Overnight Music Video - Earth, Wind and Fire - Dance, USSR Style.

The Perils of Ignoring History, This Time, Europe Really Is on the Brink.

The Perils of Ignoring History, This Time, Europe Really Is on the Brink.(Spiegel).The European Union was created to avoid repeating the disasters of the 1930s, but Germany, of all countries, has failed to learn from history. As the euro crisis escalates, Berlin should remember how the banking crisis of 1931 contributed to the breakdown of democracy across Europe. Action is urgently needed to stop history from repeating itself. Is it one minute to midnight in Europe? The failure of German public opinion to grasp the dire state of affairs in Europe today is inviting a repeat of precisely the crisis of the mid 20th century that European integration was designed to avoid. With every increase in the probability of a disorderly Greek exit from the monetary union, the pressure on the Spanish banks increases and with it the danger of a Mediterranean-wide bank run so big that it would overwhelm the European Central Bank. Already there has been a substantial re-nationalization of the European financial system. This centrifugal process could easily continue to the point of complete disintegration. We find it extraordinary that it should be Germany, of all countries, that is failing to learn from history. 
Fixated on the non-threat of inflation, today's Germans appear to attach more importance to the year 1923 (the year of hyperinflation) than to the year 1933 (the year democracy died). They would do well to remember how a European banking crisis two years before 1933 contributed directly to the breakdown of democracy not just in their own country but right across the European continent. Astonishingly few Europeans (including bankers) seem to remember what happened in May 1931 when Creditanstalt, the biggest Austrian bank, had to be bailed out by a government that was itself on the brink of insolvency. The ensuing European bank crisis, which saw the failure of two of Germany's biggest banks, ushered in the second half of the Great Depression. If the first half had been dominated by the American stock market crash, the second was all about European banks going bust. What happened next? The banking crisis was followed by President Hoover's one-year moratorium on payment of World War I war debts and reparations. Nearly all sovereign borrowers subsequently defaulted on all or part of their external debts, beginning with Germany.
Unemployment in Europe reached an agonizing peak in 1932: In July of that year, 49 per cent of German trade union members were out of work. The political consequences are well known. But the Nazis were only the worst of a large number of extremist movements to benefit politically from the crisis. "Anti-system" parties in Germany -- including Communists as well as fascists -- had won 13 percent of votes in 1928. By November 1932, they won nearly 60 percent. The far right also fared well in Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. Communists gained in Bulgaria, France and Greece. The result was the death of democracy in much of Europe. While 24 European regimes had been democratic in 1920, the number was down to 11 in 1939. Even bankers know what happened that year. Those of us who repeatedly warned in the 1990s that the experiment of monetary union would end badly would be gloating now -- if we were not so troubled by the prospect of history repeating itself. Read the full story here.

Crisis: Spain; EU rescues banks, not country, Krugman.

Crisis: Spain; EU rescues banks, not country, Krugman.(ANSAmed) - MADRID - "Yet again the economy slides, unemployment soars, banks get into trouble, governments rush to the rescue - but somehow it's only the banks that get rescued, not the unemployed." This statement was made by Paul Krugman, U.S. winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for the Economy, in an opinion article in the New York Times, cited today by El Pais. The article regards the bailout of the Spanish banking system with 100 billion euros, agreed by the Euro Group and Spain. According to the economist, the bailout is necessary, but is ''not the solution Spain needs. "There's nothing necessarily wrong with this latest bailout (although a lot depends on the details). What's striking, is that even as European leaders were putting together this rescue, they were signaling strongly that they have no intention of changing the policies that have left almost a quarter of Spain's workers - and more than half its young people - jobless." Krugman complains that the European authorities ''are always ready to spring into action to defend the banks, but otherwise completely unwilling to admit that its policies are failing the people the economy is supposed to serve." He also reproaches the European Central Bank for refusing to lower interest rates. ''Unemployment in the euro area has soared,'' Krugman writes, ''and all indications are that the Continent is entering a new recession. Meanwhile, inflation is slowing, and market expectations of future inflation have plunged. By any of the usual rules of monetary policy, the situation calls for aggressive rate cuts. But the central bank won't move." The economist heavily criticises the eurozone's paralysis and concludes: ''it's becoming increasingly clear that it will take utter catastrophe to get any real policy action that goes beyond bank bailouts. But don't despair: at the rate things are going, especially in Europe, utter catastrophe may be just around the corner."Read the full story here.

"Egypt - Feind hort mit!" - New Egyptian ‘spy’ ad causes public backlash.

"Egypt - Feind hort mit!" - New Egyptian ‘spy’ ad causes public backlash.(TOI).A new Egyptian TV advertisement is warning the public against speaking to strangers, for fear they are foreign spies. But rather than increasing vigilance, the ads have caused an uproar. Local media reported Sunday that the controversial ad was no longer aired on public TV following the public outcry. The advertisements featured a man with Western features entering an Egyptian cafe. “From the start he knows why he came and for what purpose,” read the narration, accompanied by menacing music. “He will infiltrate your heart, as though you knew him forever.”
The ad went on to show three young Egyptians voicing their complaints about the behavior of the military and high fuel prices. “Don’t just open your heart to anyone without knowing who he is and who stands behind him,” continued the narrator. “Every word has a price — a word can save the nation.”
The ads, broadcast this week on Egyptian public television before being pulled, managed to infuriate liberals and human rights organizations, which accused the government of employing scare tactics reminiscent of the previous regime. “This reminds us of what happened during the revolution, when Egyptian television spoke about foreigners seeking to destroy Egypt and support the revolutionaries,” wrote Ahmad Maher, founder of the April 6 youth group, in a statement Sunday. “A number of civilians kidnapped and attacked foreign tourists after being affected by the official discourse on Egyptian TV.”
Maher called on parliament to question the minister of information about those responsible for the ad, which he called “naive and despicable,” establishment Egyptian daily Al-Ahram reported Sunday.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), a local NGO, went a step further, equating the ad to Nazi-era propaganda. “Ads of this kind are reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s media directed by Goebbels, who was famous for his blatant lies and his despicable methods of controlling public minds through the media,” wrote ANHRI in a statement.Read the full story here.

 

Video - "National Security Adviser" - Pat Caddell Identifies National Security Advisor Tom Donilon as Obama’s Leak.

"Israel's STAUNCHEST ally" - Mr. Obama’s Peace Process and the Duality of Language.

"Israel's STAUNCHEST ally" - Mr. Obama’s Peace Process and the Duality of Language.(JM).By Stephen M. Astrachan.President Obama has made the completion of an Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement a central goal of his foreign policy. Unfortunately, rather than making peace he has pushed the two sides even further apart. Tragically he may have squandered a remarkable opportunity to advance the cause of peace in this deeply rooted conflict.

