced in the Knesset last year to amend Israel's Oath of Allegiance to require all new immigrants to swear their loyalty to a "Jewish and democratic" state. The bill does not represent any great ideological shift, but rather is consistent with Israel's Declaration of Independence and Basic Laws, which refer to her as a Jewish state multiple times and have the force and effect of a constitutional mandate. Nevertheless, the proposed amendment has been roundly condemned by the political left and liberal press in Israel and abroad, with many commentators opining that it is incompatible with democratic principles. This assertion is nonsense, however, and serves only to camouflage the post-Zionist, anti-Zionist or anti-Israel sentiments of the proposal's critics. It also betrays an ignorance regarding the fundamentals of democratic governance. In no way does official acknowledgment of Israel's Jewish character compromise the individual...

Read the whole entry »

Where Egypt is Heading

By Barry Rubin, The Daily Caller 

There's a new political timeline for Egypt. Apparently horrified by disorder and radicalization, the military junta has decided to slow things down.

Its proposal is for parliamentary elections November 28, with the resulting parliament choosing a committee to write a new constitution by April 2012. That group will have a year to produce the new document and only then-after April 2013-will there be presidential elections. Bottom line: the generals will retain executive power for the next 18 months.

What's likely to happen in elections? My estimate is that the Muslim Brotherhood will be the single largest party, with 30 to 40 percent of the seats.

In contrast to the united Islamists, there are more than a dozen moderate parties. The three main ones are the left-oriented Justice Party, the opportunistic Wafd Party; and the Free Egyptians' Party, the closest thing to an anti-Islamist moderate force.

These three will get roughly 15 percent...

Read the whole entry »

Students Confronting Apartheid at Columbia University: Women's Safety Advisory

Posted by Bill Levinson

Please download, copy, and circulate the attached Women's Safety Advisory for Israel Apartheid Week 

ISRAEL APARTHEID WEEK AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
WOMEN'S SAFETY ADVISORY

To: All female students, faculty members, and guests of this university

Universities around the world are hosting Israel Apartheid Week, whose purpose is to condemn Israel as an apartheid state. Participants at this event may include students or visitors from other cultures that are unfamiliar with or do not share your culture's attitudes toward women and the right of women to control their own bodies. Examples are as follows.

(1)Rape is the fault of women. Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali of Australia said, "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it, whose fault is it-the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her...

Read the whole entry »

Why Do American (Republican) Politicians Make Fools of Themselves in the Middle East?

By Barry Rubin, PAJAMAS MEDIA 

Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mark Kirk, and Mario Rubio are going to regret their Wall Street Journal op-ed on Libya. I don't even have to critique the piece but just to quote it in order to show why:

"Last Thursday we arrived in Tripoli to the promise of a free Libya. We saw a city that is surprisingly secure and orderly. We visited al-Jdeida prison and spoke freely with detainees-a testament to the commitment of the Transitional National Council (TNC) to democracy, transparency and the rule of law. At the end of the day, we walked through Martyrs' Square, where Libyans cheered and thanked America and our NATO allies."

Now compare this to eyewitness accounts like this one or to many others available in the media, showing how the rebels, with NATO's help, are bombarding civilians in Sirte, or accounts of torture and execution of prisoners, or the massive looting in every town captured by the rebels, and...

Read the whole entry »

In Putin's return, Russian Jews see stability

By LEV KRICHEVKSY, JTA 

For Jewish community in Russia, returning president marks a departure in the country's history from the anti-Semitism of past Communist elites.

Was Vladimir Putin's carefully choreographed plan to return to Russia's presidency in 2012 a big blow to democracy or a victory for stability?

It all depends on who you ask.

Most Russian Jews, it seems, say that Putin's return after a four-year stint as prime minister is good news for stability, and that's good for the country's Jewish community. Critics, however, say it's a sign of Russia's stagnation.

Echoing traditional Jewish sensibilities, Yevgeniy Satanovsky, head of the Institute for Israel and Near Eastern Studies, a think tank in Moscow, says that Jews do not have to worry about Putin.

"Putin is neither an anti-Semite nor anti-Israel," Satanovsky said.

For Russia's Jews, whose estimated numbers range from 500,000 to 1 million, Putin marked a departure from the...

Read the whole entry »

Foreign Ministry spells out legal points against PA UN bid

By HERB KEINON, JPOST 

With Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas circling the globe drumming up support from UN Security Council countries for his statehood bid, the Foreign Ministry circulated a document to its representatives abroad this week, spelling out legal arguments against the move.

The document, written by the Foreign Ministry's legal department at the behest of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, is to serve as a basis for Israel's envoys in their continued efforts to poke holes into the Palestinians' argument that they are ready for statehood.

Abbas is currently in Colombia, and on his way to Portugal, to lobby those countries to support his bid in the Security Council.

"The Palestinian request for membership in the United Nations, which was submitted to the Secretary-General on September 23, 2011, implies that a Palestinian state already, somehow, exists," read the document, obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

"The request asked to build upon this...

Read the whole entry »

Koch is a hypocrite

As you know Koch lead the charge in NY-9 to support a Republican as a wake-up call to Obama. After Obama made his UN speech that was generally favourable to Israel, he promptly swore his allegiance to Obama. Nice words were all it took. He ignored that Obama hadn't changed his goal of having negotiations based on '67 lines with swaps. Albeit Obama stresses negotiations but that too is hypocritical because he has no intention of leaving Israel alone to negotiate as she sees fit but intends to pressure Israel to comply with his parameters. Obama got his henchmen, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Bill Gates and Angela Merkel, to put the pressure on Israel by blaming her for the failure of the peace process and for building in Jerusalem. Yet Koch ignores this and believes that Obama really intends to allow Israel to negotiate unfettered. How dumb can you get. Aside from that I see no daylight between what Kristoff wrote and what Obama's people are saying. So it...

Read the whole entry »

10/12/2011 

Obama's Failure to Confront the Iranian Threat

Yesterday, America learned that Iran conspired to launch a terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., with a planned assassination of the Saudi ambassador and bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies. U.S. authorities disrupted the plot and have brought charges against the men who planned to carry out the attack, but the audacity of Iran's actions highlights a disturbing truth: The Obama Administration has done far too little to deter state-sponsored terrorism, and it has utterly failed to confront the Iranian threat. 

Featured Posts 

The Postal Crisis Easily Explained: How to Avoid a Taxpayer Bailout

Lack of Offshore Drilling Lease Sales Makes America's Debt Problem Worse

Obama Economy: Wall Street to Lose 10,000 Securities Jobs

Steve Jobs' Belief in School Choice

In Pictures: How High Will Taxes Go?

QUICK HITS

President Obama's jobs plan was blocked in the Democrat-controlled Senate last night by a 50-49 vote. He blamed Republicans for the bill's failure despite opposition from within his own party.

At least 28 people are dead and dozens wounded as a result of suicide bombings and roadside blasts in Baghdad today.

Unions in California have won big under Governor Jerry Brown (D). At their urging, he has agreed to crack down on automated checkout machines in grocery stores, approved restrictions on local governments' voiding union contracts, and guaranteed wages for workers in public libraries that are privatized.

Union officials in Chicago will collect millions more in retirement than their rank-and-file members by double- and triple-dipping on city and union pensions.

America's debt problem is getting even worse because of a lack of offshore drilling lease sales resulting from the Obama Administration's moratorium on production in the Gulf of Mexico.

 This article highlights real concerns, and is authored by a young man who grew up in our midst (Elkins Park, Pa I think).  .....When will our own Government get it ?....Perhaps after yesterday's events concerning Iranian attempts at terror...by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who are prime supporters and trainers of Hezbollah and other terror groups, as far away as Venezuala ?........ Because of the broad spectrum of views of the group that receives this e-mail.......I know some of you may not agree, but we must stop pandering to Islamic organizations that are co-conspirators in terrorism financing trials...like ISNA and CAIR...God Forbid these folks become involved in "Policy Decisions" at the highest levels in the State Dept. and the White House...If they are not already in those positions...Wake up  !!!!....It is your future and your children's future...it is about time to think of those issues that can truly affect you more than other issues...This is not about "Social" agendas, whether you are Liberal or Conservative, whether you support Democrats or Republicans or you are Independent.... Just a few examples...Do you care about Israel?  About the creeping influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in U.S. politics  and their contacts as they sit at White House Dinners? About Aid to Palestinian organizations that funnel funds to terrorists bent on the destruction of the Jewish State  and could very well target our own institutions here (i.e. Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood etc) ?  Whether the U.S. should consider the consequences of supporting Middle East Govts. that promote terror and Radical Islamist Orgs. in their midst, i.e. Pakistan, Egypt, Etc. Etc, ...The Real Results of the "Arab Winter" ?.... No doubt that these issues may affect your family's life more than most other issues in the years to come......By all means, stay focused on your Social agendas and the Debt Crisis amongst other public concerns, but realize what the priorities are....and this article highlights a grave danger to our common interests.......It is time for us all to Stand Up and be counted.........  We must not lose sight of  the possibilities of emboldening our adversaries....Sometimes we are our own worst enemies...Look at what Israel sacrifices each and every day...Can you imagine releasing a thousand Terrorists into Gaza for one Israeli soldier imprisoned for so many years (that's how we value a single Life), even though by next week some of these murderers may be firing rockets at Israeli cities ?... In this New Year, We wish you all well, however you choose to advocate for Israel .....Just remember  "Am Yisrael Chai "......Howard

Muslim Brotherhood Gaining Foothold in U.S. Gov't?

 Gilad Shalit and the Sea Turtle   by Rabbi Ken Spiro

The controversial exchange highlights one extreme difference: Israel values life.

