DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
A new Dutch shirt put out for the European Football Championship, has a multicultural variant of the old slogan "Aanvallûh" (attack).
The T-shirt is orange, with the text Aanvallah, written with Dutch letters made up to look like Arabic lettering.
Jeroen Tjebbe, publicity man, says that this shows that you think outside the box, and want to spread the "Orange" (Dutch) feeling together. Tjebbe came up with the shirt together with others.
He says they wanted to make something that will bring people closer together, instead of the unbelievable exaggerated way of going about the so-called differences between Muslims and non-Muslims.
He adds that with a Dutch wink they hope to contribute their two cents to a fervent victory for the Dutch team and to a great social bond.
More than 6 1/2 years after devastating suicide attacks against the United States launched the Bush administration’s fight against global terrorism, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, plot is scheduled to appear in a Guantanamo Bay courtroom tomorrow morning.
In the current issue of COMMENTARY, I have an article entitled In the Matter of George W. Bush v. the Constitution, which takes up, as part of a more extended discussion of the legal knots in which we have tied ourselves, the issue of military commissions. Drawing on Jack Goldsmith’s brilliant book, The Terror Presidency, I made a comparison to our practices in this area during World War II.
They were very different, to say the least.
In June 1942, eight Nazi saboteurs were captured in the United States; one of them was an American citizen. The group had plans to blow up defense plants and other national infrastructure, along with Jewish-owned department stores.
President Roosevelt demanded of Francis Biddle, his attorney general, that the men be tried by a military commission. Although Biddle had reservations about whether the law would permit this, FDR swept such scruples aside.
In short order, a commission was established that had “no written procedures,” operated in total secrecy, and was not based upon law.
The Supreme Court took up a habeas-corpus plea from the saboteurs but then beat a hasty retreat in the face of threats from the White House. In the end, the military commission pronounced a death sentence on six of the eight.
A week later, to the approbation of the public as well as the New York Times and the Washington Post, they went to the electric chair. All this happened in the course of a mere six weeks after their capture.
Compare such proceedings with the ongoing effort since 9/11 to establish military commissions for prisoners in Guantanamo. With the executive branch curtailed, that effort is now dragging into its seventh year with no end in sight.
Monsanto, the leader in agricultural biotechnology, pledged Wednesday to develop seeds that would double the yields of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030 and would require 30 percent less water, land and energy to grow.
The announcement, coming as world leaders are meeting in Rome to discuss rising food prices and growing food shortages, appears to be aimed at least in part at winning acceptance of genetically modified crops by showing that they can play a major role in feeding the world.
The food crisis like the oil crisis is partly caused by supply shortages.
The solution is not more government regulations an taxes and repackaged leftist distributions schemes, but INCREASING SUPPLIES.
This is best accomplished by PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, not the government.
This story about Monsanto - like the please of the USA oil executives before Congress - proves our corporations can produce what the market wants and needs IF WE LET THEM.
In the oil/energy world, the USG won't let them. That's one reason oil is so expensive now.
The left -and the Democrat Party they control - likes to blame "Big Business" and Big Oil, but they are the good guys.
94% of the world's crude oil is controlled by STATE RUN enterprises; that's socialism folks - and that's why the oil market is malfunctioning.
To end poverty we need MORE PROSPERITY, not government controlled redistribution.
Private enterprise is the only way to create more prosperity.
He could use help in the Mid-Atlantic/Mid-West swing states: Pennsylvania; Ohio; Michigan; Wisconsin; Minnesota; Iowa; and Missouri.
I think Ridge gives him regional appeal across the "rust belt", and more blue-collar appeal generally.
Ridge has a better CV than all others in both parties: Vietnam Veteran, 6 term Congressman, Governor, Secretary of DHS. That's war military/ experience' Congressional experience, and executive experience in the bureaucracy and as Executive in Chief of a MAJOR state.
He is more centrist than McCain on some issues, and more conservative on others.
Though I like Demint the most of ANY of the possibilities, and Romney second, I know think that Ridge offers the most electoral benefits.