Mr. Obama inherited a policy frame-work for resolution of the conflict dating back to President Clinton’s efforts at Camp David in Summer 2000.  He implied this new policy with subtle language to a foreign audience in his June 2009 speech in Cairo: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” ²

The ambiguous wording carried parallel messages. Superficially it seemed to reiterate our long-standing objection to new settlement construction. However, the language “continued Israeli settlements” rather than something like “continued settlement activity” implied that Jewish residence outside the pre- June 67 lines was unacceptable. The sequential use of “settlements”, “construction”, and “settlements” tended to obscure the true meaning of the statement. In all likelihood the Moslem audience, to whom these remarks were addressed, understood the underlying meaning.

Mr. Obama opened another dramatic area for Israel to concede. In March 2010 during a visit to Israel by Vice President Biden, the Jerusalem municipal authority announced the construction of new homes in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. The announcement was an intentional embarrassment to both Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu who made repeated public apologies. Mr. Obama, rather than simply accepting the apology and moving on, initiated a public confrontation with Israel. His anger was legitimate. The proximity talks, with Senator Mitchell moving between the two parties sitting 30 miles apart, had just begun and such an announcement could have compromised that effort. On the other hand Mr. Netanyahu’s apology was genuine and should have been accepted. Furthermore, the proximity talks themselves represented a substantial Israeli concession given her desire for direct negotiations. Somehow neither the ten month West Bank construction freeze nor the concession of indirect negotiations seemed to matter when Secretary of State Clinton in a harsh telephone conversation told Mr. Netanyahu that the United States wanted Israel to take “specific actions” indicating that “they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process.” ³ 

The subsequent televised public rebuke by David Axelrod was a further escalation in a diplomatic confrontation over a relatively minor incident. ⁴

The alternative of containing the fall out and focusing on the indirect negotiations was nowhere to be found.

Later that month Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Washington D.C. to heal the rift between himself and Mr. Obama. They met on March 23, 2010. By all accounts the meeting reflected Mr. Obama’s continued hostility. There were no pictures or public statements that would normally be part of a Presidential meeting with the leader of a friendly nation. By some accounts Mr. Obama went even further towards public humiliation by immediately giving Mr. Netanyahu a list of 13 demands and later leaving saying, "I'm going to the residential wing to have dinner with Michelle and the girls...I’m still around…Let me know if there is anything new." ⁵

This stance from the President of the United States gave permission for even greater hostility from others. It was at that time that that Turkey took the provocative step of supporting the extremely dubious Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) ⁶ in trying to run Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

More central to the peace process was the change in policy by the Palestinian Authority which took Mr. Obama’s public policies as their own and went further by making the cessation of new construction in the West Bank and in Jerusalem preconditions to further negotiations. Likely implicit here was the belief that the new American President would deliver Israeli compliance and thus preclude the necessity of serious negotiations. Mr. Abbas had negotiated with many previous Israeli governments and had never raised these issues as preconditions for negotiations. While many have commented on Mr. Obama’s role in this change, none have done so with greater authority than has Mr. Abbas himself.

In November 2010 Mr. Abbas posted a policy statement “I Reached Understandings with Olmert on Borders, Security.” The piece was generally a defense of his positions on various issues in contention with the Netanyahu government. However, it was quite clear on the origin of the construction halt policy, “Obama said in his (June 2009) Cairo (speech) that Israel must stop all (construction) activity in the settlements. Could we have (settled for) less than that? So we said Israel must stop all construction in the settlements…” ⁷ In April 2011 he continued this theme in his conversation with Newsweek reporter Paolo Verzone,”It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze…I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.” ⁸

Eventually Mr. Obama started to receive criticism for his seemingly disproportionate hostility towards Israel while Mr. Netanyahu was calling for direct negotiations and Mr. Abbas was establishing pre-conditions. Finally, in July 2010 President Obama forcefully called for the Palestinian Authority to return to direct negotiations in a strongly worded letter. ⁹

Later on September 24, 2010 in a United Nations address Mr. Obama spoke eloquently, "Those of us who are friends of Israel must understand that true security for the Jewish state requires an independent Palestine -- one that allows the Palestinian people to live with dignity and opportunity". And those of us who are friends of the Palestinians must understand that the rights of the Palestinian people will be won only through peaceful means -- including genuine reconciliation with a secure Israel.” “Those who long to see an independent Palestine must also stop trying to tear down Israel. After thousands of years, Jews and Arabs are not strangers in a strange land. After 60 years in the community of nations, Israel's existence must not be a subject for debate.” ¹⁰

Unfortunately beneath the soaring rhetoric lay the stark reality of an incoherent policy, “Israel's settlement moratorium has made a difference on the ground and improved the atmosphere for talks. And our position on this issue is well known. We believe that the moratorium should be extended.” “Now is the time for this opportunity to be seized, so that it does not slip away.” The settlement freeze had begun nearly a year earlier but Mr. Obama was only then acknowledging the opportunity that it created and urging that it be seized. He had run down the clock on the construction freeze having spent much of that time escalating a public confrontation with Israel that all but drove the Palestinian Authority to a set of preconditions that made the chance of real progress increasingly remote.

Mr. Obama’s approach to the conflict has been marked an almost obsessively critical view of Israel and Mr. Netanyahu and an almost complete inability to attribute fault to the Palestinian Authority. In April 2010 the Wall Street Journal in commenting on our efforts to encourage Mr. Abbas to resume negotiations quoted a U.S. official as saying, “The Palestinians have assurances that there would be consequences if the Israelis don’t live up to their side of the bargain.” ¹¹ This statement, however striking, can be attributed to our diplomatic efforts to resume the indirect negotiations.
More recently there was the well publicized “off-microphone” gaff between Prime Minister Sarkozy and Mr. Obama in November 2011: Mr. Sarkozy, “I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar. “Mr. Obama, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

¹⁴ This candid exchange occurred almost immediately after Mr. Netanyahu announced plans to begin the removal of some of the small Jewish outposts in the West Bank. In doing so he kept a promise made but never fulfilled by his two predecessors and incurred some political cost in the process. ¹⁵ Yet Mr. Obama’s comments reflected complete indifference to this important recent development.

Circumstances seemed hopeful for a new beginning between Mr. Obama, Mr. Netanyahu, and Mr. Abbas. But again, this was not to be. Only hours before the President’s speech Israel was informed of the new policy doctrine that Mr. Obama was about to announce.

Mr. Obama’s speech of May 19, 2011 was billed as a major policy address on the Arab Spring. However, he devoted about 20% of it to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. This was more than to any other single topic. ¹⁶ He fundamentally altered the U.S. posture toward the conflict.