Read more:  

Fellow patriots,

Please take 1 minute to sign this petition, which asks our government to stand with Egypt's Christians, whose situation has deteriorated in the wake of the "Arab Spring."  It's time for the United States to send a message: We will not send billions of (mostly Christian) taxpayer dollars to Egypt unless it's government does more to protect the Christian minority:

www.petition2congress.com/5297/us-funded-egyptian-military-kills-civilians/%d8%a3%d8%b1%d8%b3%d9%84

The text below is the actual text of the petition.  Please click the above link to sign it.  Thank you! -- Dave

On Sunday, October 9, 2011, the Egyptian Army brutally attacked a peaceful protest in Cairo, Egypt, killing at least 24 civilians and injuring at least 300. In one case, a military tank ran over a protester's head, smashing it to pieces. Mina Daniel, a youth activist who protested in Tahrir for the 18 days of the January 25th Revolution and survived, was among those killed during today's protest. Thugs have also attacked the Coptic Hospital in El-Daher, Cairo, where the injured are being treated. The protesters were made up of Muslims and Christians protesting the burning of a church in Aswan, Egypt.

During this violence, Egyptian state media falsely reported that three members of the military were killed by the protesters, and the the Egyptian Army (SCAF) used this as an opportunity to pit Egyptian against Egyptian, using state television to call upon Egyptians to "protect" the army from these attacks by Coptic protesters!

Under the rule of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), 12,000 Egyptians were sentenced to military court since last January. During Mubarak's rule, only 500 Egyptians were sentenced by military court. More churches were burned and the perpetrators un-sentenced under this military rule. The hated Emergency Law has been renewed, and heavy-handed censorship has brought upon the arrest of journalists and the storming of the offices of independent news media.

In the meantime, lawlessness rules the streets in Egypt, and it seems that SCAF is only uses its security forces to attack protesters and independent media, rather than to do its job to protect its citizens.

Every year, the US government gives $1.3 billion to SCAF. My tax dollars are being used to fund a ruling army that is attacking, killing and oppressing the citizens of its own country. This same army, while on one hand accepting all military aid from the US, has refused any US aid that would help build a truly free, fair and democratic country that respects the rights of all its citizens--and that could hold SCAF accountable.

SCAF has proven itself incapable of ruling Egypt and presiding over elections planned in November. It is trying to incite a civil war in Egypt, and is using the Egyptian state media to spread this message of hatred.

Do not use my tax dollars to support this regime. Use your influence and stand with the Egyptian people, not their oppressive military government. Call for a complete investigation of these criminal acts and full prosecution of those responsible at the highest levels. Egypt needs a transitional, secular civilian government that is capable of presiding over free and fair elections and legitimate constitutional changes.

The over 800 Egyptians who died during the January 25th Revolution did not die for this. Enough is enough.

A creative way to disrespect Israel

by Barry Farber

Posted: September 06, 2011 WorldNetDaily

You know what hurts as much as America's new mood of twitchy anxiety?  We're losing our habit of "good."

The difference between America and a Cuba that jails an ill-and-innocent Alan Gross and an Iran that imprisons three obviously innocent hikers who strayed across their unmarked border has been narrowed by an official American act of such brutishness that I wish I could run full-page ads in the major newspapers of Haiti and Israel disassociating myself from this foul deed.

The drama begins with the earthquake in Haiti early last year that took 200,000 lives.  Haiti's salsa dance champion, Gheorghes Exantus, was pinned down for three whole days beneath the rubble of his apartment building.  Friends found him and dug him out.

The world may have forgotten and the World Brotherhood of Jew-Haters is not likely to remind us, but little Israel had the best medical team in Haiti.  The Israeli doctors and paramedics and the equipment they brought along made Haiti temporarily the most modern medical center south of the USA.  That's where they took Gheorghes.

Quote of the Day

" The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it. " 

 -Henry Hazlitt

Schumer's strategy: Tie GOP in 2012 to rising Tea Party unpopularity

Lame

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pinning Democrats' hopes for keeping their Senate majority on a strategy that would tie the GOP to the Tea Party, which has dropped in popularity.

Schumer, who as chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee has responsibility for the Senate Democrats' messaging strategy, unveiled his 2012 campaign plans at a Wednesday breakfast hosted by Third Way, a Democratic think tank.

Click here to read the full article at The Hill

Obama, Democrats keep pressing Republicans on jobs

Bill dies in Senate

Fresh from a defeat at the hands of Republicans, President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats said Wednesday they will move their jobs bill in pieces to convince voters that they are a better choice to spur the sluggish economy.

One day after Republicans blocked the $447 billion job-creation package in the Senate, Obama said he was not giving up.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Bilingual voting ballots ordered in 25 states

Ballots in Espanol?

In the run-up to the 2012 elections, the federal government is ordering that 248 counties and other political jurisdictions provide bilingual ballots to Hispanics and other minorities who speak little or no English.

That number is down from a decade ago following the 2000 census, which covered 296 counties in 30 states. In all, more than 1 in 18 jurisdictions must now provide foreign-language assistance in pre-election publicity, voter registration, early voting and absentee applications as well as Election Day balloting.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Chrysler, United Auto Workers agree on contract

So far...no bonuses

Chrysler Group LLC and the United Auto Workers say that they reached a tentative deal on a new four-year contract early Wednesday that creates 2,100 new jobs.

The automaker is the last of the three Detroit automakers to make a deal with the union.

Click here to read the full article at Yahoo News

Olive Garden: American flag display would distrupt dining experience

Lame

Officials with the parent company of Olive Garden restaurants say they're sorry if a decision regarding an Alabama Kiwanis club's desire to display the American flag caused any concern.

The comments come after 80-year-old Marti Warren of Anniston said she wasn't allowed to bring an American flag into an Olive Garden for a planned Kiwanis Club banquet in the east Alabama town of Oxford.

Click here to read the full article at CBS12

Romneycare Advisors Helped with Obamacare 

What did Hillary know and when did she know it?

Oct 12, 2011 06:13 am | Coach Collins

  By Ron Reale, staff writer

 How is it that in the midst of all the uproar concerning Eric Holder's Justice Departments murderous assault on the Second Amendment, "Operation Fast and Furious," we have not heard the name HILLARY CLINTON?

 Our Secretary of State was certainly used as an important cog in the wheel of destruction aimed at our Constitutional rights. When she stood in Mexico City with her Mexican counterpart and accused Americans of being behind all of the escalating gun violence, what did she really know?

Was she actually ignorant of the facts of the ongoing Obama/Holder attack on American citizens and their Second Amendment Rights? Was she used by Obama/Holder to make what everyone now knows were extraordinarily misleading statements to the Main Stream Media, the Mexican Government, and the American people?

 Or was she an active, willing participant in this outrageous scheme, and the deaths or injuries of countless Mexican ... Continue Reading:What did Hillary know and when did she know it?

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American Minute for October 11th

Oct 11, 2011 05:13 pm | Coach Collins

 Coachisright.com is pleased to announce American history scholar; nationally known speaker and best selling author William J Federer's daily American Minute column will be part of CiR's afternoon update.

 Bill Federer is a tireless and meticulous researcher whose daily history lessons reflect the relationship between God and our nation. Bill is a regular guest on radio and television shows when getting American history right is essential.

 We're sure you will enjoy Bill's daily columns and want to share them with your friends and families. Bill Federer is an American patriot whose message needs to be heard by all.

 By Bill Federer, staff writer

    On OCTOBER 11, 1798, President John Adams wrote to the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division of Massachusetts' Militia:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes ... Continue Reading:American Minute for October 11th

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Effective Constitutional values which should guide our voting

Oct 11, 2011 02:05 pm | Coach Collins

By Jerry Todd, staff writer

This is my guide to effective Constitutional values for politicians, and the people who vote for them.  

 Today we must restore our armor against the wiles and snares of the evil that swirls around our halls of government. More than politics, it's spiritual warfare! If you learn nothing else along the way, these principles should burn brightly in your mind and heart.

 1. The Declaration of Independence sets the spiritual, moral and philosophical base of the Constitution. It also warns of "pretended legislation." It is the greatest political document ever written.  

 2. Political Correctness is Academia's contribution to universal ignorance. Free speech and free exchange of ideas are lost because of this plague on our educational systems at all levels.

 3. The Principles of Subsidiarity (public questions should be handled at the lowest level of government possible) and Solidarity must be applied in all legislation to prevent privatism (focusing only on ... Continue Reading:Effective Constitutional values which should guide our voting

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Occupy L.A. Speaker: Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals

Citizen journalist Ringo captured this speaker at the Occupy Los Angeles camp a few days ago letting the cat out of the bag: After dismissing nonviolence as a dead end, he admits that for the Occupiers to achieve their goals, violence and bloodshed will be necessary:

Ultimately violence will be necessary, says Occupy L.A. speaker - Pt2 10/01/2011

Chronicle · October 12, 2011

The Foundation

"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability." --James Madison

Editorial Exegesis

Blowing money on "green jobs"

"The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few. A new report by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to 'train and prepare individuals for careers in "green jobs."' So far about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been 'trained' so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months. Overall, 'only 10% of participants entered employment.' In the understatement of the year, the IG says the program failed to 'assist those most impacted by the recession.' The jobs record is even more dismal when you consider that many of the jobs classified as green aren't even new jobs, much less green, according to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They include positions that have been 'relabeled as green jobs by the [Bureau of Labor Statistics].' This means that bus drivers, Environmental Protection Agency regulators, university professors teaching ecology, and even the Washington lobbyists who secure energy loan guarantees count as green employees for the purposes of government counting. The Oversight Committee finds that even a charitable assessment of the Labor program puts the cost of each green job at $157,000. The silver lining is that the IG found that as of 'June 30, 2011, $327.3 million remained unexpended' from the Labor program's appropriation. The IG urges that all funds 'determined not to be needed should be recouped as soon as practicable and to the extent permitted by law.' That ought to be the deficit supercommittee's first $327 million in savings." --The Wall Street Journal

What exactly are "green jobs"?

