ABBAS DELAYS ELECTIONS

BBC:

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has announced that parliamentary elections set for 17 July will be postponed. In a public decree, he said he wanted to allow more time to resolve a dispute over changes to the election law. Mr Abbas said a new date would be set after talks with the Palestinian factions and law makers. The move has been condemned by militant group Hamas, which correspondents say had been poised to do well in its first run at a legislative poll. ... Mr Abbas did not set a new date for the election, but Palestinian officials have talked about a delay of several months. ... The postponement will please many in Mr Abbas' Fatah party because they want more time to prepare for the poll, the BBC's Barbara Plett reports from Jerusalem. The [FATAH] movement is in disarray and tarnished by a reputation for corruption and inefficiency, our correspondent says.

DELAYED BY DECREE! OF COURSE ELECTIONS ARE DELAYED BY DECREE, BY FIAT!

Peace will reign in the Middle East only AFTER "Arab democracy" is no longer an oxymoron! And because of George W. Bush, IRAQ will lead the way!

POWERLINE VERSUS SID VICIOUS. POWERLINE WINS BY A KNOCKOUT!

Check out this post over at POWERLINE on Clinton attack dog Sid Blumenthal and the anti-constitutional and elitist Democrat filibustering of judicial nominees. The post includes parts on an email exchange bewtween POWERLINE and Sid Vicious.

I have also had an email correspondance with Sid - I emailed him after reading an article by him in the Guardian. The exchange was about Vietnam; he denies that the SVG fell because of the Dems in Congress abandoned them by cutting off all financing, and saw no similarity between that abandonment and the one called for by The Left in Iraq - as when they say we should withdraw AT ONCE or by a date certain/announced.

The exchange proved to me - once again - that either the folks still on The Left are still living in the past, or they're living in DENIAL.

I KNOW: I was a member of the anti-war Left in the 1970's, but steadily drifited rightward after becuase of things like McGovern's HUMONGOUS loss and Kael's famous comment, and the obvious and undeniable victories of Reagan on ALL fronts (against the USSR, and on taxes & the economy).

W is governing like Reagan: unafraid of the political attacks from the Left - here and in Europe, while courageously pursuing policies to defeat our enemies, and to empower individuals, and to restrain the power of the state. In additon, W has also done more to protect Life than Reagan.

The Left liked to believe that Clinton stood as a rebuke of Reaganism, but in fact, in 1992 Clinton RAN as a healthy repsonse to Reaganism: he ran as a moderate/centrist Democrat - he was for middle class TAX CUTS and for the death penalty and for welfare reform. (How he governed is another matter!)

W's election - and re-election - proves that Reaganism is in fact the dominant meme and that Clinton was an aberration or a phony who did nearly nothing of lasting import in his 8 years at the helm.

When the Left is forced to confront the fact that W is a successful president (the W is winning the GWOT and that the economy is growing, and that Clinton's numerous foreign policy failures - in Serbia, Rwanda. North Korea, against al Qaeda [there was ZERO effective respnse to the 1993 WTC attack or to Somalia or to the USS Cole, etc.] - and that W has steadily enlarged the GOP) the Left reverts to vicious name-calling and obstructionism.

Which GUARANTEES their continued demise.Thank God.

IRRELEVANT AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC: Chirac and Schroeder Ignore the People

BBC: "French President Jacques Chirac flies to Berlin later today to dine with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The two leaders, who are due to discuss the future of the EU Constitution, have already called for the ratification process to continue across Europe."

Jacques and Gerhard have the support of ONLY 1-in-5 of their fellow countrymen - but they don't seem to care. Why should they? Elitists never do! Eltiists think they know better. Which is why the EU constitution has failed: it enshrines elitism and this makes the voters of Europe feel less empowered. IOW: the voters of France and Holland GOT IT RIGHT; voters - like free-markets pricing things - usually do.