The first policy concerned borders. “We believe the borders of Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both sides.” With this bold stroke Mr. Obama abandoned all previous policy from the diplomatic ambiguity of the 1967 UN Resolution 242 to Presidents Clinton’s and Bush’s recognition of demographic changes and generally defined land swaps. Beyond the obvious political difficulties this policy would create for any Israeli government, the term “1967 lines” raised national security concerns harkening back to the memories of the vulnerability that those lines posed in earlier years. Mr. Obama immediately compounded these concerns.
"As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -– by itself -– against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated."

The sheer duplicity of this statement was stunning. In plain language it called for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and the complete reliance on the Palestinian security forces. Yet the substance of the policy, “full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces” is almost hidden in the center of the paragraph preceded and followed by a string of seeming assurances to Israel’s security that tend to obscure the statement’s actual meaning. Mr. Obama’s later references to this statement as an assurance of Israel’s security compunded the cold cynicism of his words.

The Palestinian Authority had not made the full reliance on their own security forces an important policy goal. In fact Mr. Abbas had openly spoken about accepting third party NATO forces as a basis of security.
¹⁷ To him the security force issue was one in which compromise seemed possible. Once again, Mr. Obama raised the bar on the Palestinian side beyond anything they had requested.

Nothing in my comments should be taken as critical of any outcome that might have resulted from the give and take of comprehensive direct negotiations between the two parties. However, it is in the likelihood of real negotiations that Mr. Obama did perhaps the greatest harm. He then insisted that the issues of borders and Israel’s security (as he defined it) be a first stage of negotiations preceding deliberation on the status of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees:

"These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I’m aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians."

Thus Israel was to cede the final borders and agree to completely withdraw of its forces from the West Bank, i.e. give up its major bargaining chips before dealing with the contentious issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return. The fundamental notion of land for peace was abandoned. Israel was to give up land and then discuss peace.

We have two leaders, one Israeli and one Palestinian. Both have dedicated their lives and considerable talents to the national aspirations of their people. Yet each has seemingly tried to advance compromise positions with the other. Unfortunately, the President of the United States of America failed to seize a middle-ground where a true reconciliation might have occurred. Instead, he chose to impose his own policies which one side could not accept and the other not reject. We shall never know what might have been with different American leadership.

If Mr. Obama is re-elected this November he will most likely reemphasize, final borders based on pre-1967 lines with land swaps, full Israel Defense Force withdrawal from the West Bank, and negotiation on the status of Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return only after these Israeli concessions are complete. His laudable emphasis on Israel’s military security and legitimacy must be understood in context of this larger policy. The difference will be that he will then conduct foreign policy without ever again having to stand before the electorate. For it is the President of the United States who determines our foreign policy under the Constitution, as it has been since the days of Chief Justice John Marshall.

The Last Days of Jews in the Islamicized Europe.

The Last Days of Jews in the Islamicized Europe.(FM).By Giulio Meotti.A few days ago, security guards were patrolling the streets near Rome’s Jewish school with metal detectors, searching for possible explosive devices. Rome’s largest synagogue, one of the oldest in the world, today looks like a military outpost, with private guards and policemen at every corner. The Jewish school is also a “sterilized area,” protected by bodyguards and cameras, the windows plumbed with iron grates. I saw the same in the Jewish homes of Hebron and in the schools of Sderot, the Israeli city bombed by Hamas.
The March attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse, which resembled that of Itamar (when an Israeli father, mother and three children were slaughtered in their beds by a Palestinian commando), triggered “an explosion” of anti-Semitic attacks across France. According with the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive, more than 90 anti-Semitic incidents took place in France only in the 10 days that followed the shooting, which left four people dead.
In total, 148 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in March and April. It’s an anti-Semithic pandemonium totally silenced by the European media.
Anti-Semitism raises again its head in estern Europe. During the Holocaust, Europe dispatched its Jews to the gas chambers. Seventy years later, in the welfarist, multicultural and semi-Islamicized Europe, Jews have again come under attack. Enclaves of ultra-Orthodox Jews will likely survive in the main cities, but Jewish life as such has no future in Europe. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, the world’s leading Talmudic scholar, delivered this apocalyptic vision: “The Jewish community in Europe is dying.”
All the recent polls say that a third of Europeans show very high levels of anti-Semitism, while over half of Europeans view the State of Israel as “the greatest threat to world peace.”
For as comfortable as life might be in the arrondissements of Paris, the situation for the Jews will only worsen. A few days ago, Jews were nearly lynched in Lyon by an Arab mob armed with hammers and yelling “dirty Jews.” That’s why in the past few years, the number of French Jews immigrating to Israel has doubled. Hundreds of French Jews have bought apartments in Israel. It’s their “pied-a-terre” in case the situation gets darker in Europe. “Jews in France, you are in ranger, your place is in Israel,” read some banners brandished by French-Israelis during a ceremony in Tel Aviv honoring the victims of the pogrom of Toulouse.
A few years ago, the UK paper Daily Telegraph ran a story under the title: “Is this the last generation of British Jews?”. The Jewish population in the United Kingdom, threatened by Melanie Phillips’ “Londonistan,” will decline to 240,000 in 2020, 180,000 in 2050, and 140,000 in 2080. The President of Austria’s Israelite Community, Ariel Muzicant, warns that the Jewish Community is also dying out: “If a miracle doesn’t happen soon, the Jewish community in Austria will no longer exist in the foreseeable future.” In Sweden, a country described by The Guardian as “the greatest success the world has known,” Jews are leaving big cities such as Malmö due to security reasons, in order to escape anti-Semitic attacks. Sixty percent of Dutch Jews are ready to pack up and leave the country. The cause is a boom of Islamic antisemitism in the famous multicultural Netherlands. Benjamin Jacobs, the country’s chief rabbi, declared to Arutz Sheva that “the future for Dutch Jewry is moving to Israel”.
Jews are fleeing Antwerp, the city in Belgium once proudly called “the Northern Jerusalem.” 
Last autumn, the ancient synagogue of Weesp became the first synagogue in Europe since the Second World War to cancel Shabbat services due to threats to the safety of the faithful. There are more than 1,000 Jews in Oslo, but you never see them. Not one.
Today anti-Semitic inscriptions are being drawn on building walls in Marseille, Nottingham, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Berlin, Kiev, Barcelona and Rome. Jewish cemeteries are daily ransacked and Jews are attacked on the streets if they wear the kippahs. Europe is again approaching, as many prefer to avert their eyes, the horrible paroxysm of Jew-hatred that plunged the continent into its XX century abyss.
In the current denationalized, universalist, third-worldist and secularized Europe, Zionism is casted as the cause of anti-Semitism, Bruxelles’ officials see the bombing of a synagogue in Paris as a reprisal for an Israeli incursion into Gaza, European ministers and MPs more and more call the Israelis “the new Nazis,” anti-Semitism is fading from the general consciousness and “Islamophobia” is declared the worst racism.
In the old Europe that abandoned the internationalism of the proletariat for the transnationalism of the Islamic umma, there is no space for the Jews. Europe’s Arabized cosmopolitanism cultivates the fantasy of removing Israel from the Middle East. But Europe first will forsake and abandon its own post-Holocaust Jews. Only after Israel’s destruction the Jews will be allowed to return to their homeless status in France,England, Sweden, Germany. In Warsaw they might rebuild the ghetto, while from Baghdad to Haifa tens of thousands of miles will be covered only by the voice of Al Jazeera.Read the full story here.