I don't think Demint will help outside of the south, and Mitt won't help anywhere except Michigan. (Mitt can become Sec Treas or Chief of Staff in a McCain Administration.)
Many people wrote off Ridge because he came off as a stiff during most of his DHS pressers.
But he is really a good politician and good communicator. Here's a video:
The key is he'd help win PA, OH and Michigan.
To get some military/war experience on the Dem ticket, Obama would have to pick Clark or Webb or Hegel. An they're all stiffs and loons, and loose cannons. If he picked Hillary it would merely accentuate the Dems lack of ANY executive and military experience.
It's the best ticket we can hope for - if we really want to win. I DO.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko, center, returns to the federal courthouse with his two sons for the reading of the jury's verdict in his corruption trial in Chicago, June 4, 2008. (Associated Press)
Updated 5:23 p.m. By Peter Slevin CHICAGO -- A federal jury today convicted political fundraiser Antoin Rezko, a longtime backer of Sen. Barack Obama, of influence peddling in the high councils of Illinois state government.
The verdict comes after weeks of vivid insider accounts about attempts to sell political favors in the administration of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D).
The jury concluded that Rezko was part of a corrupt money-making scheme and found Rezko guilty of 16 of 24 felony counts, including fraud, money laundering and joining a bribery conspiracy.
Antoin Rezko, a once-powerful fund-raiser who helped propel the career of Senator Barack Obama, was found guilty on Wednesday by a federal jury of 16 counts, including fraud, money laundering and bribery in an influence-peddling scheme that touched the highest levels of the administration of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois.
1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.
2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers -- primarily not-for-profit groups -- building low-income housing with government funds.
3. One of the firm's not-for-profit clients -- the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama's then-boss Allison Davis -- was partners with Rezko's company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator's time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm's clients in four later deals -- none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar "made the decisions for the joint venture," says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.
4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 -- representing a district that included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.
5. Rezko's low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building -- which was in Obama's Illinois Senate district.
6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko -- a member of his campaign finance committee -- held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.
7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.
8. Eight months later -- in October 2006 -- Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama's run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.
REZKO AND OBAMA ARE CORRUPT AS THEY COME... FROM CHICAGO - AND THAT'S SAYING A LOT!
Once again, Astute Bloggers scoops the entire blogosphere. Reliapundit has called the rise in the price of oil as a "Market Bubble", and he predicted it would burst.
It looks as if that is exactly what is happening.
RELIAPUNDIT: WITH OIL CHEAPER AND IRAQ BETTER, OBAMA AND THE DEMS HAVE NOTHING TO RUN ON.
Crude Oil Lt Sweet Pit (Nymex) July , 2008 CL08N (NYMEX) $122.15 $-2.16 -1.74% 6/4/2008 11:16 AM ET
Open 124.45 High 125.10 Low 122.00 52-Wk Low 67.88 52-Wk High 133.70 P/E Ratio 0.00 Volume 115 50 day Avg Vol 13,491,500 50 day Avg Price 117.27
You know thing are bad when the UN calls for Capitalism. Ban Ki Moon called for the end to tariffs, protectionism, and trade barriers in face of mounting food inflation:
“We simply cannot afford to fail,” the UN secretary general told a news conference at the UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) summit on food security. “Hundreds of millions of people expect no less.”
In the latter quarter of the last century the world overcame hunger pretty much everywhere, and many countries leapt out of the ditch of third world poverty. This was during a sweet period of abundant energy and low price in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars. Few knew or really noticed how good we really had it, embroiled as they were in the petite political spats of the moment. We must get back to that sweet spot soon if we do not want to see bread lines and food riots as a normal daily occurrence around the world.
As the problem worsens governments will fall, regions will destabilize, and death will stalk many lands. It’s pretty grim reality, the math is not hard and the outcomes don’t take computer models to imagine.
If we want abundant food we must have abundant cheap energy, and if we want clean air then it must be clean energy as well. We cannot afford to wait any longer in developing it either.