After Chirac and Schroeder are thrown out of office their respective nations can begin the process of reform AT HOME. IMHO: Only after that job is done can Europe successfully federalize under a continental constitution.

POP QUIZ: WHICH "ISM" IS GOOD AND WHICH "ISM" IS EVIL?

Israelis develop and deploy a NON-LETHAL WEAPON to use against violent Arabs.

Neojihadists use terrorism and suicide-bombers to commit mass murder and genocide - kiling mostly other Muslims.

So tell me... which "ism" - Zionism or Neojihadism - is good and which is evil?

CAN SCIENCE MAKE ABORTION OBSOLETE?

CAN SCIENCE MAKE ABORTION OBSOLETE? CAN SCIENCE FIND A WAY TO ALLOW WOMEN TO TERMINATE UNWANTED PREGNANCIES WITHOUT TERMINATING THE BABY/FETUS/EMBRYO?

IF SCIENCE COULD MAKE ABORTION A VESTIGIAL OPERATION, IT WOULD SAVE LIVES, ("POTENTIAL LIVES" FOR YOU PRO-CHOICE FOLKS), AND "TAKE OFF THE TABLE" - ONCE AND FOR ALL TIME - THIS BITTER AND DIVISIVE ISSUE, AND IT WOULD LIBERATE OUR BODY POLITIC OF THIS ANNOYING SORE THAT DOESN'T SEEM TO EVER HEAL. (CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MUCH MORE SIMPLE JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS WOULD BE ONCE FREED FROM THIS CONTROVERSY!?)

HOW MIGHT SCIENCE DO THIS?

EASY. IT'S ALREADY IS DOING IT. IT'S CALLED EMBRYONIC ADOPTION.

A FEW EEKS AGO, BUSH APPEARED WITH 21 CHILDREN WHO WERE ONCE FROZEN EMBRYOS IN "LIMBO" BUT WHO WERE ADOPTED BY PARENTS WHO WANTED A CHILD BUT COULD NOT CONCEIVE ONE OF THEIR OWN. ONE CHILD HAD BEEN AN EMBRYO FROZENS FOR OVER A DECADE! HE AND THE OTHER 21 CHILDREN WERE ONCE FROZEN EMBRYOS WHICH WERE "MADE" IN FERTUILITY CLINICS.

TO EXTEND THIS BIOMEDICAL PROCEDURE IN A WAY WHICH WOULD MAKE ABOPRTION OBSOLETE, ALL SCIENCE MUST DISCOVER IS: (1) HOW TO REMOVE AND FREEZE AND EMBRYOS FROM THE WOMB OF A WOMAN WHO IS PREGNANT (BUT WHO DOESN'T WANT TO CARRY THE CHILD TO TERM); AND (2) HOW LATE IN A PREGNANCY THIS EXTRACTION AND FREEZING CAN SAFELY BE DONE.

THEN, LEFT-WING AND RIGHT-WING AND RED-STATERS AND BLUE-STATERS MIGHT UNITE AND TOGETHER TRANSFORM ABORTION CLINICS INTO EXTRACTION/FREEZING/ADOPTION CENTERS.

THIS WOULD TRANSFORM A DIVISIVE ISSUE INTO A WIN-WIN-WIN: ONE WOMAN ENDS AN UN-WANTED PREGNANCY (WITHOUT TERMINATING THE FETUS); ANOTHER WOMAN WHO OTHERWISE COULDN'T GET PREGNANT GETS PREGNANT; AND A BABY THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ABORTED IS BORN.

MAKE THAT WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN - BECAUSE THE PUBLIC WINS, TOO.

"THE FELT CONNECTION:" WAS WATERGATE AN FBI COUP?

This morning on IMUS (I watched it on replay on MSNBC-TV), Bob Woodward said that Deep Throat's/Felt's FIRST TIP to him - EVER - was that Spiro T. Agnew was on the take before he was Veep.