Senate: Drones Need to Operate “Freely and Routinely” In U.S.

Senate: Drones Need to Operate “Freely and Routinely” In U.S.(FAS).The integration of drones or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS) needs to be expedited, the Senate Armed Services Committee said in its report on the FY2013 defense authorization bill last week.
“While progress has been made in the last 5 years, the pace of development must be accelerated; greater cross-agency collaboration and resource sharing will contribute to that objective,” the Committee said.
A provision of the bill would encourage greater collaboration on drone integration among the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and NASA.
“Large number of UASs now deployed overseas may be returned to the United States as the conflict in Afghanistan and operations elsewhere wind down in coming years, and new UASs are under development.”
“Without the ability to operate freely and routinely in the NAS, UAS development and training– and ultimately operational capabilities– will be severely impacted,” the Committee report said.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday approved an amendment to the 2013 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill that would prohibit DHS from acquiring or flying drones that have weapons onboard.
“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the purchase, operation, or maintenance of armed unmanned aerial vehicles,” says the provision sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ).
This prohibition, which is limited to DHS, is likely to be of no practical significance. “Has there ever been any plan to buy armed drones by Homeland Security?” asked Rep. Norm Dicks on the House floor yesterday. “No,” replied Rep. Robert Aderholt.
Also yesterday, Rep. Scott Austin (R-GA) introduced a bill (HR 5925) “to protect individual privacy against unwarranted governmental intrusion through the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles commonly called drones.”Hmmm...........Read the full story here.

As expected Obama will give BFF Turkey a waiver from sanctions, they 'only' import 45 percent of their oil from Iran and aid Iran avoiding sanctions.

As expected Obama will give BFF Turkey a waiver from sanctions, they 'only' import 45 percent of their oil from Iran and aid Iran avoiding sanctions.(JPost).WASHINGTON - The United States will exempt TURKEY, India, South Korea and five other economies from financial sanctions in return for significantly cutting purchases of Iranian oil, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday. China and Singapore did not receive such waivers, putting pressure on Iran's top oil buyer and a major blender of the country's fuel oil, respectively.Turkey, South Africa, Taiwan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka will also be exempted from the sanctions, Clinton said. The sanctions, which the United States may impose starting June 28, aim to strangle Iran's nuclear program by cutting funding from its oil industry. The United States and the European Union believe Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Tehran says the program is strictly for civilian purposes. "By reducing Iran's oil sales, we are sending a decisive message to Iran's leaders: until they take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, they will continue to face increasing isolation and pressure," Clinton said in a release. Banks and other institutions in the economies that received waivers will be given a six-month break from the threat of being cut off from the US financial system under sanctions signed late last year by President Barack Obama. Although China did not immediately receive a waiver, it does not necessarily follow that the United States will impose sanctions on the country from June 28. It was not immediately clear why China failed to get the exemption. However, backers of tough sanctions on Tehran believe China has received clandestine cargoes of oil from Iran, which has disabled tracking devices on some of its shipments. In March, the United States granted exceptions to Japan and 10 EU countries for significantly cutting purchases of Iranian petroleum.Hmmmmm...........While Turkey got a waiver for WHAT????Reducing their oil import a measely TEN percent?These 'sanctions' are a joke!Read the full story here.

Related - "Sanctions That Benefit" - Obama's BFF Erdogan's Turkey their gold imports jump by 150 pct in May.(HD).Turkish gold imports leapt by 150 percent in May due to unrelenting demand from sanctions-strapped Iran, where buyers are increasingly choosing to keep savings in the precious metal rather than paper currency. Turkey has imported 19.47 tons of gold in May, up from 7.78 tons in April, according to data released by the Istanbul Gold Exchange. Some of the increase was also attributable to the onset of the wedding season and regional tensions related to the 14-month-old uprising in neighboring Syria. But export data released a day earlier showed Iranian buying from Turkish gold traders has been the crucial factor. Sanctions to force Iran to curb its nuclear programme have targeted its energy and banking sectors and new measures from both the United States and European Union take effect in July, The sanctions have made neighboring Turkey an ever more important channel for the Islamic republic. Gökhan Aksu, vice president of Istanbul Gold Refinery, suspected Iran was seeking to hold some of its oil revenues in gold, while ordinary Iranians sought a safer asset as the rial currency was losing value and access to foreign currency was being choked off by the Western sanctions. “Iran needs to employ its resources coming from oil exports,” Aksu said. “They also have problems such as embargoes and the depreciation of the rial.” Foreign trade data showed Turkey earned $1.27 billion from exports of 23.9 tons of gold in April, dwarfing the $75.4 million earned from sales of 1.65 tons last year. Some 95 percent of the total gold exports went to Iran in April.Hmmmm.....Turkish gold sales to Iran in March soared over 30 times.Read the full story here.

Update:  U.S. exempts seven countries that consume Iran oil from sanctions.
Obama administration officials didn't say how much the seven countries had cut their oil purchases. In March, U.S. officials signaled that they were seeking reductions of 15% to 22% of purchases.

Several large countries, including India and Turkey, said publicly that they were reluctant to reduce imports of Iranian oil because of their long reliance on the Islamic regime. They appear to have met the minimum level of cooperation that Washington demanded, however.How Much did Turkey actually 'reduce' it's inports??

Answer:
Before May, Turkey was the only buyer in Europe to increase purchases from Iran, while other European refiners cut back on imports of the crude ahead of an impending EU oil embargo due to take effect from July 1.In the first four months of 2012, Turkey imported 210,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil on average, including a huge 270,000 bpd in March, much higher than its 2011 average of 185,000 bpd. 

In May Turkey's state-controlled refining company, Tupras, imported around 140,000 barrels per day (bpd), a 20 percent drop from its 2011 average, according to the latest shipping data, obtained by Reuters. Port data showed 152,000 tonnes of Iranian crude was delivered to the port of Aliaga in May, while 443,000 tonnes of Iranian crude was delivered to its second import terminal, Tutunciflik. Tupras is expected to import the same volume in June.
From July 1, Turkey will remain effectively the sole buyer of Iranian crude in Europe. Official trade data showed that in the first four months of this year, Iran accounted for about 58 percent of Turkey's near 6 million tonnes in total crude imports. 
THIS REDUCTION IS A PURE SMOKESCREEN APPROVED BY THE OBAMA ADMIN!

"Doing Fine" - Mexican Drug Cartels Operating in Over 1,200 U.S. Cities, numbers More Than Five Times up Since 2008.