Now while you are chewing that over, think in terms of goals, and which goal is most important: reducing carbon, or reducing hunger? If we fail in either goal, which creates the grimmest future: Global Warming or Global Hunger? Now you should ask which goal gets more press, more support, more funding, and more time at the UN?
The UN has failed in mission number one by paying attention to neo-luddite environmental fantasies and politically whoring after every thug dictator in all the years since Carter’s Presidency - all this sound and fury over the IPCC report while millions get set to starve.
JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama employed and continues to employ senior staffers who belong to the Nation of Islam, and the presidential candidate has some "worrying" ties to the controversial group headed by Louis Farrakhan, a former key Obama insider told WND.
The former insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed particular concerned that Obama employed at least two Nation members in his early days as a state senator, when his office was staffed by only a handful of workers.
"When you're a state senator, you have little money given to you to hire staff. It is ironic that two of Obama's employees in those days were known Nation of Islam activists when Obama employed perhaps a total of maybe three or four staffers," said the former insider.
The former insider confirmed Obama is directly aware of the Nation of Islam members on his staff.
[...]
The former insider identified early employees of Obama as Nation of Islam members, including Jennifer Mason, who still works in Obama's Chicago Senate office as director of constituency services – a key community liaison position.
Also, Cynthia K. Miller, whom the former insider identified as a Nation of Islam activist, served Obama in his early state Senate days and later as treasurer for his U.S. senatorial campaign.
Miller was also a paid consultant in 2003 and 2004, according to financial documents obtained by WND. She currently runs a Chicago real estate firm.
The former insider said Obama asked indicted Chicago businessman and Obama financier Tony Rezko to get his treasurer, Miller, a state government job with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
"She got an offer but turned it down. She ended up doing real estate," the ex-insider said.
The former insider also identified former Obama worker Shakir Muhammad as a Nation of Islam activist. Muhammad was paid by Obama's office as a photographer in the late 1990s.
According to a black supremacist source tied to Farrakhan, Muhammad previously worked as a bodyguard for the Nation of Islam chief.
[...]
The former insider said he quit, in part, because of Obama's ties to the Nation of Islam and the senator's positions on Israel.
Good grief. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama were still maintaining under-the-table relations with Jeremiah Wright and other members of the Trinity Church, and will continue to do so even after the election. One more reason why he cannot be elected for president in November.
... he (Obama) has managed to get to Dick Durbin’s left in opposing an amendment that urged the State Department to name Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, which passed despite Obama’s objections:
The story begins nine months ago, when the Senate took up debate on the so-called Kyl-Lieberman amendment–a bipartisan measure that urged the U.S. government to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
These designations are more than just rhetorical; labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization brings to bear a range of powerful sanctions that crack down on its ability to work in the global financial system.The proximate cause of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment was a growing dossier of evidence from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, documenting the IRGC’s role in financing, training, arming, and directing extremists in Iraq responsible for the murder of hundreds of American and Iraqi soldiers and civilians.
Of course, that’s not the full extent of the IRGC’s malign influence. The group is an acknowledged supporter of terror (a fact even Senator Obama concedes), training, financing and arming Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and most recently, the Taliban. At home in Iran, the IRGC now dominates the regime, with 9 out of 21 seats in the Ahmadinejad cabinet held by former IRGC and IRGC-affiliated officials. The IRGC is also a vital player in Iran’s licit and illicit economies, and dominates important sectors like construction.
Needless to say, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment won broad support in the Senate, passing 76-22. Senator Hillary Clinton voted for it, as did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Senator Dick Durbin.Senator Obama, however, was one of a handful of senators who opposed the amendment–which had aroused the ire of the left-wing blogosphere. In the frenzied minds of DailyKos and Moveon.org, Kyl-Lieberman–or “Lieberman-Kyl,” as they preferred to call it–was nothing less than a stealth declaration of war on Iran.
The offending clause (a non-binding Sense of the Senate) suggests that the U.S. military presence in Iraq “will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf.” It emphatically does not suggest either that we “use our military presence in Iraq to counter the threat from Iran,” as Senator Obama’s website falsely claims, or that “we should maintain our forces in Iraq with an eye toward blunting Iranian influence,” as Senator Obama frets.