There can be ONLY ONE REASON for this action by Felt:

he - and anybody allied with him - knew that to get the DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED CONGRESS to move on IMPEACHMENT AGAINST NIXON that Agnew would FIRST have to be shelved, because NO DEMOCRAT WOULD MOVE AGAINST NIXON IF IT MEANT THAT AGNEW WOULD ASCEND TO THE WHITE HOUSE.

I always felt that the Agnew resignation was a preamble to a move against Nixon - THIS ADMISSION BY WOODWARD PROVES MY INSTINCTS WERE CORRECT! And I suspected this - at the time - even though I was a very politically engaged anti-Nixon anti-war Leftist teenager in 1973.

[ASIDE: Now, I see that Nixon accomplished many MANY HUGELY IMPORTANT and beneficial things for the nation and the world - (detente, China, ending the draft, ending the Vietnam War, starting the EPA & passing the Clean Air/Clean Water Act), and that he also boldy tried some things that turned out badly (like Wage and price Controls) - and was one of our most importyant presidents. In fact, I think Nixon did more IMPORTANT GOOD THINGS in his 5 years (things we are still benefitting from) than Clinton did in 8!]

The now undeniable FELT/FBI CONNECTION to the outting of the Watergate Scandal may just be the tip of the iceberg.

HERE'S ANOTHER POSSIBLE MYSTERIOUS CONNECTION: Woodward - a proven dissembler who on many occassions denied that Felt was Deep Throat - now claims that he and Felt met by accident on a plane and that as a result of this chance-meeting, Felt became his "mentor." At the time they met, Woodward was in NAVY INTELLIGENCE - some have even suggested he was an undercover operator for the CIA. WHAT'S MY POINT!? Well, perhaps Woodward's story about how he met Felt is just more dissembling and the connection between Woodward and Felt and the FBI was DEEPER, PROFESSIONAL, and perhaps more sinister?

I think the "Felt Connection" fails to answer every question about Watergate - and I think that it evens raises a few more. IOW: the full story has yet to come out.

WHY THE E.U. IS "D.O.A."

There are TWO countervaling tendencies in the EU: (1) DEVOLUTION, as nations devolve more power to more local governments, and as more nations come into existence (prinicipally in Eastern Europe, but also in the UK and Spain and Italy and Belgium); (2) FEDERALIZATION, as the continient tries to unify across the traditional nation-state boundaries (which in Europe are more defined, distinctive and divergent than almost anywhere else).

One of these trends tends to give people a sense of greater control. The other tends to give people a sense of loss of control. SO... of course a majority of people will reject the trend which they think reduces the control they have over their government and their lives.

For the EU to succeed as a federation - and to do that they MUST pass a constitution - the EU leaders must come up with a TRANSPARENTLY DEMOCRATIC EU FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, and one with TRANSPARENT TAXES AND BUDGETS. Only a transparently democratic, responsive, and transparently fair (on the tax & spend side) federal government will make a majority of Europeans unafraid of adding another layer of bureaucracy to their lives.

If they fail to REFORM their nation states - FIRST - and then to reform the EU bureacracy, then they will NEVER have a true "Continental Congress" (pun intended) and they will never have a continental federation.

I'm an optimist. I believe they will eventually succeed - circa 2015.

SUV'S KILLED OFF THE MAMMOTHS... not!

According to this news item from the BBC, climate change - and not hunting - led to the extinction of the mammoth, and other huge beasts at the end of the Pleistocene epoch.

Since there were NO SUV'S around then - or factories or coal-burning power generating plants or captalists or Republicans - I wonder who the Leftists blame for that change in global climate?

Will Leftist environazis ever admit that periodic global climate change is NATURAL!?

I doubt it; I think Leftists will go extinct first - may the day come soon!

WHAT'S NEXT FOR EUROPE

The rejection of the EU constitution by the French electorate means that the EUssr is kaput - Thank God!