"Doing Fine" - Mexican Drug Cartels Operating in Over 1,200 U.S. Cities, numbers more than Five Times up since 2008.(Economist).(DougRoss).Well, this CNN report certainly comes as a surprise, given the combination of: (a) a Homeland Security head who encourages open borders and illegal immigration; and (b) an Attorney General who ships thousands of military-grade weapons to the Mexican cartels.

Wilmington, North Carolina (CNN) -- Less than a mile off a county road in Ivanhoe near the Black River, federal drug agents and local authorities found exactly what their informant had promised... "We saw what looked like, as far as you could see, marijuana plants," said Drug Enforcement Administration agent Michael Franklin.

There were about 2,400 in all, surrounded by a makeshift camp where the growers had illegally squatted on private property, setting up a generator and pump to tap the river for irrigation. The camp, which had been recently inhabited, contained a tarp shelter, canned fuel, drinking water, toiletries and old clothing, some of it camouflage...

In 2009 and 2010, the center reported, cartels operated in 1,286 U.S. cities, more than five times the number reported in 2008. The center named only 50 cities in 2006.Read the full story here.

Meet Medinsky, the Goebbels of Resurgent Russia.A Profile of Putin's Controversial New Culture Minister.

Meet Medinsky, the Goebbels of Resurgent Russia.A Profile of Putin's Controversial New Culture Minister.(CC).By Tom Balmforth.The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact "deserves a monument." The U.S.S.R. never occupied the Baltic states, it just "incorporated" them. An infamous picture of a Nazi-Soviet military parade in Poland in 1939 was "photoshopped." Anti-Semitism in Tsarist Russia has been "greatly exaggerated." 
Alternative history? Speculative fiction? No, these are actual snippets from the academic writings of Russia's new culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky. Kremlin allies have praised the controversial author's unexpected May 21 appointment. Andrei Isayev of the ruling United Russia party calls Medinsky "an energetic man, a good manager and ideologue." Likewise, Yelena Drapeko, who sits on the State Duma's Culture Committee, says he is "entirely qualified" and "professional." But among the opposition and many scholars, his appointment has been condemned and met with a blend of shock and disappointment. The bespectacled 41-year-old academic and author of more than a dozen history tomes has been accused by his peers of everything from dubious scholarship, to plagiarism, to outright propaganda. 
Mark Solonin, a historian and specialist on World War II, likens Medinsky to the Third Reich's notorious propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, and calls his appointment an insult to Russia's rich cultural heritage. "They have selected a fairly mediocre propagandist and, what's more, a propagandist of the shameless Goebbels variety," Solonin says.
"The fact that they are appointing that kind of propagandist to the post of culture minister in a country that gave the world Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy--this, of course, is a certain challenge and a certain signal. What did they want to say with this message?"
A prolific writer, Medinsky is best-known for his best-selling series "Myths," in which he purports to debunk stereotypes purportedly dreamed up by foreigners to besmirch Russia and its people. One title, for example, is titled: "On Drunkenness, Laziness and Cruelty." One of the more controversial volumes, "War. Myths of the USSR. 1939-45," has been derided by Aleksei Isayev, a World War II historian, as "agitprop" and "nonsense."
The books have nevertheless been huge hits with the public. In 2009, the daily "Kommersant" reported the series had become the "most widely circulated history book in modern Russia." They were also well received by the Kremlin. In 2009, Vladislav Surkov, who was then deputy Kremlin chief of staff and the regime's informal ideologist, said of the first volume of "Myths," "The concept of the book is very divisive and contentious, but it is absolutely to the benefit of Russia."Analysts are divided, and puzzled, over the motivations behind such a controversial appointment. Sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a member of United Russia and expert on political elites, says she knows the reason Medinsky was appointed but "cannot tell the press." Political analyst Mikhail Vinogradov of the Petersburg Politics Foundation notes that United Russia promised its leading members ministerial positions. He also suggests that Surkov, now the government's chief of staff, has close ties to Medinsky and could be behind the appointment. Perhaps the simplest explanation is given by Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Moscow-based Panorama think tank. The Kremlin, he suggests, simply couldn't find anybody else. "It's not the kind of position that people fight for. It's not easy to find a person for this post," Pribylovsky says. "Perhaps there was a competition between fools and they simply chose the most patriotic one."Hmmmm.......Did he happen to be a member of the Rodina or Motherland-National Patriotic Union party?Read the full story here.

US, EU fake Iran’s consent to discussing enrichment to fend off Israeli action .

US, EU fake Iran’s consent to discussing enrichment to fend off Israeli action.(Debka).A spokesman for EU foreign executive Catherine Ashton, who heads the six-power group in nuclear negotiations with Iran, reported Monday night, June 11, that Tehran is now willing to discuss high-grade uranium enrichment in the next round of nuclear talks in Moscow on June 18-19. The claim is false. Tehran consistently refuses to discuss its “right to enrichment” and threatened not to turn up for the Moscow session after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded last week that Iran come to the table with “concrete plans” for curbing uranium enrichment up to 20 percent purity.
Iran has not backtracked: Ashton got nothing new from an hour of tense conversation with senior negotiator Saeed Jalili and had to be satisfied with issuing the noncommittal statement, “The Iranians agreed on the need for Iran to engage on the (six powers') proposals, which address its concerns on the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program."
Enrichment remained unmentioned – least of all, any reference to the international inspectors’ discovery that Iran was enriching uranium up to 27 percent - and the “exclusively peaceful nature” of Iran’s nuclear program was endorsed. This sham presentation of Iran puts diplomacy on artificial life support. Admission of is demise would leave the powers face to face with the only remaining path, i.e., military action - to which President Barack Obama is committed if all other options failed - either by the United States or Israel with US support.
The tight lid kept on proceedings at the nuclear negotiations keeps embarrassing disclosures out of the public domain and supports the pretense of progress, when in fact Tehran has adamantly refused to open its nuclear program to real discussion.
Iran’s real attitude toward the current round of diplomacy is summed up by debkafile’s Iranian and intelligence sources in five points:
1. The US has run out of unilateral options for dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons program and depends now on the cooperation of Moscow and Beijing to achieve any progress. Tehran infers this from Washington’s turn to the Russians for help in resolving the Syrian crisis.
2. The world powers facing Iran at the nuclear negotiations in Istanbul and Baghdad are not united as depicted by the Obama administration but split three ways between Russia, China and the West. It is therefore in Tehran’s interest to keep the talks dragging on for as long as possible and so widen the divisions and isolate America.
3. Tehran is aware of US plans to impose harsher sanctions very soon, including an air and marine blockade, and is not dismayed. In fact, Iranian strategists are busy figuring out ways to get around them. They also calculate that the tougher the sanctions, the higher the price they will exact for every nuclear concession. From this perspective, tougher sanctions will buy Iran more time and a faster route to a nuclear bomb.
4. Tehran regards the staging of the "P7 Talks" as part of a wider picture. A high-ranking Iranian source said: ‘If the negotiations were just about nuclear issues, why bring in the major powers? The talks could have been handled by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Iran’s leaders are nonetheless capitalizing on those talks as a short cut to broad global recognition of the Islamic Republic’s status as a major world power.
“We are already more than half way to achieving this,” they say in Tehran.
5. In view of the first four points, Tehran believes it is on a winning roll and can afford to stand fast against giving ground on a single one of its nuclear and technological advances.
The question asked by debkafile is why is Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeping silent on this charade and even going along with it.Read the full story here.