Upright

"The fun part of ['Occupy Wall Street'] is the sudden urge on the part of Democrats and liberals to hide behind the occupation forces, touting their cause for at least as long as it takes to beat out the Republicans' brains in 2012. Sure will be a sight when the campaigns start in earnest and the president has to decide for himself how to walk a fine line between hanging bankers and soliciting their campaign contributions." --columnist William Murchison

"In an amusing inversion of the Russian model, Van Jones became a czar after he'd been a Communist. ... Needless to say, a man who never saw a cobwebbed collectivist nostrum he didn't like no matter how long past its sell-by date is hot for 'Occupy Wall Street.' Indeed, Van Jones thinks that the protests are the start of an 'American Autumn.' In case you don't get it, that's the American version of the 'Arab Spring.' Steve Jobs might have advised Van Jones he has a branding problem. ... Even in my great state of New Hampshire, where autumn is pretty darn impressive, we understand what that blaze of red and orange leaves means: They burn brightest before they fall and die, and the world turns chill and bare and hard." --columnist Mark Steyn

"Here's a thought: Maybe Obama is just a big fan of public policy the way I'm a big fan of movies? ... But you know what? I don't have a frickn' clue how to make a Hollywood movie (and I've actually made some documentaries). ... The White House spent the first two years of this administration working from a slew of false assumptions not just about the economy, but about the political skills of the president. As Noemie Emery recently laid out, this president isn't nearly as good at politics as he and his advisors thought he was. Now they're explanation is that while he may not be great at politics, it's only because his true gift is for 'getting the policies right.' Good luck with that." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

Essential Liberty

"The transcontinental railroad lost tons of money. The government never covered its costs, and most rail lines that used the tracks went bankrupt or continued to be subsidized by taxpayers. The Union Pacific and Northern Pacific -- all those rail lines we learned about in history class -- milked the taxpayer and then went broke. One line worked. The Great Northern never went bankrupt. It was the railroad that got no subsidies. We need infrastructure, but the beauty of leaving most of these things to the private sector -- without subsidies, bailouts and other privileges -- is that they would have to be justified by the profit-and-loss test. In a truly free market, when private companies make bad choices, investors lose their own money. This tends to make them careful. By contrast, when government loses money, it just spends more and raises your taxes, or borrows more, or inflates. Building giant government projects is no way to create jobs. When government spends on infrastructure, it takes money away from projects that consumers might think are more important. When government isn't killing jobs by sucking money out of the private sector, it kills jobs by smothering the private sector with regulation." --columnist John Stossel

United States Navy Birthday

On Oct. 13, 1775, the U.S. Navy was born when the Continental Congress authorized the arming of two sailing vessels with 80 men and 10 carriage guns in order to intercept British supply and munitions transports. The Declaration of Independence came nine months later, followed by the creation of the Department of the Navy in 1798. Today, our Navy is the most powerful in the world. We at The Patriot Post offer our thanks to all our sailors for a job well done and wish you a Happy 236th Birthday! God bless you and your families.

Please visit The Patriot Post Shop for a great selection of items bearing the Navy's insignia.

The Demo-gogues

Stubborn like a jackass: "[Tuesday's] vote [to kill my 'jobs' bill] is by no means the end of this fight. Independent economists have said that the American Jobs Act would grow the economy and lead to nearly two million jobs, which is why the majority of the American people support these bipartisan, common-sense proposals." --Barack Obama Tuesday night on the defeat of his American Jobs Act by the Senate (The president failed to mention that two democrat Senators united with Republicans in voting against the proposal.)

You need government: "The Republicans talk about class warfare. Our goal is to make success available for everybody. ... Somebody -- an outstanding entrepreneur like a Steve Jobs -- somewhere along the line he had a teacher who helped inspire him. All those great Internet businesses wouldn't have succeeded unless somebody had invested in the government research that helped to create the Internet. We don't succeed on our own." --Barack Obama arguing that government is what makes a person successful

The BIG Lie: "Twenty-six years ago, another president said that some of these tax loopholes, and I quote, 'made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that's crazy. It's time we stopped it.' That was 26 years ago. You know the name of that president? Ronald Reagan. So was that class warfare? By the way, taxes are much lower now than they ever were when Ronald Reagan was president." --Barack Obama

Just making it up: "The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace. No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street. ... God bless them for their spontaneity. It's independent ... it's young, it's spontaneous, it's focused. And it's going to be effective." --House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Insight

"There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up." --American author Rex Stout (1886-1975)

"A great many people mistake opinions for thoughts." --banking executive and author Herbert Victor Prochnow (1897-1998)

Dezinformatsia

Stupid question: "So you're saying that Republicans want to increase the disparity of wealth rather than decrease it. That's their intention?" --MSNBC's Martin Bashir to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN)

"Never let a good crisis go to waste": "Do you think this president wasted it -- the crisis you talked about -- to do the big things at that moment, to really be a jobs president to create the demand in the economy that you're talking about through more government spending?" --NBC's David Gregory to none other than current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, original author of that crisis line

Wearing a blindfold: "[T]here's little sign that the Department of Energy has handed out money recklessly: the vetting process, which relied on three thousand outside experts, was unusually rigorous. ... Solyndra was a big bet that happened to go bad. But we probably need to be making more bets like it." --New Yorker journalist James Surowiecki

Rooting for the Flea Party: "Speaking of Wall Street, we thought we'd bring you up to date on those protesters, the Occupy Wall Street movement. As of tonight, it has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica." --ABC's Diane Sawyer

Newspulper Headlines:

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking: "William Shatner: Obama Can't Be Captain Kirk" --Politico.com

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: "Washington Struggles to Keep Occupiers Straight" --RollCall.com

We Blame Global Warming: "Canadians Cool to Embracing Multicultural Values: Study" --Vancouver Sun

News of the Tautological: "The Occupy Wall Street protest has drawn an unwelcome crowd of freeloaders." --New York Post

Breaking News From 2009: "Peace Prize Winner's Troubling Affiliation" --Commentary website

Bottom Story of the Day: "Obama Calls for Passage of Jobs Bill" --Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Victimitis: "Well, [Congress] wanted us to keep doing what we were expected to do in Iraq, doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and, oh by the way, what you're trying to do in Yemen, what you're trying to do in Somalia, what you're trying to do in Sudan, etc., etc. But we don't want to give you as much money, so you just keeping doing that. It's a burden for us to keep making the case. But then I'll get called by a conservative member of Congress who asks, 'Why aren't we doing more in the Horn of Africa? Those people are starving.' And so we have to keep making the case, and we are." --Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reacting to possible budget cuts

That's racist: "It's pretty obvious what [the Tea Party is]. The division of the country is not about the government having too much power. I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means. It's not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down to pretty much to race. It is a shame." --actor Samuel L. Jackson

Bizarre reasoning: "[W]hat is the Republican solution to these outrageous [racial] inequalities? There isn't one. And that's the point. Denying racism is the new racism." --HBO's Bill Maher

Double standard: "The Tea Party, whatever it pretends, is just the latest manifestation of the right wing's refusal to accept the idea of Democrats running the government. Every time one gets elected, there's this crazed right-wing upheaval. The Wall Street protests are a cry of pain from a generation that feels it's been cheated, and for good reason" --New York Times columnist Gail Collins

Socialism, plain and simple: "Is this the time though that we can change the discussion in this country away from just deficit cutting toward really how we distribute the wealth in this country?" --"Reverend" Al Sharpton

Short Cuts

"Take a good long look at the Occupy protesters. Virtually every one of their demands is textbook anti-capitalist, radical environmentalist big-government-is-our-savior progressivism. The overarching commonality? An irrational me-first ignorance so entrenched, only a precious few would recognize the irony of railing against capitalism using products created, developed and funded by capitalists." --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"The protests were like a stumbling little fawn trying to find its legs. They'd been in existence for about two weeks, and NBC was already suggesting the 'potential' for what the Tea Party achieved in 2010 -- a massive Democratic wave election in 2012. Journalists are either easily impressed or very energetic practitioners of wishful thinking." --columnist L. Brent Bozell

"New York's Occupy Wall Street protesters argued among themselves about whether they should sew their own sleeping bags with winter coming or engage in capitalism and buy them. Also, they argued over whether to beg for food or buy donuts. It took two hours in the real world to convert the entire movement to supply-side economics." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"Christopher Columbus claimed America for Spain. If the British had never come here, we would all be speaking Spanish -- as opposed to just half of the country speaking Spanish. --comedian Jay Leno

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team

 Wednesday, October 12, 2011

To: Friends & Supporters

From: Gary L. Bauer


Debate Analysis

Before I offer thoughts on last night's GOP debate, I want to reiterate that I am not endorsing any candidate at this time. I am only offering my analysis, based on my 40 years of experience in the political arena, including my own participation in eight presidential debates in 2000.

The de facto "winner" of last night's debate was probably Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney handled himself well, he deflected attacks and none of his challengers successfully landed a punch on him. Romney won because he made no mistakes. He went in as the front-runner and left as the front-runner. It is amazing to me that none of his rivals seized on yesterday's breaking story that former Romney healthcare advisers went to the White House and gave advice on ObamaCare!

Yet Romney has not sealed the deal. His poll numbers remain stubbornly static. He is not exciting the conservative base, and the race is still wide open.

Herman Cain's tax plan is generating some buzz among conservatives, and his 9-9-9 plan was the center of attention last night. Many analysts question whether the plan as currently formulated will raise sufficient revenue. Cain, of course, disputes that, insisting that most reviews of his plan do not account for the economic growth that would take place. There is much to admire about the 9-9-9 plan in theory. But it has political risks.

Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann both pointed out the most obvious problem with Cain's plan: It gives the government another way to pick your pocket. While many conservatives like the idea of a national sales tax, they want it to replace the income tax. While Cain is calling for a radically reduced tax structure (a good thing), it is undeniable that he is also calling for a new tax on top of the income tax.

And that's why Democrat strategists love it. It gives them a chance to portray Republicans as tax hikers. In past campaigns, they have run ads accusing Republican candidates of wanting to impose a massive national sales tax. Of course, those ads don't tell you the whole truth, but they are very effective at swaying undecided voters who tune in at the last minute. Moreover, seniors and retirees on fixed incomes are not too keen about paying a new tax on food and medicine either.

But questions about Cain's tax plan could be the least of his problems. Politico reports today that he has not been to Iowa in nearly two months. The story notes that Cain has been having "staff troubles" and "all but disappeared from the campaign trail while touring the country to promote his new book."

Nevertheless, Herman Cain defended his plan well. His call for bold action and new ideas in these challenging times resonates with many Americans. I suspect Cain solidified his position in the polls last night as a top tier contender.

And Cain's gains have come at the expense of Texas Governor Rick Perry. Like many people, I have been disappointed with Perry's past debate performances. Last night, the governor avoided making any gaffes, but in my view, he also failed to gain any ground.