This is an important detour OFF the road to serfdom, and perhaps the first step on the road to reform.

And the much needed and long overdue reforms will now occur exactly where they must: on the national front, not on the continental front. After the nations of Old Europe reform then they can restart the federalization process again; IOW, the socialistic welfare states of Europe must reform FIRST, BEFORE any transnational/federal EU can be brought into existence.

This may happen sooner than you think: Germany and France will elect Reaganesque/Thatcherite PM's who will dismantle their nation's welfare states - Germany will elect Merkel this fall, and France will elect Sarkozy in a couple of years.

After France and Germany REFORM - and become more Anglo-American in their policies - their economies will rebound and their people will not be so frightened by pan-European federalism. The a EU constitution would likely succeed.

Ironically, the reform policies which Reagan and Thatcher enacted, (which worked so well, and still work so well) - policies which are derided by the anti-Americans of Old Europe as crass Anglo-Americanism - were actually developed by a European - HAYEK! Perhaps if they were "sold" that way, the Old Europeans might follow them more enthusiastically!

BOOMING HOUSE MARKET: IS IT "THE AMERICAN DREAM" OR A BUBBLE?

Left-wing pessimist KRUGMAN pens ANOTHER negative column about the "housing bubble." It seems to Krugman that too many Americnas are buying and selling too many homes at too much profit. I guess he'd like to see prices drop or sales slow or fewer people able to afford a home. Maybe he'd like a "REAL ESTATE PRICE CONTROL BOARD" to regulate the sale of homes?

Seriously: I am old enough to remember a time when THE AMERICAN DREAM - the dream of of owning your own home - was embraced by Democrats, even Liberal ones! Now - as that dream comes true for more and MORE Americans (and as a result, there are more buyers than sellers, and prices are going up) - Lefties like Krugman seem to be wishing it collapses merely to show that Bush is a bad person.

Well, all the BIG BUBBLES we've suffered from recently: the "New Economy"/NASDAQ/Telecoms/Fannie Mae etc bubbles - and ALL THE BIG CORPORATE MALFEASANCE SCANDALS (ENRON/TYCO/Arthur Andersen, AND the "Fake Calfornia Energy Crisis" took place on Clinton's watch; they were BUBBA'S BUBBLES. And the foul mess that resulted (because BUBBA and Rubin allowed it to go on in the CORRUPT financial industry and the CORRUPTED markets) is being CLEANED UP ON BUSH'S WATCH!

Krugman, the Democrats and the Left have let BDS - and their adherence to a completely discredited ideology: socialism - destroy their objectivity. One should no more give any credence to what Krugman writes than to Chomsky or al Jazeera (or Dan Rather or Jayson Blair or Newsweek!).

BBC: BRIT DOCTORS TO PROPOSE "KNIFE CONTROL"

After a spate of knife attacks in Great Britain, I wrote about "KNIFE CONTROL" on 2/9/05.

I suggested this SARCASTICALLY in order to demonstrate the IDIOCY of GUN CONTROL; gun control can NEVER reduce violent crime because guns are (like all weapons) merely tools that cannot be blamed for what humans do with them, and because if a person wants to harm you - or themselves - they will find an available tool to do it.

Well, reality once again proves that socialists (statists who believe in using the power of the State to achieve what's in THEIR MIND "utopianist" social aims) know NO BOUNDS when it comes to their elitist goals (and it's why their ideology ALWAYS amounts to nothing more than an inexorable march toward tyranny). According to the BBC, doctors in Great Britain will soon be proposing that the government limit the sale of knives!

Sheesh. What do these Lefties think, that they can ban all sharp implements - and even "sticks and stones" - and that violence will cease!? This is the same illogic that led the Left to favor unilateral disarmament of the USA during the Cold War. It is bad-thinking and bad policy and must be fought.

If doctors in Great Britain wanted to seriously reduce violent crime in Great Britain they'd support mandatory carry law!