Giant Worm: Iceland's Loch Ness Monster?Or Just drifting Ice.........going upstream?

The U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, how long before Obama 'follows' their lead?

The U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, how long before Obama 'follows' their lead?(National Review).

The U.N. recently revived its long-held desire to take control of the Internet. It is unlikely to get its way. So, led by European nations — who else? — it has hit upon another means by which to exercise its influence: Taxes. CNET reports:

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.
The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.
The documents (No. 1 No. 2) punctuate warnings that the Obama administration and Republican members of Congress raised last week about how secret negotiations at the ITU over an international communications treaty could result in a radical re-engineering of the Internet ecosystem and allow governments to monitor or restrict their citizens’ online activities.
“It’s extremely worrisome,” Sally Shipman Wentworth, senior manager for public policy at theInternet Society, says about the proposed Internet taxes. “It could create an enormous amount of legal uncertainty and commercial uncertainty.”

The United Nations is considering a new internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.
The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.
The documents (No. 1 No. 2) punctuate warnings that the Obama administration and Republican members of Congress raised last week about how secret negotiations at the ITU over an international communications treaty could result in a radical re-engineering of the internet ecosystem and allow governments to monitor or restrict their citizens’ online activities.
“It’s extremely worrisome,” Sally Shipman Wentworth, senior manager for public policy at theInternet Society, says about the proposed Internet taxes. “It could create an enormous amount of legal uncertainty and commercial uncertainty.”

Robert McDowell, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission who wrote an article (PDF) in the Wall Street Journal in February titled "The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom," appeared to reference the ETNO's proposal for Internet taxes during last week's congressional hearing.
Proposals that foreign governments have pitched to him personally would "use international mandates to charge certain Web destinations on a 'per-click' basis to fund the build-out of broadband infrastructure across the globe," McDowell said. "Google, Tunes, Facebook, and Netflix are mentioned most often as prime sources of funding."
They could also allow "governments to monitor and restrict content or impose economic costs upon international data flows," added Ambassador Philip Verveer, a deputy assistant secretary of state.Read the full story here.

Chomsky 1997: The new party is a "Social Democratic Version of State Capitalism".

Chomsky 1997: The new party is a "Social Democratic Version of State Capitalism".(Breibart).By John Sexton.An interview with Noam Chomsky from 1997 has the far-left professor describing his involvement with the New Party at about the time that Barack Obama Obama joined and sought an endorsement from the group. Contrary to claims made by founder Joel Rogers (some of which have been shown to be false), Chomsky says the New Party is not just the left wing of the Democratic Party, but a socialist alternative. en Smith has already admitted that part of his 2008 story was wrong. And I think we’ve convincingly established that Joel Rogers word shouldn’t be trusted on this issue for the rest of it. Fortunately, we don’t have to take Rogers’ word on the nature of the New Party. In 1997, Noam Chomsky explained what the New Party was and what it’s goals were: Brief comments [on the New Party], because I’m in a rush, and don’t want to delay.

1. Am I a member? Yes.
2. Do I think it’s a constructive idea? Yes.
3. Is it just a “reform movement within capitalism”? Yes.
4. Am I against capitalism? Yes.
5. Is there a contradiction between 3 and 4? No.
6. How is the New Party different from liberalism? Hard to answer without some clarification. If by “liberalism” is meant the Democratic Party, it is plainly different from liberalism. If what is meant is some kind of social democratic version of state capitalism, presumably not — at least now, though the project is one that has a possible evolution in mind, and in prospect, I think. First of all, you can see that in Chomsky’s view, the New Party is not part of DNC liberalism. This completely contradicts the thrust of Joel Rogers statement and Media Matter’s post relying on it to make the same point. But after saying what the New Party isn’t, Chomsky goes on to say what it is. It is liberalism in the sense of a “social democratic version of state capitalism.” Let’s unpack this. First off, “state capitalism” has a wide range of possible meanings, the majority of which are tied up in Marxism and socialism. However, we should note that Chomsky himself defined state capitalism in a recent interview as something not very different than what we have already in America, i.e. a capitalist system in which the government plays a major role.
But Chomsky didn’t identify the New Party as state capitalism, he identified it as “some kind of social democratic version of state capitalism.” That narrows things down considerably because “social democracy” is plainly a species of socialism. 
As Wikipedia notes, the origin of the term is in a specific critique of Marxism: The social democrats, who had created the largest socialist organizations of that era, did not reject Marxism (and in fact claimed to uphold it), but a number of key individuals wanted to reform Marx’s arguments in order to promulgate a less hostile criticism of capitalism.
They argued that socialism should be achieved through evolution of society rather than revolution. So a "social democratic version of state capitalism" amounts to a reformist socialism (as opposed to revolutionary Marxism) or we might more simply say euro-socialism. That's where Chomsky places the New Party on the spectrum circa 1997 when Barack Obama was a dues paying member. Coincidentally, that's right where some have suggested Barack Obama fits on the political spectrum to this day.Read the full story here.

Official: Iranians' alcohol consumption on the rise.

Official: Iranians' alcohol consumption on the rise.(TI).A top health official in Iran has warned of rising alcohol consumption in the country. Last year (Iran's solar year ended on March 19), more than 90 people lost their lives because of alcohol poisoning, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reports. In 2011, Iranian law enforcement's seizures of alcoholic beverages also grew by 69 percent over the previous year, and police confiscated 829 drivers' licenses because they tested positive for drugs or alcohol. Of those arrested, 43 were women. Over the last 11 days, seven people have died and 17 have been hospitalized because of alcohol poisoning.Read the full story here.

Turkey - Rear Adm. Ilgar claims dangerous rift between Gül and Erdoğan.