After last night's event, Governor Perry reportedly said, "Debates are not my strong suit. But you know we get up and do 'em and we just try to let people see our passion." Okay, friends. It's time for a reality check.

I like Rick Perry a lot. But we have to win this election!

We cannot go into this campaign prematurely surrendering the debates to Barack Obama. One thing we know for certain is that Obama will outspend our nominee. Our best opportunity to level the playing field, by getting free airtime to make the conservative case to the country -- IS IN THE DEBATES!

If Governor Perry is not capable of outdebating competitors in the GOP race, is he really up to the task of taking on Barack Obama? As I wrote previously, I am not counting Gov. Perry out yet. His fundraising is impressive and he has a strong base of support. He is pro-life and pro-family. But he has to be able to articulate his views.

Kudos to Senator Rick Santorum, who interjected some discussion of values into last night's debate about the economy. As Senator Santorum noted, the root of the Greek word for economy is home. While Americans are rightly worried about our budget deficit, millions of Americans are deeply concerned about our growing virtue deficit. And there is no government program capable of making up for the breakdown of the family.

Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann also turned in solid performances. At various points, the liberal moderators tried to engage the candidates with flawed premises or tried to goad them into attacking one another. Bachmann and Gingrich brilliantly redirected the focus of the debate back where it belonged -- on the failed policies of Barack Obama.

By the way, if you want a bit of encouragement today, check out this picture on the Drudge Report.


An Inconvenient Moment

Yesterday's news about the Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and to bomb Israel's Washington embassy has created an inconvenient moment for the Obama Administration. Manssor Arbabsiar of Corpus Christi, Texas, says he was "directed by high-ranking members of the Iranian government," including a relative who is believed to be a member of Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This is a stunning development that shows just how little Tehran fears America right now.

Our president spent the entire 2008 campaign bashing George W. Bush for having bad relations with the Islamic world and for refusing to talk to Iran. In a major speech not long after taking office, Obama said to the Iranians, "If you will unclench your fist, I will extend a hand of friendship." He sent the Iranian government greetings on Ramadan and the Persian new year.

The Iranian government responded by killing U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan through the use of roadside bombs. Now it has plotted to bomb Washington, D.C. Tapes in our possession reportedly indicate that these thugs had no concern about "collateral damage" from the bombings, i.e., dead Americans.

This administration argues that conservatives are dead wrong when we insist that the enemy is radical Islamists. When a Muslim involved with terrorism is arrested, the official line is that he doesn't understand his own religion. Obama's top counterterrorism official at the White House says jihad means self-improvement. President Obama goes out of his way to sing the praises of Islam's contributions to America. (What are they?)

Are they seriously trying to tell us that Iran under a secular government would be acting no differently than the Islamic Republic is currently behaving under the radical Shiite mullahs? Of course it would be different! The mullahs believe they are paving the way for the Mahdi, an Islamic "messiah" that will cleanse the world of infidels. The Islamic Republic's behavior has everything to do with its religion.

What is the administration going to do in response? Next to nothing. ABC News reports that "Senior Obama administration officials said the U.S. ...will pursue a path of response that would not include the possibility of an armed conflict with Iran." [Emphasis added.] Already we have taken our most potent option off the table.

Instead, administration officials tell us they are going to rally the world to toughen sanctions against Iran. I've got news for President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton: The world won't rally. Russia and China just vetoed resolutions against Syria for slaughtering its own citizens. Only 30 countries walked out in protest of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's offensive rant at the U.N. Sadly, many in the world are disappointed that Iran failed to pull off this attack in Washington.

But this is an inconvenient moment not only for the left-wing establishment that blames America for every evil in the world. It is also an inconvenient moment for isolationists like Ron Paul, who say that if we would just ignore the thugs of the world everything would be okay. Isolationism and passivism didn't keep us out of World War I or World War II, and it won't save us from Islamofascism either.
   

Winning the System

Christie has endorsed Romney and Perry has turned out not to be as far to the right as people wanted to believe. Cain leads until the next slip. Palin will be courted by the front-runners and she will likely step forward to campaign for one of them. The big money is still on Romney who knows that he can wait out all the broken hopes and dreams to accept the nomination with a plastic grin.

And why should it be any different?

 

Politicians are lawyers by training, actors by necessity and and negotiators by practice. Their job is to satisfy their top supporters, keep the system chugging along and smile for the cameras. They know that when the speeches are done they will have to go into a small room with a heavy wooden table and talk out the details with their opposite numbers.

Defense lawyers have more in common with prosecutors than they do with their defendants. That's why the image of the crusading lawyer has as much truth to it as that of the crusading politician. When they're not being played by Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck, they're just men doing their job. And their job is to play their role in the system. To represent their client not as he sees fit, but as they see fit.

Politics is a profession and those who work in it are part of a system. The people who are in that system understand it better than the outsiders do. The world of politics, like that of the justice system or the medical system or any other system, is a miniature reality with its own rules and practices. Anyone entering that world learns to play by its rules or washes out. And the actors in it may contend with each other, but like rival car salesmen trying to sell you a car, or two members of the hospital bureaucracy arguing about which ward you belong in, you are just a pawn in their system. Their job is to move you through their process. Not to allow an outsider to control the process.
 

Wingless, Bloodsucking and Parasitic: Meet the Flea Party!

News from The Hill:

House approves Colombia trade deal
By Pete Kasperowicz
 

Members voted 262-167 in favor of the agreement, a vote that saw only 9 Republicans defect. The House approved a controversial free trade agreement with Colombia on Wednesday that was roundly criticized by Democrats, but in the end managed to garner 31 "yes" Democrat votes. Members voted 262-167 in favor of the agreement, a vote that saw only 9 Republicans defect. Stay tuned to The Hill for more votes Wednesday in the House and Senate on three trade deals.

Read the complete story here.

Issa subpoenas Holder, Justice on 'Fast and Furious'
By Daniel Strauss
 

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has subpoenaed Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice for documents related to the "Fast and Furious" gun tracking operation.

Issa argues Holder either knew more about the failed operation than he has told Congress, or has run his department incompetently if he did not know of the gun program. The White House has defended Holder, and the Attorney General has charged Issa and other Republicans with playing politics.

"Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged," Issa said in a statement announcing the subpoenas. "The documents this subpoena demands will provide answers to questions that Justice officials have tried to avoid since this investigation began eight months ago. It's time we know the whole truth."

Today's Headlines:  Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Only One Jewish Resident Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department

State Dep't Considering 5,662 Diversity Visa Applicants from 'State Sponsors of Terrorism'

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Terror Plot Prompts Calls for 'Crippling Pressure' on Iran

Gingrich: Plot Shows Obama Is 'Clueless' About Iran

Romney Would Bail Out 'Financial System,' But Not Individual Institutions

Romney Says He Supports 'Partnership Agreements' for Same-Sex Couples

Protest Organizer: 'Within Two Weeks of Obama's Inauguration We Knew We Might as Well Have Another Bush in There'

Cantor: 'Occupy' Protests 'Very Different' from the Tea Party

Hoyer: Tea Party Town Halls were 'Much More Confrontational' than Occupy Protests

Republicans Reject Obama's 'Second Stimulus' Masquerading As a Jobs Bill

Gingrich: More Drilling Is Compatible With Green Conservatism

Gallup: Majority of Americans Are Still at an Unhealthy Weight

U.S. Had Every Legal Right to Kill Awlaki, Former Atty. Gen. Says

COMMENTARY:

DOJ: Feds Can Tell Church Who Its Ministers Will Be
By Terence P. Jeffrey
In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be.

Protesters Occupy the Liberal Media
By L. Brent Bozell III
Journalists who desperately want Obama's re-election are grasping at the narrative of a growing liberal protest movement to mobilize the left into action against Republicans. And they're not just grasping that narrative, they're writing it.

Newspaper Unions Support Protesters' Call for Revolution
By Dan Gainor
You say you want a revolution? Apparently journalists sure do. Two separate journalism unions are backing the radical 'Occupy Wall Street' protest movement, but no one question their ethics.

Obama's Teachable Truthiness Moment
By Michelle Malkin
President Obama blames Republicans for the collapse of his latest government jobs bill. But in the end, he has only his tall-tale-telling tongue to blame.

The Dartmouth Debate
By Rich Galen
The only candidates that matter at this point are Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain.


NEWSPAPER ROUNDUP:

Ken Salazar urges more Latino-themed national parks, sites
Boston public housing going smoke-free in 2012
Romney at debate: I can work with Democrats
GOP rivals target Cain's '9-9-9' plan
Chief of Staff Bill Daley to leave White House after 2012 election
Israel agrees to free 1,027 Palestinians in swap for soldier
Retrial ordered for Iranian pastor facing death sentence for Christian beliefs
Banks fume over 'Volcker rule' that would trading for their own profit
Mass. Senate approves addiction warnings for slots
Michelle Obama does jumping jacks with kids
British marathon runner caught a bus to finish third in race
Pa. Gov. Corbett rolls out his school-voucher plan
Congressional investigators to subpoena Holder in Fast and Furious probe

October 12, 2011
 
  OBAMA WANTS CONGRESS BYPASSED  BLAZE ORIGINAL VIDEO - Speaking at a union hall in Pittsburgh yesterday, President Obama instructed his advisors to push through stimulus projects without Congressional approval. Watch the video HERE. 

FACT CHECKING LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE   Last night's spirited GOP debate in New Hampshire was filled with statements from the candidates about taxes, jobs, and the economy. How accurate were the candidates? The Associated Press has checked all the facts and we present them HERE.

WATCH BILL O'REILLY'S EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW  PBS Host Tavis Smiley and Princeton Professor Cornel West have been touring the country pushing a Progressive political agenda. Last night both men appeared on Bill O'Reilly's TV show and fireworks ensued. Watch the entire interview HERE.

  FAKE MAPLE SYRUP = A CRIME, BAILOUTS TO GO 'POSTAL', & WHO WON THE DEBATE?  No one person can read all of the important stories on the internet, unless that person visits the morning and evening "Must-Read" pages in our Blog section. Wednesday morning's Must-Reads await you HERE.