(PS: DRUDGE AND KJ OF NRO BOTH LINK TO THIS BBC ARTICLE.)

OVERDUE: A PALESTINIAN "OPERATION THUNDER" (in Gaza, for starters)

Abbas has NOT done enough to disarm the neojihadists. The Iraqis are doing what they can; they just announced a HUGE anti-terror operation, dubbed OPERATION THUNDER. It's time to pressure Abbas to have his own Operation Thunder in Gaza. Until Abbas actually starts to disarm the neojihadists, he shouldn't be to rewarded as Bush did by meeting him in the Oval Office and by giving him MILLIONS of dollars of TAXPAYER MONEY. This is NOT CONTROVERSIAL or "anti-Arab": just as the IRA must be disarmed before they can have any role in self-rule of Northern Ireland, so too must the Palestinian Arab neojihadists be disarmed. (Ditto Hizballah in Lebanon: before they can run any candidates in the upcoming Lebanese elections, they should be forced to disarm.)

More on WHY ABBAS IS MORE LIKE ARAFAT THAN IRAQ'S ALLAWI OR JAFARI HERE.

IT'S TIME TO NUKE SENATE DEMS

Well, the Leftie Dems are filibustering Bolton (see stories HERE and HERE). That means it's time to change the filibuster rules. WHY?! Excepting for reasons of malfeasance, the president should be allowed to pick ANYONE HE WANTS to be his own/executive branch subordinates. Bolton was approved by the Senate for his current job, and ALL of the allegations against him are for stuff he ALLWEGEDLY did BEFORE that. So they're irrelevant - he performed his current job EXCELLENTLY, and the pres wants to promote him. It's time we made the Lefties irrelevant: by changing the cloture rules! NOW! MICHELE has more.

Pope Benedict and Schroeder: WILL THERE BE AN ELECTORAL EFFECT?

Pope Benedict has made it clear that he recognizes that a major enemy of the West is relatvism and socialism - IOW: he gerhard Schroeder camp. WIll the Pope weigh in on the lection in some way? Or will his mere presence have an effect?

I think so. I predict a RESOUNDING victory for the Christian Democrats (who are led by Angela "the German Maggie Thatcher" Merkel. I predict that this defeat will be the beginning of what I will call "The Benedict Effect" -- or the beginning of the end of the West's post-modern self-loathing. Here's why - from NO PASARAN:

The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne writes of Pope Benedict XVI, nee Joseph Ratzinger:

[PB16] developed a mistrust of the left because of the student revolt of the 1960s. He once said that "the 1968 revolution" turned into "a radical attack on human freedom and dignity, a deep threat to all that is human."Addressing fellow cardinals, Dionne reports Cardinal Ratzinger saying: "We are moving," he declared, toward "a dictatorship of relativism …that recognizes nothing definite and leaves only one's own ego and one's own desires as the final measure."The modern world, Ratzinger insisted, has jumped "from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, up to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism* and on and on."

Gerhard Schroeder and his partner Joschka Fisher are BOTH children of the "1968 revolution" and the current leaders of the parties which are the main promulgators of the evil ideologies which PB16 has stated he must defeat. He will - with Angela Merkel's help!

FACTS ABOUT THE FURTIVE FOURTEEN

The FURTIVE FOURTEEN - THAT'S 14 out of 100 - Senators who brokered their own PRIVATE BACKROOM DEAL are themselves nothing more than a self-annointed minority who are blocking the will of the majority. They are obviously and MERELY only 14% of the US Senate, yet they are effectively DICTATING how judical nominees may be confirmed.