Turkey - Rear Adm. Ilgar claims dangerous rift between Gül and Erdoğan.(TZ).A voice recording posted online on Monday allegedly features Rear Adm. Fatih Ilgar, who is currently in prison on suspected links to the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) coup plot, claiming a widening rift between President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that will result in the defeat of one of them. In the recording posted to Twitter account ses_tv, a voice allegedly belonging to Ilgar claims that a fight will erupt between Gül and Erdoğan that will result in one of them being removed from the political stage and that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has prepared itself for such a development.
The voice says Gül will demand Erdoğan becomes the president and enjoy himself at Çankaya presidential palace because Erdoğan's health means that he is not fit to continue as prime minister and instead Gül will become the prime minister. “[Gül will say] let’s exchange posts. He [Erdoğan] cannot tolerate this. He has some leadership qualities such as charisma and courage. These qualities do not fit the other [Gül]. He [Erdoğan] cannot tolerate the president [Gül] leading this party [Justice and Development Party (AK Party)]. The prime minister did not actually want him [Gül] to become the president,” says the alleged voice of Ilgar.
Gül was elected to presidency in 2007 as a candidate from the AK Party. Although Erdoğan was expected to run for presidency, he chose to nominate Gül, a more moderate figure than himself. The voice also says Gül was very happy about Erdoğan’s health problems. The prime minister had surgery on his digestive system last year and earlier this year. Although he denied having cancer, there was a lot of speculation about that he did.
“As long as the rift between them [Gül and Erdoğan] continues, one will finish off the other. Everything will spiral out of control. The TSK has prepared for this. Pressure has piled up and this rift has reached its peak. Both sides know that as long as this rift continues one of them will finish off the other; there will be a war between them. They should not go into a war with additional problems. What are these problems? The problems at the TSK, the Kurdish problem, economic problems … In order to prevent a civil war, they need to get on well with the armed forces,” says Ilgar’s alleged voice in the recording. Ilgar was arrested last year as part of an investigation into the Balyoz coup plot, allegedly prepared by a clique inside the military that included plans to crash jets and bomb large mosques at busy prayer hours to undermine the AK Party, with the hope of eventually overthrowing it. The voice also speaks about Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç and says he is in a good cop/bad cop situation trying to find a balance between the military and the government. In another voice recording posted online last month and allegedly featuring Ilgar’s voice, he is heard threatening the government with civil war when suspects who have been imprisoned for planning a coup are released from prison. The same Twitter account posted other recordings in past weeks. In a recording released earlier this month, a person alleged to be Gen. Bilgin Balanlı, a prime suspect in the ongoing trial regarding the Sledgehammer coup plot, says the prime minister and president will pay for jailing former and active members of the military in coup investigations. Balanlı is heard saying, “The price for all that has been happening will be paid either at the presidential or prime ministerial level.”Read the full story here.

"Flying pigs moment" - Reporter Scrutinizes Obama’s Past, Obama’s early Chicago rise brought African-Am foreclosures, bankruptcies.

"Flying pigs moment" - Reporter Scrutinizes Obama’s Past, "Obama’s early Chicago rise brought African-Am foreclosures, bankruptcies".(WD).Yes, these things do happen. But you’ll probably see most of it coming from conservative outlets like The Daily Caller, which today is running a piece by White House reporter Neil Munro looking into President Obama’s own support for the subprime lending that nearly destroyed the economy.
Obama is a standard Richard Daley Chicago Machine politician, with ample ties to some of Chicago’s shadiest characters – Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich come immediately to mind – who was presented to the public by a clever PR campaign in 2007 and 2008 as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The press did little to interfere with this narrative.
This year, I assure you, the attitude among mainstream reporters is that the vetting of Obama was already done in 2008, and that revisiting his past, unless you’re doing some kind of biography, amounts to a right-wing hit job.
So it will be up to the conservative press to take another look. Or, that is, to take a first look.
The great irony of Obama’s participation in the drive for high-risk lending to low-income households is that the practice led directly to today’s economic crisis, which Obama blames solely on Bush policies. Of course, to the extent he acknowledges the role of subprime lending in the crisis, he blames it on greedy bankers, not the policy itself.
From The Daily Caller:

The closest Obama has ever come to admitting his role in the scandal came in a September 2007 speech to a Wall Street audience.
“Subprime lending started off as a good idea: helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to,” he said.
But “as certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made,” he said, “they began to lower their standards. … Most everyone knew that some of these deals were just too good to be true, but all that money flowing in made it tempting to look the other way and ignore the unscrupulous practice of some bad actors.”
“Turning a blind eye to the cronyism in our midst can put us all in jeopardy … and we cannot accept that in the United States of America.”

Well, The Daily Caller takes Obama’s advice and refuses to turn a blind eye to cronyism, detailing how Obama’s support for junk lending built connections for him to the Chicago real estate and national banking industry that paid huge dividends for the budding politician.

Obama also made friends among the city’s developers, including Tony Rezko — who was convicted on corruption charges in 2008 — and in the city’s urban planning division, then overseen by Valerie Jarrett, who remains one of his closest political advisers. Real estate interests contributed heavily to his 2004 campaign, including $12,000 from Penny Priztker . . .
In 2007 and 2008, Citigroup gave Obama $736,771 for his presidential race, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Read the full story here.

Video - Hmmm....Time for the "Obama Hymn"? Bill Press channels Meathead when ripping National Anthem.

Video - Hmmm....Time for the "Obama Hymn"? Bill Press channels Meathead when ripping National Anthem.(Shoebat).By Ben Barrack.Proof the left hates America and proof that Bill Press channeled Michael “Meathead” Stivic (played by liberal whack job Rob Reiner) on his talk show. First up, earlier this week, liberal socialist, marxist, commie pinko, whacko Bill Press ripped this country’s national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. His argument? It’s “un-singable,” it’s “an abomination,” and it glorifies war. Lost on Press is the fact that men fought and died for his right to spew such traitorous tripe.Read the full story here.

Related: Hmmm....Time for the "Obama Hymn"? Springsteen favored to write new US anthem, WHO ordered this poll?(MFS-TheOtherNews).Twenty-two percent of Americans think veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen should compose a new US national anthem to replace "The Star-Spangled Banner," suggests an online poll released Monday. That's more than the 19 percent who think country legend Dolly Parton is up to the task, or the 18 percent who favor soulman Stevie Wonder, according to the poll for the CBS current affairs show "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine.Where there's smoke there's Fire!

Video - "Obama's peace partners" - UN-funded NGO to kids: Replace cigarettes with machine guns.

Video - "Obama's peace partners" - UN-funded NGO to kids: Replace cigarettes with machine guns.(PalWatch). A Palestinian NGO, the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society organization, performed a puppet show for children in East Jerusalem to promote non-smoking. The educational message delivered by the puppets instructed children to replace cigarettes with machine guns:
Puppet: "I, and many other youth like me, think that cigarettes will help us to grow, to turn into men. Jerusalem doesn't need men who hold cigarettes. It needs men who hold machine guns, not cigarettes."
 In addition to teaching children not to smoke, the puppet show glorified death and violence and educated children to see Jews as "enemies" who kill the Palestinian youth of Jerusalem:

Puppet: "I wanted to stand before the audience and sing to Jerusalem, which is being kept from us. Jerusalem, whose youth are being killed by the Jews, to sing and to say: Jerusalem, we are coming, Jerusalem, the time of death has arrived.
Jerusalem, we will not surrender to the enemies or be humiliated."