That reading of the amendment is incomprehensible to most, including Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois and one of Obama’s chief supporters. “It’s rare that Barack and I disagree on an issue of this magnitude,” Durbin told Bloomberg Television at the time. “I have the same concerns that Barack Obama does about this administration and what they might do with the power that they have. But I don’t think this resolution gives them a green light to do anything.”
This misreading of the amendment speaks to a larger, deliberate obtuseness on Obama’s part. The Iranians are the largest sponsor of international terrorism in the world, and the evidence of this is both public and large. In order to fight terrorism, we need to at least honestly acknowledge Iran’s role in it and take steps to limit it. Kyl-Lieberman attempted to do just that in a non-violent manner, working through other options intended to limit their ability to fund terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
There are only two reasons to oppose the application of sanctions on Iran. Either one wants to go to war and skip all of the other options, or doesn’t believe Iran to be a threat and a sponsor of terror. Into which group should we put Barack Obama?
I think we can safely say that he belongs in the latter group.
I think we could also entertain a third reason for why Obama would oppose such sanctions. It is possible that he opposes all aggressive action against the Muslim Ummah.
The evidence seems to point in that direction, doesn't it?
Something that thrives by giving people what they want is deeply offensive to the Left. Coercion is what gets their rocks off. Comment by Don Surber on a NYT article below
In a May 28 column, Thomas Friedman wrote: "But as soon as oil prices started falling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we let Detroit get us re-addicted to gas guzzlers, and the price steadily crept back up to where it is today."
Ah yes, the power of corporations to mesmerize the poor American consumer. This malarkey has been a pillar of liberal thought since Karl Marx was a pup. This shows a disdain for the intelligence of the average American by a tiny group of people who think they are our moral and intellectual superiors. You stupid humans are easily manipulated, the Kang and Kodos of the left say before they board their Gulfstream to head for the latest world conference on global warming.
What is remarkable is that if Detroit had all this power over th American people, why would it let Honda, Toyota, Subaru and dozens of other brands of automobiles take such a bite out of the American market? A story today in Friedman's own newspaper said: "Responding to a consumer shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles, General Motors said Tuesday that it would stop making pickup trucks and big S.U.V.s at four North American assembly plants and would consider selling its Hummer brand."
Re-addicted? My eye.
The problem is consumers dictated SUVs. Everyone complied. When gas shot up, consumers changed their minds and now GM has to shift production. Sorta like what newspapers are doing.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
"France's 1960s screen icon Brigitte Bardot was fined 15,000 euro ($20,000) on Tuesday for inciting hatred against Muslims by attacking the ritual slaughter of animals in Islamic culture.
In December 2006, the film star-turned-animal rights activist wrote to France's then interior minister, now President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing Muslims should stun animals before slaughtering them during the Eid al-Adha holiday. She outraged anti-racist groups by saying: "I've had enough of being led by the nose by this whole population which is destroying us, (and) destroying our country by imposing their ways."
"The court ruled that the comments in question clearly referred to the Muslim community and constituted a legal offence," said judge Nicolas Bonnal.
Bardot's lawyer said he did not know whether the actress would appeal the sentence -- which fell short of the two-month suspended jail term sought by the prosecution -- but that she "will not be silenced in her defence of animals."
Bardot's previous convictions, dating back to 1997, were for writings attacking the "Islamisation" of France, calling for a halt to mosque-building and describing Muslims as "invaders."
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
The Islamic Saudi Academy, a Northern Virginia school owned and operated by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia and an institution originally founded to education the children of embassy officials and staff, may have run into some legal trouble over allegations of not reporting sexual abuse. Not only that, but apparently the school's director also attempted to delete the computer records of the child's claim.
Harvard Medical School professor who has made headlines with research into the health benefits of a substance found in red wine called resveratrol.
Speaking on a panel of aging experts, Sinclair had the boldest predictions. He said scientists can greatly increase longevity and improve health in lab animals like mice, and that drugs to benefit people are on the way.