FL SCHOOL BOARD CUTS FUNDING TO BOY SCOUTS OVER ANTI-GAY STANCE  Pinellas County Florida has cut funding to the Boy Scout-run, "Learning for Life" program that teaches personal responsibility, respect, honesty and fairness. The board claims this is due to the Scout's policy against gays in leadership positions. See all the details HERE.
  VIRAL VIDEO DU JOUR - BOCEPHUS AND BECK? THE HANK WILLIAMS JR INTERVIEW   Hank Williams Jr.spoke with Glenn Beck today. This very candid interview about Freedom of Speech had Glenn raving. Watch the chat that Beck called his "favorite interview maybe of all time" HERE.

  DID SAUDIS ARREST A COLUMBIAN SOCCER PLAYER BECAUSE OF HIS JESUS TATTOO?  
Last Friday, 24-yr-old Colombian soccer player Juan Pablo Pino and his pregnant wife were taken into custody by the Saudi Arabian moral police after allegedly receiving complaints about the religious tattoos on Mr. Pino's arms. Read the details of this curious story HERE.
 

Ask Your Senators to Open Jobs for Americans by Slowing Work Permits for Legal Immigration

With the national unemployment rate hovering around 9%, the immigration policies established by Congress bring in 125,000 new foreign workers to the U.S. each month. This amounts to 1,500,000 foreign workers each year, who compete directly with Americans for U.S. job opportunities.

The current rate of immigration far surpasses our national traditional average of 250,000 new immigrants a year. Our present-day immigration numbers are highly unsustainable and harms both American workers and newly arrived immigrants alike. We all support immigration in moderation. Many of our friends, family, and co-workers are immigrants themselves. But too much of anything can become harmful long term. Especially during the current economic recession when millions of Americans are struggling to find adequate employment.

Congress creates immigration policy and only Congress has the power to reverse this trend. Send this critical message to your U.S. Representative and 2 Senators today, urging them to restore U.S. immigration back to its traditional levels. This is a completely free service. There is no cost to you.

Demographic Winter: A Disaster Movie In the Making
A speech by Don Feder at Ave Maria University, September 20, 2011

         Hollywood has a penchant for blowing things up - especially the world. Since the 1950s, apocalyptic movies (which come with a variety of special effects) have been all the rage.

         We've met our doom through nuclear war ("On The Beach," "The Day After"), a worldwide super-plague ("Twelve Monkeys" "The Stand"), global warming ("The Day After Tomorrow," "Waterworld,"), the earth's core over-heating ("2012," "The Core"), overpopulation ("Soylent Green"), a comet striking the earth ("Deep Impact," "Armageddon"), sentient machines taking over (the "Terminator" and "Matrix" series), rampaging simians (the "Planet of The Apes" series), alien invasion ("Invasion of The Body Snatchers," "War of the Worlds" "Battle Los Angles"), flesh-eating zombies - often mistaken for Democrats - ("I Am Legend," "Zombieland") and fire-breathing dragons ("Reign of Fire").

         Did I miss anything?

         But the most plausible disaster scenario is the one you never see coming, because it happens in slow motion and flies in the face of conventional wisdom.

         Sentient machines out to destroy their makers, rampaging apes, flesh-eating zombies are, of course, fiction. The apocalypse looming on the horizon is fact. And, as one of my favorite presidents, John Adams, famously said: "Facts are stubborn things."

         Fact: Worldwide, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) - the number of children the average woman has during her childbearing years - fell from 5 in the mid-1960s to 2.7 today, a decline of almost 50%.

         Fact: 59 countries, with 44% of the world's population, now have below replacement fertility - in many cases, well below replacement. A birthrate of 2.1 is needed just to replace current population.

         Fact: Russia, Germany and Greece are already experiencing population decline. Greece has a TFR of 1.3, making it impossible for tax revenue to keep pace with entitlements and the salaries of government workers, leading to riots and a nation on the brink of revolution. In Russia each year, abortions outnumber live births. The average Russian woman has six abortions in her lifetime. Not surprisingly, Russia is losing 700,000 people a year. Demographers tell us that - everything else being equal - with a birthrate of 1.3, a nation will lose half its people every 45 years.

         Fact: From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of Spanish women who are childless at age 30 doubled, rising from 30% to 60%. Nearly one in five American women ends her childbearing years without having children - compared to one in 10 in the 1970s. Germany has the highest proportion of childless women in Europe, one out of every three. Of Japanese women born in the 1970s, half are childless.

         Fact: Due to China's one-child-per-family policy, the traditional preference for male children and gender-selection abortions, in the Middle Kingdom, there are now six newborn males for every five females, an unprecedented gender imbalance. Already, there are 18 million more Chinese men than women of marriageable age. That number is expected to rise to between 29 million and 40 million by the year 2020.

         Fact: Developed nations are aging rapidly. Japan's over-60 population went from 11.6% of total in 1989 to 21.2% in 2011. For each of the past 4 years, there have been more deaths than births in Japan. In 2010, the nation lost 125,000 people. In developed nations, seniors are expected to be to 32% of the total population by 2050. Then, there will be two elderly for every child.

         Fact: By 2015, the global contraceptive market will generate an estimated $17.2 billion annually.

         Fact: Today, there are six million fewer children in the world than there were in 1990. But that's just the initial tremor of a coming earthquake. The United Nations Population Division estimates that by 2050, there will be 248 million fewer children in the world under 5 than there are now.

         One more Fact: Nothing happens in a vacuum. In human experience, nothing occurs spontaneously. For every effect there is a cause - or multiple causes.

         All over the world, individuals, governments and societies have embraced a set of assumptions and policies which have led inexorably to rapidly falling birthrates. In other words, whether or not we did so consciously, we chose Demographic Winter.

         The roots of Demographic Winter lie in the 1960s. It's no coincidence that the phenomenon was first manifested in the late 1970s, about a decade after the Sixties, which resulted in the most profound social upheaval since the French Revolution.

         The hallmark of the 60's revolution was youth rejecting authority - especially parental and religious authority. Supposedly this was a sign of intellectual independence and maturity. In reality, it was blind acceptance of a set of clichés and dogmas in place of eternal truths and time-tested wisdom.

         Chief among these clichés was "do your own thing" - which roughly translates as "live for yourself." If you embrace this axiom, you become the warm center of your own little universe - Planet You in the Galaxy Charlie Sheen. It should surprise no one that my generation (the Baby-Boomers) is known as the Me-Generation, in recognition of our self-centeredness. If you meet one of us at a party, we'll be wearing a name-tag that reads. "Hi. I'm (fill in the blank), let me tell you about me."

         Along with a fixation on self came a lessening of feelings of responsibility for the things that really matter. Curiously, we feel responsible for endangered species, pollution and the ozone layer (things largely beyond our control) - but not for our families, our nation or our people.

         In the past, men and women didn't ask why have children - any more than they asked why eat or why breathe. It was such a natural part of existence as to require no explanation.

         You had children because you had a responsibility to your family to assure its continuity. You had a responsibility to your people - so that they would not go the way of the Babylonian and the Phoenician, whose downfall probably began when they started distributing condoms in their schools. And you had a responsibility to God, who created you and made procreation the first commandment.

         In the United States, birth-control pills came into widespread use in the early 1960s. Today, for the first time in history, just under half the world's population of child-bearing age uses some form of contraception. In the United States, children as young as 12 are instructed in the proper use of condoms. This includes fitting condoms over bananas, which - at least in the case of fruit - seems not to be working that well, as we still have an adequate supply of bananas.

         In America, abortion was legalized by judicial decree in the 1973. Other Western nations followed our egregious example. Like contraception, abortion is based on 1960s assumptions, chief among them that nothing should be allowed to interfere with your happiness (or what you've been told will make you happy), including children. Again: Do your own thing. And if "your own thing" includes having a scalpel shoved in the skull of a child in utero and his brains suctioned out, that's a small price to pay for you being you.

         Worldwide, there are approximately 115,000 abortions a day or 42 million a year. Morality aside, from a demographic perspective, we're not just aborting 42 million unborn children a year, but their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will never exist. As Dick Cavett said, "If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either."

         At its heart, the Sixties revolution was a sexual revolution. Sex was divorced from marriage, commitment and even psychological connection. We've seen the initiation of sexual activity at an earlier and earlier age. Sex before marriage led to sex outside marriage, which led to multiple liaisons, divorce and what's been called serial polygamy. In a few decades, we've gone from making love to having sex. This may seem counter-intuitive, but more and more sex has led to fewer and fewer children.

         Cohabitation also plays a significant part here. According to the Census Bureau, between 2009 and 2010, there was a 13% increase in cohabiting heterosexual couples - from 6.7 million to 7.5 million. That's on top of a tenfold increase in cohabitation between 1960 and the year 2000.

         Given the impermanence of their relationships, cohabitating couples are more likely to be childless or to have fewer children. In much of the Western world, marriage has become optional - a ceremony to mark a legal relationship, rather than an estate sanctified by faith and tradition.

         In France, last year, more people began living together than married. In 2009, 3,727 couples were married in the Archdiocese of Boston, not far from where I live, compared to 8,343 a decade earlier.

         Once a central reality of existence, marriage seems headed toward obsolescence. We marry because we choose to, not because we ought to. Fewer marriages equal fewer children.

         Same-sex marriage (so-called) - the beau ideal of Western elites - completely cuts the tie between marriage and children. Some couples choose not to have children. Others are unable to have children. With "homosexual marriage," (and I use the term advisably) we're applying the label to couples which, by their very nature, are incapable of reproduction - severing the already tenuous connection between marriage and procreation.

         Men and women who do marry are marrying later and later in life - which also reduces the number of children. After age 35, it becomes progressively harder for women to conceive. The ability of men to father children also declines with age.

         Despite what politicians tell us about doing "it" (whatever "it" happens to be) for the children, increasingly, we live in an anti-child culture. From cinema, to news media, to public education and academia - children are presented as a burden and an annoyance, rather than a joy and a blessing. The culture treats large families (today, defined as more than two or three children) as something freakish - the result of parental eccentricity or religious fundamentalism.

         We are constantly reminded of the cost of children to society - in educational, medical and law enforcement expenditures. You may recall that in 2009, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended funding of contraception in the Stimulus bill as a cost-cutting device - suggesting that in times of fiscal constraint, children are a burden on the state.