A video of the puppet show appears until today on the organization's homepage and "partners" page. According to the website, the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society is or has been supported by various branches of the UN, including UNICEF and UNESCO, in addition to international donors, including:

"... the French consulate, the Swiss Development Agency, the Youth Development Department, which belongs to the Association of Arab Studies the 'Orient House,' the Italian Institutions Union, the Faisal Husseini Institute... UNFPA" and Arab countries, as well as the PA Ministry of Youth and Sports.

UN and international donor money has been used before to support Palestinian institutions or organizations that incite hatred and promote violence against Jews and Israel. Among other examples, Palestinian Media Watch recently documented that UNESCO supported a Palestinian magazine for youth that glorified Hitler because he killed Jews because they are "a nation which spreads destruction all over the world." Following PMW's exposure and international protests, UNESCO stopped its funding of the magazine.

In addition to this text, the website also shows the logos of UNIFEM and other foreign organizations beside the video. http://burjalluqluq.org/main/partners

PMW has been informed that the Swiss Development Agency, in spite of its name appearing in the listing beside the video, is no longer funding this Palestinian NGO.

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that promoting hatred and glorifying violence are intrinsic parts of the Palestinian Authority messages today and that foreign aid money, including UN money, is often used by PA frameworks to promote this hatred and violence - often without the knowledge of the donors. Read the full story here.

Former Black Panther to be Democratic nominee in NY-8.

Former Black Panther to be Democratic nominee in NY-8.HT: IsraelMatzav.A former Black Panther appears likely to become the Democratic nominee in New York's 8th Congressional District. This guy comes off sounding like a virulent anti-Semite.Via Memeorandum.

New York City councilman Charles Barron may be on his way to winning the Democratic nomination for Congress in New York's Eighth District, despite a history of racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel rhetoric. Barron, who has earned the support of retiring congressman Edolphus Towns, would be representing a district with a sizable Jewish population.

In 2010, he told a reporter that in New York's Crown Heights neighborhood, Jews "only make up 20 percent of the population, but they've always walked these streets as if they owned them, and acted as if they are the only ones in the community that matter."

Barron once referred to a fellow city councilman, who is Jewish, as a "coward" whose actions on the council were to "satisfy the Jewish lobby."

Barron has also called into question the legitimate existence of Israel. "Where should we start [the discussion]?" he said at a Brooklyn church in 2010. "Should we start with the 1906 Zionist Convention, or in 1914, with the Balfour Declaration? With Menachem Begin, the terrorists, all the wars, you want to discuss Israel becoming a state in 1948 when it should not have? Who are the terrorists? You want to talk about the definition of terrorism? How do you define acts of piracy?"

And in 2009, Barron joined former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on a Viva Palestine convoy to undermine the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, which he has compared to a "concentration death camp."

The 8th district was gerrymandered as a result of the 2010 census. While the article mentions Edolphus Towns, the current representative of NY-8 is Jerrold Nadler.

But in any event, Barron would be a nightmare. The New York Daily News refers to him as a malignant clown. And the association with McKinney ought to be enough to get anyone who reads this blog out to work against him.Read the full story here.More here.

"CHANGE a.k.a. 'Doing Fine'" - Net Worth of Americans Drop 40 Percent in 3 Years!

"CHANGE a.k.a. 'Doing Fine'" - Net Worth of Americans Drop 40 Percent in 3 Years!(Forbes).Just how bad have the last three years been for some Americans? A Fed survey has some brutal data today showing that both median family income and net worth dropped dramatically over the last three years.

The median family net worth dropped a staggering 40% to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007, the Fed said in its Survey of Consumer Finances which is released every three years. The median family income dropped as well from $49,600 in 2007 to $45,800, or a 7.7% drop.
Middle-class families faced the brunt of the declines with those in the 60th to 80th percentile of income seeing a 40.4% drop in net worth from $215,700 to $128,600. Families with a net income in the the 20th to 39.9th percentile of income saw a 35.4% drop in net worth from $39,600 to $25,600.
The Fed’s survey, which was conducted in 2010, shows just how badly some Americans were hit by the recession. The daunting figures are the result of one of the worst economic periods the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression. Of course, the net worths of Americans are directly tied to the value of their homes which have sunk dramatically in the period.
From the Fed survey:

Families’ finances are affected by both their own decisions and the state of the broader economy. Over the 2007–10 period, the U.S. economy experienced its most substantial downturn since the Great Depression. Real gross domestic product (GDP) fell nearly 5.1 percent between the third quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, the official period of recession as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. During the same period, the unemployment rate rose from 5.0 percent to 9.5 percent, the highest level since 1983. Recovery from the so-called Great Recession has also been particularly slow; real GDP did not return to pre-recession levels until the third quarter of 2011. The unemployment rate continued to rise through the third quarter of 2009 and remained over 9.4 percent during 2010. The rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U-RS), decreased somewhat over the period from an annual average of 2.8 percent in 2007 to 1.6 percent in 2010.Read the full story here.

Issa: 31 Democrats Will Vote To Condemn Holder.

Issa: 31 Democrats Will Vote To Condemn Holder.(BF).House Committee and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa told BuzzFeed today that he expects 31 Democrats will join Congressional Republicans in finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents relating to a botched gun-running investigation. Issa, who has risen to national prominence as the point of the Republican spear in investigating alleged Obama administration wrongdoing, called for a committee vote on contempt next week in advance of a full House vote on Holder's conduct in the so-called "Fast and Furious" operation, in which a federal agent was allegedly killed with a gun the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allowed to be trafficked.
"The real question is, we’re opening up the data that we have to all the members, so as they start reading specifics of what we know was known and was hidden from Congress, and what we’d like to know and been denied, how many of the Democrats will vote with us," Issa said after speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York. "I expect we’ll have about 31 Democrats with us." Issa said under normal circumstances he'd expect the vote to pressure Holder to turn over the documents, but that now he's hoping the president intercedes on Congress' behalf. "After Thursday’s hearing with the Attorney General, no, I don’t expect it, but I would hope that the president would second-guess the man that he says he has full faith and confidence in, and tell him that it’s time to deliver reasonable documents," Issa said. Issa compared the growing scandal to Iran Contra and Watergate, saying the cover-up is far worse than the "dumb" operation."This is like Iran Contra, like Watergate, and other embarrassments over the years," Issa said. "The major embarrassment is the delay in being honest and open about it. It’s not about something really dumb got done. Dumb things happen in government. But when the GSA did dumb things, once it became public we saw a pretty quick change, certainly Secret Service we saw an even quicker change."Hmmmm......."All the President's men"?Read the full story here.