"It's not an if, but a when," said Sinclair, who co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to pursue such drugs. The company, which is testing medicine in people with Type 2 diabetes, was recently bought for $720 million by GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest drug maker.
Sinclair said treatments could be a few years or a decade away, but they're "really close. It's not something (from) science fiction and it's not something for the next generation."
It could be weeks, or even months. But Ehud Olmert's political fate is sealed. Even if the nauseating revelations in Morris Talansky's testimony fail to result in a formal indictment, Olmert has passed the point of no return in the court of public opinion, which has determined that he must go.
The displays of excessive venality and abuse of power were the final straw. Furious Israelis will not forgive the prime minister for accepting "gifts" of cash in envelopes, without receipts, in an obvious attempt to conceal how the money was spent. There is also an enormous upsurge of rage concerning his use of funds for personal gratification.
And another bit of good news from this is that it may prevent similar acts of corruption from being committed in the future.
Here's another article about the police fraud unit's investigation into cash withdrawals Olmert made in this case.
McCain is the true post-partisan centrist in the race, the true reformer.
I don't like all of his centrist positions or his reforms because I'm a conservative, but I accept that he has earned the right to honestly be called a centrist and a reformer.
Obama and Hillary have reformed BUPKUS and are both WAY TO THE LEFT of most Americans. The policies they stand for are the failed policies of the left, policies which have failed everywhere and every times they have ever been implemented.
If these policies worked, then the USSR would still be around and France would have President Segolene, Germany Chancellor Schroeder, Italy PM Prodi - and NEW Labour/Tony Blair/Gordon Brown would've never been elected.
The left is still promoting policies of the PAST and hence they really are all about RETREAT.
Just as the policies they advocate for Iraq and in the GWOT are all about RETREAT.
But McCain doesn't know the meaning of the word retreat.
Not as a POW.
Not as candidate counted out just a few months ago.
Not when Iraq started to go badly in 2005 and was in need of new tactics.
It became my habit when President Bush was speaking to hit the "Mute" button so as not to screw up the speech. I don't enjoy admitting this. It's just that when I read the hard copy — or had Tony Blair read it to me over the phone — it was brilliant. Not so much when listening in real time.
Kathleen, don't forget: George W. Bush won the election for President. Twice. And in 2004, he received more votes for President than any other candidate in the Nation's history.
Media personalities are overwhelmingly interested in words and public utterances. That's their business.
But when it comes right down to it, and never more so than in a time of war, the American voters don't want a preacher, or a cheerleader, or a speechifier in the White House.
BTW: Obama's pledge to stand with Wright and his church is sounding as hollow as McGovern's pledge to support Eagleton 1000% percent; TIME:
McGovern, seated at Eagleton's side, was quick to defend his man. "I think Tom Eagleton is fully qualified in mind, body and spirit to be the Vice President of the United States and, if necessary, to take on the presidency at a moment's notice," McGovern said.
McGovern noted that when he had asked Eagleton to be his running mate, he had inquired "if he had any problems in his past that were significant or worth discussing with me." Eagleton told him no—"and I agree with that," McGovern said. He added: "If I had known every detail that he discussed this morning, he would still have been my choice for Vice President."
... [Eagleton] said, [McGovern] had told him that he "had been under pressure" about Eagleton's candidacy.
Yet, Eagleton insisted, three times in the course of the conversation he had wrung from McGovern the phrase "that he's 1,000% for me."
Sounds like Obama's famous promise he wouldn't disassociate himself from Wright.
THE POLITICIANS OF THE LEFT ARE NOT TRUSTWORTHY.
THEY ABANDONED OUR SOUTH VIETNAMESE ALLIES IN 1975 (TWO YEARS AFTER OUT LAST COMBAT TROOP LEFT VIETNAM - ON 3/31/73).
Jeroen Tjebbe, publicity man, says that this shows that you think outside the box, and want to spread the "Orange" (Dutch) feeling together. Tjebbe came up with the shirt together with others.