         What's usually overlooked is the other side of the ledger: That the children of today are the workers, producers, consumers, innovators, care-givers, and the taxpayers of tomorrow - those whose payments keep pension plans solvent, those who care for patients in the nursing homes, keep the streets safe, safeguard the nation, operate factories and farms and keep the lights on all over the world. The family with four children helps to assure a comfortable old age to the voluntarily childless.

         Over the past 200 years, the world's population grew from 980 million to 7 billion. That population explosion fueled every advance from the industrial revolution to the computer age. The same period saw a phenomenal growth in productivity and advances in science, health and material well-being.

         But what happens when more and more becomes less and less? The U.N.'s "low variant projection" has the world's population peaking at 8 billion by 2040 and then beginning to decline. At some point, decline could become free-fall.

         Civilization depends on population growth. Population decline is terra incognita.

         Ultimately, our culture of selfishness is based on a loss of hope and faith. It's no coincidence that Europe, the continent with the lowest birthrates (in the European Union, the average TFR is 1.5), is said to be afflicted by a universal ennui.

         Having gone through two world wars, several revolutions and any number of social upheavals over the past century, most Europeans have come to believe that the life well-lived consists of a month of vacation a year, and retirement at age 55.

         Europeans are embarrassed by their religious roots. Once Europe was known as Christendom. Yet, the 70,000-word preamble to the European Constitution contains not a single reference to the faith which was the continent's defining reality for over 1,000 years.

         There is a direct correlation between birth rates and belief. In a 2011 Gallup Poll, 92% of Americans said they believe in God, compared to 52% of Europeans in a Eurostate/European Barometer survey. Only 21% of Europeans say religion is "very important" to them, compared to 59% of Americans. In consequence, the U.S. birthrate is around 2.06, slightly below replacement. In the European Union as a whole, it's 1.5, well below replacement.

         Countries with high church attendance have above-replacement birth rates. The reverse is also true: Empty churches equal empty cradles and empty hearts. I've yet to encounter a family with more than three children that didn't have a firm foundation in faith - be it Catholicism, evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, or Mormonism. All of these faiths recognize the centrality of family. All understand that procreation is a commandment. All support parental responsibility and authority. In other words, all are countercultural in the truest sense of the word.

         On January 3, 2010, Yitta Schwartz passed away at age 94. A Holocaust survivor, Mrs. Schwartz and her husband had 17 children. In 1978, when her husband died, they already had more than 170 grandchildren. At the time of her death, her descendants numbered more than 2,500.

         You will be shocked - shocked, I say - to learn that Yita Schwartz was not a secular humanist. She was a member of a Hasidic sect know for its piety and devotion to the mitzvot (commandments).

         Religion teaches responsibility to God and our fellow man. It makes individuals other-oriented. It teaches that our own lives aren't the sum total of human existence, that there's something higher - a grand scheme that tells us both who we are and why we are. In consequence, it provides the only real foundation for happiness. There is a very simple formula to determine who's having large families and who isn't. Those who have faith in the future have children. Those who don't, don't. Where does faith in the future come from? It comes from faith.

         The assault on procreation and families is led by the secular left. By putting these people in charge of our governments and our culture, by allowing them to indoctrinate our children (in the guise of educating and entertaining them), by subconsciously assimilating their values (including radical autonomy, skepticism, secularism, feminism, environmentalism and family planning), by closing our eyes to the reality and inevitable consequences of falling birth rates, we choose Demographic Winter.

         "Choice" is the watchword of the anti-family left. The concept is more fitting than it could ever imagine. In thousands of ways, every day, humanity literally chooses its future - or non-future.

         But the wonderful thing about being human is that - unlike the animals - we can conceptualize. Besides conceiving children, we can also conceive ideas. By the application of reason, we can evaluate theories, accepting or rejecting them.

         Besides morality, the ultimate test of an idea is its practicality. Does it work? The ideas that have lead to the tragedy of rapidly falling birth rates are disastrously wrong and must give way to better ideas if humanity is to have a future.

         To return to our Hollywood disaster-movie analogy, how could you possibly make a movie about plummeting birthrates and where they are taking us? What would you call it, "The Exterminator," "Attack of the Population Planners" (in which Margaret Sanger rises from the grave to perform vasectomies and tubal ligations?), "Raiders of The Lost Fertility," "The Incredible Shrinking Family"?

         There would be no shortage villains - among them, the neo-Malthusians, including Paul Ehrlich of "The Population Bomb" fame (who confidently predicted mass worldwide starvation in the late 1960s, when the earth's population was 3 billion), Zero Population Growth, Britain's Optimum Population Trust, the United Nations Population Fund (Contraceptives and Abortion R Us), the carbon-footprint crowd, including Al Gore, who says we must stabilize the world's population through "fertility management" - "educating and empowering women and girls" to make the right choices - by which he means the choices of which Al Gore approves - contraception and abortion.

         While the demographers I know are great guys, none of them looks like Indiana Jones.

         Things would happen too slowly for it to be a drama. Perhaps it could be a tragicomedy - combining both tragic and comic elements.

         One thing is certain: it would be a script without an ending. Because how this movie ends depends on you.

Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own website, DonFeder.com.

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Made Me Yell at My TV

They Want a Bloody Revolution

Occupy Wall Street Cult Chant: 'You Can Have Sex with Animals'

Terrorist Plot or Terrorist Ploy?
By Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Rush Limbaugh is asking if the terrorist plot Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday was a hoax to distract the American people from Holder's role in a deadly Mexican gun-running operation. Holder announced the plot -- in which Iranian forces allegedly plotted to hire a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in a Washington, D.C., restaurant -- shortly after Congressman Darrell Issa promised to subpoena him for misleading Congress about Operation Fast and Furious. "What a great way to sidestep the fact that he's being delivered a subpoena for Fast and Furious," Limbaugh told his audience on Tuesday. "That's exactly what this is all about...No question in my mind what Holder's press conference is about."

Is it possible Rush is right that Holder, or someone other than the Iranian government, fabricated the story? The evidence shows, surprisingly, that the possibility of a hoax cannot be dismissed out of hand.... 

Read More and Comment: 

Pampered Protesters
By Michael Reagan, FloydReports.com

The hordes of so-called "protesters" now polluting the streets of several U.S. cities, including New York, are sending confused messages about their grievances.

The unemployed among them complain that the jobs available to them are beneath them. I guess that cancels out the old concept of starting in the mailroom and advancing step-by-step to the boardroom. It used to be the norm that one started at the bottom and worked their way up. This bunch seems to be living under the delusion that simply by virtue of having been born they are entitled to immediate arrival at the boardroom level with appropriate compensation.

Viewing these unruly mob scenes, featuring numerous public sexual activities posing as protests, I am reminded of the manner in which my Dad dealt with such malcontents.... 

Read More and Comment: 

Obama's Jobs Panel's Recommendations Infested by Conflicts of Interest to Benefit GE
By National Center for Public Policy Research

Reacting to the recommendation by President Obama's jobs panel, chaired by GE CEO Jeff Immelt, that additional federal funds be dedicated to clean energy development, today policy experts from the National Center for Public Policy Research are calling attention to the conflicts of interest surrounding this advice.

"Immelt's recommending more money for clean energy is a clear conflict of interest. GE has significant investments in".... 

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Surprise! Young Americans Most Likely to Support Traditional Values
By Susan Stamper Brown, FloydReports.com

Appearances can be deceptive. In this age of open disclosure and the internet, one would think we have access to all knowledge, but we don't. We are still at the mercy of those in charge of providing any given piece of information. Unless we are satisfied with the lop-sided information being spoon-fed to us by those having an agenda, it is up to us to do our own digging for the truth.

Odds are you haven't heard much about the results from the portion of the October 5, 2011 Gallup Poll that asked young people from the age of 18 to 34 the objective question: "Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view?".... 

Read More and Comment: 

Obama Spends $100M to Save Us from No Threat
By Frank York, EPA Abuse

Syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams has recently noted that the EPA is now on a jihad to protect Americans from the chemical known as perchlorate. Never heard of it? Few people have. It's a....  

Read More and Comment: 

Fellow patriots,

Now that Iran has attempted to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia on American soil, it's time for a crash course on Iran's politics and national ideology -- so that we Americans understand what makes this time bomb tick.

For starters, let's give thanks that our agents were able to discover and prevent this plot.  The Obama Administration has once again has prevented a dangerous threat from wreaking death and destruction upon our country.  Now, as the applause dies down, prepare for some stern medicine...

Let's begin by looking into the background and objectives of this assassination attempt:

1. For years, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting a low-grade proxy war in Bahrain, an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf just off the coast of Saudi Arabia.  Sunni Saudi Arabia allies itself with Bahrain's Sunni King Hamad, while Iran allies itself with Bahrain's Shiite-majority population.  Iran also makes territorial claims on Bahrain based on its inclusion in ancient Persia and roughly 200 years of Persian rule in the 1600s and 1700s.  Despite Iran's claims, Bahrain could equally be claimed by many nations because it has been a political football tossed between more powerful Sunni, Shiite, Kharijite, Portuguese, and British colonizers throughout history. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bahrain )
2. This proxy war heated up during the "Arab Spring," with massive protests and arrests, with Bahrain's forces firing on protestors and killing some.  Saudi Arabia sent in reinforcements to prevent the Shiite-majority population from overthrowing the Sunni king.  Such an overthrow would have likely led to a return of Iranian dominance of Bahrain.  The fact that the Saudis prevented this overthrow explains why the Iranians would seek to harm Saudi Arabia right now.
3. Iran's Shiite theology needs a Dajjal -- that is, an anti-Christ -- to war against in order to bring on the return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi, who is believed to be the great savior who will fight and defeat the forces of evil in the world.  As the world's "hyperpower," the infidel United States, with all of its tempting prosperity and corrupting influence on Islamic values, fits the Shiite concept of the source of the world's evil, ruled by the Dajjal.  This is why Iranians call the U.S. "the Great Satan." 
4. The Shiite ideologues controlling Iran also believe that it is possible to actively instigate the great war that will cause the Mahdi to return, and thereby hurry the day when the evil infidels ruling the world will be defeated and peace will reign under a global (Shiite) Islamic state.  Therefore, the thought of a devastating war with the United States does not deter them, in fact, it MOTIVATES them.
5. With an eye toward instigating war with the United States and thereby recalling the Mahdi, Iran is doing everything possible to provoke the United States.  In their eyes, these provocations will either prove that the United States is a mere "paper tiger" that will collapse before Iranian resolve or the Mahdi will return to save the day with supernatural power.  Either way, Iran wins.
6. Iran may have sought to kill a Saudi ambassador, but they could have done it anywhere.  They chose to kill him in the U.S. for multiple reasons:

• It would be a test of the United States' defense systems that reveals how soft or hard the United States actually is to target.
• If successful, the attack would have humiliated the United States and sent a message that Iran had the ability strike the "Great Satan" on its own soil, in the very heart of the country.
• The large-scale nature of the attack, killing potentially over 100, would kill Americans as well as the Saudi target, thereby terrorizing America and potentially destabilizing it.
• The attack would have told U.S. allies that they cannot rely on the United States to protect them, instigating a loss of confidence in U.S. power.