To give you a better idea just how UNREPRESENTATIVE these FURTIVE FOURTEEN REALLY ARE, here are the FURTIVE FOURTEEN listed with their states population ranking and total:

John McCain (Arizona) #18 - 5.7 million
John Warner (Virginia) #12 - 7.5 million
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) #26 - 4.2 million
Susan Collins (Maine) #40 - 1.3 million
Olympia Snowe (Maine) " "
Lincoln Chaffee (Rhode Island) #43 - 1 million
Mike DeWine (Ohio) #7 - 11.5 million

Democrats:

Ben Nelson (Nebraska) #38 - 1.7 million
Robert Byrd (West Virginia) #37 - 1.8 million
Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut) #29 - 3.5 million
Mark Pryor (Arkansas) #32 - 2.7 million
Ken Salazar (Colorado) #22 - 4.6 million
Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) #42 - 1.3 million
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) #24 - 4.5 million

TOTAL POPULATION REPRESENTED BY THE FURTIVE FOURTEEN SENATORS: 51.3 million PEOPLE. Or, ONLY 15% OF THE TOTAL POPULATION OF THE USA. (Except for DeWine of Ohio, NOT A SINGLE SENATOR COMES FROM A "TOP TEN" STATE.)

When elected leaders of 15% of the people dictate their policies to the other 85%, well... it can hardly be called democratic. These 14 weenies not only subverted the Constitution, they undermined the very ESSENCE of democratic rule: MAJORITY RULE.

The GOP has a majority in the House and the Senate and has the White House because the MAJORITY of Americans support them and their policies. When a minority in one body holds a gun to the head of another branch, it is UNDEMOCRATIC and IMMORAL and BAD.

A POX on all 14 of the FURTIVE FOURTEEN. I hope they ALL go down to primary defeats!

Paul over at POWERLINE agrees, and adds this SAGE OBSERVATION:

As a general matter, I think that the deal helps show why no sitting U.S. Senator has been elected president since 1960. Senators value arcane and democracy-curbing traditions. They come across as members of a secret club or cult. They pride themsevles in being less pragmatic than other public officials. They pride themselves, period. Usually, none of this plays very well outside of Washington and other MSM strongholds. This deal will confirm the perception that Senators are clubby, timid, and self-congratulatory. In fact, most Senators on both sides weren't clubby or timid this time. But I don't think that will matter.

Betsy's Page agrees too: "...it still stinks to have fourteen senators get together and swap and trade judicial nominations amongst themselves as if they should be the Fabulous Fourteen who get to decide who becomes a judge and who doesn't. There is the real minority rule that is now running the Senate on judicial nominations."

HOPEFUL NEWS ITEMS... we'll wait and see...

1 - Germany's Christian Democratic Union has a 17 percentage-point lead over Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats before an election later this year, an opinion poll showed.

2 - WASHINGTON - President Bush will insist at a White House meeting with Mahmoud Abbas this week that the Palestinian leader dismantle all terrorist networks in Palestinian areas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.

3 - TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's hardline Guardian Council watchdog on Tuesday reversed its ban on two reformists excluded from presidential elections on June 17, defusing a row which had sparked some calls for a boycott of the vote.

4 - Polls show that the French "no" vote grows to 53%!

These four AIN'T "good news"... YET! Schroeder MUST lose; Abbas MUST disarm the neojihadists; the Iranian people must democratically overthrow their theocratic totalitarian regime; and France must vote down the EU "Constitution."

It might be more likely that someone find the Ark of the Covenant than ALL these four things happen. I'll pray for ALL FIVE!

SLIMY SMARMY BACKROOM DEAL YIELDS FILIBUSTER FOLLIES FINALE

The so-called "moderates" made a deal - and it sucks. WHAT ARE ELECTIONS FOR, ANYHOW, IF A BUNCH OF MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD WEENIES CAN GUM UP THE WORKS AND PUT THE KIBASH ON A TRUE AND JUST CONFRONTATION!?

This is a case of 14 Senators caring and doing more for their own turf and aggrandisement than for the voters. McCain and Snow and DeWine are the kind of weenies I'd expect this from; I'm VERY disappointed in Warner - especially for the praise he heaped on that senile KKK member Byrd who said they'd just "SAVED THE REPUBLIC!" BULLSHIT!

The judiciary is meant to be populated by picks of the president as specified under Article II - the PRESIDENT'S SECTION of the Constitution; the Senate is to merely give advise and THEN CONSENT by a simple majority. What the Senators did was SUBVERT the Constitution in order to retain an arbitrary institutional filibuster option which is NOT in the Constitution.

SHAME ON THEM. Not a single of the 14 Senators - of both parties - WILL EVER SEE A PENNY FROM ME! What they demonstrated was not a profile in courage; it was a blatant BACKROOM deal. THAT AIN'T DEMOCRACY! We'll take care of them at the ballots next time, and VOTE OUT the slimy backroom dealmongers and replace them with some reliable, true conservative GOP Senators with REAL INTEGRITY!

GERMAN PEOPLE SPEAK: SOCIALISTS SUFFER HUGE LOCAL DEFEAT!

BBC:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says he wants a general election this autumn - a year early - after his party lost a key powerbase in local polls. Mr Schroeder made the announcement after his Social Democrats (SPD) lost the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which they had held for 39 years. [...] Mr Schroeder's Social Democrat-led government not only lost its traditional powerbase on Sunday, but it now has so few seats in the upper house of parliament that its ability to actively govern is massively diminished, our correspondent says.

The Socialists are losing because running on anti-Americanism can only take you so far. And their socialist policies have, of course, FAILED to accomplish what they set out to; in fact they've only made things WORSE.

If the Germans bring back the Christian Democrats to lead the national government - and if France defeats the EU constitutional referendum (as is now likely), and if Pope B16 can revitalize Christianity in Europe - then there is hope for Europe.

TEHRAN'S TYRANTS SUBVERT FREE ELECTIONS

BBC:

Iran's election watchdog has disqualified all but six of more than 1,000 candidates for the presidential election, state television reports. Among those eliminated are Mostafa Moin, who was the choice of the country's largest reformist party. Elections for the presidency will be held on 17 June.

That AIN'T DEMOCRACY! The Mullahs are afraid - VERY AFRAID; they should be: they KNOW that the IRANIAN PEOPLE WON'T EVER CHOOSE THEOCRATIC TYRANNY!

STOPPING TEHRAN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

According to the WASHPOST/AP: Iran is smuggling in nuclear materials for a bomb. The smuggling operation includes people involved with the Pakistani AQ KHAN network.

If the current talks stall, then the Free World must act - DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO "de-fang" the tyrants of Tehran before it's too late.

We should demand that the MULLAHS/IAEA/UNSC GUARANTEE that Iran is "weapons program free." If they cannot, then Congress should authorize a massive pre-emptive missile strike against all known AND SUSPECTED, PEACEFUL AND MILITARY - AND DUAL USE - nuclear sites ANYWHERE inside of Iran.

That ought to get their attention.

CONGRESS MAY FINALLY TIGHTEN SCREWS ON CORRUPT U.N.

FOX/AP:

A U.S. congressional committee has drafted a bill that threatens to withhold tens of millions of dollars in dues from the United Nations unless the world body conducts wide-ranging reforms, possibly setting the stage for a funding battle like the one that plunged the U.N. into financial crisis a decade ago. The "United Nations Reform Act of 2005" targets a panoply of issues that have troubled critics of the United Nations, particularly Republicans, for years. Among other things, it would seek to cut funding for programs seen as useless and bar human rights violators from serving on U.N. human rights bodies. The 80-page bill, from Illinois Republican Henry Hyde's House International Relations Committee, is still in an early form and has only recently been distributed to Democrats, who are likely to oppose several elements. It was sent to a few U.N. officials Thursday night, when a copy was obtained by The Associated Press. One of the bill's most controversial proposals will be linking dues to the changes it spells out. The document stipulates that if the reforms are not carried out, Congress will withhold 50 percent of U.S. dues to the U.N. general budget, taking the money from programs it deems inefficient and wasteful.