It's one thing when a rogue terrorist organization carries out a bomb attack on the United States.  It's quite another when a country does it.  When a country does it, it's an act of war.  The fact that we were able to prevent that attack does not mean that an act of war was not committed.

The question we face is, "What do we do now?".  The answer so far has been, "very little."  The articles below summarize both the assassination plot and the Obama administration's response to it.  To save you time, I've highlighted the key points.

Already these articles are bringing up the usual theory that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) went "rogue" and that Iran itself shouldn't be blamed.  However nothing could be further from the truth.  The basis of this theory is that the IRGC answers directly to Iran's Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, instead of President Ahmadinejad.  However Ahmadinejad answers to Khamenei, not the other way around.  The IRGC's actions reflect the will of Iran's highest leader.  To understand how Iran's power structure works regarding the IRGC, see http://www.meforum.org/1990/irans-revolutionary-guards-a-rogue-outfit

Another aspect of Iran that this plot reveals is the level of duplicity -- that is, taqiyya (http://www.basicsproject.org/islamist_terrorism/ideology/al_taqiyya.htm ) -- it engages in.  The Iranian government rests on a mountain of lies, essentially because it considers itself to be in a state of war with the rest of the world as it seeks to establish a global Shiite Caliphate centered on its Supreme Leader.  While Iran may not actively engage all other nations in war at once, it feels no obligation to be truthful to any of them, and is capable of endlessly broadcasting the most blatant BIG LIES, such as Ahmadinejad's claim that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Israel and the United States itself, that Israel is a parasite nation with no claim whatsoever to its territory, and that the Israelis and the Americans are to blame for all of the world's problems, as the "Little Satan" and "Great Satan" dynamic duo.

This is why, in the face of painstakingly gathered & irrefutable evidence, as well as a confession by Manssor Arbabsiar, Iran calls the assassination attempt on Saudi Arabia's ambassador an American hoax, and a "'mischievous, foolish' attempt to fuel tension between Tehran and Riyadh."  To get a fuller sense of Iran's blatant and overt duplicity, as well as its plans to bring back the Mahdi and establish a Shiite global caliphate, read this illuminating article --> http://www.meforum.org/1985/ahmadinejad-and-the-mahdi

With this background in mind, we now turn to the Obama administration:

While Obama has won many skirmishes in the war that the Islamic world is waging against it, he hasn't expressed any coherent worldview or doctrine that could help us actually win the war.  His first actions as President comprised of a flurry of overtures to both the Sunni world, in the form of his Cairo speech and the appointment of many Muslims to key positions in his administration, and the Shiite word, in the form of his "extended hand" to Iran ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032100217.html ).

In response, the rate of terrorist attacks went up, America's allies in the Arabic world have been overthrown, and the Islamic world has become even more hostile and contemptuous toward the United States, with Iran leading the charge.

At the start of Obama's administration, he accused the United States of "showing arrogance" (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7246844&page=1 ) to the rest of the world and particularly the Islamic world.  Now, after humbling the United States on his "apology tour," we've seen the fruits: Countries and movements, such as Iran, China, and the Muslim Brotherhood, with their own arrogant and expansionist aspirations, are eager to fill any power vacuum the US leaves open.  They are even willing to attack the United States itself on its own soil.

So now the world awaits.  Will Obama finally admit that the hostility we're getting from the Islamic world is not the result of the Bush Administration's failed policies, but are actually internally generated by the Islamic world itself and have been felt by the United States from its very first days, in the form of the First and Second Barbary wars?  Will he actually call this plot what it is -- a declaration of war by Iran on the United States?  Or will he continue to ignore the larger issues and deal with Islamist attacks and acts of war as isolated matters of law enforcement?

The world awaits his answer.

Dave

Global alert issued after alleged Iran assassination plot

One suspect, a former used-car dealer, was 'no mastermind ... sort of a hustler,' friend says

Manssor Arbabsiar is seen in a 2001 booking photo after he was charged for check fraud.

NBC, msnbc.com and news services, October 12, 2011, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44870617/ns/us_news-security/

WASHINGTON - The State Department issued a worldwide travel alert late Tuesday for American citizens after the United States accused Iran of backing a plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington.

"The U.S. government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States," it said in a statement on its website.

The alert, which expires January 11, 2012, urged Americans living and traveling abroad to be wary.

"U.S. citizens residing and traveling abroad should review the Department's Worldwide Caution and other travel information when making decisions concerning their travel plans and activities while abroad," it added.

U.S. authorities said earlier on Tuesday that they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran's security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One, a former Texas used-car dealer named Manssor Arbabsiar, was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.

However a friend and one-time business partner of Arbabsiar, David Tomscha, said Arbabsiar, known as Jack to his friends, made an unlikely secret agent.

Tomscha said Arbabsiar, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen who holds an Iranian passport, was likeable, a bit lazy and "no mastermind."

"I can't imagine him thinking up a plan like that. I mean, he didn't seem all that political. He was more of a businessman ... He was sort of a hustler," he said.

The other alleged plotter, Gholam Shakuri, was charged in the complaint but is at large in Iran.

Iran has denied the charges and expressed outrage at the accusations.

'Childish and amateur game'
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, echoing Iran's official stance, said the allegation was a "mischievous, foolish" attempt to fuel tension between Tehran and Riyadh.

"These claims are vulgar ... It is a childish and amateur game ... We believe that our neighbors in the region are very well aware that America is using this story to ruin our relationship with Saudi Arabia," Larijani told parliament in a speech broadcast live on state radio.

Story: Alleged plot may signal ominous turn by Iran regime

The U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, said Wednesday that its interactions with Iran in the Gulf waterways were "routine and professional."

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama called the plot a "flagrant violation of U.S. and international law" and Saudi Arabia said it was "despicable."

View complaint in alleged plot to kill Saudi ambassador (PDF)

The United States said Tehran must be held to account and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a Reuters interview, expressed hope that countries that have hesitated to enforce existing sanctions on Iran would now "go the extra mile."

"The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?" Clinton told The Associated Press.

At a news conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the convoluted plot - involving monitored international calls, Mexican drug money and an attempt to blow up the ambassador in a Washington restaurant - could have been straight from a film.

"Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost," he said.

Like a thriller, the murder-for-hire tale cuts back and forth across international lines. "This case illustrates we live in a world where borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant," Mueller said.

'Chilling'
 

Attorney-General Eric Holder alleged it was the work of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the guardian of Iran's 32-year-old revolution, and the Quds Force, its covert, operational arm.

"I think one has to be concerned about the chilling nature of what the Iranian government attempted to do here," he told a news conference.

A plot against targets inside the U.S. "would be a first for the Quds Force," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council analyst who now heads the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"I do want to hear more about what evidence (U.S. authorities) have and why they believe" that the Quds Force was involved, Pollack said.

A senior U.S. official told NBC News that U.S. intelligence has a "high degree" of confidence that the "Quds Force at the highest levels" was involved in the alleged plot and that this was not some "rogue operation."

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York, the plot was revealed by an informant inside the world of the Mexican drug trade, a man paid by U.S. drug agents to rat out traffickers.

The complaint describes the informant as someone who was previously charged for violating drug laws in the United States but got the charges dismissed by agreeing to cooperate with U.S. drug investigations.

U.S. officials trusted the informant because he had proved reliable in the past and led to several drug seizures - and the informant was paid for those tips.

In May 2011, the informant allegedly met with Arbabsiar. The complaint doesn't say how the two were introduced, but Arbabsiar reportedly approached the informant, who he thought was an associate of a drug cartel well known for its violent tactics, to ask about his knowledge of explosives for an attack on a Saudi embassy.

Manssor Arbabsiar is shown in this sketch during his appearance Tuesday before a federal court in New York.

The informant reached out to his contacts in the United States to tell them all about it. Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was told the informant was "somebody who was in one of the drug cartels, credible, long history, was fully capable of conducting the kind of operation the Iranian was asking for."

"This guy brought it to us, and from there it was laid out in front of us as they went forward," the Michigan Republican said.

Secret recordings
 The complaint said Arbabsiar and the informant met several more times in Mexico over the next few months, with the informant secretly recording their conversations for U.S. authorities.

The two spoke English and their discussions became more focused on the specific target for violence - al-Jubeir, a U.S.-educated commoner sent to the United States to repair relations after the Sept. 11 attacks who has been ambassador since 2007.

Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir was the target of an alleged plot by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the U.S. said Tuesday.

The complaint said Arbabsiar has fully confessed to his role in the operation and said he was recruited, funded and directed by the Quds Force.

Arbabsiar said his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai was a high-ranking member of the Quds Force who approached him this past spring to ask for his cooperation.

Arbabsiar said he frequently traveled between the U.S. and Mexico for work and knew people he believed were in the drug trade, and his cousin asked him if he could recruit someone in the narcotics business for criminal activity.

U.S. officials say Shahlai has a violent past - the Bush administration accused him of planning a Jan. 20, 2007, attack in Karbala, Iraq, that killed five American soldiers and wounded three others.

Ties to attack on U.S. troops in Iraq

This time, according to U.S. officials, Shahlai and other Quds agents approved a plot to pay their Mexican drug contact $1.5 million for the death of the ambassador - making a $100,000 down payment to an account the informant provided.