Readers of this blog know that I called for this MONTHS AGO, in a post HERE - "TIME FOR HELMS -BIDEN REDUX."

ALSO THERE'S THIS ITEM: Trump weighs in on the UN's $1.2 BILLION renovation - which the USA is supposed to pay for. FROM POWERLINE/The Weekly Standard:

... on April 6, 2005, Senator Jeff Sessions recounted his conversation with Trump:

Let me share this story with you, which is pretty shocking to me. The $1.2 billion loan the United Nations wants is to renovate a building. Some member of the United Nations, a delegate, apparently, from Europe, had read in the newspaper in New York that Mr. Donald Trump . . . had just completed the Trump World Tower--not a 30-story building like the United Nations, but a 90-story building, for a mere $350 million, less than one-third of that cost. So the European United Nations delegate was curious about the $1.2 billion they were spending on the United Nations. He knew he didn't know what the real estate costs are in New York. So, he called Mr. Trump and they discussed it. Mr. Trump told him that building he built for $350 million was the top of the line. It has the highest quality of anything you would need in it. They discussed the matter, and an arrangement was made for Mr. Trump to meet Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, to discuss the concerns. . . . So according to Mr. Trump, who I talked to personally this morning, they go meet with Mr. Annan, who had asked some staff member to be there . . . When the European asked how these numbers could happen, Mr. Trump said the only way would be because of incompetence, or fraud. That is how strongly he felt about this price tag because he pointed out to me that renovation costs much less than building an entirely new building. So he has a meeting with Mr. Annan, and they have some discussion. And Mr. Trump says these figures can't be acceptable. He told me in my conversation this morning, he said: You can quote me. You can say what I am saying. He said they don't know. The person who had been working on this project for 4 years couldn't answer basic questions about what was involved in renovating a major building. He was not capable nor competent to do the job. He went and worked on it, and talked about it, and eventually made an offer. He said he would manage the refurbishment, the renovation, of the United Nations Building, and he would not charge personally for his fee in managing it. He would bring it in at $500 [million], less than half of what they were expecting to spend, and it would be better. . . . Yet he never received a response from the United Nations.

It appears there are serious questions about the U.N.'s renovation project. Depending on which assumptions one accepts about cost and square footage, anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in expense is unaccounted for. Given the U.N.'s history, is there any reason to doubt that the costs projected by that organization include substantial sums representing, as Trump put it, incompetence or fraud? Given what we know about the oil-for-food program, is there any reason to trust the U.N.'s business or accounting practices?

NOPE! The UN is a CESSPOOL of Leftism and corruption, and it's BEYOND RENOVATION. IT'S A TEAR-DOWN! Instead of RENOVATING it - or its building - we should TEAR IT DOWN -- LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY -- AND START FROM SCRATCH: A NEW ORGANIZATON AND A NEW BUILDING AT A NEW LOCATION!

And we could have them sell their building and real estate to Trump, and he could make it into a hotel/condo/marina-resort.

TYRANT FIDEL THUMBS NOSE AT E.U.

From the BBC:

Cuba has expelled two European Union politicians visiting Havana to address a rare pro-democracy conference. ... The pair were due to address a meeting of dissidents opposed to the Communist rule of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The EU, which has called for 61 jailed dissidents to be released, will decide next month whether to impose sanctions against Cuba for human rights abuses. ... Several other EU politicians have been arrested or barred from entering Cuba in recent years, accused of fostering links with dissidents. EU-Cuban relations have been strained since 75 were people were arrested during a crackdown on political opponents in March 2003. The EU imposed sanctions but lifted them when 14 were released last year. Sixty-one still remain in jail.

Totalitarians like Fidel - Mugabe, Chavez, Assad, Kim Jong Il - ARE ALL LEFTISTS and THEY ALL MUST GO!