According to transcripts of their recorded conversations cited in the complaint, the informant told Arbabsiar he would kill the ambassador however he wanted - "blow him up or shoot him" - and Arbabsiar responded he should use whatever method was easiest.

The plot eventually centered on targeting Al-Jubeir in his favorite restaurant and Arbabsiar was quoted as saying killing him alone would be better, "but sometime, you know, you have no choice."

Scores of deaths 'no problem'
 Arbabsiar dismisses the possibility that 100-150 others in the restaurant, including U.S. lawmakers, could be killed along with the ambassador as "no problem" and "no big deal."

Eventually, according to the complaint, the informant told Arbabsiar he must come to Mexico to offer himself as "collateral" for the final payment of the $1.5 million fee for the assassination.

Arbabsiar said his cousin's deputy at the Quds Force - Gholam Shakuri, also charged in the complaint but at large in Iran - warned him against offering himself as a guarantee of payment.

But Arbabsiar went anyway, boarding a flight to Mexico on Sept. 28 with plans to fly to Iran after the plot was finished.

Mexican authorities, who say they had been cooperating with U.S. officials in the investigation, denied Arbabsiar entry into the country and he boarded a flight to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Law enforcement officials secretly boarded with him to keep him under surveillance, and he was arrested when he got off the plane in New York.

Arbabsiar agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities and made several recorded phone calls to Shakuri in which they discussed the purchase of a "Chevrolet," their agreed-upon code-word for the plot.

Shakuri urged Arbabsiar to make sure they "just do it quickly."

In 2001, Arbabsiar was booked into Texas' Nueces County Jail on a charge of check fraud that was later dismissed for lack of evidence. He was also arrested in Nueces County in 1993, 1996 and 1997 on traffic violations, records show.

No one answered the door Tuesday at Arbabsiar's two-story home, decorated for Halloween, at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Austin suburb of Round Rock.

A neighbor said he frequently saw Arbabsiar walking around smoking cigarettes and talking on a cellphone in a language the neighbor did not understand.

Public records show Arbabsiar has been married at least twice and has a history of arrests in Texas for offenses that include evading arrest and theft.

NBC News, Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Alleged plot may signal ominous turn by Iran regime

Shadowy unit acting within US would be unprecedented, experts say

By Mark Hosenball    updated 10/12/2011 12:12:41 AM ET  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44867059/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/2011-10-12T04:12:41

WASHINGTON - If a shadowy Iranian government unit indeed plotted to kill Saudi Arabia's U.S. ambassador, it would be an unprecedented -- and worrying -- spread of Iranian covert activities into the United States, experts and officials said.

It could also reflect a growing struggle for political and security powers within Iran, they said.

U.S. and European officials said while there were cases in the 1980s and 1990s in which Iranian government agents were linked to attacks in the West -- often against Iranian dissidents -- such activity dropped off after crackdowns by Western security agencies.

On Tuesday, FBI director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder announced that two men of Iranian extraction had been charged in U.S. federal court with participating in a purported assassination plot against Saudi Ambassador Adel al Jubeir which allegedly was "directed" by elements of the Iranian government.

Authorities linked one of the defendants, Gholam Shakuri, who is at large and believed to be in Iran, to the Quds Force, a secretive unit of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps(IRGC). The Quds Force is allegedly responsible for providing IRGC liaison and support for what the Justice Department described as "terrorist activities abroad."

A plot against targets inside the U.S. "would be a first for the Quds Force," said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council analyst who now heads the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"I do want to hear more about what evidence (U.S. authorities) have and why they believe" that the Quds Force was involved in the plot against the Saudi envoy, Pollack said. But he added that "there is always a first time".

Close to Hizbollah
U.S. officials say that the Quds Force and IRGC have historically been close to Hizbollah, the Shi'ite movement and militia which plays a major role in Lebanon and has warred with Israel. U.S. officials also have said that in the years following the U.S. invasion which deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Quds Force played a major role in supporting insurgents who attacked and killed U.S. troops trying to pacify the country.

A secret unit of the Quds Force known as "Department 9000" acted as a liaison between Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq and the IRGC, U.S. officials said at the time, though at some point it also began to aid anti-American Sunni insurgents.

In 2007 General David Petraeus, who recently became director of the CIA, told Congress the Quds Force was working with a secret arm of Hizbollah known as "Department 2800" to train, arm, finance and in some cases direct Shi'ite militia units in Iraq and turn them into a Hizbollah-like movement opposing U.S. forces and the Iraqi government.

U.S. and European officials have said that, through units like the Quds Force, Iran continues to cause trouble for U.S. forces in neighboring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

But several U.S. and European officials and experts said they were unaware of evidence in recent years linking the Quds Force or IRGC to plots targeting Europe or the United States.

A person familiar with U.S. government assessments of Iran said President Barack Obama's administration was increasingly concerned that power centers in Iran were competing against each other, breaking down centralized control over government units including the IRGC -- Iran's main security force.

Rogue operation?
Of particular concern, the source said, was evidence suggesting that the IRGC was operating autonomously of other governmental elements.

Pollack said that in a 1992 case, in which three Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders and their translator were killed in an attack a restaurant in Berlin, German authorities alleged that the assassination had been ordered by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then as now Iran's Supreme religious leader. The Iranian government was also linked to the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires which killed 85 people.

But Pollack said there were indications that the IRGC may have been acting on its own, without Khamenei's sanction, when its units detained five British sailors on a racing yacht in the Persian Gulf in 2009, sparking an international incident.

In 1980, an American militant who converted to Islam and worked at an Iranian government office in Washington following the revolution which deposed Shah Reza Pahlavi shot dead a critic of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary leader, at the dissident's home in suburban Washington D.C.

The militant, Daoud Salahuddin, then fled to Iran, from where U.S. law enforcement officials spent several years unsuccessfully trying to lure him back to the United States to face justice.

Pollack and U.S. officials said that what was alarming about the latest arrests was the allegation that Iranian authorities, or some faction among them, had now embarked on a violent attack well outside the recognized operational boundaries of the IRGC and Quds Force.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

PHILADELPHIANS for ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Creating strong checks and balances for Philadelphia-area government

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PHILADELPHIANS FOR ETHICAL LEADERSHIP TO HOST THE

"BATTLE FOR CITY HALL" FORUM FOR SHERIFF, CITY

COMMISSIONER, AND CITY COUNCIL AT-LARGE

Philadelphians for Ethical Leadership will be hosting a moderated, bipartisan debate and forum for the upcoming municipal elections:

October 19, 2011, 6:30PM

Veteran Boxer's Association; 2733 E. Clearfield St, Philadelphia, PA

Democrat, Republican, and Green Party candidates will attend this event to make a case as to why they deserve the public's vote.

This is a free event. Food and Drink specials will also be made available.

CONTACT: Benjamin Mannes

More info is linked below:

http://www.meetup.com/Philadelphians-for-Ethical-Leadership/events/34142272/

Please add this event to your community events calendar and ongoing election

coverage to help make the public aware of this event.

Media coverage is welcome and encouraged.

ABOUT PHILADELPHIANS FOR ETHICAL LEADERSHIP:

Philadelphia is one of the world's greatest cities. It was in our city that the Constitution was framed, leaders stepped up, and

our great nation was born. However, our city is in a state of emergency with rising debt, falling employment, public safety

issues, and a municipal government entrenched with patronage, corruption, back room politics and apathy. Philadelphians for

Ethical Leadership (PEL) is founded on the belief that through information, good citizens can come together; regardless of

political party, religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, or class to make a difference and take back our city.

PEL aims to equip citizens with the information needed to send a clear message to our elected and appointed leaders that it's

time to act responsibly or be replaced.

PEL IS NONPARTISAN & MEMBERSHIP IS OPEN TO ANYONE WILLING TO MAKE A CHANGE

Our goal:

To create a live forum for citizens to address questions and concerns to appointees, boards, elected leaders

and candidates.

To create a public voice for moderates and common sense citizens whose issues are not being represented

in the media.

To create a place where new ideas and solutions are aired and presented to government.

- All citizens are welcome to join and be a part of the solution for our city -

Click HERE to see the Flyer . . . 

 Susan's Paul Ryan Medicare Pamphlet - please print this and give it to your contacts

EPIC interview: Hank Williams, Jr.

Hank Williams Jr. has drawn a line in the sand and obviously does not care one bit about what people think about him. He's going to say whatever he wants - and apparently he really means it. He stopped by the Glenn Beck radio program today to talk about the non-controversial controversy, the aftermath, and what's in store. Check out the classic interview HERE.

Fear Monger? Biden's Jobs Bill sales pitch: don't pass it and there will be rapes and murders - DETAILS.

Occupy Oakland: Kids only have "early death or a life of misery"

Occupy L.A., Occupy Philly turn to Mao, communism

Different cities, same story. Seems like everywhere these protests are, the revolutionaries are there too. Out on the west coast, one protester revealed perhaps a little too much. He explained that peaceful revolutions don't work, citing Ghandi (who he called a 'tumor') as a failure and instead telling people to model the glorious and bloody French revolution. Philadelphia saw one protester who claimed to be transgendered, wronged by the capitalist system, and in favor of installing a newer, more human friendly 'Maoist' system. When informed that Mao killed millions of innocent people - the protester had a bold response. Listen to her/his defense HERE.

Clean Water...Even When Disaster Strikes

Having clean, filtered and chlorine free water year round can make such a big difference to your family, especially when your water supply may be tainted as a result of a natural disaster. Markdown.com has a great deal right now on a Lake Industries Water Filter that will let you experience the difference a quality water filter can make. Get all of the details at Markdown.com

Glenn interviews U.S. candidate Ted Cruz

Glenn spoke with Ted Cruz, who is running for U.S. Senate in Texas. He says his primary mission in running for office is to defend freedom - and for Cruz this is not merely an empty slogan to gain votes. His dad is from Cuba and saw firsthand the horrors of Castro's oppressive regime. After being thrown into prison and tortured as a teenager, his dad fled Cuba at 18 and came to America with $100 sewn into his underwear. Check the full amazing story on radio today. WATCH